THESE days Ray McLean works with the likes of Carlton's Chris Judd, cricketer Michael Clarke, the North Queensland Cowboys and a host of corporate bigwigs from the Macquarie Bank to Quicksilver.

It is a long way from his days as a teacher at Donald High School.

Ray's ticket into these powerful and famous echelons have not been through climbing the corporate or sporting ladder, but as a specialist on team performance and leadership.

In fact Ray, who lives in Ballarat, has just written his latest book on the subject, called Team Work, based on his job as founding director of Leading Teams Australia.

Far from being starstruck with the company he keeps, Ray says his work is valuable for anyone seeking success.

"I'm just about to talk to a group of Carlton football players, including Chris Judd and the leadership group, about their performance," Ray says.

"And no I don't (get starstruck) because I realise they are human beings trying to do the best at what they do.

"If you follow a few simple rules you have at least a chance of being in the elite in whatever field you're in."

Team Work's nine chapters examine empowerment, culture, framework, relationships and individual responsibility.

They're the kind of concepts best suited to boardroom tables, but Ray says they can be summed up in a few basic concepts for everyday life.

"You need to have a long-term vision, a clear idea of how you want to be at a certain finishing point," he says.

"You need a preparedness to learn and you need to be able to accept feedback and then implement that feedback and act on it.

"As I say, there's a huge difference between the land of knowing something and the land of doing something."

They are grand concepts for a lad who was born in Hopetoun and grew up in towns around northwest Victoria, from Red Cliffs, to Horsham, following his father's school principal postings.

In the '70s he studied physical education and was a teacher for nearly a decade at Donald High School.

"I decided to leave teaching and go into the airforce. I thought it was too important a profession to stay in if my heart wasn't in it, there's too much responsibility."

The airforce provided Ray with the career progression he craved.

He was posted to the air crew of the maritime patrol group to develop a team leadership program.

"I had already started to generate some interest in team leadership in sport through PE and (in the airforce) I worked with a psychologist to develop my own ideas," he says.

"If you have a team of people together who are technical specialists they don't always function that well.

"My work was about getting the team to take responsibility for its own behaviour."

Ray started his consulting company, Leading Teams Australia 15 years ago.

He now has enough staff to ensure he doesn't have to focus on the paper work but his passion of improving team leadership.

And while his job takes him around the world, the father of three says living in Ballarat keeps him grounded.

"It's actually nice to live out of the city a little bit. I can go home and be a normal dad."