By John Portch

Larry Lauer, a Mental Skills Specialist with the United States Tennis Association [USTA], has seen where things have gone wrong in the past.

“Maybe too much mental training in the past has been ‘here’s a few ideas – throw them up against the wall and see what sticks’,” he told the Leaders Performance Podcast in early May.

Off the back of that conversation, where Lauer delved into his work building mental skills and resilience in young players, the Leaders Performance Institute asked him to reflect on his professional development.

What is your biggest strength?

I’d like to say – and I might be wrong, you’ll have to ask people that know me – my ability to learn and adapt. I’m not the smartest person, I don’t have the highest IQ, I don’t have the highest scores on tests, but I think I find a way. Maybe that’s a big part of why I spend so much time on this topic of resilience because I know that tennis is about finding a way. It’s messy, you don’t always get it right, you make mistakes – I’ve made a lot of mistakes – but I think my ability to get back up and find a way to learn and get better has probably been my greatest strength, especially as I wasn’t a professional athlete. I’m not coming into this saying ‘I played ATP and I played in grand slams’ – I don’t have that. So I have to find other ways to connect with these performers, adapt, and be useful to them.

What strength do you admire in others?

The thought that comes up immediately is humility. Someone who is extremely successful and great at what they do and yet humble – that to me is just awesome. They listen to others, they’re interested in others, they empathise as well. I see great coaches doing that, great sports psychologists; you know that this person is great at what they do, but they don’t really talk about themselves. They talk about the team, they talk about what the other person is doing to make them successful versus ‘well I did this, I did that’; and I always try to check myself on that because I think that, in this world, if it becomes so much about you then you’re going to lose it with the players and the coaches because it really isn’t about us.

What is the key to strong teamwork?

Communication. Communication with a shared vision and an understanding of how to reach that vision. The tension points, the challenges, getting through them. We just had one yesterday and we disagreed within the team on whether or not a player should play a tournament – and we worked it out – we decided the approach and we’re all aligned on how we’re going to move forward. To me, that’s teamwork, because you’re not always going to agree and you have to be able to work together towards the common goal and that requires a lot of communication. My friend Ed Ryan who heads up our athletic training and medicine always says ‘communication is the solution and also the root of all problems’. It’s a great way of thinking about it.

How will you look to get stronger in your role?

By surrounding myself with really good people who ask good questions and demand more of me is important. Fortunately, I work with mental coaches who do that on a regular basis, which has been amazing for me as well as other good friends outside of the USTA. And then the coaching staff. I find that when I’m talking to them I’m trying to understand from their eyes and their perspective: how is this making my player better? What are you giving me that’s going to make a difference? Sometimes me getting frustrated with myself because I don’t know how to communicate that or I can’t clearly see the plans. Then I need to go back, reflect on that, and get back to work and say ‘here’s the steps, here’s what we’ve got to do’. So I think it’s being around really good people and having those conversations and then as you branch out, it’s why I’ve really enjoyed Leaders, you can meet really good people and have these types of conversations that I’m not even thinking about; it wasn’t top of mind at that point. Different ideas, different perspectives. To me, looking for different ways to learn. Reading: I try to read something every morning, attending sessions like Leaders’ and other organisation’s, and then being surrounded by really good people. And then not being afraid to take a chance. Trying to find different ways. ‘Maybe this is a little way outside the box but let’s see if it can work, and if it doesn’t, we’ll sit inside the parking lot and maybe come up with a better way of doing it or we’ll leave it alone’. But we have to continue to find ways to get better or we get behind.

To hear more from Larry Lauer, listen below:

John Portch: Twitter | LinkedIn

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

By Sarah Evans

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How a Coach Can Begin to Improve their Communication Skills

Framing the topic

In this Member Case Study format of our Virtual Roundtables, Rachel Vickery, one of our Performance Advisors and expert in human behaviour and performance, spoke about communicating effectively in highly pressurised environments. Rachel specialises in working within high pressure, high stakes environments, and looks to understand what happens to high performers within these situations from the perspective of the human stress response, and how this shows up, and impacts performance.

One thing Vickery was keen to stress to start with, is that irrespective of the arena of performance, whether it be a team sport, individual, or not even sport-related, a common factor is the human stress response. It is primal, survival-driven, and we all have it.

Consequences of the human stress response on communication​

• Part of the natural stress response is humans become more withdrawn, defensive, ‘me’-focused, hear feedback as criticism or as an attack, blame orientated; ‘our stuff flies out sideways at others.​
• Body language will also change. Mammals in nature under threat make themselves look bigger to look more threatening, increase tension in face, neck and jaw, breathing lifts into upper chest. ​We do the same, and it is often subconscious.

​Your body language and ‘vibe’ will impact those around you  ​

• The strongest energy will determine the vibe. Sometimes that’s not a good thing. Teams will model the behaviour of coaches and leaders within the team, so it’s important to recognise the energy leaders in the team are giving out.
• Emotionally intelligent leaders need to set the energy through their communication.  Learn to control your state. g.sideline coach or coach’s box. Making the players feel calm, reassured and centred.
• It is important to understand the energy you as a leader bring to any interactions. If you are stressed, how does this present in your body language? If there is a breakdown in communication, think to yourself, ‘am I bringing something into this interaction?’
• Understand how you show up under pressure. Notice what is happening in your body, can you be aware of it and try to put things in place to adapt? Practise this in low threat / low pressure environments.​

Keep the performance critique to the hot wash  ​

• In the heat of the moment, verbal input needs to be forward-moving, using action-orientated language, not abusive or blaming.​ Criticism here is not helpful, the athlete is not thinking rationally and needs action orientated communication.
• After the game you can pull the performance apart and go into detail, because there is the time and space to do so.

The trust you need in the pressure moment is earned away from pressure  ​

• Are you someone who builds others up, brings out the best in them and sets them up for success?  ​
• Or do you let your ‘stuff’ fly out sideways at others?​
• If you are volatile and other’s don’t know how you are going to act, the athlete might anticipate your reaction and operate from a sense of fear rather than belonging. If they operate from a place of fear, they are more likely to tense up and make more mistakes.
• The athlete needs to know in that critical moment that you have their back to give them the freedom to perform to their best.

Self-communication​

• Self-talk needs to be true if it’s to be effective.  ​
• False self-talk undermines your confidence as your brain knows you’re lying.​ The self-talk needs to be accurate. If it is true and it is earnt that is when you will feel confident.
• If the self-talk is action-focused and forward-moving, that can be the most effective. One example from Dan Caine, Director of Special Teams for the US military was to ‘stay frosty’, meaning to stay calm, which is a great way of centring and focusing on the job at hand.

The main overarching point Vickery stressed was that in pressure moments, most people need to feel like someone has their back, that someone believes in them, and their performance is part of something bigger than themselves.​ If, as leaders you can instil this into the players and create that trust away from the pressure, you will be able to build a deep connection and work effectively under stress.

Attendee takeaways

• The importance of de-escalation techniques: body language and breathing.
• Grow your people as the person not just the performer. I also love the action-oriented language idea – it will keep me ‘present’.
• Continue to work on your own reactivity.
• The trust that you need is earned away from the pressure moment.
• Understanding that pressure is easily transferred, so have clear strategies to cope and de-escalate.
• Earning trust away from the pressure environment.
• Spend time to self-reflect but also within your group spend time to ensure alignment of message and reviewing current strategies.
• Immediate, calm and forward-moving talk.
• The strongest energy in the room is going to determine the vibe of the team – how can we leverage that as leaders?
• How to use your body language to calm and diffuse a reactive environment.
• Do the prep work around communication away from a high pressure context.
• How do you deal with the moments that catch you off guard? They often are the moments that can earn or lose respect and trust.
• Do we have consideration and agreement on the ‘vibe’ we want e.g. calm or high energy in the changing room?
• Once we’ve considered education and application of these strategies, how do we maintain it?
• Practise techniques with those close to you to see responses in order to develop your own communication and body language to have the positive impact you want.
• Build trust and know your people; being prepared helps in dealing with difficult situations. Self-awareness.
• How can I create opportunities for our staff teams to reflect and build self-awareness more regularly around their own energy and the impact of that on the groups they interact with?
• Self-talk needs to be true if it’s to be effective; building a barrier of confidence for ‘game-day’.

By John Portch

“I don’t know how common it is per se – there are moments when I regret it!”

Zach Brandon, the Mental Skills Coordinator at Major League Baseball’s Arizona Diamondbacks, tells the Leaders Performance Institute that he is currently studying for a masters in Organizational Leadership at Arizona State University.

“There is never a perfect time to begin a new course, but it’s been cool because it’s put me outside my comfort zone,” he says. “It’s very much more business and organizational leadership-driven, but the work and research I’ve been able to do as part of it, has enabled me to see and learn what people are doing in these other settings and where I think there is a lot of potential transfer or application to sports settings.”

One such example is the practice of job crafting. “In essence, job crafting allows staff to customize some of their tasks and responsibilities in ways that might be more meaningful and aligned with their personal values,” Brandon continues. “I find this practice fascinating because it creates opportunities for staff to develop range in their roles and positively impact the organization in ways beyond their traditional job description.”

The Diamondbacks’ Mental Skills Department has experienced job crafting first-hand. “Although our main responsibility is providing mental performance training for our players, we’ve been able to slowly expand our reach to other facets of the organization, including injury rehab, coach development, scouting, and business operations.”

The question of employee wellness is another that is influencing Brandon’s work in the clubhouse. He says: “Building a robust, systematic, and preventative approach to employee wellness requires that leaders address policies, practices, and perspectives in their organizational culture.

“Perspective begins with organizational values and addressing if, and how, employee wellbeing is prioritized in the culture. This requires that leaders and staff be intentional and progressive with their language surrounding mental health.”

He says it is important that coaches and leaders recognize that their personal wellbeing can influence those around them. “Research has even shown that coaches with elevated stress levels can negatively affect the mental health of their athletes. At the end of the day, coaches and leaders need to model how to appropriately invest in one’s mental health and wellbeing. ‘Do as I say, not as I do’ doesn’t work. Athletes and fellow staff will look to their leaders for guidance in these areas so it’s not something that coaches can afford to ignore.

“Ultimately, leaders play a pivotal role in showing those they serve that self-care isn’t selfish. In reality, supporting wellbeing and resilience for your employees is really a competitive advantage, especially with the ever-increasing uncertainty and complexity found in work environments, which often lead to stress. Leaders should aim to install comprehensive prevention strategies within their organizations rather than rely on reactive support as issues arise.

Brandon explains that it is important that coaches and leaders establish a safe and supportive environment for athletes and staff to discuss mental health – a key step to normalizing it. “Enhancing policies might include ensuring that staff have trusted and affordable mental health and wellbeing resources available to them, and their families, or opportunities for temporary flexibility as it relates to scheduling and the location of their work.” he says.

“Practices could include initiatives that strengthen peer-to-peer support, such as mentorship programs or community groups; promoting personal development, with continuing education and training as prime examples; and encouraging physical and mental wellness through initiatives such as meditation classes.

“Additionally, research suggests that athletes, particularly at the elite level, perceive coaches as less effective when stressed.”

Beyond leaders, Brandon argues that mental wellness needs to be ingrained into the fabric of an organisation’s culture and not treated simply as a program. “It can’t just include initiatives where employees participate in exercise challenges, yoga or mindfulness classes or company-run social events – expecting staff to participate in activities and wellbeing initiatives outside of their normal workday is an inadequate approach to promoting mental wellness.

“I am interested in how you can promote those wellness questions within the margins. All of those activities I describe do influence a person’s wellbeing, but a significant portion of people’s daily stressors are a product of their actual work environment and the demands placed on them. In addition to these activities, organizations would be wise to identify the on-the-job stressors that staff experience and design resources, or support, accordingly.

“It’s been interesting to think about things from a more organizational and system-wide perspective. It’s not just the idea of how things apply with one particular team but across a collective organization. Most organizations want to develop resilience. We want to develop resilience too, not only within individuals but within sub-teams and the organization as a whole. Leaders are architects of organizational culture and, thus, play a critical role in cultivating resilience and wellbeing for those serving the organization.

“Learning about the role leaders can play in this process has been interesting and offers a valuable opportunity for organizations to invest in their people.”

Download the latest Performance Special Report, Staying Agile: Managing Disruption and Optimising Preparation During the Pandemic – detailing the work of the English Institute of Sport with its teams and athletes.

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By John Portch

When it comes to learning there is still a notable discrepancy between sport and the corporate world, where executive coaching has become the norm.

More than half of FSTE 100 CEOs are believed to use an executive coach. “The senior leaders of those organisations recognise the need to find time to step away, reflect and be coached,” says Dave Slemen, the Founder of Elite Performance Partners [EPP], a search, selection and advisory firm working across elite sport and specialising in performance.

“The number of CEOs, head coaches or performance directors in sport using coaches is not that high – we did our own research. It’s interesting that it’s a cultural shift that needs to be made within sport. I wonder how important it is in terms of that organisational purpose and culture that has an impact on learning.”

Slemen opens the floor to Scott Drawer, the Director of Sport at Millfield School in Somerset, and Simone Lewis, who currently works as a Technical Leadership Expert with Fifa.

The panel came together for this EPP Webinar, titled Creating Effective Learning Organisations, to discuss why organisations that prioritise learning are gaining a critical competitive edge.

Leaders Performance Institute members logged in from across the globe to hear the trio discuss the creation of learning cultures, tips to ensure your staff are continually engaged in self-development, and useful models of feedback to ensure that learning is captured and applied.

You need to make learning happen

Often sports organisations talk about learning but there needs to be a concerted effort to ensure your coaches and staff are continuously engaged. “It’s no different to training an athlete,” says Drawer, whose background includes time spent working for UK Sport, England Rugby and the Team Sky Innovation Hub.

“You’re fundamentally trying to change your memory state. There’s some underlying physiology and neuroscience that drives that. You’re trying to drive information and behaviours from short-term memory to long-term memory; and there’s some tools and techniques to do that based on really good pedagogy.

“The way I describe it: the best coaches we have are often the best teachers; and the best teachers can be the best coaches. We often forget some of this foundational knowledge that exists in pedagogy and andragogy.”

Drawer’s time away from sport has helped him to coalesce his thoughts. “If you’re really serious about this, you have to be deliberate and focused about it and create time to let it happen,” he continues. “You have to really think about how you’re going to structure those opportunities.”

The role of leaders in creating a culture of learning

“It’s very hard to have a learning culture if it’s not enforced by senior leaders,” says Lewis, who is an advocate of role modelling. “You can learn as an individual without [necessarily] being in a learning culture.” It is complex, although Drawer outlines some tips for teams looking to develop a culture of learning. “You have to feel safe and supported as an individual where you’re not going to be ridiculed for asking questions or questioning the norm. At lot of that starts with the leadership in any organisation,” he says.

“‘Psychological safety’ is used in lots of contexts, but you have to feel it. Equally, an individual has to feel vulnerable enough to want to expose themselves. All of that is around that principle of safety. Once you have that, it’s then around the support that you put around them. If I’m going to ask a question, I’m given freedom to explore it.”

Lewis has also found that leaders often need help when structuring difficult conversations. “Giving and receiving feedback is hard,” she says. “Using things like ‘greens and reds’ and neutral language, always starting with the positives, and then following up with the things that can be improved upon. ‘You and me agree’ is another one. ‘You go first, what do you think?’ then I offer my opinion and we discuss it rather than me as your boss diving in with feedback. BAR is another one: behaviour, affect, request. Using the ‘affect’ and ‘it makes me feel’ can be really powerful for giving and receiving feedback to bring about learning and change.”

Inevitably, as Slemen points out, some people will be resistant to change, either openly or secretly and he asks Drawer how he might overcome such reluctance. “I need to understand why they’re resistant,” says Drawer. “There could be some fundamental psycho-behavioural reasons why that’s the case because of their previous learning experiences.

“My experience is that the brilliant people, the brilliant leaders I’ve worked with in a number of domains, they make you feel safe to go and explore.”

Learning is not a case of cause-and-effect, so time and support are both requisites. “That means better resources, that means putting time aside, that means having a leadership that recognise your next competitive advantage is going to be in that space.”

Help people to self-reflect

Lewis explains that the key to supporting individuals in their learning is to raise their self-awareness and helping them to self-reflect. She says: “It’s about helping them reflect on what they know, how they learn.” There are a number of tools freely available and Lewis suggests the ‘so what? /now what?’ model as an example. “‘Everything’s gone on, so what have I learnt? And then the key question is what am I going to do about it? What am I going to do differently? What am I going to implement?’” she continues. “If you’ve had a whole season let alone a whole game it’s about distilling the key learning and what I’m going to take forward. Build a habit and a system of capturing that and sharing it, if that’s relevant, whether that’s sticky notes, voice mails or old-fashioned note-taking – find a way that works for you.”

Learning experiences need to be designed and tested. Says Drawer: “If I knew intervention X would definitely give me Y, I would be doing it all the time and that’s not the real world. You need to try lots of things and see how individuals respond.”

Teaching curiosity

Studies around andragogy – adult learning – demonstrate that adults need to see immediate value when learning. “You’ve got to find ways of making that happen,” says Drawer. “If you feel supported in doing that, that will just evolve over time. If you encourage the opportunity for people to question because they genuinely want to understand, and then create the space, we can test an idea and explore it.”

Lewis suggests that mentoring, including support for those who have never worked with mentors before, is important. As is peer to peer learning and communities of practice. “We’re social animals, we learn together, but in terms of adding a bit of structure around a project, say, with a group of people in your organisation, [it helps to use] action learning principles or just giving a little guidance around how to define the problem better, how to be creative in brainstorming solutions for how to move forward with a project.” That way people learn, solve a problem, and become better leaders in the process.

Maintaining a long-term learning lens

Performance is always the inevitable focus, so how can teams and individuals retain a lens on learning when the pressure to obtain results begins to tell? “I’d never polarise one or the other,” says Drawer, who puts himself in the position of a coach. “Of course, you’ve got to win, but there are still opportunities to learn, there are still coaching moments and it’s therefore probably the time and effort you spend on that versus the reality of trying to get an outcome. Whatever you do, even if you’re focusing on one thing, there’s still opportunities to do that. You just have to acknowledge that’s the reality of that environment that you’re then in.”

He believes that leaders need to be pragmatic when trying to exploit learning opportunities when everything is what he terms “full gas”. “There are ways that we can capture and sort this unstructured data so that you don’t miss the moments of long-term opportunity,” he says. “Every time you’re having a conversation, all that unstructured data, body behaviour, language – all of that is quality information that you can learn from. By the time you get to the end of the season, when you’re doing a full debrief, you can pull on it and extract themes; and that might help you move.”

Staff learning can also be periodised, just as training might be for athletes. Drawer discusses psychology theory about how leaders can structure learning opportunities, but preaches patience. “It can take you a year to understand the rhythms and culture of the organisation / ecosystem you’re going into,” he says. “Anyone coming in will need that and be able to recognise when those opportunities are and when you’re most likely to be in a position where your brain is free, you’re not cognitively loaded, and you’re ready to do those things.”

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Written summary here.

Dr Scott Drawer, the Director of Sport, at Millfield School in Somerset, argues that humans are born to learn.

“It’s evolutionary – if you look at how everything started and how we survived – learning is what enabled you to progress and move on. We’re now in a hyper-connected world and there’s more information available than there has ever been,” he says.

“But sometimes the day job is a blocker to that and we need to recognise that to progress and move on, and evolve, it’s a fundamental part of survival.”

Drawer is joined by Simone Lewis, who currently works as a Technical Leadership Expert with Fifa, and Dave Slemen, the Founder of Elite Performance Partners [EPP] to discuss why learning organisations are gaining a critical competitive edge as part of EPP’s Creating Effective Learning Organisations Webinar.

Leaders Performance Institute members logged in from across the globe to hear the trio discuss the creation of learning cultures, tips to ensure your staff are continually engaged in self-development, and useful models of feedback to ensure that learning is captured and applied.

Man’s Search for Meaning: The classic tribute to hope from the Holocaust by Viktor Frankl

McFarland says: “This book really touched me emotionally and I read it at a time in my life where learning the importance of having a meaningful purpose and diving headlong into living that purpose was critical.”

Mindset: Changing the way you think to fulfil your potential by Carol Dweck

McFarland says: “Understanding the basis of growth and learning as the willingness to challenge yourself and that that is a great thing.”

More on Mindset here.

The Score Takes Care of Itself: My philosophy of leadership by Bill Walsh with Steve Jamison & Craig Walsh

McFarland says: “I am not sure that I am at all the kind of coach the great Bill Walsh was but I loved the detail and accountability he developed in the setting up of the 49ers machine.”

More on The Score Takes Care of Itself here.

Eleven Rings: The soul of success by Phil Jackson and Hugh Delehanty

McFarland says: “Phil Jackson totally understood how important context is to leadership. He demonstrates empathy in equal measure to strong decision making.”

More on Phil Jackson here.

Team of Teams: New rules of engagement for a complex world by General Stanley McChrystal

McFarland says: “McChrystal was able to see the need for change within the military operating systems in modern warfare. He implemented change from traditional military hierarchy to distributed leadership – this level of change in conceptual thinking is mind-blowing to me.”

More from the McChrystal Group here.

A Industry Insight brought to you by our partners Science in Sport.

“I always say: everyone is always excited for someone else to change,” says Jeremy Bettle, with a wry smile. “It’s always difficult when you have to deliver that to the person who has to change.”

The Performance Director at MLS champions New York City FC is the first guest on the Science in Sport Industry Insight podcast series, where he joins the Leaders Performance Institute Editor John Portch and Science in Sport’s Director of Performance Solutions James Morton to discuss his first season at the club, which culminated in the championship.

Bettle spoke to the pair about his arrival in the Big Apple, with Morton sharing from his own experiences of working with seven-time Tour de France winners Team Sky/INEOS Grenadiers and in English Premier League football.

Also on the conversational agenda were:

• Why Bettle feels he has not always handled change management well in the past [4:00];
• The difference between comfort and complacency in winning teams [14:00];
• The reasons why people management are often at the centre of innovation [20:00];
• Why enjoyment should be a practitioner’s personal priority [22:00];
• Reflective practice and how different questions can change mindsets [29:00].

James Morton: Twitter | LinkedIn

John Portch: Twitter | LinkedIn

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

An episode of the Industry Insight Series brought to you by our Partners

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“Those first few years really did fast-track my development in management,” says Matt White, who was the Head Sport Director of cycling’s Team BikeExchange Jayco for 15 years, and now holds the position of Director of High Performance & Racing.

“Those first couple of years set me in a really good position to go through some pretty tricky times later in my career.”

White is speaking to the Leaders Performance Institute and Elite Performance Partners’ [EPP] Founding Partner Dave Slemen about his transition from professional rider to management over the course of a single winter in 2007 and 2008.

He also discussed how he has adapted as a leader in the intervening period, particularly in light of cycling’s pivot towards younger riders and an ever more cutthroat development environment.

By John Portch

“The whole idea of self-development, leadership and learning is such a passion of mine,” Jon Bartlett tells the Leaders Performance Institute.

Within a few minutes, the Elite Basketball Performance & Program Operations Advisor at the NBA explains just how interconnected people development, people management and process development is.

When each is done poorly, there tends to be common themes, such as a lack of investment in people, a lack of clarity, misalignment, and fear of challenging the status quo. These return time and again throughout our conversation and Bartlett cites the distinction between ‘discussion’ and ‘dialogue’ in making his case.

“In sport, we often skip the idea of engaging in dialogue – that is being open to and listening with intent to everyone’s viewpoint, willing to understand their perspectives, place value in their backgrounds and their experience – and instead we go straight to the discussion/debate narrative. Without recognising it, the situation quickly becomes a ‘me versus you’ with the actual problem not being addressed or solved.

In the first instalment of our two-part interview, we explore the steps teams can take to promote better people development, people management and process development.

Jon, what is the first step leaders can take towards creating shared understanding, language, meaning, vision and clarity within their teams?

JB: The obvious one, and it’s easier said than done, is making it visible. Does everyone know what the plan and strategy is? Is it evident within the environment you’re working in on a daily basis? Is there alignment between the owners, the board, the GM, coach, performance director and then all the different verticals underneath? Are there routine checkpoints along the way to determine progress or is it just an annual check-in to see how it’s going against the plan? Are there actual processes and opportunities to review the plan as it’s happening and emerging? Is the work of those who are non-athlete facing and those who are athlete facing aligned to the wider goals? Are the actions and words consistent? It’s easy to put words up on a wall, but are the actual actions and behaviours aligned with those?

How can goals and values be effectively communicated to staff members?

JB: It’s about taking people on a journey. In an ideal world they’re somewhat part of the conversation, or involved some way in developing the goals and values. This way you likely get to the point easily and quickly around how those values are embodied. For big staff groups though where this isn’t always possible there are opportunities through behavioural frameworks. If you’ve got a certain set of values and behaviours in which we’re going to operate, what are the actions that embody those values? And how can you live those on a daily basis? I think in having that shared language and that shared understanding, the co-creation and sharing of that responsibility, you’re then reaching all the different verticals. There are many ways to achieve this but, ultimately, I think the more people involved in the process the more buy-in and engagement there is early on.

What about the role of those below the leaders?

JB: To achieve alignment, the heads of department are critical in sharing the values, the language, and the processes. One thing I’ve thought about hard is giving flexibility to staff on how they do their work and how it contributes to the bigger picture. Empower and allow them to carry out how they do their job on a daily basis, but then collectively identify how that work contributes to the bigger picture. Now you’re meeting them in the middle. That is key to that alignment. If it’s just being told constantly, ‘this is what you need to do, this is how you need to do it’. I don’t want to work like that. Flip it around: the work you want to do and how you’re doing it; how is that contributing to the bigger picture? What  piece of the puzzle are you in contributing to the overall strategy? It’s both top-down and bottom-up.

How can organisations track both progress and the development of behaviours?

JB: You always want to be able to track if something is going in the right direction through constant touchpoints on where it’s at, what’s the progress, where’s it getting to, but it’s also a case of tracking what isn’t working as well, what needs to be dropped. So, I like the idea of asking how do we spend our time? And what are we spending our time on? Then you’re almost thinking what’s the problems we’re trying to deal with? Are we asking the right questions? Are we trying to solve the right problems? If you haven’t got the initial plan, vision and strategy, then what are you actually tracking? I think that’s key: you’ve got to have the first part first in order to then track your progress along that lifecycle.

What are some of the signs of poor process management?

JB: This is really talking now to how things are done, the methods in which we account for planning, ideation, creation, implementation, review and evaluation. I think, done poorly, there’s gaps at every stage. Done well, there might be one or two ‘getting there’ stages, which might need tweaking. Done great, there are processes and frameworks contributing to every step of that process, it’s a well-oiled machine and it effectively contributes to decision making. For example, if there’s no review or evaluation of a process, then there’s very little learning happening. And no learning means the same thing is being done over and over; when you want different results and you do the same thing it’s basically insanity. In sport, if you do the same thing over and over, recruit the same, go through the same cycle and expect different results, nothing changes. One of the themes that I think interchangeably gets regarded as poor staff incompetence is just poor process management. Sometimes, it just needs better oversight and better management of the process and then often this can lead to better action plans and development for staff.

Change often comes during losing streaks, periods of staff turnover and other turmoil. How can teams begin to find opportunities in those moments?

JB: You’ve got to ask: what’s the problem? What’s the question we’ve got to ask ourselves? Change is inevitable in sport, it’s a constant. That’s why I think context becomes so important. To get a group of people to work together towards a common goal you have to ask: was there even a common goal established at the start? If there wasn’t, then that’s the problem, not necessarily the people underneath, because they didn’t necessarily know what they were doing. The opportunity is there to ask the right questions and if you don’t know what the questions are then get people in to help ask those questions and find out what the problem is. Subsequent to that, all staff have the opportunity to be a part of something. What do you want your role to be in this and how are you going to contribute to it in terms of turning it around and changing it? Some people will be ‘I’m out of here, I’m done’. Some people don’t have the choice. But in a way, you’ve got to come back to: what is the problem? Poor results isn’t the problem, that’s the outcome. You’ve got to find out what’s leading to those poor results. Context is key and that’s the opportunity.

What is the right way to win over stubborn people within a team?

JB: We are talking here in the context of change, I guess, and with that how you go about convincing someone with a certain mindset and philosophy of practice tweaking how they do things, so they’re aligned to how an organisation or department wants to operate. The first thing is learning about what their perspectives are, what their background and experience is and what their modus operandi is. Gaining understanding of this means building a relationship and respecting that background. Equally it provides the opportunity of asking: ‘how can their background, practice, methodology, philosophy contribute to us trying to answer this problem?’ You want to get to a place where you get them to come up with a solution of how they contribute to the actual problem as opposed to saying, ‘this is where we’re going and this is where we need you to operate.’ Again, it comes down to that ‘dialogue versus discussion’ concept. They might not agree with the vision, strategy and pathway, which might mean a separation of ways, but if they are engaged then for me it’s about identifying with that individual how they align and operate the agreed vision and philosophy of the department.

A Human Performance article brought to you by our Main Partners

By Sarah Evans

Recommended listening/reading

Keiser Podcast: How Leaders Can Overcome Resistance to Change

How to Create Energy in Athletes Performing Under Great Scrutiny

Framing the topic

This was session two of our new Performance Support Series, which focused on exploring the topic of ‘Making Wellbeing A Core Component Of Your Organisational Culture’, led by Dr Meg Popovic. In the last session, Meg explored culture, wellbeing and learning through an organisational / systems lens. In this session we delved into the ‘Team of Teams’ phase of Meg’s framework and the thinking of relational intelligence through subcultural understanding. There is one more session to follow, and across all of the sessions, we will look to explore three questions: how do you see? What do you see? How do you use what you see to make it better?

What is a ‘subculture’?

• Commonalities individuals share with one another – guidelines of social behaviour, overarching values that guide and reflect behaviour, known symbols (to the people within) and modes of operation that convey meaning to persons in shared system
• A smaller, more manageable unit of that culture as a whole, and differs from parent culture by embracing certain attributes. Thus, there are clear differences and specific commonalities between subcultural norms, values in the broader culture.
• Individuals of a subculture are socialised to adopt cultural definitions and perspectives, and to assert cultural identity and sense of community. They validate identity from each other and present themselves to the external society.
• Within a subculture there are varying degrees of commitment to the core of subcultural identity.
• Individuals who express high level of commitment are known as the ‘ideal type’.
• Subcultural criteria creates feeling of belonging and shared commonality. It also defines boundaries between insiders and those on the periphery.

How does this work in high performance sport?

If you want to design a new role, and have it contribute to something you’re already doing, how do you know what is possible and how do you know it will work? Ask yourself, what is the outcome I / you / we want to seek?

Success in this is when the leader hits the mark on the programme or process of the subculture. Failure, or when it falls flat, is when you’ve missed something or missed the mark within the subculture.

Meg Popovic: ‘Today we become team of team ethnographers tasked with investigating staff subcultures using this framework’:

1. How do you see?
2. What do you see?
3. How do you use what you see to make it better?

What is Relationship Systems Intelligence?

• The ability to interpret oneself as an expression of the system.
• What happens is not only personal but it also belongs to the system.

The ‘third entity’: Imagine each staff system is a living organism, a collection of parts.

• It has a life of itself, an identity that people feed into.
• The essence that emerges as an expression of the relationship or system – the voice of the system
• What is created as a function of interactions (experiences, events, behaviours etc.) in a relationship or system – the space between and among people.
• The ‘more’ in the more than the sum of the parts.

Group exercise

Step 1: Pick TWO staff departments.

Step 2: Subcultural analysis. Explore subcultures of two sub groups, think about the following for each sub group.

1. SKILLS: 1-2 capacities to be great at tasks in role
2. QUALIFICATIONS: Professional and education to obtain roles in department.
3. TIME: Busiest? Most free? Most stressful?
4. LONGEVITY: Length of time working for Club?
5. COLLECTIVE HISTORY: Describe the department 10 years ago?
6. PASSION: What are they most passionate about?
7. CREATIVE: If you could give this department a song, what would it be?

The shadow

The framework that is dragged behind, that which is in the background, seen or unseen, acknowledged or not acknowledged, but there is gold in there too.

Part of the growth process is shining light on the dark parts, and not being ashamed of those dark parts or making them wrong, but instead bringing them in and integrating them. This can happen on an individual level or on a group level.

Step 3: Deeper subcultural work – ask the following questions for the same two sub groups.

1. KNOWLEDGE: What is the wisdom this group holds for the club?
2. STATUS: How is success gauged within this group? What makes someone an outsider in this group?
3. SHADOW: What are a few qualities within this staff group’s collective shadow?
4. CONFLICT: What is the DREAM BEHIND THE COMPLAINT within the broader club environment?

Task before next session: Next Level Leadership – The Wellbeing 1%

Do one small thing for each department (or someone in the department) that honours who they are. Recall the dream behind the complaint, and think about what would connect with them. It doesn’t have to be a grand gesture, just something small, but we all know we operate in a world where the 1 per cent matters. Bring back to our group later this month to celebrate with each other.