By John Portch

When it comes to performance under pressure, Rachel Vickery argues that too often teams fall back on what she terms the ‘technical, tactical, hope’ strategy.

“There is so much focus on the technical and tactical aspects of craft, and then people hope that it shows up under pressure,” said Vickery, a high-performance specialist who has worked with a range of elite operators in sports, business, medicine and the military to help them improve their performance under pressure. She was speaking as the host of a recent Leaders virtual roundtable on the topic.

Too often, Vickery added, teams fail to understand “what’s changing in the biomechanics of a person, their situational awareness, their ability to read and see the field; their communication style and strategy, and their decision making” when the pressure mounts.

The key is “being able to help people understand what happens to them in those environments and then being able to train for that” because, as Vickery said, performance under pressure is a skill that can be learned and the trick is “putting actions behind the words”.

Below are seven training and environment-based tips or factors, gleaned from the conversation, to digest and take back to your teams.

1. Work out what each individual needs

Athletes and coaches want to be able to keep their ‘smart brain’ online in moments of pressure, but no two people are the same. Some are more proficient than others. However, as one participant put it, “all personalities are capable of performing at the highest level, it’s just that some have to be more intentional in their approach” to training. “Have you got enough buffer in the system to absorb that natural increase in arousal state peaking?” said Vickery, who explained that an individual can develop that ‘buffer’ through personalised support and training interventions.

2. Make it a performance question

Performance under pressure is not some mystical ‘other’. People should be encouraged to work out what enables them to be their best and what detracts from their performance. Get to the bottom of that and you can understand your performance when under pressure. “If it’s something that impacts an athlete or coach’s performance, then it’s fair game for the performance conversation,” said one participant from Major League Baseball. It’s also important to consider the outside elements that contribute to someone’s stress levels. As Vickery said: “Very often it’s less to do with the performance arena than what’s going on outside”.

3. Develop mental health first-aiders

Stress can lead to burnout and mental ill-health and so people at your team should look out for each other. A participant spoke of their general manager taking part in their team’s compulsory mental first aid programme and, in the act of doing so, helping to normalise the conversation. Another participant spoke of their team’s work to identify personal triggers and cues. Their key question was: ‘what will we see in you when you’re feeling pressure?’

4. Remember: you’re not just fixing ‘broken’

Vickery issued a timely reminder that mental elements need to be fine-tuned just as much as the physical, technical or tactical. “It’s not just about fixing ‘broken’,” she said. “How do we go on taking things to a higher level?” Giving athletes and coaches a chance to assess their mistakes is critical.

5. You can train for the feeling, if not the scenario

While you cannot truly replicate high-pressure moments in training, you may be able to replicate the feelings they elicit. One participant with experience of the British sports system spoke of a time his team tested their analysts. They sabotaged the analysts’ equipment 20 minutes before the start of a competition and asked them to identify and fix the problems they created. The key to such tactics is to “review it, learn from it, go again, get your reps.”

6. A coach’s messages – spoken and unspoken – are critical

A coach’s words and actions are critical in high-pressure moments. “As soon as something is set up as a threat – ‘if we don’t win this we’re not making the playoffs’ – the stress response kicks off,” said Vickery. “If we can flip that to opportunity – and I’m not talking about rainbows, crystals and unicorns – I’m talking about intentional language; ‘how clean can we play this?’ The language is really important in those moments.” She also spoke of a Premier League coach who worked to de-escalate his own arousal state before giving half-time team talks. It is also important for coaches (and their teams) to not fall prey to the notion or narrative that an undemonstrative touch line figure is somehow disinterested.

7. Bad egos need to be parked

There are various ways to follow that aforementioned Premier League coach’s lead, but it requires trust, humility and a healthy dose of perspective, particularly for coaches to be able to accept feedback from their athletes and to self-reflect. Several participants have set up their coaches with cameras and microphones during training and competition as a learning exercise. During the heat of the moment, Vickery encourages leaders to ask themselves: “The ways I interact with you, my language, instruction and delivery – are they going to set you up for performance or going to detract from performance?”

By John Portch

Some say young athletes are not as single-minded and dedicated to their craft as earlier generations.

That is not necessarily true, but young athletes today do tend to have more autonomy and wider horizons.

If they decide they do not want to be on this pathway or that programme, others will welcome them with open arms. Even if an athlete does commit to your programme: are you providing the wellbeing, learning and social support they increasingly demand?

This generational shift – and the challenges it poses coaches and staff – set the terms for a virtual roundtable titled ‘What Are our Athletes Telling us?’ where we invited members of the Leaders Performance Institute from across the globe to answer four questions:

• What are we learning from conversations with athletes?
• Are there trends in the type of support they need?
• What topics interest young athletes?
• How are we adapting our environments to meet their needs?

Their responses pointed to four trends in the athlete-coach-team dynamic.

1. Athletes are increasingly expressing their desire for belonging and connection

Teams should consider the psychosocial elements of an athlete’s development. Emerging athletes wish for meaningful experiences and want a sense of belonging and connection. “It’s about where are they enjoying themselves the most and where they see the opportunities,” said one participant, who spoke of Australia’s women’s rugby sevens.

The programme takes teams of emerging athletes on tour to far flung places. Therein lies the opportunity for community-based activities where players will meet locals, in circumstances often far removed from their own and, in contributing to social and environmental causes, continue to develop a more rounded perspective of their own lives and development.

This builds on the fine work being done in Australia to develop the “whole athlete”, as one participant with knowledge of the environment explained. The Australian system, they said, has prioritised mental health support for Olympic and Paralympic athletes at the behest of the athletes themselves.

2. Athletes crave individual – and team – development

The desire of younger athletes for belonging and connection comes with a paradoxical demand for more personalised training and attention. This has implications for the time coaches spend on team dynamics in an era where the power has shifted to the athlete. “Staff and coaches are more vulnerable,” said one participant, who pondered where the balance needs to sit. “Give the athletes a voice and a choice, give them ownership, have the consultation, but there is a line too.”

Another participant with experience of coaching in European football, highlighted that individual work will mean different things to different people and can be dependent on team selection. They argued that there is room for better management of expectations and, more broadly, a consensus for coaches and athletes alike on what constitutes ‘individual’ training.

3. Athletes want a formal voice in decision-making

Athletes want to have a say in decisions that affect them. A participant working at the Premier League spoke of their members’ club captains being increasingly forthright in their views on league-sponsored initiatives.

They said there need to be clear systems and processes for engaging athletes and ensuring their feedback is considered, with the caveat that any outcomes may be unclear or unformed, depending on the complexity of the issue.

To this latter point, another participant spoke of the athlete advisory committee with whom they work. “We’re trying to provide agency and elevate that athlete voice, which in a lot of ways is really valuable and adds a lot of benefit,” they said. “But there’s risk associated with that. You are letting the ‘good’ in with the ‘bad’ to an extent depending on what topic it relates to, particularly in terms of managing expectations.”

4. Athletes want to explore opportunities beyond the sporting arena

One participant noted that athlete care roles have developed from being “concierge-style to far more hands-on”. That might include helping young overseas athletes settle in a new country with their close family or it might mean supporting leadership development, media skills training, or helping athletes to explore other professional opportunities beyond their sporting careers.

The Australian sports system, for example, is getting better at providing educational and career opportunities of the kind that enable athletes to be more “job-ready”.

However, it is not just those athletes in (typically) lower-income Olympic and Paralympic sports seeking wider professional development: LinkedIn has seen an exponential increase in major league athletes using its platform. As one participant noted, this interest in business and entrepreneurship is not a surprise given the levels of disposable income available to some athletes. It invites the question: how might teams and leagues support players in these endeavours?

By John Portch

With the new year ahead of us, the Leaders Performance Institute cordially invites you to take a swift look back.

There was plenty on offer on our Intelligence Hub in December and here we bring you four key thoughts from the final weeks of 2024 to set you up for success in the months ahead.

Before we get into it, remember our first summit of the year takes place at Melbourne’s Glasshouse in just under four weeks’ time. More info here. We hope to see as many of you there as possible.

If there’s an upcoming virtual learning session that takes your fancy, please let a member of the Leaders Performance Institute team know.

Right, back to the matter at hand. Here are four themes that stood out in December.

1. Female athletes are too often overlooked

That’s not really news and, to be fair, is not entirely representative either. We have sought to address the fine work being done (as well as the enduring iniquities) in our latest Performance Special Report, titled A Female Lens on Performance: what it takes to help women and girls thrive in elite sport.

The report, which is brought to you by our Partners Keiser, features Garga Caserta, the Head of Performance at NWSL side the Kansas City Current, who discusses the best ways to balance challenge and support for players.

He also touched upon his reluctance to chase ‘low-hanging fruit’ in women’s sport performance, particularly where data is lacking:

“Research shouldn’t be about recognition, and a professional sports environment is not the place for research. The team and athletes suffer from it rather than benefit.”

Elsewhere in the report, we spoke to:

• Helene Wilson and Jody Cameron at High Performance Sport New Zealand about their efforts to create opportunities for female coaches and practitioners across their nation.
• Chloe Francis, the Head of People Operations at England Rugby, about her organisation’s maternity policy.

We also pondered the potential implications of the gendered environment for female athletes and coaches.

Download A Female Lens on Performance now.

2. Does your mental performance coach do enough for your team?

Be careful how you answer that question. If you feel that your mental performance coach never quite fulfils their remit, perhaps you’re not setting them up to be successful. It could be, as mental performance coach Aaron Walsh argues in this exclusive column, that you’re viewing their work from the wrong angle.

Walsh wrote:

To successfully integrate the work, teams need to understand what a mental performance coach can do to elevate performance and how to deliver that work most effectively. Traditionally, the delivery model has involved one person attempting to meet the needs of everyone in the environment. This often leads to frustration for both the team and the provider. The team feels like the demands are only sometimes met, while the provider feels more time is needed.

A more effective model is viewing the provider as a facilitator, where they engage the key leaders in the environment and help drive the work. Yes, contexts will be provided for the provider to deliver critical messages and practices directly. Still, as we know, the mental side of performance happens every day and all the time.

Read the full article here.

3. Are you happy with how your team is using its data?

Even if you are, you probably feel that you can tighten up processes here or look at things through a different lens there.

It was a theme that ran through our Kitman Labs podcast series where the Leaders Performance Institute was joined by Kitman Founder Stephen Smith to chat to a range of guests from across the world of soccer.

These included Dr Karl-Heinrich Dittmar, the Head of Medical at German Bundesliga champions Bayer Leverkusen. He spoke at length about the club’s efforts to use data to outmanoeuvre their rivals when recruiting:

We have now one of the best German players, Florian Wirtz. He is, together with Jamal Musiala, definitely one of the top two talents in the German Bundesliga. And he decides to stay longer with Bayer Leverkusen because he has a chance to improve. He could have gone to Bayern Munich, he could have gone to Chelsea, he could have gone to Real Madrid, but he didn’t because he knows with our strategy, and this strategy is based on data, he can improve. And his outcome after some years will be much better. And this is a big argument for our recruitment team to bring players to Bayer Leverkusen.

During the course of this Kitman Labs series, we also spoke to:

• Paul Prescott, who helped to deliver the English Premier League’s Elite Player Performance Plan, and Morten Larsen the Head of Methodology at Danish Superliga club Aarhus (who are renowned for their talent development work)
• Arianna Criscione, the Head of Football Operations at Como Women, and Sarah Smith, the Director of Medical & Performance at Angel City FC
• Yael Averbuch West, the General Manager of Gotham City FC

4. How do you develop leaders?

It’s an age-old question, but no-one has really nailed it. Dan Jackson, the General Manager of Player Development & Leadership at the Adelaide Football Club is no exception.

“I can’t teach leadership,” he told the Leaders Performance Podcast. “I can help unlock what’s already in there.”

Jackson feels that leaders can be created. “Leadership is 100 per cent made, but it’s made from a very young age.”

Beyond the origins of leadership, Jackson also spoke about the importance of prioritising others in a team environment.

“Great sustainable teams are built in environments where everyone’s looking to help someone else out,” he adds. “When you fill someone else’s bucket, it fills yours.”

It’s well worth your time. The same can also be said for these other guests, who all joined our three-part Keiser Series podcast in December:

• Duncan French, the Senior VP of the UFC Performance Institute
• Flo Laing, the Lead Physiotherapist for the Scotland women’s rugby team
• Lachlan Penfold, the Head of Performance at the Melbourne Storm

A podcast brought to you by our Partners

Kitman Labs ensured Bayer Leverkusen knew what it took to win the German Bundesliga.

They demonstrated to Dr Karl-Heinrich Dittmar, Leverkusen’s Head of Medical, the optimal range of player availability to top the table during a meet in Dublin, four or five years before Die Werkself actually won the title.

“I kept this data; and last year we did it,” Dr Dittmar told the Kitman Labs podcast with evident pride. It turns out the data scanned almost perfectly across the numbers posted by the club during their unbeaten title-winning campaign.

“They found out what we need from the medical point of view, from player availability, and it was perfect – the data predicted what would happen in the future.”

It demonstrated the value of clean, consistent datasets – something that has given Leverkusen an edge over more celebrated rivals – and something that Yael Averbuch West is trying to build in her role as GM at 2023 NWSL champions Gotham City.

“We’re still in the data collection stage in the women’s game,” she tells the podcast, while also explaining that the work to bridge that gap is well underway in this corner of New York City.

In the third and final episode of this series, West and Dr Dittmar are joined by Kitman Labs Founder Stephen Smith to discuss how data strategies can help teams in their quest for greatness.

Elsewhere, the trio discuss a range of topics, including why learnings tend to emerge as data collection grows ever more sophisticated [17:30]; the importance of a centralised system for consistency [24:15]; the balance between using data to unearth ‘hidden gems’ and jumping on something misleading [33:00].

Episode one is available here and episode two is available here.

Further listening:

Kitman Labs Podcast: ‘Women Players Need to Feel Safe and they Need to Have Access to Support’

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

A podcast brought to you by our Partners

You may have a great performance structure for your men’s team, but simply cutting and pasting that to your women’s team does them a disservice.

That is the view of Arianna Criscione, the Head of Football Operations at Mercury/13 and Como Women. “It’s not enough,” she tells this Kitman Labs podcast. She explains that there are a range of services, from nutrition to psychology, that need to be tailored to women players.

Criscione continues: “You also have to have access to medical [support], but a lot of clubs don’t have access to a gynaecologist, which is a major part of the female body and really needs to be addressed a lot more.”

Dentistry is another area of oft-neglected consideration. “If you have an off-bite, that can actually affect your structure and how you’re running, which could cause injury.”

It is, as Sarah Smith says, about “making sure that we have a good foundation of support around our athletes.” Smith, who is the Director of Medical and Performance at Angel City FC in the NWSL, joins the conversation alongside Stephen Smith, the Founder of Kitman Labs.

In addition to discussing holistic female player development [10:45], the trio delve into bridging the gap in data and understanding in women’s football [15:45]; how talent identification is evolving [20:15]; as well as the existing disparities in data collection [28:10] from club to club and league to league.

This is episode two of a three-part series. Please go back and check out episode one, where the Leaders Performance Institute and Stephen Smith spoke to Paul Prescott of the International Football Group and Morten Larsen of Danish Superliga side Aarhus discussing talent pathways in the Premier League and beyond.

Further listening:

Kitman Labs Podcast: What Factors Drive Talent Development in the Premier League and Beyond?

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

A podcast brought to you by our Partners

More than 77 per cent of professional contracts in the Premier League and EFL are held by homegrown players.

It wasn’t always thus. “English clubs were basically funding talent development models in Spain or in Brazil because English talent wasn’t seen to be at the same level as players from those countries,” Paul Prescott, the Managing Director of the International Football Group, told this Kitman Labs podcast.

That situation persisted until recently and is starting to change in part due to the introduction of the Elite Player Performance Plan [EPPP] in 2012.

“We are seeing that some of the decisions that were made maybe 10-12 years ago are beginning to bear fruit,” added Prescott, who was joined by Morten Larsen, the Head of Methodology & Development at Danish Superliga club Arhus, and Stephen Smith, the Founder of Kitman Labs.

Aarhus share the Premier League’s emphasis on talent development, albeit in different circumstances, as Larsen explains [5:30].

“Denmark is a small country and the league is a small league,” he says. “So there’s only one thing we can do to compete with the other clubs in Europe.”

Elsewhere, Smith sets out the differences in approach between leagues and clubs [16:25]; Larsen explains the impact of data on decision-making processes in the Aarhus academy [24:10]; and Prescott ponders whether EPPP was an outcome or a catalyst [36:30].

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

An article brought to you by our Event Partners

By John Portch

How do you turn your setbacks into springboards?

A rich seam of answers ran through both days of this month’s Leaders Sport Performance Summit at the Kia Oval in London.

We listened to speakers from various sports organisations discuss their responses to setbacks. Teams including Chelsea, Racing 92, Harlequins and the Sydney Swans laid it all on the table. Several explained how they managed to turn things around.

Stephan Lewies, for example, captained a Quins team to victory over Saracens in October; their 17-10 win ending a miserable run of eight consecutive defeats to their Premiership rivals.

“Coming off a record like that,” said the South African lock, “you often look for answers in the wrong place.” Lewies explained that season after season Quins would change their usual approach when facing Saracens. This season they stuck to their guns and it paid off.

“When the pressure came on in this game, [we turned to] something we’d done for the whole season, for years previously, versus something new in the pressured moment.”

Kudos to Quins, but neither they nor anyone in sport has dealt with the difficulty of landing a probe on Mercury or the conundrum of trying to thaw a microscopic strand of ice on the lens of a space telescope 1.5 million km from Earth.

For Carole Mundell, the Director of Science at the European Space Agency [ESA], such stories represent another day at the office. Crisis after celestial crisis is routinely averted on Mundell’s watch by some of the brightest minds in astrophysics.

Of ESA’s triumphant run-in with the intrusive ice, she said: “Data gives you information. Information gives you knowledge. Knowledge only gives you insight and wisdom for action if you really understand what it’s telling you and how to interpret it with your own experience on top of that.”

Mundell feared impostor syndrome when stepping onto the Oval stage but her words instantly resonated with an audience of coaches and practitioners.

They also lead us nicely back to our original question: how do you turn setbacks into springboards? We bring you six interrelated smart tips from across both days of the summit.

1. Find the right skills to help you in a crisis

How does it feel to be under the cosh in your role? What tools do you lack in those moments? Carole Mundell has allowed herself to be shaped both by the crises she’s confronted and the organisation she leads. Instinctively, she’s a creative scientist, a physicist with the urge to investigate independently. Yet her work at ESA requires her to think like an engineer and commit to the team; these newly acquired skills have proven crucial in moments of crisis.

“I’m learning to think like an engineer. All of ESA’s structures and processes and how we operate comes from the mind of an engineer… We have a whole quality assurance system where we set our objectives and we say ‘what will we do?’ ‘What did we say we’d do?’ ‘Did we do what we said?’”

Carole Mundell

2. Seek key allies above you

Racing 92 were treading water in France’s Top 14 league when they appointed Stuart Lancaster as Director of Rugby. Lancaster, whose tenure began in 2023, was hired to transform their fortunes, but faced considerable obstacles. Language was one, culture another; he also knew he’d be working under his predecessor, Laurent Travers. Nevertheless, Lancaster felt that he was “pushing on an open door” thanks to the quality of his coaching work with England (2011-2015) and, in particular, Leinster (2016-2023).

The big question he asked himself was: should he tiptoe in or smash down the door? As Racing’s revival required more than a cosmetic makeover, he opted for the latter. With the help of his French coaching staff, Lancaster introduced a new working week, a new playbook, and called time on Racing’s long lunch culture. He could disregard those who labelled him an ignorant ‘Anglo-Saxon’ thanks to the relationships he forged with Travers and the Racing board.

“I spent a lot of time prior to the players arriving getting [the management] to understand my vision, my philosophy and what I wanted to achieve; not taking away the DNA of Racing and trying to replace it with Leinster, but trying to merge the lessons I’d learned with England, the lessons I’d learned from Leinster, and then bringing that structure and detail to a French environment.”

Stuart Lancaster

3. Who are your key influencers?

The Sydney Swans had to dust themselves off following their 2022 AFL Grand Final defeat. John Longmire, who this week stepped down as the Swans’ Senior Coach, led them back to the Grand Final again this year. Since leaving London, he has handed the reins to his assistant Dean Cox, who will renew the team’s fight for a first flag since 2012. The factors that propel a team one season will not necessarily apply the next, but Cox is sure to emulate Longmire in learning and applying the lessons from another painful defeat. In dealing with setbacks, Longmire always leaned heavily on the key influencers in his “ecosystem”.

“The ecosystem includes your team, the board, the CEO, your fans. Your playing group and staff are a living, breathing organism, the whole thing, and it needs to keep moving and shifting. I’ve got certain long-held beliefs close to my heart, but also within that [have] the flexibility to shift and understand that the best cultures are the ones that keep moving and keep adjusting to the ecosystem. Understand the good influencers in your group, the ones that can help you with that.”

John Longmire

4. Don’t be afraid to let the wrong people walk away

When Chelsea won the Champions League in 2021, the club would not have expected to slump to a 12^th-place finish in the Premier League just two years later. Nor would they have predicted the organisation narrowly avoiding oblivion and a subsequent change of ownership. Bryce Cavanagh was hired as Performance Director in the summer of 2023 and, while he has long been considered one of the best in the business, an arduous task awaited him.

He admitted his presence created a sense of risk and vulnerability in some quarters, but he was fair in setting out his stall. Some relished the challenge of staying to help build a fresh performance strategy (a work in progress, he admitted), but others sought roles elsewhere. Cavanagh was willing to let them go.

“First of all, we talked and defined where we were going, what we wanted, the behaviours that we needed, then the performance strategy. We had to really define where we wanted to go and what we wanted the bus to look like because then people ended up self-selecting.”

Bryce Cavanagh

5. Have the difficult conversations quickly

As captain of Harlequins, Stephan Lewies regularly faces difficult conversations. They are of added importance when the chips are down and tempers are frayed. Time and again, as Lewies explained, he has been able to plot a path out of disharmony by being proactive, acting fast and ultimately putting the team first. A leader should also strive to understand multiple points of view without leaping to conclusions.

“That’s the main goal in any tough conversation: you turn a negative into a positive that we can use going forward… When we [avoid] a tough conversation, the problem just becomes bigger and bigger… walking away from that conversation is the easy option, but stepping into that space is so important.”

Stephan Lewies

6. Prioritise your stress and emotional responses

Success and failure both present psychological and emotional challenges. In 2021, the UK Sports Institute introduced its ‘Performance Decompression’ tool to help athletes and support staff transition back to daily life following intense competition periods. The tool consists of four phases: first there’s the post-event ‘hot debrief’ followed by ‘time zero’, which, as the UKSI website explains, focuses on ‘restorative care in a soothing place’; then it’s ‘process the emotion’ and, finally, a ‘performance debrief’.

The tool can be used anywhere. British 1,500m runner Jake Wightman, for example, chose a sofa in a Twickenham café to unpick his underperformance at the Tokyo Olympics. A year later he was world champion and, while there was much more to it, psychologist Sarah Cecil believes the tool helped Wightman to plot his comeback. She and the UKSI’s Head of Performance Psychology, Danielle Adams Norenburg, are also happy to teach their tool to any individual or organisation who may find it useful.

“By the end of this process, Jake had made sense of the experience, he was able to tell his story about where he was, and he was also able to process all the emotions that surrounded his performance and the lead-up to his performance… I don’t need to tell people in the room that lots of factors contribute to performance… but in the same position, with 300m to go, Jake had what he needed to run fast enough to be world champion.”

Sarah Cecil

The 2024 StatsBomb Conference took place at Old Trafford in Manchester in October and the Leaders Performance Institute was in attendance.

We spoke to the great and the good of the football analytics world, including three people speaking that day, about their thoughts on data & analytics in football, from recruitment and time management to analysis and AI.

Coming up for you, we have:

Liam Henshaw, a Data Analyst & First Team Scout with Hearts, who discusses his efforts to balance two roles at the Scottish Premiership club, and the constant need for context in application.

Will Thomson, a Data Analyst with Hudl StatsBomb, whose research is guided by the nuances of football.

Sam Gregory, the Director of Data Analytics at US Soccer, whose senior teams are preparing for World Cups in 2026 and 2027, including an edition on home soil in the men’s competition.

Simon Farrant, Director of Strategic Growth – Sports Data & Officiating, at Deltatre, who spoke about recruitment in the context of game models and team strategies, where compelling stories are a must.

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

By John Portch

“Are you doing what you want to be doing?” David Clancy asked his audience.

Clancy, a learning and development consultant with the Houston Texans and Director at The Nxt Level Group, was speaking at the October launch of his new book Essential Skills for Physiotherapists: a Personal and Professional Development Framework at London’s Tate Modern Gallery.

“Maybe this day will make you think a little bit more into that question,” he continued.

The gallery’s East Room, with its panoramic views of London, is a suitable backdrop for some of the brightest minds in sports science and medicine. Each of them knows there’s more to their success than talent.

“When we’re in college, we’re taught the technical, clinical, hard skills, but it’s the soft skills that make a difference,” said Clancy.

Essential Skills is an effort to address that reality, bringing together as it does experts who, in some cases, had never previously met in order to collaborate. “That’s the beauty of the book because it shows we can all get better together.”

The book’s proceeds will go to Children’s Health Ireland [CHI], a cause dear to Clancy and his family given the care they have provided to his four-year-old daughter Grace. “This way I can help people like my daughter and her friends.”

Clancy then introduced his roster of speakers – friends, collaborators and mentors – all of whom had wisdom to share.

Here, the Leaders Performance Institute picks out five thinking points to help you reflect on Clancy’s original question: are you doing what you want to be doing?

1. Define the behaviours that will take you from potential to peak

First onstage was James Kerr, the author of the renowned Legacy, who detailed the lessons leaders can take from New Zealand’s All Blacks.

He explained that the right behaviours are the real “force multiplier”. Good behaviours, whether you’re an athlete, coach or practitioner, will “take you from potential to peak more consistently”.

For the All Blacks, that may mean ‘sweeping the sheds’ but how does that look in your environment? What will enable you to show up more often and apply the right behaviours?

2. Seek to understand, find common ground

Behaviours shouldn’t be separated from your values, but how comfortable are you calling out poor behaviours? Any discomfort you feel may be amplified if you’re a woman trying to progress in a male-dominated environment.

Alicia Tang, the Head of Academy Medicine & Physical Performance at Derby County, recognises this “internal battle” well enough and believes the first step is to speak to the relevant stakeholders. “Seek to understand, find common ground, and then work on the resolution,” she said during the second session.

This view is shared by business consultant Michelle Carney, who said, “If you meet people where they are, you’ll find the right people”. They will not only be colleagues but allies.

“I think it’s definitely empowering when you have those people around you,” says Ashar Magoba, the Lead Academy Physiotherapist at Charlton Athletic, who is also starting to work with the club’s first team. “Perhaps those people can see something in you that you don’t quite yet see yet.”

3. Take a look over the fence

Where do you look for insights and inspiration? Jack McCaffrey, a six-time All-Ireland Senior Football champion with Dublin GAA, enjoys himself in his day job as a paediatric doctor at CHI at Temple Street in Dublin. “I get to hang out with kids all day; and kids are just great,” he told performance coach Ronan Conway during their fireside chat in session three.

In some ways, McCaffrey’s medical career is a sanctuary from his Gaelic football (particularly following a bad result). One could say the players of the strictly amateur Gaelic games in Ireland have a natural separation between the athlete and person that can often be lost in professional sports.

During his intercounty career, McCaffrey’s work also gave him lessons to take back to the Dublin panel, where the training environment was, to all intents and purposes, a professional setting.

“Most of my learning of dealing with high-pressure situations has come from work,” he said. “How to remain cool, how to have feedback loops, how to make sure you’re sticking to algorithms.”

4. Find the information in your trauma

In sport, we continually speak of ‘controlling the controllables’ and yet 95% of human brain activity is subconscious. It is a troubling thought for life coach Mark Whittle, the Founder of the Take Flight performance consultancy, as he told us during the fourth session.

His presentation returned to the question of behaviours, which he said are governed by both our drive towards pleasure and wish to avoid pain. Tied up in that avoidance of pain is fear, which can be born of trauma.

Consider a setback you’ve suffered: how can you learn from that event and respond appropriately? “What can you make it mean?” Whittle asked the audience.

5. Identify your gaps

It takes humility to recognise what it takes to excel in a new role. In the final session, Jeff Konin and Trevor Bates warn of the Peter Principle. The concept, devised by psychologist Laurence J Peter, states that people tend to be promoted to their ‘level of respective incompetence’. Think of the supreme technician who, upon promotion, finds themselves overwhelmed as a manager tasked for the first time with leading people.

For Konin, the important thing is finding your ‘where’ when looking five or ten years into the future. “What skills do you need that you don’t currently possess?” said the Clinical Professor from Florida International University.

Similarly, Bates may be the President & CEO of Mercy College in Ohio, but he has no problem with being the “pupil”. He said: “I might be the one who moves a programme forward, but intellectually I might be a pupil in that space.”

Essential Skills for Physiotherapists: a Personal and Professional Development Framework is available now from Elsevier.