Ric Charlesworth

Having returned from a year living and writing in Tuscany, Dr Richard Charlesworth talks and consults on sport and performance. Prior to his departure to live in Italy, Ric was a mentor coach to five national team coaches with the Australian Institute of Sports and a High Performance Consultant with the Fremantle Dockers Football Club for two years. He is a doctor of medicine and current captain of the Australian Hockey Team, former captain of the State Hockey Team and State Cricket Team.

He was also a Federal member of parliament for 10 years. He retired from this position to take up coaching the Australian Women’s Hockey Team from 1993 until Sydney 2000.
During the time he coached the Australian Women’s Hockey Team they won the Champion’s Trophy in 1993, 1995, 1997 and 1999, the World Cup in 1994 and 1998 and were gold medallists in the Atlanta Olympics 1996 and Sydney 2000 and Commonwealth Games 1998.
Ric Charlesworth played 227 times for Australia between 1972 and 1988. He was selected for 5 Olympics (1980 Moscow boycott) and 4 World Cups. He won an Olympic silver medal in 1976 and World Cup gold in 1986. In the 1986 World Cup he was player of the World Cup tournament and also leading goal scorer. Between 1972 and 1980 he played 1st Class cricket for Western Australia, Captaining the team in 1979.
Ric Charlesworth has won Western Australian Sportsman of the Year 1976, 1979 and 1987, West Australian sports Champions of the Year Awards – Coach of the Year 1994 – 2000, Australian Coaching Council Team Coach of the Year 1994, 1996 – 2000, Confederation of Australian Sport Coach of the Year 1996, 1997 and 2000. He was awarded an Order of Australia in 1987, won Western Australia Citizen of the Year Award 2001 and inducted into the Sports Hall of Fame in 1987.
In 2001, Ric Charlesworth wrote a book called The Coach: Managing for Success. This book offers fascinating ideas about coaching philosophies that can be applied outside the sporting arena to achieve success. The book has been reprinted three times. In 2002, Ric released his second book Staying at the Top. In this book Ric talks about his five principles for being the best and how to stay there. His latest book, Shakespeare the Coach, was released in August, 2004.
In 2005 Ric was selected as Western Australia’s greatest ever hockey player and also Western Australia’s greatest ever coach. Between November 2005 and November 2007 he worked as High Performance Manager of New Zealand Cricket.
Ric has recently been appointed as Technical Advisor to Indian Hockey where he began to work in December 2007 and returned back to Australia later in 2008 as appointed Australian men’s hockey coach, the Kookaburras.

Speaker Topics Include:

The Leaderful Team
Richard’s reputation as a team builder is substantial. His revolutionary approach to leadership and captaincy with the Hockeyroos was part of the winning formula for their success. Charlesworth developed a “leaderful” team that aimed at maximising the contribution of every team member in a way never before attempted in sport.

Presentation topics include:
• What brings a team down
• How do you recognise the signs
• Planning your leadership succession and team development
• Why we should be aware of aspiring captains
• How to avoid social loafing
• Developing the self-supporting team.

Inside a Team – Working together to hold it together
It is difficult to be world champions but maintaining world champion performance is an even more difficult task. Hockeyroos coach Ric Charlesworth draws on his wide experiences to outline how the Hockeyroos climbed the mountain and stayed there. The parallels with business and management are clear. Learn and be entertained.

Presentation topics include:
• Working together
• The challenge of continuous improvement
• Some interesting ideas on leadership
• Preparing and training athletes
• A strategy to be a chronic achiever

To Be The Best
Ric Charlesworth talks about what coaches do and his experiences as an elite athlete and coach. He believes that all of us need coaching in our everyday life and he describes a range of roles that coaches fulfil in sport that are applicable to business and life..

Presentation topics includes
• Teamwork
• Quality in people and practice
• Learning and training
• Building resilience, depth and flexibility

Staying on Top
In sport as in business it is difficult to be the best. It is harder to stay there once you have become the best. Ric Charlesworth who coached a team that was ranked number one for eight consecutive years until he retired talks about staying on top.

“Staying on Top” provides a unique insight into the methods and practices of a great team and its coach. Ric aims to give his formula for establishing a winning culture but more importantly he then outlines how to “stay there”. The pitfalls of success must be identified and avoided and the practices that ensure quality can always be improved, refreshed, redefined and maintained. The aim is to develop a continuous learning culture in which change and improvement are the background beat to which your organisation swings.

Presentation topics include:
• Leadership is for everyone
• Teamwork – how to avoid group disintegration
• Long term planning - Redefine challenges and avoid recycling
• Facing your foes to stay ahead of your foes