By Luke Whitworth with additional reporting from John Portch

What is the current state of play in the space of performance analysis? To help us explore this question, we sought to understand some of the current challenges leaders in this space are facing and, similarly, what they feel are some of the untapped opportunities in how performance analysis can continue to be a valuable resource to performance outcomes.

Current challenges

When analysing the responses from the group, as expected there were some commonalities in current challenges.

Collaborating with other disciplines

The most common was the ability to collaborate and work with other disciplines, whether this be with individuals operating within technical, tactical or physical domains. Specific to some of the responses, was the relationship between performance analysis and coaching as well as the under-appreciation of physical data in some regions. Reflections from different sports alluded to the fact that coaches are at different stages in their understanding and utilisation of performance analysis, so it can be challenging to work in an optimal and collaborative way. There was an appreciation that many coaches work in subjective terms, so adding context to objective data and information is important to meet the coaches where they are at. Finally as it pertains to collaborating with other disciplines, a further challenge shared was working to keep all parties happy with what is collected and presented considering resource, timelines and what is needed to be prioritised within the programme.

Clearly defined processes

In evaluating the challenges, there were a number of responses that aligned to processes and ways of working. Clearly defining the role and purpose of the department was one that featured. Secondly, information siloes was another popular response and is likely to be a by-product of the challenge already outlined above. Finding out what is most important in terms of data collection and analysis also featured, suggesting that in some programmes there isn’t perhaps that clarity around the role and purpose of the department in alignment to the overall performance model. As a final thought on this overarching theme, the group suggested that there is a need to have space for strategic thinking to continue to evolve processes and answer questions around the future trends or direction of their respective sports.

Working with the modern day athlete

There was an appreciation that the modern day athlete has some differences in how they operate and obtain information compared to more mature athletes. We come onto some potential solutions for this later on, but it was clear to see that those participating in this particular roundtable are thinking about ways to better connect, educate and present information to their athletes. The key question around this is how and what is having the most impact?

Collation vs analysis

We are in a data tsunami was one of the comments on the call and it’s fair to say that’s a pretty accurate representation of where high performance sport is with performance related data and information. Some of the specific challenges that sit within this bucket included: the split between video analysis and data analysis. Data is more ‘buzzy’ at the moment but video can’t be forgotten as it continues to be a key method of analysis. One participant shared that we are in danger of doing more collating and not enough in-depth analysis. This chimes with the notion of knowing what is important to the programme and then being able to use data in actionable ways to support that.

What are some interventions or best practices to support these challenges?

Collaborating with different disciplines

To ensure the group left the roundtable with some best practice ideas, we had discussions around how some of these challenges were solved or being worked on. A simple suggestion that has had a positive impact was removing the notion of analysts being sat in one office, grouped together and instead integrating them in the same operating spaces as the coaches.

A couple of organisations on the call alluded to how they have renamed departments, one of those being to a Coaching & Analysis department, combining both disciplines. Analysts are an extension of the coaches, but one particular team are encouraging their coaches to become analysts in their own way. There was a consensus that the days of separate departments are gone.

Alignment is something teams have worked at to encourage collaboration between disciplines. Many organisations use a ‘what it takes to win model’ which is the performance backwards approach – something akin to this is a good way of aligning everyone to an end goal. In facilitating this type of model, ensure everyone is given access to others’ information and data. Often, departments can be too protective and it’s damaging to clarity and decision-making. Make the information readily available for all.

Be intentional around the development of non-technical skills with staff. If practitioners are talking and engaging in informal conversations, there will be a better understanding of the problems and questions being asked.

Finally, one environment on the call shared how one of the analysts has developed an interactive report where all disciplines feed into it for the team’s monthly meeting. Disciplines having to input into this report gives ownership and during discussions, it has allowed for more objective viewpoints as opposed to emotional ones that can sometimes arise.

Working with the modern athlete

This process can be influenced before you even interact with the athlete. The group discussed the importance of looking at the recruitment of analysts. It was suggested that individuals that have some experience in a teaching or pedagogical context is advantageous to supporting the interaction with the athletes. We need to look beyond just looking at the technical skillset of being an analyst, but other skills that will help deliver the technical element of the work. The ability to deliver information to people is what separates the good analysts from the best ones.

We will often experience athletes wanting information laid out in black and white, hence the importance of quality non-technical skills. Get to know the players so they feel more comfortable in being challenged. Insights profiling of the players has also seen positive outcomes to better understand learning preferences and styles.

Finally, athletes tend to spend the most time communicating and working with the coaches. Working through the coaches is a simple way to convey and communicate messages. It is also worth bearing in mind that your best players may not have the best physical stats.

Collation vs analysis

To prevent over-collating and under-analysing, it’s important to instil clear processes so that when you are in the height of the season, distraction is reduced. Focus on getting processes well defined in the pre-season so you can almost ‘set and forget’ and work on an automation scale.

If the data we are collating is not informing decisions or aligning to the outcomes of our model, there is no point collating or keeping existing information. It is important to pause and review whether the data is genuinely helping us to make decisions.

Finally, there was an appreciation that there is curiosity around what we don’t know, which is a parallel stream we should be thinking about, but it shouldn’t be the performance analyst’s role to explore this. This is where specialist expertise from data scientists to find the hidden messages and investigate largest data sets is better associated.

Opportunities in the future

Below is some insight from the group around what they see as being opportunities for the practice of performance analysis.

• How do we make our analysis more predictive instead of being ‘objective historians’?
• Have you thought about your domain through a different lens i.e. a coach thinking like an analyst and vice versa? That will help filter the available information and help you to reach the decision point.
• A recalibration from being over-reliant on objective data and a higher level of integration around the human element.
• Moving into a space where we are creating our own data and not having to stick to the traditional ways of data collation.
• Continuing to be innovative and creative in how we work in an interdisciplinary way.
• Balancing the science with the art of coaching and observation.
• Guiding technology rather than being guided by it.
• What do collaborative opportunities with other sports look like around sharing of processes and approaches?
• Learning from other environments, notably the business world and big data technology organisations.
• In some sports, access to data in-game is becoming more readily available which has the ability to influence coaching and in-game decision making. How do we maximise these developments?
• The field of performance analysis continues to grow, meaning there are students and younger practitioners looking for opportunities. How can we facilitate this better or collaborate with institutions delivering education?
• The development of technology allowing for easier insights into big datasets.

By John Portch

The Leaders Performance Institute asks Rohan Taylor how he stays in touch with his instincts as a coach.

“I’m on that journey, to be honest,” says the Head Coach of Swimming Australia. “I’m very comfortable now, today, to say it’s my number one skillset that I think I have to keep front and centre. I see instinct and intuition as a collection of knowledge and experience that touches me on the head and says ‘have you seen this before?’ so I need to stop and listen and tap into it.”

Taylor explains that he welcomes data but that he “won’t let it override what I feel”. “When I made the most successful moves or the most successful decisions or things that I’ve done really well, it’s been driven by my instincts with information informing me,” he continues.

It is not just decision-making around Swimming Australia’s programming either. “In a room when I’m talking to a group of people, I’m looking around to see is there a connection happening here and I rely on my instincts to tell me where to pivot if it’s not.

“My instincts tell me ‘you’re probably not hitting the mark’. I rely on them heavily and I’m very confident in them. And if I make a mistake, I make a mistake. It doesn’t faze me. I learn from that and it’s all about continual improvement for me.”

Taylor, who is currently with the Australian Dolphins at the 2023 World Aquatics Championships in Fukuoka, Japan, was a major contributor to our March Special Report Navigating Your Way Through Major Competitions. Here, he reflects on his style as a leader and where he can continue to improve and develop.

Responses have been edited for clarity and brevity.

What is the key to getting the big decisions right and managing them effectively?

RT: I’m always a big believer that I’ve got to surround myself with people smarter than me and build that trust. Getting a big decision right is speaking to the right people to tell me what I need to hear and not what I want to hear; getting the right feedback. Because you can go to people and say ‘yeah, that’s the way to go’ but then they’ll ask questions and make me think a little bit more. So I’ve vetted my decision-making with trusted people around me. I think that’s a really important part. But for the piece I’m doing, is I’m trying to influence a greater number of people. Now I can’t go and have those conversations with everybody. So what I do is, those people around me are my influencers, they’re the ones that if they agree, the likelihood is that everybody else will follow along because they trust them even if they don’t trust me. So my decision making is making sure I spend the time informing and collaborating with the right people and then we’ll move forward together and be aligned; and if I don’t do that I usually find myself having to eventually do that anyway. So if I make a unilateral decision, I likely have to follow up by going back to those people to bring them onboard. So I spend the time talking to them before I go out and do that.

Is that when you feel at your most confident and in command?

RT: Absolutely, because you know you’ve got buy-in from the right people. Also, the thing is that I’m quite comfortable to make flexible moves on the go, but I’ll do it through the right people who will influence me, but it’s a two-way street. I’m very confident in saying ‘hey, here’s the direction’ but I’m also confident that if there’s a need to move one way or another that I’ve got people around me who will help me to make that adjustment if I need to. And they trust me.

How carefully do you choose your words? What can you say to an athlete? What do you prefer not to say?

RT: In this day and age you’ve got to be very careful. That’s the challenge and that’s the learning that all of us in leadership; and the coaches, who are leaders in their own right, are having to check their language, their feedback, because it’s a different world we live in now, from the point of view of sensitivity. For me, it’s the level of trust with the person you’re giving feedback to has a lot to do with it as well. Even then, I err on the side of caution more than anything. There’s times I’d like to say ‘pull your head in, you’re being a dickhead’ and although I want them to hear that, but I have to deliver it a different way. I think about what I feel like saying, and then I think ‘OK, I’m going to walk away and re-frame this and is there a message I need to try to deliver and then work it out?’ It takes a lot longer, to answer your question! You’ve got to take time to deliver things if you want to be impactful. At times it’s exhausting, to be honest.

How do you ensure you are protecting your own time and mental resources?

RT: Well, I moved where I’m living now. I moved 400m from the beach on the Sunshine Coast. I relocated for environmental reasons and that was absolutely a targeted move for my family. At some point today, I’ll be in the surf having a swim or go out on a jetski. I’ll go and play and that’s giving me to have that hour to myself or with my wife or walk or whatever. That’s simplistic me. I have targeted times where I just lock in on things and I’ve learned to disconnect now; I’m better at that. So I either physically remove myself or put myself in a different space or I go and read a book or something – usually I’m reading books about leadership so I’m not really getting out of that space! But I am actually refreshing my mind around re-engaging in that learning. I go and watch my girls do sport and that’s always a great little release. So I think I’ve got the balance right. The big thing for me is the balance is not about 50% this or 50% that, it’s 100% this and 100% that. So if I’m going out for an hour to spend on the jetski and go wave-jumping or surfing, I’m 100% into that. I’m not going out there thinking about something else. That’s to me is balance. That’s utopia to get to that point. Then I feel that I’ll be fine.

By John Portch

“I do feel a little bit sad for the players I had 20 years ago. They could have benefited from the experience I have now.”

The Leaders Performance Institute is on the phone to David Sammel, a tennis coach with more than 30 years of experience coaching men’s ATP Tour players.

This week, Sammel is at the All England Lawn Tennis & Croquet Club in Wimbledon to coach Britain’s Liam Broady in both the gentlemen’s singles and doubles at The Championships.

We are speaking on Wednesday 5 July. It is the day after Broady’s first round defeat of Constant Lestienne and the day before he dispatched fourth seed and three-time grand slam finalist Casper Ruud. It was an ideal moment for Sammel to reflect on his development as a coach.

“I have different tools that I’ve developed over the years and I feel sad for those players in the past because there’s situations I look back on and I would have dealt with them differently now to how I did then,” he says. “But that’s part of the learning process as a coach and the other side of the coin is that I would hate to look back, even in five years’ time from now, and say I’m exactly the same as I was five years ago.”

Broady, the men’s world number 142, was due to play Ruud on the day of our conversation, but the rain put paid to that idea. Inclement weather is just one of a number of disruptions that players can routinely expect at a tournament.

“These days are tricky to manage because their stress and anxiety is there as the build-up to the match continues; and keeping someone in a holding pattern is not easy. The job almost shifts to keeping the player entertained in different ways and being light-hearted in practice,” adds Sammel.

“The work is really done beforehand and once you get into the tournament it’s just a bit of maintenance, a little bit of sharpening and keeping the player relaxed between matches. At majors it’s a little different because you always get a day off in between and, of course, like the rain at Wimbledon yesterday, we now get two days and, possibly, depending on how the weather is today, three days off.”

Here, the Leaders Performance Institute details five factors that underpin Sammel’s approach to coaching during a competition.

1. The fundamentals don’t change

During a tournament, Broady will aim to rise at his usual time, whether he is playing or not. Routine is important, although practice times will depend on the availability of practice courts.

Nevertheless, the fundamentals should not change because a player is competing at the All England Club. “What I’ll say to players is the court is the same size, you’re playing against people you can play anywhere in the world, and it’s just a label that this is the best tennis tournament in the world. You need to go out there and play tennis – not Wimbledon. It’s trying to keep the head in a place that, at the end of the day, it is your job to play tennis – it is not to play different tennis because it’s Wimbledon. It’s to play the best tennis that you can put on the court on the day.”

That said, “You’re not ignoring the fact that this is something a little bit different, but you’re saying ‘this is why you’ve done all the work. You dream about these things as a kid and now you’re living it and that’s amazing’.”

2. Help players to find their rhythm and confidence

Practice at a tournament is primarily to give players “a feel of the ball”, as Sammel explains. He speaks often about the need for players to find their “rhythm”. He says: “There’s nothing you really want to be working on unless there’s a couple of specifics because you’ve scouted the opponent and say something like ‘let me feed you a few balls, you’re going to get quite a few of these during the match’.

“The problems come if the player starts to miss a few balls and gets a little uptight – they feel the magic is disappearing.” The key in those moments is to talk the player “back down off the ledge”. “You’ve got to say ‘look, let’s have a drink. Relax. Let’s not think about this for a moment. Maybe let’s hit a few serves.’ And when you feel like they’re truly relaxed go back to it and hopefully they find some rhythm.

“On bad days, that’s when it’s important for the coach to be there and not show any stress and just be relaxed. That often calms a player. You also need to remind them that there’s nothing they’re going to face tomorrow that they haven’t faced before. They just need to go through your history and know that they’ve dealt with whatever adversity has been directed at them because that’s where real confidence comes from.” Confidence is key. “With great athletes, the difference is their belief and confidence to perform and bring a level no matter how they’re feeling.”

3. How is the athlete’s body language? How is your timing as a coach?

Sammel has learned to trust his instincts as a coach. “The one big thing that coaches are there for is feeling the moment and the timing of when you say things. Give very few messages, important key ones, and do not overload the player – when a player has too much to think about that really hurts their performance,” he says. It is also essential to read their body language. “When you’re talking to an athlete, you can tell in their eyes whether you are actually connecting and they’re hearing you or whether it’s just being blocked out. They’re nodding yes, they’re saying yes, but you know it’s not going in. That’s when you really need to change tack or understand that this is just not the right moment and then you’ve got to be looking out, pretty much all day, for the right moment when they’re open to having a different approach and you go again at trying to get your message across. That is one of the big things that comes from experience, that timing.”

He adds: “If you overload a player that’s going to kill them, but if you have an important message, you’ve got to find the right moment and know that it’s actually gone in. That can take two or three attempts but not in the same way; if you try to bulldoze a player with the same approach their resistance will grow stronger and then you’ve got no chance of getting the message in.”

4. No ‘victims’

Sammel stresses the need for “adult conversations”. He says: “When you’re in a good place, where you can go through a couple of things and you can see it’s going in and the player will ask a question like an adult, not like a victim.”

According to Sammel, a ‘victim’ would say thing such as: “‘I don’t know if I can do this’ or ‘what you’re asking is impossible right now’ or they’re dismissive. You know they have a worry, they have a stress and they’re trying to pretend that it’s not there. You have to try to have a conversation. ‘Look, let’s talk about whatever is bothering you, let’s get it out in the open, and that way we can deal with it before you go out there’. Because when a player has something bothering them, if they don’t take care of it before they go out there then you’re looking at disaster.”

5. Win or lose, generate optimism for the player

Defeats are inevitable but there is always something a player can take into their next tournament and upsets, such as Broady’s defeat of Ruud, can happen.

“After a disappointment, the coach’s job is to immediately shed light on what the next step is for the player to progress and go forward,” says Sammel. “You need to be going to the next tournament with optimism. ‘If we put a couple of things right, we practise a couple of things and get a bit better at those, that makes you even tougher. Let’s take that to the next tournament and see what happens then’.

“I have a saying that I’ve used for over 20 years, which is ‘do the work and good things will happen – you just don’t know when’. I’ll say: ‘This major is over and obviously we were hoping for more, it didn’t happen, but that doesn’t mean it won’t happen in the next major. Let’s keep working and the good things will happen. It’s not our job really to know when because that’s the excitement of sport’.”

By Luke Whitworth

The session objectives were to explore what we mean by ‘secure base’ and how it affects performance, reflect on how effectively we act as a secure base for the talent around us and in considering our teams, how to develop our skills as a ‘secure base leader’.

Within the session, we leant on the work of American psychologist George Kohlrieser, who has identified nine key characteristics of secure base leaders.

What is secure base leadership?

In the words of British psychologist John Bowlby, a secure base is a person, or at its best a collective environment, from which we draw inspiration, security and self-confidence to push the boundaries and perform at our best. A parent that provides a secure base creates a healthy, well-rounded child who can take risks, be separate and independent. As an extension to the work of Bowlby, Kohlrieser suggests that a secure base involves creating a collective environment in which we draw inspiration, security and self-confidence.

‘Secure base leadership’ is a term coined by Kohlrieser to describe the qualities and skills common to leaders who are exceptional in their ability to act as a catalyst to people performing at their best. In his book Dare to Care, Kohlrieser suggests that we need to care personally and in a genuine way to enable people to take risks and push forward in any aspect of life.

We will explore the specific characteristics that arose from the research below, but Kohlrieser suggests that secure base leadership is the ability to bring challenge and support together. Challenge on its own, isn’t enough to push someone forward. First and foremost, a secure base needs to be provided.

Nine characteristics of a secure base leader

Kohlrieser suggests thar we need all nine of the characteristics.

1. Remains calm, composed and grounded: without this, the other eight characteristics will be unable to fall into place. The ability to be a ‘safe harbour in a storm’, to not overreact to things going on around you and by being dependable.
2. Accepts and values the individual: you need to genuinely care and step away from judgements that we tend to make. See the person for who they are and valuing them for who they are. Amy Edmondson’s work makes this point really clear around the importance of inclusion safety. This point is a huge bridge to building trust in others and able to create a gap between the person and the problems or issues they may have.
3. See the potential in the individual: it is our role as leaders to identify that talent and potential, and communicate it. It is not always apparent to people what others can see. Gives people space to see themselves as others see them.
4. Use listening, dialogue and inquiry: listening to understand and be curious, not just to respond. Use open questions to find out more, but step away from ‘why’.
5. Create bull’s eye transactions by using targeted words and gestures: responding to what we hear. Bull’s eye transactions get us to pause first and identify what we need to pay attention to.
6. Direct the mind’s eye and focus on the positive: inviting people to be able to see what might or could be, and engaging them in looking forward to the future.
7. Encourage risk, provides opportunities and challenges to stretch: dare to care. Encouraging others to take risks through knowing, caring and trusting.
8. Inspires through intrinsic motivation, focuses on learning not blame: a sense of tuning into yourself to inspire intrinsic motivation and encourage on learning and reflection.
9. Signals accessibility, are believed to be accessible anywhere, anytime: the sense of being available and that others know you are there for them.

Mapping your team by challenge and support

What do others feel about your current level of challenge and support? To bring some of the research to life, there is a simple tool we can all use as leaders to map out the current landscape of your teams, as it pertains to the levels of challenge and support you are currently giving them as a leader. Similarly, you can also ask others how they feel about the challenge and support provided.

Challenge relates to the performance pressure people feel. The aim is to make this positive; people buy-in to the goal and standards challenging them. Support is the extent to which people feel they have the support they need.

A podcast brought to you by our Main Partners

“When a club as big as Racing come to you and say ‘we want you, there is no plan B, you’re our No 1 man’ then it helps persuade you”.

Stuart Lancaster, the new Director of Rugby at Racing 92, agreed to join the Parisian club last September while enjoying his seventh season as Senior Coach at Leinster. It meant a fresh challenge for the man who also coached England at the 2015 Rugby World Cup.

Says Lancaster: “For the first time, really, my head was turned a little bit by the opportunity to try something new in a different country, in a different competition, the Top 14, and to try and build something as successful as Leinster but in a completely different context”.

He discusses his move at length in today’s episode, which is brought to you by our Main Partners Keiser. During the conversation with Henry and John, he also touches upon:

• His efforts to sell change to the existing players and staff at Racing [9:40];
• Why he will need to be more hands-on in year one than he has been at Leinster [19:30];
• His belief in the enduring value of coaching [25:20];
• His relationship with Dallas Cowboys Defensive Coordinator Dan Quinn [36:30].

Henry Breckenridge Twitter | LinkedIn

John Portch Twitter | LinkedIn

Listen above and subscribe today on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher and Overcast, or your chosen podcast platform.

By John Portch, with additional reporting by Luke Whitworth

The Leaders Think Tank is at once a network and a knowledge platform.

It is designed to connect people with responsibility for performance at the highest levels of world sport with each other and the ideas that have served their peers best. The top jobs in elite sport are often lonely places and always comprise unique challenges. The following is a record of the Think Tank meeting that took place on 7 June at Global Life Field in Arlington, Texas. A behind-closed-doors event, the account that follows is a general one and aimed at presenting the lessons learned from the conversation.

Attendees

General Manager, Texas Rangers

Assistant General Manager, Texas Rangers

General Manager, Dallas Mavericks

General Manager, Houston Texans

Chief Executive Officer, San Antonio Spurs

Mental performance can be enhanced

In viewing mental performance as separate from mental health, the group explored the means and ways that cognitive capacity and skill acquisition can be enhanced in athletes. We value our team’s high IQ athletes but what can we do to develop the IQ of those less gifted individuals?

Key points:

• Cognition testing has its place and there is sure to be space for AI in developing accurate profiles of what denotes a high aptitude athlete. There are also likely to be implications for athlete resilience and perseverance. In any case, growth mindsets are preferable.
• Of equal importance is your environment. Skills such as resilience can be taught if you provide a nurturing but challenging space. To that end, teams can do more to understand the roots of their players, from prior performance to habits and personal history.
• Are your scouts asking the right questions? Unified systems, processes and values can provide the necessary criteria on which to base decisions around trades and draft picks.

Holistic athlete development

The consensus was that holistic approaches to player development provide a competitive advantage – if they are implemented effectively. How can teams remove the barriers to effective implementation?

Key points:

• Hire a development coach and have them work with players in your building every day. Their work in non-technical skill development is crucial and can become a key focus of your off-season too.
• Are the departments and working units in your team set up to support programming for your athletes? Collective clarity is essential and that comes from the clear communication of step by step processes and pathways to growth.
• As much as we may seek to create blueprints for athletes it is important to accept that they cannot realistically excel in every facet of their sport. The primary focus should be on enhancing the positives.

Balancing short term and long term aims

Sustained success may be your aim – and that takes careful planning – but what if there is the window of opportunity to win now? Can the short and long term truly be balanced?

Key points:

• Consider a two-year window. It enables future gazing but doesn’t lend itself to irrational decision making. Equally, athletes will come and go, teams will evolve, but if you can anchor yourself to a series of core values then you give yourself the best chance to sustain your successes.
• Involve your head coach in the more strategic elements of your programming. If you can take them out of their day to day, you can give them a flavour of your long-term vision and the means by which you work to realise that vision.
• Don’t push your chips in too quickly. Be fair in your assessment of where you are as a team. A generational talent can just as easily derail as propel you without careful management.

The importance of cultural fit

Bound up with the idea of balancing your short and long term visions is your level of commitment to your organisational values. If there is a superstar talent in your ranks who is a poor cultural fit, what should you do?

Key points:

• Be prepared to walk away. Be wary of anyone misaligned to your culture and values. Be prepared to hold yourself accountable down the line.
• If you take the plunge on a mercurial talent, ask if your decision is warranted. For example, does the individual need you as much as you need them? When all things are considered, they may well flourish in your environment despite being disruptive elsewhere.
• Identify the key storytellers in your organisation and let them influence, educate and inform through the power of stories about your history and values.

Specialist or generalist?

Often, a general manager can feel like a jack of all trades and a master of none. How can the leader best help when they don’t have the wisdom, expertise and vision to understand what the gold standard is in a specific domain?

Key points:

• Empower your employees to make decisions based on their expertise and afford them development opportunities.
• As a leader, you must be prepared to engage people through adroit questioning that cuts to the nub of an issue. In skilled hands, you can lead your team to the right answers.
• Don’t be overly swayed by data. Find a balance of eyes, ears and numbers. With the right alignment the leader can be confident in their decision making.

By John Portch

• Why is change required at your organisation? There must be a solid rationale.

• Have you given your people have sufficient motivation to make the required change?

• As a leader, you must be prepared to role-model the desired change too.

What is ‘change’ in your context?

It’s a simple but important question: “What is ‘change’ in and of itself?” asked Dan McFarland, the Head Coach of Ulster Rugby, when talking to the Leaders Performance Institute in 2022. “Firstly, ‘change’ is someone who says ‘this isn’t working, things are terrible, and we need to change’. But change is also growth. If you’re an organisation that wants to grow, develop and learn – by definition that is ‘change’.

“How you conceptualise change and how you use it is interesting, because if you include the idea that ‘growth is change’ then there’s always a need for change, isn’t there? At least in anything that’s competitive. It is important not to box change as merely something that happens to a failing organisation or somebody who’s in trouble. Then it’s just a degree in change and, I suppose, recognising the degree of change is interesting.”

Tim Davie, the Director-General of the BBC, referred to change as a “narrative around jeopardy” when speaking at the 2021 Leaders Sport Business Summit in London. He said: “That’s a pretentious way of phrasing it but people are naturally resistant in well-established organisations. Sometimes, you really need to really believe there is an issue of jeopardy [but] many people in the organisation say ‘we were OK for 99 years, we’ve done alright.’”

What’s timeless in your organisation? And what’s not?

The BBC was on the cusp of its centenary year when Davie spoke onstage. “My personal view is that, first thing, a successful reform comes from a real understanding of history, strength, respect of tradition, really understanding where an organisation comes from, what its core purposes are. What things are valid that are not attached to technology that are timeless?” he told the audience. Davie makes the distinction between what is “important and timeless” and what is not. “I think some people defend their territory or in their silo saying ‘that is something that’s absolutely sacred’. ‘It isn’t. What’s sacred is this’,” he added.

Is the motivation there?

In 2011, behavioural scientists at University College London developed the COM-B framework for behavioural change. It is a diagnostic tool to assess whether the organisation or individual possess the capability (C), opportunity (O) and motivation (M) to perform the desired behaviour. When you have each, it is often the perfect recipe for change but, as Gareth Bloomfield, a psychologist at the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst, told the Leaders Performance Podcast in 2022, there can be a multitude of things that affect an individual’s motivation. “Do you believe you can do it? Do you believe it’s going to be useful? Most people when they’re given new direction about what they need to do, most people just say ‘that sounds easy, I can do that’ but do they fundamentally believe that it’s going to be useful to the team?” said Bloomfield. “If they don’t understand what the Leader’s vision is, what the leadership team are trying to get to, then maybe there’s a gap there in terms of my motivation because I don’t really understand why it’s going to be useful. Do I fully appreciate the consequences of doing it and not doing it? This becomes an important part of motivation, which is, most of the time, if I’m going about a behaviour that is counter-productive, I’m not necessarily that aware of it because the counter-productive elements of it are long-term.”

The leader must role model change and chart development

McFarland viewed himself as a role model of change at Ulster. “Let’s say you want to create a learning environment,” he said. “You’ve got to model that. If that’s me, I’ve got to be seen to be willing to be wrong and adapt, I’ve also got to be seen to be doing things that are helping my own individual growth, I’ve got to be seen to be celebrating things where people are developing. Then once you’ve modelled those you’ve got to be able to mechanise those. There’s got to be room in the actual programme for doing that kind of stuff. It could be individual development programmes that are up and running and actually have things that you do, there’s got to be time in the schedule for development of certain things or skills, but there’s also got to be time in the programme for sports staff to be able to have personal development. Then, finally, you’ve got to be able to measure that; you’ve got to be able to look at your programme and say ‘have we actually created development? Have we developed as a staff, as a group? Have we developed as players? Have we developed as individuals?’ Modelling, mechanising and measurement are pretty key to that.”

By Luke Whitworth with additional reporting from Rachel Woodland

Performance = Talent x Environment. This equation forms part of the work of Prof Kurt Lewin. Lewin suggests that ‘environment’ is a multiple. Aligned to the topic of conversation for this particular roundtable, if you’ve created and are fostering a supportive and inclusive environment, the environment coefficient goes up as a positive, thus positively impacting performance. As part of Lewin’s equation, the environment is the thing that we can influence the most.

One of the groups on the call used the above as the start of the conversation – a question was asked whether or not Lewin’s equation is a linear relationship around trying to get as much talent and as good an environment as possible to maximise performance. Or is it actually about optimisation? Finding the optimal relationship between talent and the environment. Different talents could be successful in different environments, and vice versa, as opposed to just trying to put as much talent into a particular environment, and then make it as good as it can be. Something to think about.

Reflecting upon psychological safety

When we reflect on experiences of feeling included, often we hear responses such as the feeling of being heard, feeling safe to speak up, challenge and ask questions without a level of self-censorship – this is the essence of psychological safety. If that self-censorship is present, Lewin would say this would really impact the environment. It can create hostility and have an impact on performance. It will also affect the authenticity of the environment. If we feel a level of covering or lack of authenticity, social scientists have found it can actually compromise our ability to think by up to 30%.

There are four levels of psychological safety:

1. Inclusion safety: I feel valued & a sense of belonging. Safe to be myself.
2. Learning safety: I feel safe to show gaps in my knowledge & competence – ask questions, ask for help, admit mistakes.
3. Contributor safety: I feel safe to share my ideas. & I feel trusted to act on my initiative.
4. Challenger safety: I feel safe to challenge the status quo.

For the purpose of this roundtable discussion, we emphasised the importance of inclusion safety as the first level of this process – it is a precondition for the other levels of safety. Are your athletes or staff comfortable in that coaching or leadership relationship? Social sciences research suggest that in the need to feel valued, there needs to be a sense of belonging first to allow the rest to grow together. If you want to explore some deeper thinking around belonging, consider some of Owen Eastwood’s work.

Finally on this point, in the quest for establishing psychological safety, role-modelling is key, particularly from those at the top of the organisation who have influence. A clear statement of intent can go a long way to increasing psychological safety, and comfort for other stakeholders aligned to the organisation.

Onboarding

Throughout the group conversations, the onboarding process was identified as a crucial component in fostering a strong sense of inclusion safety, and one where we felt thinking around this is currently under developed. The consensus from the conversations is that many environments are often more mature in their thinking around onboarding with players, as opposed to staff. Circling back to Lewin’s equation that was used at the top of the call, staff however, are the ones that are often the biggest shapers of an environment so there’s work to be done here. So what’s working and what can be improved?

Most organisations are striving to be quality learning environments – this often starts with having psychological safety present. Are we making it clear and backing it up with action, that the moment new people walk through the door and are being introduced to the culture, that there’s an intent and commitment to invest in one’s growth? ‘The better you are will make for a better collective’.

Do we need to challenge our thinking in this space? Why do we recruit somebody? Often we think about the technical elements, but are we considering and paying enough attention to the ‘softer’ skills as a key component, and then bringing them up to speed on the environment from there? Specifically to inclusion, some organisations have started to add an inclusion question in their interview processes as well, which has been an interesting addition to see how many people struggle to articulate their position on it.

To create true inclusion safety, the onboarding process can in actual fact begin before an individual is in the building, during the recruitment process itself. It’s important to think about a 360 approach to connect to all elements of the organisation. What are the cultural connections someone will live and see on a daily basis? What does that tangibly look like for specific teams, because we know sub-cultures exist? Then there is the relationship with the athletes themselves – what do they look like? Often it comes back to relationships and how we treat each other was a comment from one of the groups, which is why there is an emphasis on recruiting the right individuals for your environment, and also role-modelling from those that carry influence.

Finally, seek to measure the impact of these processes. We know there is a high turnover in professional sports. Are you surveying your culture in general and also capturing insights into the effectiveness of those best practices that are integrated as part of the onboarding process? Be intentional and frequent in checking if people feel a part of an organisation.

Front loading through education

It’s perhaps not a huge surprise that ‘education or educating’ as a term was frequently used in our conversations, from a variety of different perspectives. As a provocation within the group, the question of what are the behaviours that create inclusion safety is a simple but effective place to start when considering this process.

One environment on the call shared an anecdote of how they front-loaded education around psychological safety with their coaches across a two-year period, with one of the end results being that this could have a positive impact on how they then create environments for players. Those in the organisation felt it was important to respect where coaches and other staff are coming from, respecting those opinions and creating opportunities to ask questions and develop thinking around psychological safety. The safety it created for coaches thus created better safety for the players. There was a clear undertaking of needs analysis with stakeholders (in this case coaches) to support psychological safety.

As an extension to the point above, there were discussions about leading inclusively, and how some traditional coaches may not have experienced this style before – assuming that ‘hero leadership’ (leading from the front, pushing, directing) is the way to achieve success. It is important to help and educate coaches to lead more from the centre, and not to dismiss people if they are less successful at the beginning of their leadership journey.

Transparency and choice of language is important here as well. We discussed high standards and high support environments. To create alignment, there needs to be high support and education resources to accompany the expectations of high standards. There needs to be clarity around expectations on the front end. For example, sharing that a particular training session is going to be really hard, and the failure rate is probably going to be pretty high, and that’s okay. The relationship between transparency and willingness to share information is more important than ever before.

Finally, consider the power of facilitation with those in the environment. Do they have self-awareness of their own biases? How do you work to respect different individuals’ backgrounds through understanding their perspectives and an awareness of where they’ve come from? We are striving to encourage that level of safety so that people can be more open and buy-into the environment. Culture often starts with the identity of the group, so this creates the opportunity to design that culture from safe foundations and the removal of self-imposed thoughts and beliefs.

Respecting differences

Environments have different cultures. Educating players and staff on each other’s background and culture shows respect and awareness. The heritage and lineage of where people are coming from is really important. What we can do to bridge those cultural gaps? The importance of delivering according to need – for example, prayer rooms and certain types of foods.

People want to be expressive. Whether that’s to dress in a certain way as an example. How are we welcoming that? Inclusion can be a combination of belonging and uniqueness working collaboratively with one another. How are we helping somebody simultaneously fit in and stand out?

Empathy is crucial. Create an environment where empathy is on display and can be nurtured. We also have to think about the idea of being comfortable with inclusion looking different to certain groups and people. Do you ask your players and staff ‘how can we include you more’ or ‘what would help you feel more included here?’

Takeaways: Group Reflections & Insights

At the end of the call, attendees were asked to share a key reflection of thoughts from the roundtable that they’d like to take forward:

1. How do you actually know how people are feeling in this space? How are we intentionally reviewing how people feel in our environment with regards to inclusion? How do you challenge it when it’s taking place negatively: do you address it right away rather than enable it?
2. Let’s assume we are all championing and fostering psychologically safe environments – has this changed the demographics of our teams?
3. Ask more questions (open vs closed). Meet people where they are vs what we expect. Design opportunities for others to develop and create space for learning. Learning from others and not assuming what “the right way is” vs the end result being what we’re looking for.
4. Invest in and be intentional with staff introductions to the organisation. Induction is a great place to show an organisation’s commitment to growth and learning for the individual, which starts with psychological safety.
5. Increasing value in educating current members of the organisation to allow future new members to achieve high psychological safety in the early stages of onboarding.
6. Actively recruiting diverse candidates. Creating pathways for diverse candidates (internships, development positions, etc.). Onboarding – the details matter (clothing, name tags, etc).
7. The dichotomy of leadership is meeting where each staff member where they are at emotionally, mentally, and psychologically and making sure each and every staff member is heard and feels safe within the environment while also navigating organisational needs analysis for the greater good.
8. What needs to be considered to ensure an environment provides opportunity for growth individually and as a team?
9. Considering best practices as part of the onboarding process: how do you as coaches support new staff coming in? Having self-awareness. Understanding of ones biases. Build own culture. Support planning. Technical level pitched at right level. What are the unwritten rules? A learning organisation.
10. Look for and “celebrate” both similarities and differences with staff and athletes.
11. Optimising vs maximising. In relation to onboarding, the consideration and evaluation of technical and non-technical skills. Being comfortable with evolution of inclusiveness – what it is today may not be tomorrow.

An article brought to you by our Partners at the

By John Portch

Years – perhaps decades – had passed since the Leaders Performance Institute had last heard of the Y2K scare until it was dredged from the recesses of our mind by UK Sports Institute CEO Matt Archibald.

He is discussing the logistics of the UK Sports Institute [UKSI] changing its name from the English Institute of Sport in April. As part of the process, on the 24 April, the organisation’s website and email addresses changed and its staff entered a short period of downtime to enable those changes to take effect.

“Everything worked like it did across Y2K and nothing dropped out of the sky,” he says, referring to the late-’90s fear across society that digital calendars resetting to ‘00’ on 1 January 2000 might cause havoc. “I did have a flashback on the morning and remembered the millennium,” he adds.

The English Institute of Sport [EIS] was founded shortly after the turn of the millennium, in 2002, to support teams and athletes across the UK’s ‘Home Nations’ – England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

“We routinely send hundreds of our people on secondments with teams or sports to the Olympics and Paralympics,” he continues. “What we all aspire to do is support British sports, teams and athletes that go to the Paralympics and Olympics and perform at their best, and they come from all of the Home Nations. For me, it just helps with that.”

The EIS, and now the UKSI, will continue to work closely with the other home nations to ensure all the support offered is aligned.

The reasons behind what Archibald admits was a “misnomer” are “locked up in the mystique that surrounds the genesis of the Institute”.

“Right from the outset, there was a question mark about the name,” he says.

“People who have been with the organisation for 20 years have sent me screenshots of various documents and items of stationery with the name ‘UKSI’ on them”.

For some people, the misnomer was an important issue and they argued for change.

“A number of voices within the system raised the question again and again when others didn’t see it as a priority”.

Of course, the name change was never the priority – the Institute’s commitment throughout the 2024 Paris cycle was and remains the delivery of ‘outstanding support that enables sports and athletes to excel’ – but the case was vigorously made and the name change was approved by all key stakeholders.

The transition was operationalised in the 12 months before it was announced and, through that process, the other Home Nations sports institutes, namely Sportscotland, Sport Wales and Sport Northern Ireland, offered their full support. “They are all 100% behind us and we do not now supersede them. We might be the scale operator, but they will carry on doing the great work they’ve always done”.

While there is some nostalgia for the era of the EIS, there is undoubtedly greater cohesion with the renaming. “UK Sport [the government agency responsible for investing in Olympic and Paralympic sport in the United Kingdom], the UK Sports Institute, British Olympic Association and British Paralympic Association – we feel it more accurately reflects the Institute’s role as a powerhouse of the British sporting system.”

Speaking of which, the changes to the previous EIS logo are minimal. “We haven’t deviated too far because we did feel that if you change both the logo and the name too much at the same time then you do run the risk of becoming somewhat unrecognisable”.

The EIS logo, characterised as it was by a V shape, has been retained with tweaks to the colours used – red, white and blue – to make it more British. “There was no piece of paper that clarified the original colour scheme and there were lots of stories floating around. One was that the colours were, broadly speaking, although not exactly, the five Olympic colours. There was also a view that the V may be the V for ‘victory’ or maybe a butterfly stroke or maybe the ribbon of a medal.

“Following consideration and reflection with our people, we felt that the ribbon concept chimed with more of our people more strongly in the sense that we see ourselves as an organisation that provides the support and the infrastructure to athletes and sports to help them win.”

“We wouldn’t be comfortable putting the medal on the front and we’re in the background, but the ribbon that holds the medal sits well alongside what the UKSI is going to do and what the EIS has done. So we’ve gone back to that history and that may have driven the original logo and we’ve maintained that. We’ve also changed the colour to have a GB-style red, white and blue, and that can be used online and in some of our physical branding as well”.

The UKSI does not expect its rebranding to have any impact on the quality of the services it provides to the UK’s sports teams and athletes. “Fortunately, we’re a business to business institute that does not serve the general public,” says Archibald. “The risk for us in a name change, with a loss of custom or a loss of recognition, is negligible. For example, we supply to British Swimming and they’re not going to get confused by who we are.

“The high standard of support that we offer to sports and athletes will not change, we are as committed as ever to delivering the quality that we have become known for across the board.”

Archibald explains that an internal working group, in tandem with a small group of consultants, ensured the transition was smooth as the branding was brought up to date and rolled out across all UKSI platforms.

“We see this as a significant piece of work but not one that’s so high risk that we needed to follow a particularly well-beaten path. We’ve done it ourselves and we’re confident that we’ve run a good process and taken everyone with us,” he says.

There is optimism for the future too. “We’ll have a little more confidence as there’s no question mark about why we’re called this or why we aren’t called that and it will enable us to be more confident in how we express ourselves.

“We’re not expecting a 20% performance uplift for the sector at Paris on the basis that we’ve changed our name, but we do see it as a long-term strategic adjustment that will hopefully help us to attract the best people from across the country to work for us, people that weren’t as keen to join the English Institute of Sport as they would the UKSI, especially if they come from the other Home Nations.

“We also feel this could apply to athletes having a greater understanding of who we are and what we do and perhaps make them feel more comfortable acknowledging our work externally if they’re not from England.”

Another aspect that remains unchanged is the often recognised black t-shirts sported by EIS staff when working with teams and athletes. This was important to Charlotte Henshaw, who won gold in the Canoe Sprint women’s KL2 event at the 2020 Tokyo Paralympics.

Upon learning of the EIS’s impending name change from UKSI Communications Manager Grace Cullen, she asked: ‘Will you still be wearing the black t-shirts? That’s all that matters because we see people in black t-shirts and we feel reassured because we know those people, they know what they’re doing, they’re there to support us’.

“We’ve changed our name, we’ve slightly changed our logo, and we will still be in our black kits,” says Archibald. “It does stand out as most UK National Governing Bodies tend to wear red, white and blue and our people have always been in black. It’s nice that athletes recognise that and, for them, it will be business as usual.

“It doesn’t matter if our name is changing, they know UKSI people will be of the same high calibre and will still be there to support them.”

By John Portch

In April, the Rugby Football Union (RFU), Premiership Rugby, Premier 15s and Rugby Players’ Association published an Inclusion and Diversity Action Plan for the elite game.

Jatin Patel, the Inclusion and Diversity Director at the RFU, English rugby union’s governing body, since 2021, was one of a series of individuals who played an instrumental role in devising the Inclusion and Diversity Plan, which is a result of elite game research into racism and classism in the English game.

The project was given added impetus last year when the Newcastle Falcons’ centre Luther Burrell spoke publicly about his experiences of racism and class prejudice.

Patel published a LinkedIn post announcing the plan’s launch. “April went by in a flash. But what a month it was,” he wrote, going on to explain the notable achievements of his “small but mighty team (with a lot of help from our friends!)” managed during the month. In addition to the I&D Plan, they delivered ‘active bystander’ training to RFU Council members, contributed to panel discussions on pride, hate speech and racial equality, and hosted non-governmental bodies and equality, diversity & inclusion leads at Twickenham Stadium during an England women’s international match.

“There is always more to do. But at the heart of everything above is #collaboration. With other colleagues, with passionate leads within the game and with leaders beyond our own sport”.

Patel demonstrated his passion when he came downstairs to speak at the 2022 Leaders Sport Performance Summit at the RFU headquarters in Twickenham Stadium.

He also found time to speak to the Leaders Performance Institute backstage.

What does your role look like on a day-to-day basis?

JP: My role as Inclusion and Diversity Director at the RFU involves looking at all elements of the game. Our strategy has four fundamental pillars and there is no hierarchy. The first I’ll speak about is employees and the board; so what is our organisation? How is it made up? How can we improve, attract, retain and progress diverse talent? The second pillar is around gameplay; community to professional rugby. How do we make the game more inclusive? How do we increase the diversity of players, coaches, officials and people working within the club environment? The third pillar is around our fans, followers and partners. Who are they? What is the content they’re consuming? How are we engaging them in rugby across England? And how are we working better with our partners to understand the efforts they’re making to diversify their own environments but also working with them to scale the impact we want to have and reach more communities? The final piece of that strategy is around our governance. Our volunteer leaders who are elected into positions such as our Council as constituency body reps. Who are they? How do we help them to be more inclusive leaders? And ultimately how do we diversify the talent pool coming into those positions for the future as well?

How does that look on a good day at the office?

JP: On a good day, that means people openly talking about issues around inclusion and diversity. And it might sound simplistic, but sometimes people avoiding talking about diversity because it’s too difficult or the fear of the unknown, certainly the fear of saying the wrong thing, which I can understand to some extent. But on a good day, what you’ll see is people having this conversation in a really open way, showing a bit of vulnerability, being open to the fact that they may not know something and ultimately asking for the guidance, advice and opinions and insights of people who may come from more diverse groups to help them to be better leaders, to make better decisions, to be more inclusive in the way they operate, to make sure that we’re sticking to our ambitions of being more inclusive and diverse.

What are the signs and clues you look for that show that diversity and inclusion is becoming embedded in the fabric of the organisation?

JP: The signs you look for are when leaders at the top of your organisation are building diversity and inclusion into their objectives and their agendas, which is very much the case at the RFU. I think you see it when you start to have clubs within the professional game talking about this on a more regular basis and that’s absolutely happening in rugby right now. Some of those discussions are difficult, but at the same time, talking about them openly and the challenges you are facing. Ultimately, the key indicator everyone’s looking for is: what is the diversity of people participating in the game of rugby? It’s hard to measure that because we haven’t always got the data we want but, ultimately, the day we can do that effectively and we can start to see progress, I guess that’s a really good sign that not only is the game changing to become more diverse, but people are staying in the game. Hopefully that leads to becoming more inclusive as well.

How do you deal with inevitable bumps in the road?

JP: Bumps are always going to occur in this space. It’s a steep learning curve for some. Others are a bit more advanced. There’s probably a big chunk of people in the middle that are still quite new to the inclusion and diversity space but get why it’s important. Bumps; you’ve got to kind of ride them. The more you build inclusion and diversity into your strategic objectives, your strategic thinking, into the commercial plans, the marketing plans you have, the communications plans you have, the performance strategies that you have, the more it becomes normalised and so the bumps become like any other bumps rather than a specific inclusion and diversity bump, one you become more used to riding rather than, at the moment because the fear of the unknown is more heightened. I tend to use bumps also as an opportunity to continue engaging on this topic with many of my colleagues as I possibly can. I think it’s sad to hear stories of discrimination in the game, but if you don’t learn something from them and how to be better as a result of them, it’s not only a missed opportunity, you’re failing the person that experienced that and you might be failing people in the future.

How do you balance long-term and short-term planning in your role?

JP: Balancing the long-term and short-term is probably the biggest challenge in the diversity and inclusion space. I think, depending on public pressure, people, particularly in different positions of influence and leadership, want to see their results overnight. For me, it’s about making sure that all the initiatives we do around the I&D agenda are regular, are digestible, that it can be tangible, not just about raising awareness but what can people do about it. All those short-term activities are designed to increase long-term change and hopefully improve not only the representation of diverse groups in rugby but also the number of inclusive leaders that exist within it as well. Ensuring you make that distinction is really important. Inclusivity, getting it right, and getting inclusive cultures, behaviour and decision-making in place will help diverse groups that are either in the sport today or you’re trying to get into the sport for the future, not only for the sense of belonging but also to flourish and be the best they can in an environment that is being considerate of them. Short-term versus long-term, one automatically leads to the other and it’s just making sure people have the patience and the confidence that they’re going on a journey that will ultimately introduce change.

How important is data in your role?

JP: Data is critical to my role. It’s not always the easiest thing to obtain around the diversity space, primarily because of regulatory issues and also explaining to people why asking for their diversity data is important to their own experience, but also helping the RFU understand the diversity of the game more effectively. It underpins all of the baselines that we have; we have a lot of KPIs and metrics we want to hit over time. Most of them are quite challenging but that’s a good thing. It helps us focus on the issue and we can regularly report on movements in programmes that we’ve got in place or just generally in terms of participation. In that sense, data underpins every good inclusion and diversity strategy and certainly underpins ours here at England Rugby.

Does data help you to identify gaps?

JP: I think it’s more about making sure I use data to demonstrate the impact that we’re having but also to give a picture of the lay of the land, particularly from a diversity perspective. I think it can be used effectively to persuade others as well of the importance of it. For example, participation in rugby is a really key challenge at all levels of the game and making sure that we present data were gaps exist that not only demonstrate the opportunity but also demonstrate the need to act on that. If we’re struggling to get more people engaging and participating in the game and the data says so, we then need to be using that to increase the number particularly from diverse groups going forward and seeing it as an opportunity rather than as an additional project.