Lessons in life, business, and football

There’s no question Jack has been wounded by the manner of his dismissal at Hibs. Yet after a holiday with his wife and family another layer of scar tissue is forming. The former chairman of the Scottish Professional Footballers Association and author of children’s books is readying himself for the next test. And he revealed:

“I think I was shaped a lot by watching my father start his industrial services business from scratch when he was in his early thirties. I was a nosy kid and I came to understand how he looked after those who worked for him. Running a business is the same as managing a football team in so many ways.

”I have also had to learn from my time at University and my work with the SPFA. I had some tough audiences doing that work, players can’t be bothered listening to the PFA guy! I’d there preaching to them about gambling rules but I was also learning all the time from people like Tony Higgins who was an ex-player who worked for the international players’ body, FIFPRO.

”He had an aura and he could hold a room, and I used to learn from how he worked. He used his physical presence and his knowledge with his audiences, others use a little bit of fear in a football dressing room. Whatever it is, you have to possess something that makes people want to listen.

”I feel the background I have has helped me to communicate with the modern player in that way. When I was a player, that lack of communication annoyed me. We’d lose a game and the manager wouldn’t talk to you.”

Jack grew up in the game mostly in the era of command coaches: do as you are told.

That’s not the way the Millennial and Generation Z players he works with now learn though. Ross doesn’t rail against it, he embraces it and enjoys that aspect of moulding the modern player. He pointed out:

“Each morning I still go out and set up training with the staff because I am a visual learner and I need to see the field to see how it is all going to pan out. I looked at how players learned when I started out as a coach: those who are visual, those who like to be told instructions, and I have always been conscious of that. Analysis, for instance, is still a relatively new tool and it’s about how you use that.

“One key in modern management is understanding your group. Who prefers the information one-to-one, who likes it to be visual in a unit with the defence, and who just wants to be spoken to with the team.

I am in a unique industry but there are so many parts of it that are no different from being a leader or an educator in another walk of life.”

Yet at the age of 45, how do you empathise with a player stressed out by abuse on social media? How do you relate to a kid whose playing journey is so drastically different from your own without resorting to the Glory Days stories and telling them they don’t know they’re born? It is a delicate balancing act, a battle to remain both relevant and authentic. It’s a critical aspect of managing the modern player. Jack admitted:

”One part I have realised is that every year I do this, I get a year further away from the age of the young players coming through. You have to be aware of that, we are all 18 years old still in our heads! Before we left Hibs, I wanted a coach who was closer in age to the playing group and that was why we looked to David Gray, who was retiring as a player.

”There are aspects of what they do in their lives that I find perplexing. I had a player who was having a dip in form and he was taking stick in social media and on fans’ forums. His dad was telling him about this and showing him it. His confidence was knocked and he had the sense to tell his dad to stop talking to him about it which was a great start. I could have told him to man up and get over it, but I have found you are far better looking deeper.

“Reading negative comments about yourself is not nice. Yet young players also have to learn that sadly, you need the skin of a rhino to do this job. I couldn’t sugarcoat life and tell him it would never happen again, but you have to help them find their coping mechanisms.

“If it was easy to become an elite player then everyone would make it: but it is actually damn hard.”

It has been a fascinating hour, listening to one of the game’s most intriguing coaches examine the question of managing the modern player. As we move into extra-time, Jack recalls one of his proudest moments and how it made him pause to honour those who had paced the technical area before him. He recalled:

”When I got the Manager of the Year award at the PFA dinner a few years ago I could see veteran managers like Aberdeen and St Mirren legend, Alex Smith, in my eye-line. I chose to acknowledge how they worked.

”They understood people first and foremost and modern coaches get forgetful of that. There are so many discussions now about soft skills and how you can develop them, but so much of that has to be inside you.

”I get asked a lot to define my managerial style and I think there is an element of traditional man management that will always need to be there. For me, Sir Alex Ferguson is the greatest and the major factor is that he understands PEOPLE first and foremost. Forget about the tactics and the training for a moment.

“He just knows how to get the best out of people. That will always be at the heart of it.”