Sir Andrew Strauss
What else do you want to know about yourself?
"FEARLESS CREATIVE LEADERSHIP" PODCAST - TRANSCRIPT
Episode 276: Sir Andrew Strauss
Hello, I'm Charles Day. Welcome to Fearless Creative Leadership, now in audio and video.
Here we explore how people in all walks of life, from business leaders to artists to athletes, unlock creativity and innovation in themselves and the people around them. And in the process, how they move the world forward.
Welcome to the intersection of strategy and humanity.
This episode's conversation is with Sir Andrew Strauss. Andrew is the former Captain of the England cricket team which he led to become the number one team in the world for the first time in England's history. He then became England's Director of Cricket and he's recognized as the architect of the country's first ever one day World Cup victory.
In 2019, he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II for his services to charity, sport, and cricket.
Being captain of a cricket team requires the same skills needed to run a business. Amplified.
Managing world class talent while your work is being broadcast, and your success and failures, both personal and collective, are being recorded, analyzed and critiqued in real time, requires a range of rare skills and temperament.
Unlocking the potential of others while taking responsibility for the outcome is at the heart of the attributes required for the job.
Andrew and I met in London a few days ago, and as you'll hear, our conversation covered a lot of ground, both professional and the deeply personal.
From his achievements to the loss of his wife.
“What happens when you have one of those seismic moments in your life is it really forces you to take a big step back and go, you know, what's life all about? Actually, I'm not here forever. And so what's important to me? What does success look like? How do I judge, you know, I might get run over by a bus tomorrow. How do I judge whether I've lived a good life or not? So all those big questions that really it's quite hard for people to think about, I was sort of forced to address some of those.”
By the time Andrew Strauss turned 33, he'd achieved what every cricket fan in England grows up dreaming of. Captaining your country to victory in Australia. In my lifetime, it has only happened three times.
Seven years later, he lost his wife to cancer.
Most of us do not achieve so much so young. Nor lose so much so early.
For Andrew, the combination has encouraged him to ask questions of himself earlier in his life than most people do.
Unlocking creativity in others means building trust with those around us. They want to know who we are and what matters to us.
Fulfilling our own potential means answering those same questions. And in my experience, that happens when we ask ourselves this. What else do I want to know about myself?
Most leaders strive for success relentlessly, head down, and only later do we take stock of the choices we've made.
How will you judge if you've lived a good life or not? What else do you want to know about yourself?
Here's Sir Andrew Strauss.
[00:03:05] Charles: Andrew, welcome to Fearless. Thank you so much for joining me on the show.
[00:03:15] Andrew Strauss: Absolute pleasure.. Looking forward to it.
[00:03:17] Charles: When did Creativity first show up in your life? When are you first conscious of creativity being a force in the world?
[00:03:24] Andrew Strauss: That is a good question. Interestingly, I think when I look at my education, I think I was very much like most people, which is you should learn what you're told to learn and you just crack on with it.
I think probably it first came into my mind when I started playing cricket professionally and was making my way up through the game. And I realized that, it was a sort of seminal moment for me where I realized, actually, I can't just blindly follow what other people have done. I've got to create my own path here. Understand what works for me, what what doesn't work for me, what's unique about my game and how to translate that into performances on the pitch.
So there was a bit of creativity in the way I played the game. And then that sort of moved through to when you start thinking about how to win consistently, and if you're a captain or a leader in elite sport, how we can do things differently. So yeah, I think that was probably it for me. What is it about me that I can leverage to become a world class performer.
[00:04:27] Charles: Was there a catalyst? Do you remember a catalyzing moment? Or was that just a growing awareness that rolled over you?
[00:04:33] Andrew Strauss: Well, I certainly remember finishing my time at university and, you know, my, my route through to professional cricket was I was never seen as a world class player. I was always sort of seen as well he might just make it through to the next level. And I remember playing, uh, for a combined sort of UK University's team against Australia.
And at that time, uh, Matthew Hayden and Justin Langer were opening the batting for Australia. I remember watching them play and realizing, these guys were heroes to me. These were, you know, the Australia was the best team in the world. Unbeatable team almost.
And I remember watching them play going, you know what, you couldn't even compare their performances with mine. But when I looked at that, I was like, you know what? There's nothing overly special about what they do. They just understand their game really well. So I think the catalyst was, okay, I can't copy what they do, but I need to start figuring out my high percentage shots from my low percentage shots. How I play against different types of bowlers on different surfaces and started to sort of build my own kind of playbook for success.
[00:05:45] Charles: I read that you wrote a dissertation on supermodular games. What was that?
[00:05:50] Andrew Strauss: That is, um, why we all need to be very, very wary of Wikipedia, because that's not actually true. My dissertation was on actually why Perestroika failed in the USSR. So I don't know where that's come from. I've heard that a few times now. Um, but yeah, I did economics at university.
[00:06:08] Charles: I'm struck by your reference point to Hayden and Langer, because those of us that play sport at a kind of a mortal level an every day level, understand clearly we're not capable of making a living playing professionally. You're making a living playing professionally but you can see people who are better than you.
How do you hold on to the fact that you are not perhaps as naturally gifted as they are, but you can find your own path to, to maximizing your own success, essentially. How did you allow yourself to stay connected to the fact that you could compete with them, even if you weren't naturally as good as them?
[00:06:42] Andrew Strauss: Well, I think interestingly, Justin Langer had a massive effect on me in my early days. He was the overseas player at Middlesex, and he was cut from a similar cloth to me. You know, he wasn't the most outrageously talented player. But he made the most of what he had, and he sort of took me under his wing and made me realize that, if you want to stand out from the crowd, if you want to make it through to the next level, you can't be part of the crowd.
And so, after a day in the field, we would go and run a hundred runs or we'd go and do some fitness stuff or whatever. Or we'd go and do a bowling machine session. And basically, what he was trying to embed in his mind, and he was a very sort of driven guy where sacrifice is an important thing for him, was that I'm doing stuff that no one else is doing, and that's gonna pay back for me on the pitch.
And so I followed that methodology to a certain degree. I'm not gonna just do the stuff that everyone else is doing, because I'm probably gonna get the same results as them. So I think for me, it was on the one hand, I think sacrificing a bit more than others. But on the other hand, maybe just taking a step back and Intellectually trying to look at the game.
In those days, county cricket was comfort zone you roll from one game to another, you perform you either get a score or you don't. You never have an opportunity to sort of debrief it, work out what you did well, what you did badly. And over, time, if you're a good enough player, you'll do well enough to get your contract renewed.
And for me, I just like, no, no, no, I, I need to do this differently. So, started keeping a diary, started talking to myself about what I did well and what I did badly. And then actually for me, I got made Middlesex captain at the age of 24. And of course, then you start thinking, not just about your own game, but the games of other people and your overall team strategy and stuff. And so that was it, sort of maybe taking a step back and looking at a bit more from a strategic, intellectual point of view rather than just playing the game.
[00:08:48] Charles: Did you always want to lead? When did leadership show up as an ambition?
[00:08:51] Andrew Strauss: No, I didn't have strong ambitions to that. I think deep down I'm relatively introverted. So the idea of standing up and giving Churchillian speeches and whatever didn't feel natural to me. But interestingly, I think in that Middlesex dressing room, people tended to look to me for whatever reason.
[00:09:09] Charles: You have any sense of why that was?
[00:09:11] Andrew Strauss: I think partly, back in the day because of my education. So people go, you know, you've had a private school education. And, there was that sort of misconception there that i was sort of intellectually ready to lead or whatever.
my line missing here
Well, exactly. That really helps in the Middlesex dressing room. I don't know. I think people probably thought that I talked quite a lot of sense and had the team's best interests at heart. Rather than being one of those sort of very influential players in the dressing room that's always center of attention, I think people looked, turned to me and went, that guy knows what he's doing and he wants to make a difference to the team.
[00:09:53] Charles: So it wasn't an overt ambition of yours,
[00:09:55] Andrew Strauss: I feel Iike I enjoyed the idea of the challenge of it, rather than, this has to be my job. In both dressing rooms, I'd spent enough time in the dressing room to have some idea about how we might do things differently.. And then, when the previous leader either retired or got sacked or whatever, you look around the dressing room and think, well, maybe this is my time.
[00:10:24] Charles: How did you evaluate success from a leadership standpoint? I mean, obviously winning and losing in a professional sport is pretty important. But with the kind of thoughtfulness that you stepped into that role, what were you looking to achieve? Did you have clear ambition? Did you set up goals for yourself?
[00:10:39] Andrew Strauss: Yeah, I think for me, and this is the crux of my methodology of leadership, it comes back to doing things differently, sort of innovating and pioneering. So, if you want to separate yourself from those that have been before, a little bit like in my own game, if I want to separate myself from the other people playing alongside me and at that level, you have to feel like you're doing something differently. And so on a team level, I've always really liked that idea of right guys, we're going to go on a different journey here. We're going to do things very differently to the way they've been done before. And we're going to spend some time thinking about what that looks like. But this is going to be an exciting, motivating, emotionally connecting journey that we're going to go on here. And it might not work actually. But what we kind of know is the route we've been following previously hasn't worked. So we've got nothing to lose here. Are you up for this? Do you fancy doing this? And of course, people in a cricketing context, get excited by that.
One of the untold realities of sport at the top level is that people think you're a great strong team. You're not really, because everyone's motivated by their own aims and ambitions and staying in the team and worrying about their form and their own endorsement deals and all that sort of stuff. And probably competing with other people on the team for a place. So the natural state of the team is actually quite a dysfunctional state. But if you can get people excited about, okay, well, hold on, there's this new way of doing things around here. It's going to feel fresh, new and different. I can see my place in it. It doesn't necessarily follow this way, but potentially they can buy into something bigger than themselves and their own worries and concerns become secondary to what the team is doing.
[00:12:29] Charles: You can place winning as a goal that everybody can buy into.
[00:12:32] Andrew Strauss: I think following the idea of winning just in itself is a dangerous one because you're not completely in control of that. I think playing a certain way, doing things differently, having maybe a different environment and feel around the team, that is stuff you can control. And you're obviously doing that in order to win.
If you do get results, then it's easier for people to double down on what you're doing. And then it becomes self perpetuating to a certain degree. So that definitely was the case when I took over the England captaincy, And then we try to replicate that later on when I was director of England Cricket.
[00:13:07] Charles: The two things you're best known for from a leadership standpoint in your cricket career were taking the Test team and turning it around and making it the best test team in the world and winning the Ashes in Australia. And then you were the architect fundamentally, I think, obviously, with Eoin Morgan in terms of turning around the white ball team, the one day team.
Both of those teams were floundering when you took them over. Does that kind of ethos that you've just described work best when you're starting from a really low platform and a really low foundation?
[00:13:34] Andrew Strauss: Yeah, definitely. You've got the burning platform there. The feeling there that we've just gotta buy into something. What we're doing here right now is not working. It's a horrible environment. The media on our case. We've just had a big changeover in leadership. So people were looking for something. I think the hardest time is when things are going well because people feel like there's an established methodology. And so, when I took over the England captaincy, the other thing was that myself and Andy flower, the coach took over at the same time, so there was no hierarchy between us.
The original pioneering thing for us was using the coaches and the support staff very differently. A problem with modern day sports is you have all this expertise that comes in to help the players perform, and it's very easy for a teacher / pupil relationship to build up. Where the experts are telling the players what to do and the players sort of nod their heads obediently or get resentful of that. And so, the initial thing was, this team's going to be run by the players. Players using the support stuff as consultants. They dip into dip out to, much more decision making in and around the team environment that comes from the players, rather than the coaches. and just get that feeling of, this is our team. It's not, we're not the pupils of this team. And then it translated into a different way of playing, which was much more about suffocating opposition and sort of using our unique strengths in that team in a, in a very different way. It's an interesting thing, there's something really lovely about if you're trying to play very differently, it sort of brings the team together, but also those people that are questioning you on the outside, the media, that almost. feeds into this. So it's like, ah, but you don't know.
And by the way, this is not something that you do on a hunch. You look at the data and what teams do well and what was unique about our team in terms of capability. So this isn't something you just sort of jump into. You do a bit of work on it as well.
[00:15:32] Charles: And were you essentially trying to give players responsibility for their own performance, giving them authorship, ownership of what they needed in terms of being successful rather than creating this sort of blanket approach.
[00:15:44] Andrew Strauss: Yeah, so I think the idea being like, you know, sport is unpredictable, quite chaotic at times. Every situation is going to ask different questions of you And you need to be able to make those decisions on your own rather than relying on someone else to make them for you. So if you wanted players to do that out in the middle under pressure, you need to give them more latitude to do it off the pitch as well. And I remember, when I first mentioned this sort of philosophy to the coaching staff, one of the coaching staff came up to me afterwards and said, look, I think this is a great idea, Straussy. I think it's absolutely right. But I'm just not sure the players are ready for this. And I'm like, it's the England effing cricket team, Like, I mean, if they're not ready for it, who is ever? And so sometimes you need to create that space for people to do it. And it didn't always work well. I mean, I remember talking to the players about this before we went out on a tour to the West Indies. I said, guys, this is our dressing room. A lot of the practice is going to be optional. If you don't want to come, don't come. We're going to trust you. We're going to treat you like adults. And we got on the plane and the first night out in the West Indies, half the team were off their heads. Paralytically drunk, I was like, this probably isn't working very well.
But, over time they realized. It was a bit like the kids coming out of school for the first time. They realize, actually, for them personally and the team, they had to be treated like an adult.
[00:17:13] Charles: And did you adapt your leadership, the level of freedom you were willing to give people as a result of those
[00:17:17] Andrew Strauss: Yeah, I think over time it sort of, it sort of constrained back in again. But, like all these things, I think you've got to give people wriggle room. You've got to go, okay, there it is. It's if you like trying to play differently on the pitch, right, go for it. Commit 100 percent and we'll give you wiggle room. If you don't succeed, that's okay. Because as long as you're committing to what we're trying to do as aa team. Where it becomes difficult is you go, go on, you try things new, do things differently. And if they don't succeed straight away, they're dropped from the team, whatever. That's not fair on people.
[00:17:50] Charles: Your Test team was very disciplined. That was the hallmark of that team. The one day team that you were the architect of with Eoin Morgan was, was exactly the opposite, right? It was all about express yourself, freedom, take risks .
How did you learn to adapt those philosophies so distinctly based on those two situations? What was it that allowed you to see the thing that I used here that worked really well is not the thing that's going to work over here?
[00:18:13] Andrew Strauss: So I think two things. I think with the Test team, there are lots of different ways of skinning a cat in Test cricket. You can play a manner of ways. Ultimately, you need to get over 600 runs over the course of two innings. And you need to take 20 wickets. So lots of ways of doing that, right? And you've got five days to do it. So, you've got time.
And then you've got to look at, okay, well, what have we got that other people haven't got? What can we do to put pressure on the opposition team. And we came up with this idea is to suffocating opposition teams. Not allowing them to score easily, etc. Because we didn't have X-factor bowlers, or anything like that.
In one day cricket, it was very clear that only had to do some pretty superficial analysis that top seven batting was the key and it was a combination of averages and strike rate. So it's about how quickly you scored and how consistently you played, really. So the batting was much more important than the bowling. And then from a bowling perspective, you had to find a way of taking wickets in the middle over.
So, you know, basically, the strategy was there in front of us. We just need to find the right players to execute that. And I think the other element, which probably we, we lost sight of in the Test team was, we had this ambition to be the best England Test team ever. And I think performance wise, you would probably go, we stack up pretty well against, any other England Test team. But I don't think people view this as the best team ever because the way we played didn't resonate with people. So, you know, when you look back at it, you go, actually, if you're able to play an exciting brand of cricket where people feel like, maybe you've got to hold on to your chair at times because you never know how this might go. But I think people give you a bit more wriggle room if you don't succeed, if they feel like you're having a go. And so, that was one of the reflections from my Test days is actually, if you go out there and have a crack. A, in white ball cricket, that's going to give you the best chance of winning. But also, you're going to take the fans and the media along with you as well.
[00:20:21] Charles: Would you have done it differently, thinking back now? Knowing what you know now?
[00:20:24] Andrew Strauss: I think what I would have done differently in retrospect is when we got to world number one, I think we would have shaken things up again. I think we would have started a new pioneering journey and that probably would have been the route we would have gone down. But God, it's hard when you're number one in the world to go, right, we're going to just change tack.
We needed to because actually, it sowed the seeds of our own downfall. We sort of drifted back into the pack quite quickly because we couldn't find that next thing. And I was getting to the back end of my career. Maybe I didn't have the motivation to start again either.
[00:21:00] Charles: I mean, the personal pressure of leading a professional sports team that has the kind of visibility that the England Test team does, has got to be a huge factor in how you lead because you're always worrying about your own performance and justifying your own place on the team at the same time as trying to provide this calm, strategic, motivating, highly personal connection for everybody else.
How did you juggle those two? How much time and energy did you have to put into worrying about your own form and your own success rate within the team, compared to what you were doing for everybody else?
[00:21:29] Andrew Strauss: It's a really interesting psychological journey. I think when I took over the captaincy, it was so nice not to have to worry about my own performance quite so much. And that freedom allowed me to go out and score a lot of runs, and so lead from the front.
[00:21:44] Charles: It happens quite a lot, doesn't it?
[00:21:45] Andrew Strauss: I think it does, yeah. Uh, towards the end of my captaincy, I felt tired, and I felt having to juggle both those sides was difficult. My own personal form wasn't that great, and that sort of had an effect, I think, on my captaincy,
My Line missing here
well, I just feel like it's so much easier when you're playing well and leading from the front for other people to follow you. It's probably, an internal thing. People probably don't see it externally as much. But it's a, it takes a little bit of the air out of your tires, I think. And so I found myself having to battle with my own form alongside captaining well, et cetera, as well. So yeah, that, that was challenging. But I think there's also this other element psychologically, both individually and collectively around setting off on this pioneering journey to, you know, to be the best England team ever, to be number one in the world, to do things differently. And you achieve it. It's very hard just to go again. It's a bit like running a marathon, you know, do all the training for the marathon, you run the marathon. The next day you don't feel like going out for a run again. You're like, you know, that's ticked off the list. And so that was hard for me. I mean, some people are maybe much better at relentlessly never satisfied, go again. But I was kind of like, wow, we put sort of three or four years of our lives into this. We've done it. I wouldn't mind just, not having to worry about it for a week or two. But of course, professional sport isn't like that.
[00:23:19] Charles: So the emotional drive for you was always a big part
[00:23:22] Andrew Strauss: I feel like that's important, yeah. People getting into it, emotionally connected, because I think then it becomes a bit more of a mission for people. Rather than just business as usual. And if it's a mission, then you're actually quite happy to make the sacrifices that you need to make those improvements. But it's got to feel like and this, this is what's hard in business, like what is that idea of pioneering, of doing things differently, breaking new ground. Because to one degree or another, maybe people have heard it all before, . We go on an away day and the CEO stands up and goes, right, this year it's going to be different. I feel like it's got to be something, fundamentally shifting organization to demonstrate that. It can't just be a target. We're going to do things differently on a day to day basis. You need to find out what that is for your business.
[00:24:14] Charles: There's a lot of situations that in both in business, but I think particularly in sport where the most successful teams have often adopted an us against them mentality. You know, I've been a Chelsea supporter for longer than I care to remember, but Jose Mourinho was brilliant at that. Dealing with the press in the way that you had to every day, was creating an us against them mentality to some extent helpful for you? Or did you try and avoid that?
[00:24:37] Andrew Strauss: I think there were times where it was helpful. So, when, people were sort of questioning our methodology, I gained a sort of perverse satisfaction out of that, especially because we were winning. You have this perceived wisdom of how cricket should be played, but you haven't really challenged that at all. And things like, when you win the toss you should always bat first. Well, there's, the data didn't back that up. So, when you felt like you were sort of stealing a march on on that sort of convention, I like that. But I don't feel like making enemies of people or us against them necessarily work for us. I mean, Alex Ferguson did the same thing. If you're able to get people fired up through that, that that probably is a legitimate tactic.
[00:25:26] Charles: But that was not your approach. I read somewhere that you were actually applauded by the press when you announced your resignation as a sign of respect for the relationship that you'd had.
[00:25:34] Andrew Strauss: You do always have this adversarial relationship with the media. But I always felt like the only way for me to win that is to show them I'm not affected by it, even if I was, if that makes sense. So I always had that sort of water off a ducks back type scenario. I'd seen lots of people trying to play games of the media, take them on. I never saw that being successful. The idea of them saying something and me just coming up to them the next day and smiling and shaking and asking how the day is, you know, that, that, felt like I wasn't letting them get to me. But, at the same time, winning is your currency. If you're winning, you can do what you like. If you're not winning, it doesn't matter what tactics or strategy you have, you're going to get a lot of criticism.
[00:26:24] Charles: There's a lot of self reflection in what you're describing. Where does that come from for you? Is that something you were born with? Have you had people around you who've helped you with that? How have you sort of held on to that?
[00:26:35] Andrew Strauss: I don't know. I mean, I think I've always been quite inquisitive. I've always quite liked the idea of taking a step back and looking at things and going what's actually happening here? I've been quite a big fan of using data analysis as a way of getting out of that sort of opinion based thinking. I think probably people will overdo it a bit now, actually, but that that's by the by. I think questioning the status quo has always been something that I've quite enjoyed doing.
[00:27:05] Charles: Obviously, as you've said, a lot of what you achieved was built through innovation and being disruptive. But there's also, from a personal style standpoint, a constancy that you show up with. Has that been conscious, that you've developed that, or tried to offer that? Or again, is that just a, you know, a natural exhibition of who you are?
[00:27:21] Andrew Strauss: I think that's a personality thing for me. I mean, I've started this business Mindflick after the end of my career, which looks at bringing different personalities together. And one of the things that comes out of our sort of psychometric and whatever is that I'm contained. So very sort of threat insensitive and opportunities insensitive as well.
So I'm pretty calm, collected. And I think actually if you're trying to do things differently, that's probably quite helpful just for you to go, there's a constancy there. We're going to crack on with it, this is what we said we're going to do, let's just do it.
[00:27:55] Charles: Were you always trying to kind of constrain yourself within, I mean obviously there's a ton of passion in professional sport. I mean there's a lot in business too, it exhibits in different ways. But were you always conscious of not trying to get yourself kind of out over your skis from an emotional standpoint?
[00:28:08] Andrew Strauss: Yeah, but I think that came naturally to me. I mean, the, probably my teammates might say, well, you were a little bit unemotional and you didn't get excited enough when we won. Um, so, or down enough when we lost, I suppose. I, think that served me relatively well as a leader in, in those high pressure scenarios. I think there's so much, external pressure and, sort of high blame environment around you. You don't want that to be following through in, in your dressing room as well. If there's one sort of common trait around cricketers that have done well, I think they've been able to be relatively philosophical about the nuances of the game. It's a game of failure a lot of the time. They've been able to keep their head around that.
[00:28:55] Charles: Obviously, you were leading a tremendous range of different personalities. What did you learn about creating environments that allow different people to express themselves in different ways?
[00:29:03] Andrew Strauss: Well, I think giving people latitude to be themselves, you know, going back to that idea of treating people like adults. Having a sort of broad framework in terms of this is the way we do things around here. But you have freedom to be yourself within that. And actually on and off the pitch, you know I think difference both on and off the pitch is a healthy thing in a team. So we had Kevin Pietersen, who is an X factor, high risk type player. And then you had a Jonathan Trott who is very much sort of control the controllables, play in a very sort of disciplined manner. You need both of those in a team, I think. And you need those different mindsets as well, because, the context is always shifting and what's required of you in any one circumstance is going to be different. Of course, you have to have those guide rails in place, like there's some times where it can't just be a free for all. And certainly, we did have issues around that. Some, well documented and others less so. So, you know, I think latitude within boundaries, I suppose.
[00:30:04] Charles: What did you learn from the Kevin Pietersen experience in terms of your own leadership?
[00:30:09] Andrew Strauss: I feel like it was sort of relatively pragmatic with Kevin, who, you know, X factor player, very much did things his own way. Would have been very hard to constrain within a rigid team environment. And so we gave him freedom to be himself. But, you know, there's an argument by doing that, we sort of potentially ostracize him a bit. And I, think, um, yeah, I think on reflection, if I'd spent a bit more time, you know, we actually had a good relationship, you know, people probably wouldn't think that. But we were pretty close and I think I could have brought him more into the fold and given him bit of a bigger voice in the dressing room, rather than sort of just allowing him to do his thing.
And if we'd done that, maybe we wouldn't. have got the stuff that happened at the end there, which was really Kevin feeling completely disconnected with the rest of the team and wanting to follow his own ambitions. Yeah, I think we could have done things differently. I think, I would argue, he could have and should have done things differently himself, but you know.
[00:31:10] Charles: It got very personal for you towards the end. Did you feel a sense of betrayal?
[00:31:14] Andrew Strauss: Yeah.
[00:31:15] Charles: that?
[00:31:15] Andrew Strauss: Yeah. I think I, I'm a loyal person. And, I feel like I've got relatively strong values. And when those values get challenged, it's not good for me. You know, it was a, it was a very difficult time. It got documented that he was talking to the opposition, etc. That that was not good for me.
[00:31:35] Charles: Did that affect your leadership?
[00:31:37] Andrew Strauss: Well, I mean, you know, ironically, that was right at the time that I retired and the two were disconnected. But, um, I think the ECB should have probably managed things differently post my retirement with regards to him and the team. But, look, it's all water very much under the bridge now. And, um,
[00:31:57] Charles: But those are the moments we learn the most about ourselves from, don't you think?
[00:32:00] Andrew Strauss: Yeah, I think I think that's true. Um, and Uh, I mean, I suppose I find that difficult because I think we we could have avoided where we got to, and that was myself and Andy Flowers as leaders of that environment. But also the ECB more broadly is sort of national governing body. So in that regard, we could have avoided it.
But when push came to shove at the end there, I've got no regrets about standing up for our team and this is the way we operate and what should and shouldn't happen in those situations.
[00:32:37] Charles: I mean, that's critical, right? There has to be a through line.
[00:32:39] Andrew Strauss: Correct. Yeah. Um, and I think, uh, there are too many people in top level are too worried about how things are going to play out in the media. And get too affected by not wanting to be unpopular. Or, take a point of view that that doesn't go with the considered wisdom and actually goes back go right back to what I said to you at the start about stepping away from the crowd and doing things differently. At times you've got to be prepared to do that.
[00:33:12] Charles: I think it's true in the business world as well, isn't it? People get worried about being unpopular, making what seem like unpopular decisions and the thing that they're sacrificing in the process of doing that is the organization itself, which is itself, helpless if the leader isn't going to take responsibility and ownership for it.
[00:33:27] Andrew Strauss: And their own credibility. You know, when I when I started my second sort of phase with English cricket, as Director of England cricket, I made a decision very early on that, the sort of Kevin Pietersen saga had become such a talking point that the team didn't have the space to just go out and play.
It was always a sort of overbearing interest. And I so one of the first things I did was say you had to take Kevin Peterson to one side and say, look, you haven't been playing for the last 18 months There's a lot of clamber for you coming back in the team. It's not going to happen. The team needs to move on. And you know, I got roundly ridiculed for that. But I think what the players realized is, that I was setting my stall out in terms of what's acceptable, what's not. What we're going to do and what we're not going to do. And also that I'm willing to make difficult decisions even if they're not popular. And so you, you gain credibility from doing that.
[00:34:23] Charles: You've led in a number of different ways. I hope this isn't too personal. You lost your wife in 2018. You had to provide leadership through a different lens for your, for your sons. How did you go about offering them or providing them with a kind of a constant and a reference point while you're dealing with your own grief?
[00:34:40] Andrew Strauss: Well, yeah, I mean, uh, in truth, I think the first 12 months or so we were, we were, all three of us were in shock. And, one of the things that really surprised me is I, felt like I had to be there for the boys, you know, provide that sort of, you know, shoulder to cry on, that, that support structure for them.
And the reality was it was almost the other way around. They provided a lot of support for me, Um, obviously we got much closer is as a sort of a team, the three of us. Um, but, you know, there's no way to fast track grief, right? You just have to go through it. And, uh, you need to create space as much as you can for, uh, for, the boys to grieve in whatever way they needed to grieve, While at the same time not, you know, I think what a lot of people probably do is they charge on with something. They don't want to think about it. Let's sort of take on another project or whatever, or sort of throw yourself into work and not go through it. And so I was conscious of, you know, and this is with the help of counsellors, et cetera, just taking a step back and just giving ourselves some time to for it all to settle in and to start rebuilding those foundations. You know, that the reality is you built a life together and those foundations get sort of knocked over.
[00:36:07] Charles: And building, setting up the Ruth Strauss Foundation, I imagine, was really important to feel like you, you turned this into something that's positive and lasting.
[00:36:15] Andrew Strauss: Yeah, exactly. And that felt like something that I could control and do in those early phases. I mean, I think probably on reflection, I might not have rushed into it as quickly as I, I did. Um, but it felt like such a great opportunity for something positive to come out of our situation. And of course i'm incredibly proud of what we've done with the Foundation since. Um But um, Yeah, that that takes on a life of its own as well. So it becomes quite a big thing pretty quickly. But yeah, look, I think very proud of my boys and how they cope with it. It's something that nothing prepares you for. And unfortunately there are too many people out there that go through this. In this country, I think we're talking about sort of 23,000 families will lose a parent when their kids are at dependent ages every year. So it's a lot, a lot of people have to go through this. You know, fortunately I had a good support structure in place, but not everyone does.
[00:37:22] Charles: Having a support structure, not only from a personal standpoint, but also from a professional standpoint, has that been something that you've focused on? I mean, obviously you had Andy Flower as a key relationship. But have you, have you sought to create a kind of an inner circle of people around you that you trust, or have you sort of, have you kept it narrow and just gone your own way, followed your own voice?
[00:37:40] Andrew Strauss: No, I think I've been very lucky. I've had some, some long term friendships that I can, I can access at times. Um, I think the, you know, having a counselor there to talk to when you feel like things are getting a bit on top of you is important.
And then also, you know, I think over time, and this has taken a lot of time being comfortable with the idea of, you know, moving forward and building a new chapter and, you know, meeting new people. I've got, you know, great new fiance now, Antonia, where, you know, you, you, realize that you're not stuck at that moment. You're actually, you can build a new chapter and there's a lot of life still to live. That that's an important part of, um, feeling, um, you know, again, that feeling of positivity that, okay, this has happened in in my life and in the boys lives. But that shouldn't define us forever. There are new opportunities, as new chapters as new ways of being happy moving forwards as well.
[00:38:41] Charles: And having intention, really.
[00:38:43] Andrew Strauss: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So it's. Yeah, I've certainly learned much more about myself coming on through that personal journey than I did in sport. Because I think, what happens when you have one of those seismic moments in your life is it really forces you to take a big step back and go, you know, what's life all about? Actually, I'm not here forever. And so what's important to me? What does success look like? How do I judge, you know, I might get run over by a bus tomorrow. How do I judge whether I've lived a good life or not? So all those big questions that really it's quite hard for people to think about, I was sort of forced to address some of those.
[00:39:27] Charles: One of the questions that I've, um, being shown, taught, helped with, and I use a lot with my clients, is what do I want to find out about myself? Which is really liberating, really empowering, because it gets you away from this question of legacy, which is impossible. But I think the idea of what do I want to do next is
[00:39:42] Andrew Strauss: good point.
[00:39:42] Charles: a really powerful reference point.
[00:39:45] Andrew Strauss: Yeah, and of course there is a real challenge, which I don't think I've navigated completely successfully, around having a lot of perceived success young. You know, sports people, you're, you know, you're doing your important stuff in your twenties and thirties. And then there's a lot of years to live. And so many sports people struggle find that next phase and, um, and get stuck in that mindset of I've done my important stuff.
Whereas your point is like, well, what can I do next? What, what, how can I challenge myself? You know, what, what don't I know about myself that I can, you know, investigate going forward.
[00:40:23] Charles: With all of that, what would you tell your 25 year old self if you, if you could have a conversation with him now?
[00:40:29] Andrew Strauss: Um, that is a good question. I think probably, I think I would probably say look at 25, my whole world was cricket. That was the time of my life where single mindedly trying to get in the England team and there was obviously, everything had that sort of cricket lens on it. And I think I would have told myself two things.
Number one, just remember that is not reality. That's a little bubble you're in and it's a great thing for you to be pursuing. But there's a there's more your life is more complicated than that and broader. And never forget friends and family and, um, you know, to, to, to spend time committing to, to broader elements of your life than just cricket.
And then number two, um, there's a long life after cricket. So probably start thinking now about what that next stage looks like. Doesn't have to be at the front of your mind, but maybe there are little things you can do to prepare you for life after cricket, which I probably didn't do as much as I could have done.
[00:41:39] Charles: And as you look at the future, what are you hopeful for?
[00:41:41] Andrew Strauss: Uh, well, I'm hopeful. Number one of new challenges. So, you know, I've got two businesses that I'm right in the middle of, growing small businesses, which I'm really excited about that journey that we're on. Um, and really, you know, going taking my sporting experiences,. it's the journey itself, which is exciting actually. Like, you know, going through the highs and lows and the despair and the elation and all that sort of stuff.
Um, and then, uh, you know, the new chapter personally with Antonia and my boys growing up. Um, so that's exciting. And I think also probably realizing there's a big world out there. You know, I think I've been very focused in this little cricket bubble for long periods of my time. I felt the need, very specific need, from about 18 months ago to step out of that cricket world a bit. But also geographically as well, you know. Getting away from the UK, seeing different parts of the world, maybe.
Yeah, I think one of, you know, one of the things I've just reflected back from after Ruth died was this idea of saying yes more often. You know, to challenges and opportunities. And, maybe that means, going to live somewhere else or doing things that aren't on my radar currently. Um, and that will help me to do what you described, which is learn about myself more in the process.
[00:43:12] Charles: I really want to thank you for coming on the show and joining me today. I'm really struck by your intention, which has been obvious, I think, from a distance. But getting to know you a little bit, the, the humanity with which you, you come to the world, the self awareness that you bring as well, the equanimity that you bring to that is really a powerful combination.
I wish you nothing but success going forward.
[00:43:29] Andrew Strauss: Thank you so much. It’s been a real pleasure speaking to you.
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