George is the magazine for St.George Bank’s corporate customers. Aimed at executive-level readers, it features customer case studies, news, articles on emerging business and management trends, product information, lifestyle features and more.
Issue link: http://viewer.e-digitaleditions.com/i/48224
Ewen has been the main driving force behind the Reds' success. Ewen on failure "You work out what's not working and you certainly don't repeat those mistakes. You have to try something different to get better. When you are on the bottom of the ladder, it's not about starting to win again; it's about getting ahead of the other teams. It's a fair jump. You've got to be dramatic; you've got to take risks – calculated ones. It's never one thing, it can be thousands of little ones and the sum of those things can make the difference. You can promote change, but you have to find out the people who are going to help you and the people who aren't, can't or won't." Getting back on the horse Not that things always went to plan. Despite making the 2008 Super final with the Waratahs, Ewen did not have his contract renewed. He remains philosophical that performance didn't equate to longer-term reward. "In the end you're just a unit that's part of the total business," he says. "You get into trouble if you think the business is just the team. There's a whole lot of other parts of the business that have an impact. You've got to understand them and make sure you are contributing not just to your own lot, but to the total environment." From NSW, there was a brief stint in France where, after some early success, things also didn't work out. "I deliberately did my coaching in French to try to assimilate, but I just didn't get the result," Ewen recalls. "I worked very hard over there. Everyone was genuine in their efforts but I just couldn't get the influences right." Then came Queensland. With six coaches since 2000 and six consecutive years where they finished 10th or worse, the Reds were a shadow of the franchise that ruled Australian rugby in the early- to mid-1990s. Again, Ewen took up the challenge, surrounding himself with a small team he could trust, hand-picking leaders and people that could be challenged, and re-invigorating a moribund culture all in a year. The Reds went from fifth in his first season to become the toast of Queensland and Super Rugby champions in 2011. 18 George www.stgeorge.com.au/george How does he do it? It's all about the people. If Ewen had the chance to run a company for just a day, he says he'd spend all his time with the staff. "I do a lot of learning by talking to people and I am pretty good at reading between the lines. You start to work out what the mechanics of the business are that way," he says. "There's the theory and the hierarchy but … if you start with the people rather than the technical bit, you can work out what needs to be changed." Having cut his teeth in rugby coaching with two Wallabies mentors who had wildly different styles – the great delegator Rod Macqueen and the hands-on Eddie Jones – Ewen says it's important to draw your management technique from a range of styles to suit the situation. He also says not to be afraid to learn outside the square and admits picking up plenty from Reds CEO Jim Carmichael, who came to the franchise from an AFL background. He even sees some parallels with his early occupation – town planning – in which he is degree qualified. "Less is more when it comes to town planning and I believe that as a general philosophy – not to overcomplicate things. The discipline for me is the work and being able to apply yourself and I have always been good at that. Whatever I have put my mind to, I have been able to focus on for a decent period of time." Seems like sound advice – and particularly good news for all those Reds fans out there.