Latest / Giant Ideas / Rugby’s First Black Captain for Saracens, Floyd Steadman: From Care Home to Inspirational Headmaster

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Rugby’s First Black Captain for Saracens, Floyd Steadman: From Care Home to Inspirational Headmaster · Giant Ideas

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_02: You can be a kind person, but still a very strong and effective leader.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_02: Because I'm kind, I can still make very, very tough decisions, and I've made some incredibly tough decisions.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_02: And I will make them.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_02: And I won't sit on the fence.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_02: I think it's all about compassionate leadership.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: Hello, and welcome to Giant Ideas with me, Cameron McLean.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: And me, Tommy Stadlin.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: We're co-founders of Giant Ventures, which builds and backs purpose-driven companies.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_01: At Giant, we're lucky to meet extraordinary people with giant ideas that are changing the world.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_01: This podcast brings you behind-the-scenes access to those ideas and the inspiring stories of the people behind them.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: We explore how one giant idea can kickstart a billion-dollar company, shape culture, and transform life as we know it.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: Today, for the final episode of this season, until we're back with you in September, we are joined by a pioneering rugby player and head teacher.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: Floyd Stebman was the first black captain of Saracens, one of Europe and the world's leading rugby clubs, and he was a headmaster at schools across the UK as a truly brilliant teacher.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: Floyd also happened to be our teacher.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: Both Cameron and I had him as our sports teacher, and he was someone who had a profound impact on our lives.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: And I would say for myself, probably beyond my parents, Floyd had more of an outsize impact than almost anyone I can think of as a seven-year-old and an eight-year-old.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: I know Cameron, you feel the same.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: So what are your reflections on Floyd's impact on your life?
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_01: I'd love to just tell two small anecdotes which I think capture capture a lot of Floyd and the impact he had on us and so many other boys, and I think even parents at the school we were at growing up.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_01: But the first is just Floyd had a really quiet but profound gravitas, and he never raised his voice.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_01: He was firm, he was tough, but he never raised his voice and never got angry.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_01: And that really did leave a big impression on me because I think we went to school during an era when you know some of the teachers would shout louder at the boys, and the boys certainly would shout loudly at each other.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um and to see that someone would command sort of the room and have such respect from people without ever losing their temper or raising their voice was something that had a profound impact on me.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_01: And the second little anecdote I want to tell is that Floyd, you were kind of an innovator.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_01: You had the ideas of morning routines long before the uh the TikTok influencers did, 25 years later, or James Clear's atomic habits.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_01: I remember distinctly you telling us boys that 20 press-ups, 20 sit-ups, 20 burpees was the secret to uh to sort of a healthy, happy day and would give you all the fitness you needed.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_01: And that's something that's I still do actually all these years later.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_01: And again, a profound and lasting impact.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_01: You also had the the what seemed like a contrarian idea at the time that we should shower every day, and that personal hygiene was important, which is another one I remember.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, so thank you for that.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_01: And what what about you, Tommy?
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, very similar.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: You know, uh Floyd for me, even though he was our rugby teacher and a football teacher, it was actually less about you know sporting prowess or things like that.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: It was really about the fundamentals of integrity, decency.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: There were no shortage for disciplinarians at the school we went to.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: But actually, I learned about discipline and about respect and good behaviour more from Floyd than from anyone.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: And I think because it was it was coming from someone who was so aspirational, this incredible rugby player, um, but who was all about basically human decency and standards.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: I'll never forget uh a great one that that Floyd did to me.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: He made me captain of his of his under-10 football team.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um so you know, captain of the A team, big honour to be the football captain and uh all excited, about to go to the big away game down in South London against our fiercest rivals.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: And we get onto the coach to go to the game, and I suddenly realise I forgot all my boots.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: And so I go to you know, I go to Floyd, Mr.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: Steban, with a sub story, expecting him to kind of be soft on me and you know get somehow magic up some boots that I I hadn't bothered to get.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: And uh to my shock and horror, the the arrangement was made very clear.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: So I was gonna get uh boots given to me from a poor, unsuspecting soul called Henry Davis, who I think was in the under-10 D team, who was on the same bus going to the same fixture for the D team.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: And Henry would donate his boots to me so that I could play, you know, centre back for the football team and captain the side.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: And that sounded pretty good to me.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: Uh Henry was kind of blinking at me, looking looking a bit confused and upset.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: But then the catch came, which was I would be substituted at half time, and Henry would be, you know, moved from the from the D team to the center of defense for the A team and be made captain, I think, which caused a lot of consternation all around.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: But taught me a great lesson that you know there are consequences of not having discipline.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you never forgot your boots again.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: Never forgot my boots.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: I I was telling Floyd before we started recording, I I have sort of, you know, uh recurring nightmares about forgetting my boots that still last 30 years later.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: So, but an amazing, amazing impact, Floyd, and really brilliant to have you on this very special edition of Giant Ideas.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the show.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_02: Well, thank you both very much indeed.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, your your words are very humbling.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_02: And there's part of me that's honored to be on your wonderful podcast, and there's another part of me that feels a bit of a cheapskape.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_02: Because I know that you interview these these titans of industry, and now you've got Floyd Steadman.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_02: So hugely, hugely honoured.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but um, I'm also there's some trepidation as well, boys.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: This is the one we've been looking forward to genuinely more than any.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and we're doing this, of course, in in a big British Lions uh week, British and Irish Lions rugby tour going on right now in Australia.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna come to that and your influence on the captain of that rugby team towards the end of the show.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_00: But we want to start right at the beginning.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: You've written an amazing book called A Week One Summer, and I want to go back to that week if it's okay and just start because you have an extraordinary life story that we were not aware about at all.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_00: I think very few people were aware about at all until the book came out.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: But you ended up running away from home as a very young boy, not for a few days, but for a really significant period of time.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: And I guess that changed everything in your life.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: But would would love just to kind of get a flavor of that life story, maybe starting with that week that summer.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: Do you mind if I go back a little bit further, Tommy?
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_02: Um, because I'm a product of the Windross generation.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_02: My parents came over in 1956 from Jamaica.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and I remind people that they came over with thousands from not just across the Caribbean, but also from Southern Asia, from Eastern West Africa.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_02: Thousands of people from the old empire were invited to help rebuild the motherland after the destruction of the Second World War.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_02: And when they came they were confronted by a lot of hostility and aggression and racism because they had darker coloured skin.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_02: But in my family's case there was another challenge because my father was a bully, he was a misogynist, he was a wife beater, and sadly he became a child beater.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_02: And before my first birthday my mother walked out.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_02: There was a very, very messy divorce, and she just walked away from him, and she walked away from her two children, and I never ever saw my mother again.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_02: So I went to live with my father, you know, the bully, the misogynist.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_02: And I won't go into detail, but he was very, very unkind, and I still have physical scars from some of the beat ins that I took for my own father for doing very, very trivial things wrong.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_02: And I put up with this for a number of years, and I got to ten years old, and there was another beat in for something which was almost certainly very, very minor.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_02: And he locked me in the bedroom on the first floor, and something just flipped in my mind, and I thought I can't take this anymore.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_02: I opened the bedroom window, climbed down the drain pipe, the ten year old boy climbing down the drain pipe from the first floor, ran across the garden, jumped over the fence, and I took off.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_02: And I was on the run, and as you quite rightly said, if you hear of children sort of running away and they should never anyway, they normally run away from home for an hour or two, then they should have come back.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_02: Well I was on the run for nearly three weeks.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_02: And people say, Floyd, how did you survive?
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_02: What did you do?
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_02: Well, as I was jumping over that back fence, my dad's back fence, one of my neighbours saw me, and I was convinced he was going to tell my father, and this bid for freedom was going to be thwarted straight away.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_02: And what he said surprised me.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_02: He said, Floyd, don't worry.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_02: I won't tell anyone.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_02: He then added, Oh, and I'll leave my shed open.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_02: And I thought that meant that if I wanted to, maybe I could sneak back into his shed.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_02: And that very first night that I was on the run from the police, and they were definitely looking for me by then, I managed to sneak back to my neighbour's shed.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_02: He left the shed open, and he left a blanket there for me.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_02: So all through sort of my difficult years I know I now realised there were people in the background just keeping an eye on me and trying to steer me in the right direction.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_02: Now it wasn't always possible to sneak back to his shed, and the other safe place for me to sleep as a ten year old black boy on the run in northwest London was in a local park, and one of the slides had a little wooden structure, hut at the top, and I would sometimes put my head down and try and sleep at the top of the slide.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_02: So I found places to sleep, but I needed to eat and I had no money, and I got myself a job as a ten year old, and I can't believe I'm still saying this, as a ten year old boy, I got myself a job.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_02: Because back in nineteen sixty-nine, um most people had their milk delivered early in the morning.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_02: There was a fleet of electric milk floats all over the country.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_02: And I spoke to one of the milkmen and I said, um, well, I basically asked him for a job.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_02: And he gave me a job as his runner.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_02: And I would sit on the back of this electric milk float, and he would drive along and say, Floyd, we need two pints of milk to number five, and I'd jump off and take two pints of milk and put them outside.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_02: And this was uh a job that I did from about six till eleven every morning, and I was paid in old money.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_02: I'm so old, it was before definitization, so it was seven in six in old money, and that was enough for me to go and buy myself a big breakfast at the local cafe and then a packet of biscuits for later in the day.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_02: So that was my sort of my upbringing, my life for sort of nearly three weeks, and then I bumped into some some school friends, and they said um they were really excited about going back to school, and I was excited because I wanted to go to school, but I realized that my one route out of the difficult life that I had was through working hard at school and getting myself an education.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_02: But I didn't want to go back home because my dad would beat me.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_02: But I remembered that one of my primary school teachers lived nearby, so I went to her one evening, knocked on the door, her and her husband let me in, uh, they gave me some food, and then uh Tommy Cameron, they did the right thing.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_02: They contacted the police and the social services to come and take me home.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_02: And the image that I just cannot get out of my mind is standing outside my dad's blue front door, flanked by a policeman and a social services worker, and my father looking at me with a look of utter disgust and saying to the policeman, I don't want him back, take him away.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_02: My own father said that about his ten-year-old son, and I was taken into care, and I spent nearly eight years in care.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for sharing that incredible story, Floyd.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_00: And you talked about there about a bid for freedom and not wanting that bid for freedom to be taken away.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_00: What what were your I imagine your emotions as a ten-year-old boy must have been all over the place.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_00: But ultimately, did you feel any positivity that you were getting away from a situation and you had managed to escape?
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_00: I imagine also there were feelings of you know complete abandonment and loneliness.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_00: What were you feeling as a ten-year-old boy during this time?
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_02: I think the most important thing it's about survival.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_02: You know, it it it it's fight or flight, and for me it was a matter of flight and try and survive.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_02: Um even at the age of ten, I'd worked out that my best chance was away from my abusive bullying father.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and that was that bid for freedom.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_02: And when I was taken back, there was uh mixed feelings because obviously you want to be back in the home situation, but I didn't want to be with this awful man.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_02: And when he turned round and said, I don't want him back, I was completely blown away, and I thought, well, what happens next?
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_02: Because I had no idea what was going to happen next.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_02: And it was the the unknown and your the the the trepidation about you'd have no idea.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_02: And then I was taken into care and I was put in this um children's home with some very, very, very tough boys, and you learn to become street wise very, very quickly.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_00: And from there, may maybe give us a flavour of you know just the key people who influenced your life.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_00: You already mentioned the neighbor who who didn't tell your your your dad that you'd run away, and then you went into care, and as I understand it from reading the book, were were placed with an amazing family who who really looked after you and showed you an immense amount of love, moving from that early childhood experience through to being, you know, an incredibly respected rugby player and and and teacher and headmaster eventually.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_00: Who were the the two or three people who really influenced that journey?
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_02: Gosh, I would say I've got to put right at the very top the couple that looked after the um the second children's home that I was in.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_02: Um they were an amazing couple and they had nine boys from broken homes that they had to look after.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_02: And it's interesting, Cameron and Tommy, because when you hear stories about people that were in children's homes in the 1970s and nineteen eighties, you hear stories of abuse, a lot of abuse.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_02: That didn't happen in my situation.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_02: They were a very loving couple.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_02: And one thing they did that really epitomized how they were looking after looking out for me.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_02: When I got there I was the youngest boy.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_02: There were nine of us, and I was the youngest boy, and there were three dorms.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_02: There was a dorm of five beds, a dorm of three beds, and a single dorm or single bedroom for the oldest boy.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_02: After a few months the oldest boy moved on, and we all just automatically assumed the next oldest would step into that single bedroom.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_02: I was put in that single bedroom.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_02: Now, there was a challenge in time for a couple of weeks, but we all got over it.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_02: Looking back, I know why they did that.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_02: They saw something in me.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_02: They made sure that I went to school away from the other boys.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_02: I went to school in Kingsbury.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_02: The others went to tough schools in Wilsden and Easton.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_02: Um after we'd get home, the other boys would go out and play football in the park.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_02: I was forced to stay home and do my homework.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_02: They were definitely doing their bit to keep me slightly away from the other, more troublesome boys, and keep me on the straight now.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_02: So I'd put them at the very top.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_02: The next one has to be my P teacher, Brian Jones.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_02: Brian Jones was the one that and I and I use this word, forced me to play rugby because back in 1970, big um comprehensive school, 350 students in each year group, uh to 170 odd boys, all hoping that we could choose football because we were going to play football for Spurs or Arsenal.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_02: Uh the Welsh P teacher lined us up and he chose for us.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_02: And when it was my turn, one of the smallest boys in the year, but broad shoulders, he looked at me and said, Steadman, you're playing rugby.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_02: I tried to argue, quickly realized this was one argument I wasn't going to win, so very reluctantly I went over to try this game rugby.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_02: Halfway through that first session I fell in love with the game and I started to work harder.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_02: The harder I worked, the more recognition I got, the better I got.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_02: I got into the school team, then the A team, and then Captain, then the county, and so on and so forth.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_02: But this same P teacher came to my rescue a second time.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_02: Back in the the nineteen seventies, if you were a child in care in a children's home, you had to leave when you were sixteen years old, and you were just put out into the wide world all by yourself.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_02: Um and I was doing my O levels, it was before GCSE, so it was the O levels.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_02: And I said to the authorities, I need to stay in this children's home because I'm going to do A levels and go off to university.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_02: They allowed me to stay for one year, and so at the end of what we now call year twelve, back then it would have been lower sick.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_02: They said, You now have to leave.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_02: And I pleaded and said, I've got one more year to do my A levels, I need to stay in this children's home.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_02: And they said you leave now.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_02: My P teacher approached me and said, Floyd, I've got a big house.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_02: You can rent a room in my house and finish your A levels.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_02: Something which we could never do now, but that P teacher saved me from leaving school early, and he made sure that I could complete my um A levels.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_02: The third one is probably going to be the Saracen's Rugby Committee when I was a young Saracen.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_02: Because I was a young Saracen playing elite rugby at the time when the black players were the fast runners on the wing, give them the ball and they'll run around everyone, or they were the big power forwards, but they were never ever in the critical decision making positions because the assumption back then went that the black boys weren't intelligent enough.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_02: And there was me playing scrum half, the critical decision making position.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_02: And um Saracens asked me to be captain, to be the first black captain of a major team in England, and Saracens allowed me to carry on playing Scrum Half.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_02: Quick question for the two of you.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_02: I know you know your sports trivia.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_02: Can either of you name another English born black scrum half that's played elite rugby, premiership level rugby, in the last 40 years, apart from me.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_00: I definitely can't.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_00: I can't.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_02: That's because I don't think there has been one.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_02: And one of my mantras as a headmaster is you can't be what you can't see.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_02: Youngsters need to see people like me being successful and hopefully inspiring them.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_01: Incredible, Floyd, incredible.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_01: Want to shift gears maybe now and talk a little bit about your leadership style.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_01: In our leadership of Giant, uh, I certainly take a lot from rugby uh and and the captaincy I had back at back at school.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_01: Uh whether it's leading from the front or you know, understanding that you know there's certain roles on the pitch where people have decision-making abilities and different unit leaders, um, and also I think the importance of different shapes and sizes, right?
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_01: On a on a rugby pitch, a prop does not look like a wing, but each have an equally important role.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_01: And I think those are some of the lessons I took forward from rugby.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_01: But I'm very curious where you shaped your leadership philosophy and what the core core tenants are.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_02: I think my leadership philosophy has been gained over years of either working with one or two outstanding people, and there's certainly two that I can think of, or watching the people that I really admired.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_02: And right at the top of the list of the people that I really admired has to be Nelson Mandela.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, you've got a man that was incarcerated in prison for over 27 years, and when he was released in 1990, he should have been bitter and twisted.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_02: And when his party, the ANC, gained power, you know, you would think there's going to be retributions.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_02: And what he did was absolutely amazing because he understood how to pull people together, and that really, really impressed me.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_02: In terms of people that I've worked with, I've worked with uh a white South African, Derek Rosenberg, my first teaching job all the way back in 1980, and a lot of my friends couldn't believe that I was going to work for a white South African, and I had to tell them the story that this white South African's father used to hold meetings with Nelson Mandela and the ANC and was fighting for equality in their homes in South Africa, and that really, really appealed to me because I always fight for equality for everyone.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_02: So my leadership, I think it's it's compassionate leadership.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_02: But there's a subtle thing here, because when I was a young teacher, people used to say you will never be a headmaster, Floyd, because you're too kind.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_02: And I always strongly disagree with them.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_02: Because people in what they thought was kindness, they didn't realise that you can be a kind person but still a very strong and effective leader.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_02: Because I'm kind, I can still make very, very tough decisions, and I've made some incredibly tough decisions, and I will make them, and I won't sit on the fence.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_02: So I think it's all about compassionate leadership.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_02: It's also about if you're if you're a true leader, you're actually empowering other people to do their jobs effectively.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_02: When I was headmaster of my stools, I had people that were far better at certain aspects of the role, and I would say to them, right, get on and do it.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_02: And when I was having my senior meetings, I always said to my team, don't be afraid to challenge me in my office.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_02: Because sometimes you will have better solutions than than me.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_02: In my office you challenge me, but once we've made a decision, we're a team, and when we leave my office, we will follow through with that decision.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_02: So I think it's about compassionate leadership, but you mustn't be afraid to make those tough decisions which all leaders have to make.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_02: Did that make sense?
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_01: That's such a powerful message, I think.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_01: Leadership from a place of kindness and compassion, but with just underlying strength.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's just a yeah, very powerful message, particularly at this moment in time for the world.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm sure I know I did, and I know my friend certainly challenged you at moments with our with our behaviour.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_01: So thank you for your patience there.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_02: Uh but it's interesting because you talk about the behaviour, Kevin.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_02: I'm sorry to interject.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_02: I'm a checkboard headmaster, I will interject.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_02: But but what's interesting there is that yes, you uh and Tommy and and all of the boys at some point did things wrong, but actually that's what children do.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_02: Uh do you have your own children now?
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_02: We do.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_02: And you will know that they will sometimes get it wrong and make mistakes.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and so in in the role as a teacher and as a senior teacher, my job was to correct the mistakes.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_02: And as Tommy was telling the story earlier on, it's about making people aware that there are consequences for actions.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_02: Good actions will have result in good consequences.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_02: Bad actions, poor actions, will result in poor and bad consequences.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_02: And as a teacher, as a leader, I never ever shouted, and my wife, and sadly lost her to cancer eight years ago, um, was one of the most brilliant classroom teachers that I watched.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_02: She was in a tough school, state school.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I never ever heard her shout or raise her voice, but she had absolute control, and more importantly, and this is what I've always worked for, she had respect.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_02: Because you will both remember, when I was a young teacher at St.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_02: Paul's Juniors, I didn't want the students to like me, I wanted them to respect me because I was doing my job effectively.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I think about this a lot.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_00: The whether whether you can teach leadership, whether you can become a leader if if you're not, you know, born with it, I guess.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_00: And when I look back at our experiences of being taught by you and led by you, you were, as we've discussed, a quiet leader, a calm leader.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_00: And when you spoke quietly, people listened.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_00: There was just a a a respect about you.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_00: Part of the obviously that was because as young kids we we knew that you were this star rugby player outside of school that obviously you know made us respect you.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_00: But I think fundamentally, you know, you and and other leaders we've come across had something.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: innate about you, an aura, call it what you will, and that's really hard to replicate because if you're someone else who tries to just be quiet and calm and and and people would might just ignore you.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_00: Where do you stand on that?
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_00: Do you think leaders are born or made?
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_02: I think it's a combination.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_02: I think some of the true leaders are definitely born.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_02: There's there's that innate quality that you touched on that not everyone has, but even an effective leader can learn from other leaders.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I learned from some very very effective leaders when I was a younger teacher.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_02: I watched some of the older teachers and I was I liked what A did and I really liked this is what B did and C did and I would pull it together think, you know what, I'm going to try this as part of my style.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_02: So I think it's a combination of nature and nurture some of it you're born with some of it you can learn and develop.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_00: When we first met you as seven year old boys the colour of our skin or your skin is just not something you think about as children, right?
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_00: And that's sadly obviously not the case as people get older.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_00: You've alluded already to prejudice in in the rugby arena where you were the first to be a top rugby player in that decision-making position, in that case scrum half.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_00: How did racism impact your life then as a rugby player, as a teacher, a headmaster and how has that changed over time in in British society?
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_02: I think how it's changed over time is when I was a youngster growing up there was a lot of overt racism.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_02: And also Tommy and Cameron language has evolved and changed over time and let me give you two examples of the language.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_02: The first is I have three delightful grown up sons that you may remember because I think it was Eddie Redmain that taught my eldest to ride a bike when I was refereeing a mat somewhere at St.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_02: Paul's but my three delightful grown up sons, uh white mother, black dad, when I was a boy they would have been referred to as half castes, which is such a derogatory term which we don't use anymore.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_02: But then half castes moved to mixed race.
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_02: Mixed race moved to mixed heritage and you'll now hear terms like dual heritage people of colour and that's just language evolving over time.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_02: Another example of how language has evolved over time is back in the 1970s there were three popular sitcoms that most of the population watched and this is a time when we only had three TV channels BBC one, BBC two and ITV.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_02: The sitcoms were Love Thy Neighbour on the buses until Death Us Depart.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_02: If you YouTube those and just watch some of the clips if they're not beat out the language is offensive and it's racist but back then that was accepted language and I would go to school the morning after one of these sitcoms and my school friends started to call me these awful terrible racist names.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_02: Now that did not mean my school friends were racist.
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_02: They were just copying they were children they were copying the language that they'd heard and seen on television.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_02: So I think there was a lot of overt racism back then.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_02: I think there's far less but I think there's still a lot of unconscious bias and I think there is a subtle difference.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_02: Unconscious bias is where you just don't think about it.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_02: You know within five seconds we are forming opinions about the new people that we meet.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_02: That's the unconscious mind doing a lot of the work and what I've learnt to do is when people see me they see a black man.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_02: When I was younger they saw a black boy.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_02: When I was a boy I learned to challenge people to look beyond what they thought they saw to begin to get to know me and to understand me.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_02: Example at um St.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_02: Paul's Junior's I was the very first black teacher the whole of St.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_02: Paul's had appointed in its five hundred year history and I only found that out after I said yes I'd I'd accept the job and I had to work hard not with the students not with your parents but with some of my colleagues to get them to look believe beyond what they thought they saw in this black man to get them to really to begin to understand me the person.
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_01: Did any of that make sense absolutely more stark in sports or education for you, Floyd?
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_02: Both.
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_02: Both for me it was just both.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_02: I mean on the sports front from being a teenager playing scrum half and being told the black boys don't play there, the black boys aren't bright enough.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_02: You should be out in the wing and that sort of thing and then you know playing high level sport I never say which team and I know Tommy's read my book I do say it's a team in the West Country and there are only four big premiership teams in the West Country.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_02: The first time that I I led my team out into this big stadium there was monkey chance it wasn't just football there was people spitting in my direction shouting abuse the comment that still rings in my mind was actually not an abusive comment.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_02: Someone shouted out Gosh there are three of them meaning that Saracens had the temerity to select three black players and that's why Tommy earlier I was saying about Saracen's committee they were incredibly brave to put me in that key decision making positions and to make me captain.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_02: That was incredibly brave of them.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_02: Perhaps a a sign of how far we've come in an optimistic note we're all very excited to watch your protege Mario Toji captain the British and Irish lines this this Saturday it's a major moment um you spotted Maro very very early what was it that you saw in him so I played a small part and I have to say it is a small part um so I've been um incredibly lucky I've been headmaster of four four prep schools uh two in London and two in Surrey and it was my first headship and from day one I noticed this ten year old boy that was bigger than me.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_02: Now as you both know I'm not the biggest of people but a ten year old boy that was bigger than me and he was very gangly and he was brilliant at all of the sport this school did.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_02: Sadly this wasn't a rugby playing school but he played a lot of football and tennis and cricket and basketball and Marrow was brilliant and he always had either a basketball or a tennis racket loved his sport and one day I just went over and I said Marrow you're built for rugby you are the size that rugby players could be really effective.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_02: You need to try rugby in your next score and I don't know with your own children sometimes you might say a little comment and their eyes glaze over and you think you've lost them.
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_02: Oh here we go again and I thought he's not he's not listening to me.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_02: But I didn't give in I rang his father that evening and I said Mr Otoji your son has the potential to be an outstanding rugby player.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_02: In his senior school he must play rugby and you must take him to my rugby club Sources we will look after him and I'm delighted to say that certainly Mr Otoji senior was listening but actually I I'd spoken to Marrow a number of times and he actually said to me I was listening to you sir and I did play rugby because of what you said to me which is really really kind and as Tommy knows Marrow wrote the foreword to uh my autobiography as well.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_00: He's one of many illustrious people that you've mentored over over time we you mentioned Eddie Redmane earlier on the Oscar winning actor he attributes a lot of his success in life to the impact you had Maroji all sorts of amazing people.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_00: Just on the Lions what what makes the lions so special in your view?
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_02: Oh my gosh it's it's just a a completely unique concept of having players from four countries that are knocking six bells out of each other in the six nations coming together every four years to have this unique experience the best of the best in the Northern Hemisphere apart from France and Italy and I think when the game went pro back in uh 1995 people thought well that's it the Lions are going to to go well I think it's actually become a bigger phenomenon you know with thousands and thousands my youngest sons going over for the final test match.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_02: So it's just a unique concept that works so well in this in this day and age in this professional sport.
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_02: I I I can see I I think the Lions are going to win the first two tests.
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_02: I know that the Australians are holding holding some of their their strongest players back but I watched the Australia Fiji game and Fiji are a very very good side very very good side but I just think that the Lions are the next notch up and for Australia to win the first test match against the Lions they should have beaten Fiji by 20 to 30 points.
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_02: So I can see the Lions winning the first test I can see the Lions winning the second test but it's such an attritional sport I can also see some injuries and then by the third test match Australia might might nick that I think that's right.
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_01: That's actually my prediction as well as we round out this podcast Floyd I'd love to just ask you one more question.
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_02: What advice would you give your 10 year old self as as he left home all those years ago now having lived the life that you've lived you know I would tell my 10-year-old self to really believe in himself and go reach for the stars and be ambitious because now that I'm at the other end of my life I'm looking back and I cannot believe what's happened particularly over the last three years I as you know have been awarded an OBE I'm a Freeman of the City of London.
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_02: I'm a deputy lieutenant for for Cormall um uh I've been given a special award by the rugby football union they've only given out six of these awards um I'm in the Saracens Hall of Fame when I was that ten year old boy on the run sleeping on the rough I didn't I didn't know what was going to happen tomorrow let alone in five or ten years time so I would just say to that ten year old believe in yourself be confident the other thing that that even now I sometimes struggle is I still sometimes have imposter syndrome and say well what am I doing here?
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_02: About a month ago I was at this stunning stunning white Thai function banquet in Mansion House as a guest of the Lord Mayor of London and he sat me between his Excellence the High Commissioner of Pakistan and his Excellency the High Commissioner of Maitania I was spending half of the time talking about cricket and half the time talking about camels but it was absolutely absolutely fascinating evening but halfway through I just said what am I doing here?
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_02: So I still struggled with that imposter syndrome so the key message is believe in yourself and go for it.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_00: Brilliant place to end.
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_00: Floyd it's been an absolute pleasure to do this with you we've both been looking forward to it for such a long time and an incredible life journey we're we're really glad to have shared it with the giant ideas listeners and viewers.
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_01: So thank you so much for joining it's been an absolute pleasure and thank you for remembering me thank you for listening to Giant Ideas that's it for the season we'll be back in September.
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_01: So remember to follow the show to catch the next episode.
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_01: Until then feel free to browse the recent Titans of industry we've spoken to from Reed Hoffman talking about the future of AI and how it affects you to Alan de Botton and what success really means.