Alex: 0:37

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Working it Out podcast. We're back. This is series three, episode one. And I'm here today with Richard Norman, who is the CEO of the Leadership Skills Foundation, amongst other things. Welcome to the podcast, Richard.

Richard: 0:53

Thanks for having me.

Alex: 0:54

No worries at all. I really appreciate you being the first person onto season three. What we do for our first question, we've run this all the way throughout. We had some incredible answers is ask all of our CEOs, leaders what one item they would induct into our Working it Out locker. We've had some incredible answers previously to give you a bit of a think, including sea glass, running vests, AirPods, compression socks, so really interested to hear what your one item would be.

Richard: 1:22

Do you know what, Alex? I've been thinking about this pretty much all Christmas since listening to Working it Out Season 2 and knowing that we had this booked in in early January. I was thinking, what would I, what am I going to put in there or suggest that I wouldn't? You know, knowing it's kind of, you know, special items, relationship, physical activity, our own backgrounds and all of that kind of stuff. My first love of sport was through rugby and something that I pursued and I remember, but doing that in the sort of, I suppose the 90s and early 2000s. I used to wear one gold boot and one red boot and that was kind of pretty outlandish

Alex: 1:58

Wow.

Richard: 1:59

in rugby terms back then probably ended up with me getting quite a lot of shoeings and targeted, probably rightly so. I thought, should it be them? And then I thought, actually, when again, when I finished unI started work at CCPR, which is now Sport and Recreation Alliance. And we used to have a We used to have a work netball team, that after we'd go and play in Commonwealth netball teams in London, Pimlico and one of my finest performances on any sports field was playing against the 4th at 11 gold attack, and I was goal defence. So I thought, should it be My she was brilliant by the way and I only had one thing that I thought was really proud of, and I thought, should it be that bib? Probably not. Then I thought sort of more recently when I got into snowboarding, should it be snowboard? But probably not, as I've never been that good. And to be honest with you, having run through so many options in my head, I thought the one thing it should probably be, and I do have it here, is my my sports leaders or what? I don't know if you can see that. Can you see that on the screen?

Alex: 2:56

Yeah. Yeah.

Richard: 2:57

I'm not a particularly sentimental person. I'm the kind of person that you know As soon as our kids bring home the latest drawing from school It probably goes in the bin and I have no idea where any of my Degree certificates are or post grad certificates are or GCSEs or anything like that. It's the one award or certificate that I've still got. And now to be the chief exec of Leadership Skills Foundation, which obviously previously and recently updated our identity from Sports Leaders felt like the right thing to include in it. And particularly because Pretty much in the conversations that we have with, with partners across the sector and with even partners outside of the sector, you know, agencies that we might be working with or whomever. There is not a week that has gone by in the 10 years that I've been chief exec here where someone's not said, I did a community sports leadership award or I did a JSLA or I think I did one of those in school. Often they have, they've experienced the kind of sports leadership, they've been through it at college or school and so it felt like something that should be. While it's cheesy, while I'm the Chief Executive of the Leadership Skills Foundation, obviously, you know, with our role in developing sports leadership, it really felt like, That's the thing that should be added from my perspective because it's not just about me. I know there's about two and a half, three million people that have had one of these or over the course of the past 40 years or so. hopefully it kind of resonates with a lot of people as well about their own experiences of potentially the first time that they led sport, the first time they might have volunteered in sport, the kind of skills and confidence that they've gained from that. And I certainly know amongst my own peer group are all on that. Community Sports Leadership Award with me at Luton Sixth Form College in 1999/ 2000. Loads of them are either still actively involved in sport, have gone on to be involved in sport in some way, shape or form, whether it is in a working capacity or volunteering or running training providers or so. It felt like the right thing. So it was a bit of an epiphany moment over, over Christmas to pop that one in. So that's what I'm going to put into the locker.

Alex: 5:11

The first certificate. We love it. So two things. One, there's nothing wrong with cheese because if anyone knows me and the way I am and my personality, I pretty much live off it. My mom craved it when pregnant. So that's my excuse. Cheesy from before birth. So there's, there's that.

Richard: 5:28

Love that

Alex: 5:29

then there's the other part, which you said around 99 and obviously being the CEO for 10 years. Is this is that certificate something that you have on your desk every day?

Richard: 5:39

Genuinely, because I'm not a sentimental person, it is, yeah. But I do not do clutter. Because I'm not a person who will put certificates on a wall, I've never even framed it. I don't even know how it's come with me between different houses and flats and it's just always turned up and it is the original one, I promise you. It's not one that I've got printed off or anything like that from the from the team here. And I remember when I took on the role here, IIfound it and, and I've just kept it ever since. And as I said, I'm not sentimental, but it just sits to the side of my desk. There's no other papers there. It's just a thing that sits there. And it also brought it home to me that when when I was appointed, I shortly I went out to Switzerland for Christmas and I was talking to a friend of mine who's a skInstructor out there, and we were, he was sort of saying, oh, tell me about this new job. And I kind of said, oh, always doing this. And yeah, a bit scared. I'm gonna be a chief exec. I've never done that before. I've got no idea if I'm what's gonna be, but this is what we do. And, and he said, I think I did one of those. And as I said, every week since then, we've, we've had that every, someone always says that in every, in a meeting I'm in. And he said, it really brought it home to me that he said, he said, it's the first time I realised that I could deliver sport. He's like, you know, he said, I was never that good team sports. I was never that good at X, Y, Z. But all of a sudden, and it built from that, from that confidence, from that engagement, he then went to build a career as a skInstructor was out in Switzerland, delivering skInstructors, professional skInstructor in this in the winter. He then went out to New Zealand for half of the year to kind of do it in what would be the sort of Northern hemisphere summer. He would do that in the winter and he runs a training programme for young people involved in sport and activity clubs and stuff. And, and a few weeks after we'd sort of had that Christmas out there, he he sent me a photo of his certificate as well. And he still has it. And it's kind of when the amount of conversations, the positive conversations that we have where people still have it, still remember it is speaks to us so positively about their experiences of of gaining a CSLA or a, or a JSLA as they were sort of a long time ago. And since then, the kind of qualifications and awards that we've built from there it felt like it was fitting. So yeah, it does sit on my desk. And I don't know why, but I can't bring myself to throw that one away.

Alex: 8:01

I'd never throw it away the pride of it. It's more framed But no, it's just I love how it's just it's just the paper and it's just you know It's still been with you that whole time. That's really incredible pride. So which leads on nicely actually to the next part, which is around your emotions linked to physical activity. I always find this question really interesting in the answers as well.

Richard: 8:22

yeah.

Alex: 8:22

when it comes to physical activity for you, what one emotion would you use that describes your relationship with it?

Richard: 8:30

That's a really difficult one, I think. And I think I don't know whether it's an emotion or not. But I think I'd probably say it's changing or transitioning. Definitely when I was younger, I think sport for me, it was rugby. it was really kind of gave me a sense of who I was. It was really kind of, you know, you were Richard, the rugby player, you know, and that's how I was known, particularly growing up in. Growing up in Luton where rugby was there, but it, you know, it wasn't a big sport and going to a mainstream school. You know, it was only because we had a couple of really good teachers who had a love for rugby that delivered rugby. And we had a whole bunch of people who got involved and were good and sort of got back to sort of county level and like myself went on a bit beyond that as well. but I think for me it's really changing. So from that kind of origins. Finding the sport that I loved and really built my whole identity. as I'm in my forties, it's kind of like, it's probably much more functional. You know, for me, it's about just keeping moving, trying to find the time to sit on the exercise bike. I've got a, just off to the side in here, I've got a Peloton bike and sometimes you kind of just jump on that for 20 minutes in the morning, half an hour to do a spin class before the chaos of kids and work and doing the school runs. So, trying to make sure that we do, that we walk the school run every day, active travel and all of that kind of stuff is really important to us. We actually bought our property so that we didn't have to drive everywhere. We could walk everywhere in the town that we're in, that we can walk to parks and leisure centers or the pub or a cafe or, you know, whatever it might be that we didn't have to get in the car all the time. And so I think it's, it's, it's kind of changing is that whether that's an emotional or a kind of like relationship with it is from something that was really kind of formative into something that is much more transactional for me, it's very much just like, you've got to get it done to keep moving and but having said that, you know, about 10 years ago or so, 10, 12 years ago I suffered a really bad knee injury. And you realise how vulnerable you are and how quickly being physical can be taken away from you. So I completely ruptured my quadriceps tendon in my right leg. So I couldn't walk, you know, had to have an operation, whole knee rebuild. And you quickly realise that, you know, if you don't stay active, that you lose it. And that equally, if, you know, that you can have these circumstances that really affect your ability to be as active as you once were. And you can't do the thing. So I can't snowboard anymore because my knees are just knackered. And, you know, that was something that I loved post rugby. I kind of got into snowboarding, would do that a And I just can't do that anymore. And even things like mountain biking are difficult on my knees and stuff, again, things that I got passionate about, it's sort of taken away from you a little bit. So I think definitely that kind of is transitioning, but equally and changing that kind of relationship and my emotional attachment to sport, physical activity, much more away from team sports and forming a sense of my identity to being something that is functional and kind of just supporting you into an older age, I suppose. As I start to slip into that, but equally I've got relatively young kids. And starting to see their attachment and my eldest son is only over the last 18 months or so has really got into football. And just seeing him build those friendships, those relationships and kind of supporting them. So all of a sudden, you know, standing on a sideline two or three times a week in the freezing January cold or whatever it might be. But seeing the kind of, you know, the highs and lows and the kind of way that they're developing, it's also becoming kind of inspirational again, like seeing actually when young people, and not just young people, but anyone sort of finds that thing that they love, and being able to develop in it and get better, that, that for me is hugely inspirational again. So I'm kind of in this real flux of personally, I feel it's quite, Just get it done. It's not particularly enjoyable, I'm not necessarily, you know, gaining much from it, sort of, you know, happiness wise, it's just, but, but actually starting to see particularly my kids becoming more physically active, finding the sport that they might like, be, be interested in and really pursuing that and how they're developing. I'm finding it quite inspirational again. And so on this sort of bit of a roller coaster with it at the moment, I think.

Alex: 12:50

I resonate with a lot of that. I'm currently I went through the highs of previously doing tough mudders and I was playing American football and I was just did the marathon for London marathon for the charity work with Greenhouse always want to plug them every single episode if I can.

Richard: 13:10

Yeah, they do great stuff.

Alex: 13:11

So I. Yeah, I was doing that and then I got injured in the marathon and I've been told I can't and I tried to do recover for too long whilst also still playing football and stuff and it wasn't really working and I've been told to stop everything for four months. Don't walk for exercise, just stop. And. Going from someone who would exercise every day, multiple sports, mainly like you're saying, that team sports and benefiting from the mental health wise of team sports to actually stopping to do nothing. You realise how one, how important it is and two, yeah, it moved to that functional. Okay. So how am I going to manage this? How am I going to manage my health rather than how, rather than just have fun.

Richard: 13:55

Yeah.

Alex: 13:55

there's a huge change there, which I resonate with. I

Richard: 13:57

was just talking to a colleague earlier, I was at a meeting with him and I won't reveal who he was, but in case you want it to be shared that you know, he was doing some sport at the weekend and you know, badly dislocated his shoulder. And all of a sudden going from that has had to have an operation to rebuild it. And as I said, he kind of. Sometimes it feels like sport isn't the greatest thing for your health and well being. Sometimes, when you get those kind of injuries, but but equally you sort of realise the things that you've lost and, and how important it is to remain active and keep trying to do all of those things that, that just keep you moving and moving in a positive sense, whatever that means. Whether it's functional or social, it doesn't really matter. It's kind of, it's just, you've got to keep doing something. It's difficult to find the time in the day and the energy in the day when perhaps you don't have that kind of social element to it, where you've not got your mate saying, Oh, come on, meet me here or or if that's not a motivator for you, if you are just grinding out on an exercise bike or going for a long walk or something that's really tough and tough to kind of motivate yourself to find the time to do that all the time.

Alex: 15:01

Yeah, and there's another part I picked up on which you said around that happiness isn't there as much in terms of physical activity, it feels more functional. In an ideal world, what does physical activity and happiness, what could that look like for you?

Richard: 15:17

I don't know. And as I said, I think, I think for me, I'd kind of transition from team sports and rugby and that being a huge part of your identity and then that sort of stopping and then going, what next? And then I found snowboarding, which I found, you know, being out in nature, up a mountain, On my own predominantly, you know, some music in carving down the side of a mountain, whether that be in, you know, America or Switzerland or somewhere that kind of connection to nature and outdoors. I absolutely loved and adored. And likewise, similarly with mountain biking, I used to do a lot of mountain biking as well. And just being outside and in nature and all of those kind of things. I think we're, we're a key part of that kind of thing. So, but I think for me now it is, it is you know, the future for me is still, I think it probably will always be functional to one degree or another. It's probably getting to that point you start to realise that, you know, all of the professional sports players are are all younger than you. And there's no way you're, you're gonna, you know, be picked up from the sidelines in your mid thirties and, and you could still make it. But I think for me, it's more about particularly my kids now, giving them opportunities, letting them. experience things that I never experienced, you know, having those opportunities that I might not have had to experience different sports, like, the opportunities for kids now is great. You know, whether it be, we're quite central, there's a, there's a ninja warrior kind of obstacle course and kids throwing themselves around that is incredible. Or taking them rock climbing or bouldering and, you know, all of these kind of leisure activities I think are so, great to give young people an opportunity to, to experience things that we might not have had opportunity when I was young. Definitely that just didn't exist. but equally you recognize that those things come with a cost and that, that means that not everyone can access them. And, and, you know, all of those kind of challenges that, you know, being part of this kind of world or having, you know, been involved in this kind of world for a long time you recognize those inequalities that do exist you know we're in a fortunate position where we can provide those opportunities my eight year old is part of a football team and it is quite expensive to be part of a football team and have the time to take them to training have the time to drive an hour for a 40 minute game where he might only play half of it to come back and you know it takes up all of your Saturday and Sunday how are you managing that with all the other pressures and you know he's been We've done the swimming, we've done the rock climbing, we've done, he's been skiing, you know, all of those kind of things. You think he's really fortunate to have those opportunities, but not everyone does have them. So I think I think, yeah, the future for me is probably personally is very much still transactional, but I think, you know, actually providing those opportunities for my kids and seeing their enjoyment, whatever that sport becomes is kind of the living vicariously through them a little bit.

Alex: 18:09

More than fine. Sounds, sounds great. I'm going to have to really refrain when the time comes with children to be that parent on the side, especially with my previous role, looking after Play Their Way,

Richard: 18:19

Yeah.

Alex: 18:20

being that, that dad on the side, I'm interfering and I'm just, just, just so competitive myself. I need to really chill. I have to think that I have to chill that out quite a bit.

Richard: 18:31

That has been a massive learning curve for me. and actually Play Their Way has been a big part of that. There's also, Something I saw on, on LinkedIn and I, you know, I don't know how good it is, but I think it was like, I think it's called like the non perfect dad or something like that. Where it's, it, I sort of thought I was becoming that person because I played competitive sport, because I liked sport and I liked the competitive element of sport. And I think because, you know, you, you do think, You know, you are spending a lot of money with, on, on, on kids being part of these things. And so there is this kind of perception that they should be trained in a way that we recognize as adults, rather than in a way that's fundamentally based around play and enjoyment. And I am now actively trying to say nothing when I'm on the sidelines. You know, supportive stuff, well done, but actually, and even when they leave, when they come off of the pitch just being their parent, don't have to be their coach, you know, let them initiate what they want to talk about. It might be the football match they've just lost or they've just won. It might be the goals they've scored or it might be what's for lunch or it might be, you know, and just so I'm that I come away exhausted from football matches that I'm watching with my son because I'm, I'm, I'm quelling away inner competitiveness. So, yeah, absolutely. And you feel it for them and you, but you sort of realise, you realise you see a lot of poor behaviour on the sidelines. You know, you do see a lot of parents that I'm sure they're being well meaning, but you know, this is under eights and under nines football. This is not the end of the world. I have to say, I said that to someone a couple of weeks back where I think in the first minute they were shouting at the referee and I was kind of, I sort of said, look, come on, this is under nines football. We've got another 40 minutes of this. Is this how you want to carry on? He sort of said, well, I'm really passionate. I'm, I'm a, I'm a ref myself. And I was like, well should know better than so.

Alex: 20:27

Yeah,

Richard: 20:28

it is so Play Their Way. I think there's been been fantastic and something I've, I've shared with a lot of people of kind of just sort of saying, you know, give kids the opportunity to play first and get that enjoyment and fun out of it. And definitely something that I think there should be more of within sport and will help to foster that kind of lifetime love rather than necessarily the kind of pipeline of you're going to become a professional. You know, how do you build a love of that, being active, that sport, that activity, rather than just you're on a treadmill, you're on a path, a pipeline to becoming a professional sports person, which we know is only for the 0. 0001 percent of, in almost any sport, regardless of how much you train and how much you do. So yeah, I'm very much on that, learning curve as well of making sure I'm not saying anything, just trying to be supportive as a parent rather than I'm not their coach. I don't have to be a supporter. Let's just let's just let them have fun.

Alex: 21:28

I was going to do a really corny link, but now I

Richard: 21:31

Oh,

Alex: 21:32

I was so pleased with it. I was so pleased

Richard: 21:33

said, having said you were cheesy earlier, you've got to do a corny link,

Alex: 21:36

Yeah, but now i'm saying I feel like i've ruined it because I was so pleased I have to know I was like talking about good role models. The next question is around

Richard: 21:45

I

Alex: 21:45

an inspirational dinner party So

Richard: 21:47

I like it.

Alex: 21:47

i'm really

Richard: 21:48

go for it. Yeah.

Alex: 21:50

I'm really excited about this question because we did it in the first series when it was a different, a different audience, the first series, and the series two was around leaders, and so is this one. But the question we did at the end was around inspirational dinner party, and it's you and you have three seats. So these are people from throughout your life who have inspired you to do with your relationship with this sport, physical activity. It doesn't necessarily have to be how you participate, but it may be what you watched, or who's influenced you, or who's just excited you. So I'm really interested to, well, I'm excited to bring this question back, but also to ask you who are the three people you would invite?

Richard: 22:26

Wow, yeah. The person who inspired my real love of, rugby in particular was Bryn Hughes, who, when I realised I wasn't very good at football and that was, you know, that was the playground activity at primary school and my junior school. Yeah. And, you know, I realised fairly quickly I wasn't very good at it. And there was a poster of, stuck up on the corridor of our junior school saying come and try rugby. And this is pre internet, this is pre anything, this is kind of, so I went home and got the yellow pages and started ringing around as a, I think, eight, nine year old to try and find rugby clubs that might that might be open for me going and joining them. So it's probably quite. I remember my parents telling me this story that Bryn turned up on our front door, rang the doorbell and they thought it was the police. So they thought, oh this guy looks like a policeman, he's, what's Richard done, oh no he's in trouble. But actually he just come and bought me a load of, I think they were England rugby posters that then just plastered my wall. so, and he then ended up, by sheer coincidence, being my teacher when I went to secondary school and started delivering rugby in that sense. So he's definitely someone who inspired me and continues to inspire me. And all of my friends who, you know, schoolmates would still talk so positively about him as a person. And you realise now as an older person that, you know. Really, our whole opportunity there was driven by that one person. You know, he was driving that and actually the school that we were at, we had some success with rugby, despite not being a rugby school, despite being a, very much an inner city, inner Luton secondary school. We had some real talented athletes and who were part of that rugby team and we did, probably better than we should have done with no sort of knowledge. But actually that school no longer delivers rugby and hasn't for a long time because the teachers that were there and passionate about it and probably did it in their spare time aren't there. And, that stopped fairly quickly after we left, which I always found disappointing. But I must admit, as much as I love Bryn, I probably wouldn't put him in my inspirational dinner people because and I think actually the people I'm thinking of at the moment if this was an opportunity to speak with people I would never ever have an opportunity to speak with that's kind of how I'm looking at this kind of question is the people that I've got no connection with cannot pick up the phone to wouldn't bump into on the street. And again that kind of love of rugby and these are very much now, I suppose trying to think of it on the hoof a little bit if it was my son, I'd be saying Jude Bellingham. I love watching him playing football, even though I'm not really a football fan. I love these sort of journey and, you know, going from Birmingham to Germany and now in Madrid, that kind of story is great. I wouldn't invite him either. But so think the ones for me, if I was being entirely selfish. Siya Kolisi. know that's perhaps, you know maybe, I don't know if that's obvious or not, but seeing him captain South Africa to two successive Rugby World Cups, knowing his background, where he's come from, the kind of townships of South Africa to now lead the South African rugby team and the Springboks and what that means to the whole nation. The opportunity to sit around a dinner table with him would be incredible. And just to hear, I've not heard anyone say anything bad about him. You know, I listen to quite a lot of rugby podcasts. So, he seems to be the person that, So many people are sort of, find him inspirational, his aura and so on. So I think he'd definitely be one of them, just to kind of understand that and have time to talk to him or perhaps just be in his presence. And building on that theme, and this is very much sort of a zeitgeisty one, I'd love to spend some time at the moment with Ilona Maher. So building on that kind of rugby one, you know, the fact that she's come in and she's become just, Just so well known through her social media presence, probably challenging all of the perceptions about women's sport, about a woman in rugby. I saw, I saw some probably pale stale male bloke criticizing why is she wearing lipstick on the rugby field? Because she can, she's an incredible athlete. She can do what she likes, but it's, you know, seeing her and the impact that she was having, you know, with this sort of I know it's a short term contract with Bristol, but you know, seeing that their gate went from, was it four and a half thousand to nine thousand? Yeah, she doubled the people that were getting eyeballs on women's rugby overnight. And how's she doing that? And what does that mean to her? And, you know, all the kind of body positivity and stuff that she's bringing to that world, I think is so exciting. And to see it from a female rugby player, you know, you've often seen superstars within other sports and, you know, women's rugby is not the highest profile sport in the world, particularly in women's sports. And so to see her doing that and gaining this kind of profile that goes way beyond any, male rugby player even, is kind of so interesting to see what she would what, what she would bring to that party. And, and then I, do you say three?

Alex: 27:46

Yeah,

Richard: 27:46

So a third one, if I'm not going to invite Bryn, let's say that Bryn's busy, so I can't invite him. I would probably, I would probably, someone who I have met a couple of times, been fortunate enough to meet a couple of times, and I know he's involved with a lot of people in the sector. But someone who whenever he talks, I love to listen is John Amaechi. So seeing sort of his role in breaking down barriers or challenging perceptions of British males in joining the NBA, having that kind of drive to make it when that probably wasn't as easy a process to go through. And now seeing how he's taken that and he's doing work with the Activity Alliance and various others. And, you know, he's, he's supported a few of our events in the past coming in and talking about leadership and what he sort of brings from his background in sport to then what he's doing now within sort of general leadership. I think he'd be another inspirational person. So I think off the top of my head, those three people would be, would be probably the ones that I'd be really interested in right here, right now. It would probably change in a week's time, but but yeah, right here, right now Siya Kolisi, Ilona Maher and John Amaechi think would be a great dinner party.

Alex: 28:59

I'm, so glad I put this question back because that was an incredible five minutes of me listening to you and people who have impacted your thinking and life. So that's really glad I brought that back. So thank you for answering that so well. I think, so what we do in this, this second half of the podcast now is we've spoken about you. Hopefully the listeners have got to understand you as an individual, which is, which is the main aim of what I'm trying to do. Now, as we transition to the second half, it's if you could give an introduction to, Your role and what your organisation focuses on. But what we will be doing is asking questions around what's your personal opinions of how you would tackle an activity. So how would you start mapping that? And then how would you, what would you focus on? And we're going to try and narrow you down as much as possible. But to start, can you introduce your self and give an overview of your organisation, your role, et cetera.

Richard: 29:50

Yeah, so I'm in the fortunate position of being the Chief Executive of Leadership Skills Foundation, which hopefully many of you will have heard, or many of the listeners will have, will have heard about over the last 18 months as we've transitioned our identity from what many more know many more of those that got the kind of certificate on their desk like I've got as a, as a sports leaders, sports leaders UK or the British Sports Trust as we've been over the last 40 years. And during that kind of 40 plus year period, we've really pioneered sports leadership. And what that means to young people and over the past 18 months or so we've transitioned into the leadership skills foundation where we're really looking to build on that legacy of and that heritage around sports leadership around opportunities for young people in particular to gain key essential skills, essential leadership skills that are going to benefit them for life through experiences like volunteering and social action and leading their peers and we've used sport as the hook to do that. You know, we've used sport as the hook to engage young people that either love sport and want to do more of it and want to lead. And some of those that aren't that interested in sport or have at least perhaps found that playing sport might not be their thing, or they might not, but actually they can help to coordinate, help to lead in different ways, run events and so on and, and sort of inspiring that kind of volunteering journey. And then also hopefully trying to help them become part of that longer term workforce, you know, how can we support them into becoming beyond the work that we do, how do we support them into opportunities around volunteering, opportunities around becoming part of the paid workforce, whatever that might be. And that's kind of a really big focus for us going forward. So with our transition from Sports Leaders to Leadership Skills Foundation, we are absolutely remain committed to sports leadership and dance leadership and outdoor leadership, all the things that we've built over the past 30, 40 years. But actually, we want to take those things that are, often so inherent to sport, and I think sometimes we sort of almost forget about, you know, the leadership, you know, being part of a team, leading others, being applied, it being an experience, a physical experience that you can't get elsewhere. We're looking to take a lot of those things that are so inherent to sport and we probably, I think, those of us who are engaged in it often take for granted and applying them to other things other subjects, other passion points for people that perhaps aren't as interested in sport, or traditional sport. You know, as I said, we talk about sports leadership, but within that, that, encompasses other things like dance leadership, you know, more expressive arts and things like that. It covers outdoor leadership, which is, you know, hiking and mountaineering and all of that kind of stuff. Lowland's work. And but it also, you know, can apply to, we've got new partnerships with things like British Esports, you know, so people that are young people that are Being part of that eSports movement, but also we're encouraging them to make sure that they recognize that being physically active is important as part of that kind of world. So rather than resisting some of that, which I think a lot of traditional sport might do, you know, how can we actually embrace it and recognize young people or a lot of young people, lots of new generations that are more interested in eSports and how do we harness that? build physical activity into part of it. How will that potentially transition in the future to you know, eSports being physical as well as not just being sort of, you know, in front of a computer screen. I think that's a kind of interesting space to be in. But also the wider offer we've got around, you know, building environment leadership and again, taking those kind of volunteering social action principles to young people to realise that they can make a change. They can make a difference and influence their local communities. So we still got this really I suppose pinpoint kind of mission for us is around, taking all of those elements that I think are so inherent to sport and sports leadership and just create more opportunities for young people to develop those essential skills that a key part of sport and sports leadership, really, but in potentially different areas whilst also giving more opportunities for sports leadership. So, so yeah, that's kind of where we are at the moment and, and a big driver behind the identity change is not to move away from sport, far from it. It's actually to kind of take the things that we've learned of 40 years of sports leadership, apply them in different subjects and grow the whole movement around essential leadership skills for young people.

Alex: 34:32

Amazing. Thank you very much for that. So then if we were going to go on to the tackling and activity part, because that's the main bulk of what I'm trying to work out here is how can we engage more people in physical activity? What the listeners will now understand is your background and the lens in which your organisation works within. So, which may or may not influence what you, what your thinking is around tackling inactivity. So the first part is around. If you were going to map out the causes of inactivity and start thinking about how to resolve this, where would you start? Where would your thinking start?

Richard: 35:11

I suppose the first thing to say is, I know there are people that are far more qualified to talk about this than I am, particularly from a physical activity perspective, but I think, I think it kind of comes back probably to two or three key points for me, and probably things that I've already mentioned within my answers already. I think there's, one is around opportunity, you know, how, how can we create more opportunities for young people to participate in sports or being physically active. That go beyond just the traditional. So, you know, I didn't engage with football. I did engage with rugby. That's great. I found my thing. I then went on and did, you know, as I've mentioned, sort of snowboarding, mountain biking, all of those kind of things. But I had those opportunities. Young, some young people don't, some, some young people, and I'm particularly probably bringing a young person lens to this, you know, they won't find the sport or they won't have opportunity to find the sport or the physical activity that is their thing that they find that they can enjoy and so they build this sense of sport is not for me as a one huge homogenous thing, or being physical active isn't for me. Where whereas actually. That sport may not be for you. You know, that activity may not be for you. We had a funded programme with Department for Education called Your Time, which we delivered over the past three years or so, which really was focused on girls probably on the fringes of sport and physical activity and saying to them, helping them to understand some of the social and cultural barriers that might exist to them feeling that sport or sports opportunities are for them. And that in turn might have affected their relationship with what they perceive sport to be. And then putting the power back in their house to say, well, what activities do you want? What activities do your peers want? And then how do we give you the skills to put those on and lead them for your peers? And that was hugely successful. And while we saw, football, and girls football, obviously the great resurgence in that with the success of lionesses and so on. Overwhelmingly, we saw girls, what they were saying to us, saying to their peers, not just us, was We want to try a whole bunch of stuff, you know, so we want to see what we like and what we don't like and figure, figure that out as we go. And so I think that opportunity bit is kind of a key part of that. How do we just provide more opportunities, not just talk about sport in one homogenous way, not just, you know, Just, just stick to traditional sports or traditional sports offerings like I might have had when I was at school. but actually, and I see education as a key driver for that. You know, the universality of education, every young person can access school. That doesn't mean that every young person does. But I think schools are such a key environment for providing those opportunities. And then that being supported by that kind of wider club and community kind of places and clubs where young people can easily access those things. I think that then and again, it probably comes back to my Bryn Hughes point of, it's around connection. You know, actually you might have those opportunities, but you, you've got to have a connection to it. If that, that might be with a teammate or a coach or a friend who's just encouraging you to do that. But if you don't have that form of connection in a way that is meaningful to an individual, you won't continue with it. It's far easier to go to the gym when you've got a gym buddy, or it's far easier to go out on a long walk if you're walking with someone, if that's, although sometimes I think I go for a walk to be away from most people, but you know, those kind of things are that sort of level of connection to either the person you're doing it with or the activity itself is probably vital and recognising then the importance of teachers, coaches, volunteers, peers, friends, you know, as sort of a key driver for helping people be more active, I think is really important. And then I suppose the final one, and it probably comes back to the conversation we were having earlier around Play Their Way. It's enjoyment. I think there's got to be a recognition that if you're not physically active, you know, let's just say you're unhealthy. You find it challenging to be physically active. It's miserable. It's fairly difficult to start to be, start to be physically active. It is not fun. it can become fun, or you can find elements of enjoyment. And I think enjoyment is a key part of that sport, physical activity. Unfortunately, fortunately or unfortunately, I don't know, perhaps wrong terminology, but you know, competency, It's a key part of your enjoyment to sport, you know, not many people enjoy participating in a sport or physical activity that they are bad at or that they you know I've, what, I didn't ever really play hockey because I was terrible at it, you know, same with tennis, terrible at it, but I loved playing basketball. I loved playing you know, because I had a level of competence. And so that level of competence built enjoyment for me, enjoyment with my friends. and so I think that enjoyment part of it is kind of key. How do we bring that fun back into being physically active, how do we just help people to see it as not just perhaps even what I'm going back to right in the beginning of, of seeing it as kind of functional. How do you create something that is that is enjoyable for people that builds connection and, and allows them to be part of it. I think that makes moving from being inactive to being somewhat active to them being health, healthily active in a way, is kind of that you, you need those three elements. Otherwise you're going to fall out at some point. You know, if the opportunities aren't there, you're never going to start. If you've not got some form of connection or reason to keep going to it. not going to, you might do it for a bit, but then you're going to stop. And if you're not finding some way of some enjoyment or self expression or way of achieving something within that within being physically active, that sort of sense of progress, that sense of gaining skills, that sense of building your own confidence. And you know, again, I come back to my point of, I spend a lot of time sat on my Peleton at 5:30 in the morning. That's not fun, but I'm, I'm one of those sad people. that I kind of chase people on the leaderboard and, you know, I can do that secretly and I can do that quietly. And as long as I'm in the top sort of half or third, I kind of get a sense of I've done all right there, you know, so or checking how, you know, what my outputs are and all of that. I, you know, I can build that sense of achievement through the stats. And so I think all of those kinds of things, there so integral to building in, to sort of moving from that being inactive to having a sense of meaning and feeling like being active, being physically active, participating in sport or active recreation can be for you. It needs opportunity. It needs connection. It needs some form of enjoyment.

Alex: 42:07

You started this by saying you're by no means an expert, but what you've expertly done is go through the COM-B model for behaviour change. So you've gone through, whether intentionally or not, you've spoken around capability, opportunity, and motivation as the three main things that you feel are needed. Was that, was that intentional of you? Or was that, is it just how that's worked out in your answer?

Richard: 42:31

Definitely wasn't intentional. I'm realizing that I'm not a genius. I'm just repeating something I've obviously heard before. So, so yeah, it's, it's, but I think it's those three things. I think they've, I think they're sort of blindingly obvious when we kind of, you know, break it really down into, into, into what we all get out of it. It's one of those three things or a combination of those three things. And it's really difficult, I think, to maintain. You know, lifestyle changes. If you're not gaining those things regularly in some way, shape or form that kind of, that kind of as you say, that sort of behaviour changes is kind of, really difficult if you're not gaining something out of it or finding things that you can do that fit within one of those three categories or a combination of those. I think sometimes, again, one of my frustrations maybe is that from what I've seen, some sports are brilliant. I think offering and changing their offer for people. I think a lot of times some sports, because we, we do get those things from that sport ourselves. We just assume that other people will, well, they just haven't had opportunity. We just need to do more of the same to get those people who just haven't come and done and experienced this thing that I love, without recognising that they might do something that they love that we hate. You know, it's that kind of, I grew up in a family where no one was really that involved in sport or physical activity, quite academic. And not those two things I think are separate. I hate when they're pitched against each other. You know, you're either sporty or you're clever or you're either sporty or you're arty. I think all of those things can coexist in an individual. But you know, I didn't have those kind of starting points of, you know, my dad would go to a rugby club or a tennis club that I could then join on to and play with and, you know, that natural kind of starting point is so often, you know, your peers, your family and all of those kind of things. And so I think to be able to for sports to be able to, sport and other opportunities to be able to adapt their offering to, to make it accessible, to potentially, you know, Drop standards for you know, you're not going to be an elite athlete. So let's just have fun. You know those kind of things where I think is where you know sports and other opportunities can really have to challenge themselves to reach people that they wouldn't normally reach that wouldn't are already accessing the existing offerings that are there. I don't think just more of the same necessarily is going to significantly shift the needle on inactivity. I think it's about providing more opportunities, innovative opportunities, making them fun, making them accessible, making them you know, physically accessible in the right places with the right people that gain a level of connection that, that kind of is so important. So yeah, no, absolutely not intentional, but but it seems to be obvious, not easy, but obvious to me.

Alex: 45:16

It's not even obvious. And, and I think what. The answers you've given, I'm building a map for those who haven't listened to the first the second series, where I post a link on LinkedIn. So if you follow me on LinkedIn, Alex Darbon-Cole, when I post the episodes for these on there, I also post a link to the map where all of the CEO's answers and the bits that we've discussed today are all populated throughout. So there's, this will be the 16th contribution to this map, which is quite exciting and a lot of the topics that you've come up, you've spoken about today, whilst the COM-B models on there, there's definitely additions of things that you've said. And even when a number of times we've spoken around education, there's still pieces which you're bringing up today, which haven't been spoken about before. The parts, which I found like really interesting is what you're saying as well. I was going to try and narrow you down into one of the three and try to pick up, but you, you have lent heavily at the end there into opportunity and the importance of opportunity and how important you feel that is. You then also spoke around developing young people's skills, obviously linked to your organisation and them deliver, them delivering it. How important to you is it that from the perspective of, is this a, Is this a habit which you have to, that children have to learn young in terms of being physically active or is this something which can be learned later on in life? I know there's a lot of people say, well, let's focus on in school and education because then that builds that habit. But then naturally there's people our age who will be thinking, how do I start? I didn't have the opportunity. I didn't, I didn't get that habit when I was young. What do I do?

Richard: 46:53

Yeah, well, the major thing I'm taking from that, Alex, I'm incredibly flattered and it's polite of you to say our age. There is no chance that we are the same age or anywhere close to it, but but thank you for that. I will take that away and yeah, that'll build my ego a bit. There's loads of research around social action, skill development, all of those kind of things. And sport, I think, is such a great part to deliver those things. And the earlier that they can be delivered, the better. You know, that form of habituation, primary school age young people are, children are absolutely perfect for that. You know, getting into this kind of concept of being peer leaders, delivering for others, and then that building into a kind of more sophisticated kind of form of leadership as they go through their kind of education. And as I said, a major reason or the rationale for us as the Leadership Skills Foundation is working so heavily in education is universality. Every young person in this country can access education. So if we were in theory able to work across every school, every young person could have that. that's not quite true because we know that, one, we're not ever going to be part of every young school, every school, sorry. And, and equally we recognise that not every young person is in every school. And, and so there is then this community focus and something that we're working with Sport England on is how can we deliver more of those opportunities within the community outside of education where a young person might have that connection to something outside of education. They might not see education as a positive thing. So how do we find those other areas where those, they might be youth workers or community clubs or faith leaders, you know, whatever it might be, is that might be a great ground for us to engage with young people that we wouldn't have opportunities to do anywhere else. So I think definitely that kind of habituation is the younger that we can establish positive experiences with, with physical act, being physically active, gaining those skills, volunteering, social action, all that kind of stuff that's part of that, the better. You know, and, but that requires a whole bunch of working with teachers and we know that education is under massive pressure financially, time wise, you can't just keep throwing things at education. It is asked to do so much more than when I was at school. You know, it is become, it's feeding children. It is supporting their social and mental health and well being. And you know, it is not just purely education anymore delivered within schools. Schools are being asked to do so much more for the communities that they serve. and that's, that can be a good thing, but it also means we can't keep throwing things at them. So, and also recognising that workforce is stretched, that workforce, and they might not have the skills themselves. They might not have had the positive experiences of PE, school sport that some might access now. And so they, they might just be totally uninterested in delivering that because they had a poor experience or don't know how to do that. It's one of the reasons we work with the Association for PE around, supporting some of their their sort of training and so on is that we want, we feel that there's a need to build the confidence of that workforce, particularly in a primary school space to deliver positive experiences of play, physical activity, sport for the communities they have, but still you need to recognize there are budgets and time constraints to that. So it's sort of a realism to all of that. So I say all that, absolutely I would say, yeah, the younger the better, having consistency going through the whole of education is important. But equally I know people that hated school sport, hated PE. and came to some form of physical activity in later life, either for health reasons or social reasons, and have built their own personal achievements into that, their own personal enjoyment, maybe, of what they're achieving. And gone through challenging times, you know, start moving from being inactive to being active. Sometimes that's having a dog. Knowing that the dog needs a walk every day, and so all of a sudden you're getting your steps in and you're doing that twice a day, you're going on longer walks, you've met up with a friend and gone for an even longer walk, or you've spent a couple of days, you've gone, I've done a walking challenge, you know, and that's, that's the kind of journey that my sister's been through. And, and it's hugely inspirational, but you know, she's done that in her sort of 30s and 40s. So, and I think you're starting to see many more people coming back to some form of physical activity, whether it be sort of in a gym or more, more social based or perhaps more functional based like me in later life. So I definitely think in terms of developing a whole system, we absolutely need to get that offer right in education. But there's also a big role for that in communities. It can't be solely on education's doorstep. And also recognising that just because someone hasn't had that positive experience or opportunity as a younger person they can still find it in later, in later life, whenever that might be. And really encouraging that. So again it probably comes back to those points around, you know, opportunity connection and enjoyment. You know, if we can build those opportunities for older people, for I started off my career with CCPR operating the National Coalition for Active Aging, which was a whole group of British Heart Foundation, Age UK, and kind of bringing those groups together to talk about, frighteningly, activity for over 50s, which I'm rapidly approaching. So, you know, having started as National Coalition for Active Aging, I'm now sort of starting to touch that bracket of, of where it would be trying to find ways to encourage me to do that. But again, it was kind making it accessible, making it opportunity, making it feel like it is something for them. And that's where I think some of the campaigns that are being driven and are out there at the moment being driven by national like Sport England or or others, Activity Alliance, various others are really, really important and vital to kind of shift the needle on that.

Alex: 52:40

I feel like that's an incredible place to stop. Thank you so much for joining me today. I really appreciate you being the first person for this series, and I've really enjoyed listening to you today.

Richard: 52:50

Well, it's been great to talk to you. Thank you very much for having me. Really appreciate it.