Gareth Southgate ponders the question: what does the term ‘resilience’ mean to him?

By John Portch

“I would say the ability to withstand and respond to difficulties, setbacks,” he says, adding: “I’ve never thought of defining it before. I have a picture in my head of what it would look like.”

What is that picture? “It looks like King Canute on the beach with all the waves crashing in and him standing there trying to keep everything out – or probably me playing at Anfield a few times with Crystal Palace – that’s what it looks like!”

Canute the Great, the 11^th Century King of Denmark, Norway and England, failed to keep the advancing tide at bay in the apocryphal tale, yet history records that Southgate won 2-1 with Palace on his first trip to play Liverpool at Anfield in November 1991. No doubt his next two visits – 5-0 and 6-1 Palace defeats – are uppermost in his mind at this point.

The England men’s Head Coach, direct from his home in Yorkshire, logged on to record an episode of the Rules of the Game podcast with Leaders’ Founder Jimmy Worrall ahead of his team’s Euro 2020 campaign. Several months later, as we bring this chat to the Leaders Performance Hub, it feels poignant to be discussing resilience following England’s progression to the final, where they narrowly lost 3-2 on penalties to Italy at Wembley Stadium.

England, with the youngest squad in the tournament, went one better than their semi-final appearance at the 2018 World Cup in Russia – no mean feat given that the previous five decades yielded just three semi-final appearances for England’s men. If their technical and tactical progression continues under Southgate and his staff, there is hope that the team will be genuine contenders at the 2022 World Cup in Qatar. They will also need to put their heartbreaking defeat to Italy behind them, tapping into their resilience in the process.

Of resilience, Southgate explains that he considers it a skill like any other. “Without doubt, I think it’s developed over time,” he says before highlighting a significant distinction. “With lots of skills and attributes, you can develop, read and educate yourself, you can study. But I think, in the end, this type of attribute, you have to suffer, I’m afraid, to really develop it, understand it, and recognise its importance.” Unwittingly, the World Cup in Russia and the Euros have afforded both the coach and his players ample opportunity to ‘suffer’ and the question now is: what happens next?

Springing back

‘Resilience’ derives from the Latin ‘resilio’, which means ‘ to spring back’ and, throughout his playing and coaching career, Southgate has endured numerous setbacks and, in every case, has sprung back in better shape, whether personally or at a team level.

“Without a doubt, I think people can help you through the process and give you an understanding of what you’ve actually experienced; and that would be a good idea for developing athletes or coaches,” he says, “but I think, in the end, [resilience] is about how you respond and the things you take from those different experiences.”

Southgate endured his most noted setback towards the end of Euro 96, a tournament where he had consistently been one of England’s best performers. In England’s semi-final penalty shootout with eventual winners Germany, Southgate’s penalty was saved by German goalkeeper Andreas Köpke. The defeat came in an era where mass media scrutiny was strong, but nowhere near on the levels of the internet and social media age.

A quarter of a century later, and having been in English sport’s most high-profile coaching role for almost five years, Southgate feels the public gaze more intensely than at any point during a playing career that saw him play for Crystal Palace, Aston Villa and Middlesbrough in the English Premier League and represent England on 57 occasions. He admits it can affect him but tries to make light of that fact. “The reality is that every now and then we’ll Google what’s going on and see what’s there, have a little peek, then curl up in a ball and try and hide from it!

“In the old days, it was just the newspapers; that was difficult, but they went to print at 11 o’clock and you had at least a day before they came again. Now, within 30 seconds of something happening, there’s this instant social media reaction, which means, to stay balanced and calm, is even more important than ever. The conversations that used to happen in the pub, that you didn’t hear after a game, now happen and they’re out there and other people pick them up, the rest of the media pick them up, and they become the questions that are asked of you or the narrative that exists. I think the world of sport is far more dynamic and intrusive than it’s ever been and I don’t see that reverting back, frankly. It’s going to be where we are now and probably further beyond.”

Staying ‘balanced and calm’, as he puts it, can be easier said than done. A vital stage in Southgate’s own development was recognising the link between his resilience and his wellbeing. “What I recognise about myself is that if I feel in a good place, that my own wellbeing is in a good place in terms of sleep, exercise, then in actual fact I feel stronger to take those things on and less affected by it. If I’m not sleeping well and I’ve been travelling a lot, if I’m rundown, I’m not physically in as good a place, I find that can affect my mood a little bit more and then I’ve got to be careful with my decision making.

“I’m very aware of my own personal state and [I am] able to control that and react to that a little bit more and put things into perspective better as I get older.”

Southgate has always expressed an appetite for self-development and, having been sacked from his first coaching role with Middlesbrough in 2009, began rebuilding his coaching career within the auspices of the Football Association, initially as Head of Elite Development, then as Head Coach of the England men’s under-21s, before taking the senior men’s team, first in a caretaker capacity and then, seven weeks later, in November 2016, as a permanent appointment.

As Head Coach, he has attended a series of courses where wellbeing and resilience have been the focus, including one at UK Sport. “What really interested me was that the first part of all of these courses was about knowing yourself, and I hadn’t really considered that. At first I thought: ‘what are we doing here? Why are we going into this?’ and then as I got through probably the third time of doing it suddenly the penny dropped. That understanding of how you react, your responses in certain situations, until you’ve got that real awareness, until you can look after yourself, then how can you realistically…” he tails off as his thoughts shift to the upcoming Euros.

“We’re going into a major championship now, probably 45 days away. My energy levels and how I am have got to be spot-on to be able to affect the group. If I can’t have my own awareness and be in a good place and in control of those things, then it’s very difficult to affect others to the best possible level. I think going on those courses, having an understanding of that, so that I can recognise those moments was important.”

He gradually overcame his initial scepticism. “I was expecting gimmicky solutions or really scientific, modern solutions but, actually, I’ve not heard anything that’s been more helpful than probably things that we’ve done for centuries on sleep, recovery, nutrition, perhaps breathing exercises, meditation, those types of things. Whenever I’ve sat and people have been delivering a talk or a lecture on this area, I’ve been expecting something really scientific, and it hasn’t been that way.”

How does Southgate take that understanding and work to ensure that his resilience levels are where they need to be come competition time? “I would definitely [take] a little more time to myself ,” he says. “Again, I think an understanding of where you get your energy from. For some people, that would be socialising and being with a group, and I like those situations at certain times and it would have to be with the right group – you’re in, Jimmy, that’s the good news! – but then I know that one of my weaknesses is to take too much on and not allow myself breathing space. Josie [Molloy – the Football Association’s Technical Directorate Office Business Support Coordinator], who looks after me diary-wise, she’s brilliant at making sure I’ve got time and she’s better at that than I am.

“I get energy from having moments where perhaps I’m just out walking the dogs or listening to some music or a podcast or whatever. I need to give myself that space to almost physically breathe that fresh air in; but then I am able to come back into the group.

“When I was younger, I would have felt that I have to be in the office every day; first in, last to leave, now I recognise that I’ve got to be a little bit more selfish with my time at certain moments. Inevitably, as a leader, you’ve got to give to everybody else for the majority of the time, but I’m comfortable at making space for myself in those moments.”

There is, however, room for improvement and he admits to his shortcomings as a leader with real openness and honesty. “Taking too much on would be one because there’s always somebody you think you can help and you’re just leaving the office and they want 20 minutes, and 20 minutes becomes 45. That is definitely a watch-out for me. And I would say one area that I’ve got a lot better at but can still be even better is being more demanding of other people. I’m very demanding of myself and I think, if I reflect back, there’s been moments where I’ve allowed others to get away with things I shouldn’t have or that could have pushed the team even more. So probably being in lockdown for 12 months, I’ve become a more irritated, grumpy, grouchy so-and-so and I’ve had even lower tolerance levels! So that’s been a good reflection for me.”

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A full version of this interview appeared in our latest Performance journal, which also featured the Arizona Diamondbacks of Major League Baseball, as well as the world-renowned New Zealand Rugby, and British Wheelchair Basketball, who runs some of the finest programmes in the sport. Edd Vahid of Premier League club Southampton FC also penned a column focusing on talent pathways.

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By John Portch

“We’re going to be talking about the tools that are used to not only assess athletes and warriors but to optimise them over time,” says Steve Gera.

Gera, a former US Marine and NFL coach, is ideally placed to moderate a session that brings together Lance Stucky from US Air Force Special Operations Command, Will Lezner, the Director of Mental Performance at Major League Baseball’s Los Angeles Angels, and Ty Sevin, the Director of Human Performance, Research and education at Keiser.

“I always found the one common factor between elite athletes and warriors is acceptance,” Gera continues. “Elite warriors just accept that ‘here is the bar, this is the requirement, this is the stuff I have to do in order to get there so that I don’t let my team down.’ Elite athletes love practising; and practice is mundane.”

Stucky, who also spent time working with the NFL’s Carolina Panthers, argues that few groups can meet the grit of Special Forces operators – not even athletes – but, “both expect that they’ll not only meet the standard but exceed the standard, no matter what it is. It’s that mindset of ‘I’m better than you and I’m going to prove it to you.’ Both elite athletes and operators have that type A mentality.”

As part of the Leaders Athlete Optimisation Series, the panel explored trends in the physical and mental preparation of elite performers across sport and the military, beginning with athlete signatures and wrapping up with a discussion on the transferability of training programmes in different environments.

A training ethos

As ever, the key consideration when individualising training is the demands of the task. Coaches must identify the athletic movement needed by the athlete and then reverse-engineer those demands to be able to train and test for them.

“I understand when they say the art of coaching is the pragmatic experience applied with your scientific background,” says Sevin, who has decades of experience coaching both Olympic and professional athletes.

He shared his training ethos:

1. Do no harm – he refers performance specialists back to the Hippocratic Oath and identifies the need for athletic signatures in every sport. “We want to create durable people, we want to work on injury prevention, prehab and rehab, and that always takes the forefront of my thought process in how I create these signatures and why they’re important.”
2. “What I really want to do is maximise the genetic potential that equates to the task at hand.”
3. “I’m trying to build the right human engine for the task.”

‘Strength coach’ is a misnomer

In explaining his ethos, Sevin reveals his dislike for the term ‘strength coach’ and why he prefers ‘human performance coach’. “‘Strength’ only encompasses a very small portion of what we do as performance coaches,” he says, which is true when it comes to individualising training programmes.

He cites renowned management thinker Peter Drucker, who once said: “you can’t manage what you can’t measure”. “The process I use is a procedure many people call ‘test, evaluate and prescribe’,” says Sevin. “In my mind, that is taking the subjectivity out of it and that’s why I use signatures because I want to be very objective.”

Sevin achieves that objectivity in part through force-velocity profiles that highlight unilateral imbalances. “These play a large role in enabling people to generate force, power, and speed and it also plays a large role in the durability of athletes, and it also contributes to a lack of endurance. You can create power, force and speed baselines.”

On the theme of individualisation, he points out that on all the Premier League teams with whom Keiser works, goalkeepers have the highest velocity outcomes – more than their outfield peers. “We try to understand the key performance indicators for every sport and the improvements that specific individual needs to make to match that signature.”

Similarly, in US Air Force Special Operations, there are differences depending on role, team and mission, although, as Stucky illustrates, operators need to be prepared for all eventualities. “One team might focus more on long-range movements where they’re carrying that heavy rucksack,” he says. “They might be in austere environments for an extended length of time. How can we generate that energy system to be able to keep up with that work capacity? And can they actually be explosive and be able to move and do what they have to do tactically? I want to say that we really have to train our guys to be a jack of all trades.

“I also equate them to wresters or UFC fighters, where they’re going to have a high demand of quick spurts but then they have to be able to recover while they’re still moving. You train the energy system and musculoskeletal system.”

It is a growth area in physical performance, but Lezner’s experience in Major League Baseball is that there are currently few available tools on the mental side of athlete optimisation. Testing is banned at elite level and the only opportunities for collecting biofeedback are in scouting and developmental contexts. “That was the most tangible opportunity for them to understand, OK, this is where I can integrate some sort of arousal regulation techniques.”

Developing self-directed athletes

Having explored athlete signatures Gera steers the conversation towards those times when the athlete or soldier is away from the coach, perhaps at competition overseas in the case of sport or in various theatres of operation in the military.

Sevin explains that athletic signatures build in a level of sustainability. “[Athletic signatures] protect me and allows them, when they’re away from me, to not get caught up in listening to people on the side, he says. “It protects them when they know ‘this is my process’. They don’t have to think. I want to take the responsibility off the athlete so when they’re on their own I’m trying to keep them on target without having distractions.”

There is an educational component too. Sevin continues: “My approach is that it teaches them how to think like a coach, to understand their body and how it adapts and what the plan is.”

In sharing his views, Stucky returns to the question of baseline testing raised by Sevin. “We’ll individualise it for the unique soldier to the unique situation. At the end of the day, it’s always about controlling the controllables. There’s places that we go and we know what we’re going to have. We can actually build a programme and we can keep that in our programme bank and manipulate that for the guys when they’re away.”

For the most part, service personnel have access to well-appointed gyms while on deployment. “The biggest thing is educating the individual after the test. If we have 20 workouts or contacts, how big a relationship can we create with them to believe in what we’re doing, to have that teamwork between our team and the actual operator that we’re training and how much does he believe in what we’re doing and can he improve on that in those austere environments?”

To bring the focus back to the mental side of the equation, Gera asks Lezner about the differences in working with players at spring training versus in-season and there is a clear distinction. “That spring training period, those 45 days-plus in some cases, is critical for upskilling athletes,” says Lezner. “It’s really dependent on the staff support that you have not only at major league level but at minor league level.

“The critical juncture is when you get to in-season, now you’re working with just the major league guys. You do have dedicated time available on the road, at home, however, at that time, these guys get into their routines to the point where the operational tempo of games and everything they’re doing starts to accelerate, so if they’re not self-directive at that point you might be trying to catch up with them.

“There’s a couple of things when being proactive that are very helpful. One is to have the staff so that these players are learning these habits and behaviours at the minor leagues and doing their upskilling there. My No 1 goal for all athletes that I work with is for them to become self-directive so that I become obsolete, to an extent.”

The best do not always buy-in

To wrap up the main discussion, Gera asks Sevin if the best athletes buy into the concept of athletic signatures.

“No, actually. It’s a mixed bag. Everybody’s an individual,” says Sevin. “The greatest athletes in a lot of cases are very narcissistic. They’re just the lions and tigers of the world. They’re pretty relentless and they’re almost violent in the way that they think about things and very aggressive. Sometimes the relationships are outstanding and sometimes it’s a challenge and I don’t think I can pigeon hole one particular way to do it.”

All in all, Sevin has worked with 24 athletes who have competed at the Olympics or world championships. “They were by far never the most talented for the most part. It all came back to lifestyle, a relentless drive of placing priority on what they were doing.”

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By John Portch

“You say I’ve got decades of experience, whereas I’d say I’ve got decades of bias.”

Don Barrell, the Head of Regional Academies at the Rugby Football Union [RFU], is a former player who was already coaching academy players before he retired. Yet for all his years of experience working in Talent ID and development, he is still all ears when it comes to addressing performance questions.

“Diversity is a real superpower in performance,” he tells the Leaders Performance Institute. “The more diverse you can make a conversation the better. You cannot work effectively unless you have independent people who can come in and challenge your thinking. If you’re having a talent ID review or selection meeting, I’d suggest you need every department in there providing their view of a player, otherwise you risk dropping into echo chambers. The broader the opinion in the room, the better it becomes. Subjectivity, done regularly, becomes objective. We need to be comfortable with that being a good thing, that’s the tension you have to hold as a system.”

Barrell, who previously shared six fundamentals to consider when establishing a talent pathway, turns his attention in the second instalment of our interview to the question of academy decision-making and the importance of diverse voices in multidisciplinary environments.

“The performance and development space should be a cross-department collaborative process,” he continues. “An oversimplification, but coaches can get upset when they do not win, which is an unavoidable reality. At that point, they shouldn’t be making decisions or giving feedback because they will not necessarily be tied to the athletes’ long-term objectives. If, as an organisation, you have a document that details what success in one year looks like and really clear, simple principles tied to multidisciplinary objectives, then better decisions can be made and feedback given in line with the long term in mind.”

“The big principle of any talent system is the end point and I’ll always talk about having the ‘end in mind’,” says Barrell. “If the end point is England Head Coach Eddie Jones using his criteria to select at that point, then we need to deliver towards that moment, understanding that the top of the game has so many influences. That’s the principle and purpose.”

Barrell oversees a gently graduated national programme that is supported by the Regional Academy club programmes across England. It is a multi-stakeholder process with each academy aligned to principles and guidance set down by the RFU.

“We want to see people really invested in their players at every stage of the programme – loving it, caring about it, and making it better. Then we need to accept that at any point in a transition in or out of a game selection, team or pathway; that a pathway coach is going to be really passionate, care about the person and may lose their objectivity – that’s fine too – and that’s why we bring in independence to provide that.”

Finding and embracing the paradoxes

What is more important: passion or objectivity? “You want both,” says Barrell, adding, “The whole talent space is full of paradoxes. Do you need to care or do you need to be standoffish and objective? Well, you need to be both. Do you want to win the game on Saturday or win the one in six years? Both. All these things, until we address them, can be roadblocks. You’ve got to find the paradoxes and then you’ve got to embrace them, the answers lie in there.”

The RFU has an essential role in ensuring England’s Regional Academy programmes are aligning in their working principles. “We constantly stay in the conversation and ensure there are clear decision-making frameworks. The reality is that some of the decisions made will be right, some of the decisions made will be wrong, but at least it’s clear.

“What can derail talent pathways is lack of clarity on decision-making; waiting to get a lot of stuff out onto the table in a room and people leaving unclear. Sometimes there isn’t an answer and you just need to commit to a direction. Then we’ll assess the decisions made. ‘Did that work? Yes’. ‘Did that work? No’. To be able to do that successfully, you need qualified practitioners, time, aligned stakeholders and a shared common understanding of a plan and direction. To achieve that at a club, your academy staff need enough autonomy to operate and enough freedom, space and independence to go and move things and enough time to implement them.”

Good intentions

“The best and the worst thing about systems is the people,” says Barrell. “Those human elements are ultimately what makes sport so exciting, so involving, and it’s why we’re all here, for all its idiosyncrasies, but they’re also the bits that can derail it.”

Nevertheless, he is certain that no one ever approaches talent pathway questions with anything other than good intentions, as he has come to learn in recent years. “Early in my career, I probably did what lots of people do, which is I thought people who worked at the top of the game were wrong in their view of developing young players, they’d only worked in one part of the game, but actually, that’s just their reality and it’s not wrong,” he says, “this is my reality and it’s not wrong. What we know is not the same.

“So how do you become very good at joining up two stories, two views of the world that are and need to be different? I’ll always try and work out what someone’s intent is and I’ve never found someone who’s not done something with good personal intent, despite the fact that I might completely disagree. Ultimately, there are not any ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ decisions.”

It comes back to clarity in principles and decision making. “At some point, someone’s got to make a decision and you have to trust that their intent is good. The conversation is probably around what were you aiming for and why. You can sabotage yourself in thinking someone has an ulterior motive and if you don’t understand people’s decisions that can be tough in this world.

“As an academy manager you have to be cognisant of that. What do I want people in service of? Where do I want them to go? Those sort of behavioural nudges are critical or you’ll lose people along the way and never be as effective.”

Leadership and people skills are essential. “If academy managers are not able to align people from all levels; boards, directors of rugby, head coaches, parents, players or, in football, your technical directors and managers and owners; if they’re not able to align those I don’t think they’d be able to make progress.

All of our new academy managers that now come on board, large amounts of their time is devoted to people management. We already know they can do all the rugby stuff and so we spend time with them, we give them business mentors and other resources because their programmes will fail off the back of them not having those skillsets – it’s more important than the sports stuff. They’ve got to be good at running multidisciplinary teams and maintaining independence. Outside, diverse views can be critical success factors for these programmes.”

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