By Sarah Evans

• Understand your core values and stick to them

• Clarity and alignment from everyone is key

• Improvement requires change, and change requires action

A mixture of continuity and adaptation is key for sustained success

Sir Dave Brailsford, Team Principal of the INEOS Grenadiers (formerly Team Sky and Team INEOS), shared with our audience at the 2017 Leaders Sport Performance Summit in London, how Team Sky first operated and how they became one of the most dominant teams in world cycling. “You can’t be a selection of people doing something in isolation, you have to have certain values and continuity to have sustained success over years and years,” said Brailsford. Right at the inception of Team Sky, the staff sat together and asked ‘what do we want to be about?’ and they realised that in order to succeed they needed to be able to adapt to the ever changing environment but also needed a few anchors and values to stick to through thick and thin. Team Sky, Brailsford added, had a line as a symbol for the team, and it signified continuity, but as he explained, “you’re never dealing with the same problem, it changes all the time and you have to recognise that and adapt.”

Success lies in planning

Everyone in sport, and life, knows that planning is a crucial part of success, with the old saying, ‘fail to prepare, prepare to fail’. However, Brailsford highlights that it isn’t the plan itself that is critical, it’s the planning process, and that “it is the discussions that are crucial.” He expects every one of his staff to have a professional opinion, as he always looks to work from the consensus, and only when this isn’t possible, will he arbitrate. It is important they always understand why, the power is in those discussions, and the team have all been involved in the creation of the plan. This planning is for the overall strategy, but also goes into the minute detail for every rider. “The more you have clarity and alignment, it isn’t that hard to deliver the performance, it’s when there isn’t clarity and alignment and you take a one-size-fits-all approach to every rider, it fails,” stated Brailsford.

Improvement requires change

It is one thing being successful, but a much harder task to be able to sustain that over many years. “If you do the same thing you’re going to go backwards,” explained Brailsford, “all of your competition will be looking to beat you and to improve, so you can’t just do what you did to be successful the first time round, you have to adapt and continually improve. Brailsford stated that the “difference between good and great is someone who does something.” Change requires action, and the people who win and make a difference are the people who do. “The people in Team Sky can be bothered to do the things that maybe people in other teams can’t be bothered to do, and that makes the difference,” said Brailsford. “Improvement requires change, but the problem is not all change equals improvement.” It can be very tempting to change things for change’s sake, so you have to be deliberate about it. You have to understand what interventions are going to give you the greatest reward and do a couple each season. “Being excellent at the simple things is the key to winning,” highlighted Brailsford. If you start to do too much with things which occur on the periphery, you miss the basics, which will be a disaster. You need small scale actionable improvements over time – the ‘marginal gains’ which Brailsford has become so well known for. Finally, he added: “It is all about action, talk about it and do it. It might not work, but at least you know. We don’t wait, we’re first.”

Fuelling the incessant demand for the new

The Leaders Performance Institute reviewed the session in tandem with Leaders Performance Advisor David Fletcher, the Senior Lecturer in Performance Psychology at Loughborough University, who shared his views on the topic of sustained success.

David, do Dave Brailsford’s words still ring true?

A universal truth apparent throughout Dave’s comments is that sport at the highest level is characterised by fierce competition and winning by small margins. Underpinning success in elite sport is the ability to continually raise performance to higher levels. In essence, those who are able to enhance performance sooner, to a greater extent, and/or on a more sustainable basis than the opposition are victorious. This results in goals and standards moving onwards and upwards, which in turn fuels an incessant demand to find new means and methods to stay ahead of the performance curve. It is clear that, as a leader in elite sport, Dave is – and has to be – very focused on what it takes to attain and sustain the highest levels of performance in elite cycling.

How do you feel this space is evolving in sport?

There are two things that I think are particularly fascinating about the innovation required to stay ahead of the performance curve in elite sport. The first is how best to harmonise the latest advances in sports science and medicine together with the art of high-performance coaching whilst remaining sensitive to the uniqueness of every training and competition context. I believe that the best leaders and teams are those who are able to work together to capitalise on each other’s strengthens whilst developing areas for improvement, regardless of whether they are the ‘simple basics’, ‘marginal gains’, or more sophisticated technologically-based advances – it all counts toward staying at the top. The second area relates to the increasing awareness that winning should not come at all costs. Following concerns about the price that some athletes are willing to pay in their pursuit of excellence and about the lengths that some coaches will go to drive their teams toward victory, there is a recognition and desire to find more ethical ways of attaining and sustaining high performance whilst maintaining and enhancing wellbeing. As a consequence, striving for high performance and holistic health has rightly become the focus of most modern day leaders and coaches in elite sport.

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.

A Leaders Performance Podcast brought to you by our Main Partners

“How do we make it more difficult for people to do what they’ve always done?”

This question is posed by psychologist and former Leaders speaker Gareth Bloomfield in this edition of the Leaders Performance Podcast, which is brought to you today by our Main Partners Keiser.

Bloomfield, who works with the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst, explores the topic of behavioural change at length and delves into:

• Understanding how the brain works when making decisions [4:20];
• What we already know about human behaviour [6:30];
• How leaders should approach behavioural change [8:00];
• Tips for overcoming the typical barriers to change [16:00].

John Portch: Twitter | LinkedIn

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

The Big Interview brought to you by our Main Partners

By John Portch

“I think I’m in the best place I’ve been for a long, long time,” says West Ham United Manager David Moyes.

“I’m in the job because I want to be in the job, not because I need to be in the job.”

Moyes, who recently celebrated his 1,000 match as a manager, is enjoying a career renaissance at the London Stadium. He returned to West Ham in December 2019 with the Hammers in danger of relegation and worked to ensure their survival at the end of the Covid-hit 2019-20 season. It was the second time he had achieved that feat following an initial six-month stint in east London in 2017-18.

This time, he remained at the helm for the 2020-21 season and oversaw a transformation of the club – far quicker than anyone had anticipated – from brittle and perennially relegation-threatened to European contenders capable of posing opponents questions from front to back. In May, Moyes steered the club into the Uefa Europa League courtesy of a sixth-place Premier League finish – their highest since 2001.

A new three-year contract for Moyes followed in June and his team has carried their superb form into the current campaign. They sit atop of their Europa League group while again challenging at the upper echelons of the Premier League.

It is a remarkable turnaround for Moyes, who had endured a series of unsuccessful spells at Manchester United, Sunderland and Real Sociedad before again finding stability at West Ham. His reputation has not been as high in nearly a decade.

“I’m personally in a better place and managing in the way that I want to and I’m not having to be miserable because I’m losing games all the time!” he told the Leaders Performance Institute’s Jimmy Worrall in October. “I’ve actually got a team that’s winning.”

Moyes, who was labelled the ‘Moyesiah’ by West Ham supporters for his feats last season, instinctively understands that a manager is never more than a few bad results from being ridiculed, despite the elusive mix of talent and circumstance required to succeed at the highest levels of the sport.

“Winning makes a big difference and, in the sport we’re in, it really does change how you feel, how the media perceive you in all things. But I would hope that I would still be treated the same way if we were losing. We’re in a sport where there is winning and losing, not everyone can win. In fact, there’s very few people who can win. I really enjoy it. I don’t want to step away from it at the moment. I feel good and I hope it’s helping me manage and work better.”

What has changed? “If I’m being honest, I think I’ve changed a lot as well,” says Moyes, who did not manage between leaving West Ham in 2018 and returning to the club a little over a year later. At times during his hiatus he worked as a technical advisor with Uefa, a role he returned to during the delayed Euro 2020 tournament last summer.

“I was out of work, I was doing lots of stuff with Leaders, I was listening to people talking, I was listening to how people were building their clubs or what sports they were in. I did a lot of games for Uefa, I did a lot of speaking at conferences, and I think that, myself, I had to change.

“I said this in some of the conversations I’ve had with Leaders before that I felt communication has become even more important in modern day coaching and managing, whether that be to your players, your owners or the media. I think people do want to hear more and I think they want to see more positivity; the players need it as well.

“I felt as if I had to change a little bit and see if I could alter my approach. I’m not saying that’s the reason for any success, but I’m trying to remain positive in the job where, in recent years, it’s been quite difficult for me because there’s been a lot of negativity around me, around maybe some of the clubs I’ve been at. But overall, I’ve felt if I could be a bit more positive that would be a starting point, so I’ve tried to do that.”

Moyes then elaborates. “I probably looked closer to see how I’ve been doing things and checking if I thought they were right,” he says. “The majority of the things were right, all the basics, all the organisation, all the planning, but I had to look at things differently. I think my communication had to become better. I think that was the biggest thing I found with the players. I think there is a need for much more communication, but even the message you’re giving out to the media now. I felt as if I had to change from where I’ve come from.”

Moyes became player-coach of third-tier Preston North End in 1998 at the age of 34 and was a typically coach of that era: stern, aloof and sparing with praise. It was effective and he led Preston to the second tier in 2000, and later enjoyed a successful 11 years at Everton in the Premier League with largely the same approach. A generation of players has passed through the league since then and it feels like something of a bygone age – a fact not lost on Moyes.

“On days gone by, I think people would tell you, you wouldn’t come to the manager’s door very often,” he continues. “I’ve tried to be in and around the players as much as I can but keeping my distance because they have to understand that I’m still the manager. Nowadays, I’m talking to them more, about their daily lives, whether it be their families, what they’re up to, whether it be what their interests are.”

It might be a stretch to pin this as a direct reason for West Ham’s resurgence, but this approach has perhaps enabled Moyes to do his best work by helping to improve his general wellbeing. “It’s made me feel much better by having a positive outlook as well.”

The last point resonates in particular. “Sometimes people forget about the mental health of the leaders who probably have the decision-making responsibility,” says Moyes, who acknowledges that it is not easy for his players either. “The winning or losing means so much. Quite often, we can sit and listen to a radio show, which will be discussing if you’re getting the sack or not. And that, nowadays, for any other member of the public now would probably be seen as a mental health issue, but for sports coaches or managers, that’s seen as an open forum and it’s allowed to be spoken about. Most people’s lines of work would not be discussed because it would be seen as not right.”

Moyes has not been out of work for long periods during his 23-year coaching career but there have been occasional spells. What went through his mind during those times? “When you’re out of work, you can’t wait to get back in it. When you’re in work, quite often you’re saying ‘I wish I was out of it!’ because of the pressure and stress you get from it,” he says, adding that he can see more and more coaches opting for sabbaticals as a means of staving off burnout.

“Being out of work can sometimes be a good thing for managers. Pep [Guardiola] took a year out where he went to New York and did something different. I think you’ll see more of it. You’ll see some of the top managers really thinking now ‘I don’t want to be under this level of such stress every week and probably 10 or 11 months of the year I’m away from home every weekend or I’m working every weekend.’ So I do think you may see this in the next generation of managers where you might do a couple of years, and then take a year out and try and come back in again. For me, at the moment, I’m enjoying it.”

Few of Moyes’ contemporaries from his time at Preston and Everton are still operating at the highest levels of the game in England or abroad and the man himself believes that continuous learning has improved his chances when he has been out of work.

“Sometimes when you get this job you might think ‘I’ve got a job now, that’s set, I don’t need to look for anything new, I don’t need to hear what other people do’. I think you have to keep trying to find a way of learning. At the moment, I want to update all the football sessions I do; I’m trying to move them on, I’m trying to find other ways. I want to be able to test the players in as many of the football sessions as I can. I’ve got enough library material in my head to put on coaching sessions every day, but I want them to become new, fresh and updated and I’m always trying to challenge myself to find out what else I can do. But I think being out of work, I had to find ways of [working out] how you do that. When you’ve been near the top it’s difficult.

“You’ll know the people I’m going to talk about: David Brailsford, Gareth Southgate; so many of the people I get to hear from, so many great leaders, people who are great in different sports. It’s amazing how many tips you can get off of people and hear little things that complement [what you’re doing].

“I wouldn’t say I’m a great reader but I’ve picked up a couple of books and I’m picking things out of reading. Sometimes it can be enough to give you a little bit of motivation to say something or to encourage yourself to be ready.”

He mentions Guardiola again. “I heard Pep say he used the word ‘football thief’. I think we all have to be football thieves, I think we all need to steal a little bit from wherever you go.” He cites his work covering the Champions League and Euros for Uefa. “[That is] part of understanding what the new trends are and what’s up to date and where the goals are being scored from, what way teams are now lining up. The new flexibility that’s coming into football.

“If you want to stand still you can do so, but I want to try and move on and keep up with the best teams and coaches.”