Team cohesion can be the key to performance and, ultimately, success. We bring you a collection of considerations from a recent Leadership Skills Series session.
That is the view of data consultants Gain Line Analytics, who were co-founded by former Australia rugby international Ben Darwin and Simon Strachan in 2013. They have since worked with numerous clients in both sporting and corporate environments.
The company has developed a concept it calls ‘Cohesion Analytics’ to help measure both understanding and coordination within teams. Its proprietary algorithms can evaluate key metrics that influence team performance, such as communication patterns, trust levels and the effectiveness of a team’s collaborative efforts. The resulting analysis can provide recommendations with a view to improving team cohesion, which may include changes in team structure, training programmes or other strategic adjustments.
Gain Line’s insights into the topic formed the basis of a recent Leadership Skills Series session for members of the Leaders Performance Institute. The outcome was a suite of tricks and tips for swiftly developing team cohesion.
What is ‘cohesion’?
Gain Line defines cohesion as ‘the level of understanding between the component parts of a team system’. They believe that cohesion is made up of:
How does cohesion influence performance?
Attendees at the Leadership Skills Series session identified five ways in which they believe cohesion can improve performance:
The Gain Line view on the important role of cohesion in performance can be expressed through the following equation:
Skill x Cohesion = Capability
Ultimately, they suggest that even if a team has highly skilled individuals, their overall capability will be limited if they lack cohesion. Conversely, a team with moderate skill levels but high cohesion can outperform more skilled but less-cohesive teams.
The equation challenges the assumed portability of skill. For example, if you bring talent and skill from one system, how confident can you be they that they will take all of that ability into the next system?
It raises another important consideration for people and teams who are focusing on improving: when a team is constantly adapting to changes, it can detract from their ability to improve and refine their skills and performance.
How can you develop cohesion at pace?
Gain Line makes five recommendations, which include practical tips and considerations:
Send strong belonging cues from the outset and develop your inclusive leadership skills. In fostering belonging, allow people to share their personal story and cultural background, widening your ‘us’ story to encompass everyone’s unique background. It’s important to not overlook the past, so look at connecting the team to its heritage. Shine a light on key moments and individuals from which we can draw inspiration or lessons. Finally, ensure you create a shared vision together for the legacy this generation want to leave behind.
Relationship mapping is a practical way to reflect on your relationships with other members of your team and encourages shared responsibility. Base your score on how well you know each other, your openness to each other’s thinking, and the quality of your collaborations. Where are you areas for opportunity to elevate trust or relationships?
The fastest way to improve collaboration is to get individuals to think about their part in the process and getting good at the balance between speaking and listening within the group. Are people speaking up? Do we have that level of psychological safety? Are they listening?
Skilled questioning can be powerful in developing relationships and cohesion. What are some examples of ‘getting to know each other’ questions? Here are some examples:
What do your athletes and staff do when they are on their ‘A game’? When you are bringing you’re A game, what is it that they are bringing too? Knowing this allows everyone in the team to know what they are looking for – then the team has a collective responsibility. Equally, when you are not on your A game, what do you see?
21 Aug 2024
ArticlesNatasha Patel of US Soccer and Simon Wilson of Stockport County discuss the influence of performance analysis on organisational strategy.
An article brought to you in collaboration with
That is according to a straw poll of attendees at a recent Virtual Roundtable hosted by the British Association of Sport & Exercise Sciences [BASES] and the Leaders Performance Institute.
We have collaborated with BASES on a three-part series called Advances in Performance Analysis and kicked things off with a first session, titled ‘The Influence of Performance Analysis on Organisational Strategy’.
Leading the conversation were Natasha Patel, the Director of Sporting Analytics at US Soccer, and Simon Wilson, the Director of Football at League 1 side Stockport County.
They began by leading a discussion of the biggest challenges facing people who use data analysis in sport. There were four that stood out:
Patel and Wilson, who began their careers in sport as performance analysts, shared a series of considerations rooted in clear principles, effective communication and strategic benchmarking when leveraging performance analysis to drive organisational success.
Establish key principles
Both Patel and Wilson continually referred to the importance of key principles. These, as Wilson explained, must outline how you are going to work and how data and analysis inform this; this allows for more creativity (and alignment) when you move through the layers. Patel, who worked at Premier League club Southampton across two spells, explained that from the beginning of her first spell, between 2011 and 2019, there was immediate buy-in from the technical director, who valued data and video analysis hugely.
Have a clear game model
A game model – a common requisite in football as well as other sports – can inform everything that follows, including data analysis. Patel said she better understood the coaches’ needs and how they want analysis delivered when there was a game model to follow. She and her colleagues were able to gain the buy-in of coaches when being intentional in spending time with them. This allowed the analyst to shine when they were able to take information from the coaches themselves and the athletes, turning it into digestible data and visuals that could help everyone. Similarly, Wilson explained how Stockport’s game model has informed their squad building and helped to generate a well-filtered target list of players who may improve the team.
Consider the end user
As Patel said, it is important to consider the end user and what performance analysis looks like to them. Once you have identified the end users, you can then work out how to get the best process for them and, subsequently, enable the trickling of information to help influence the end user, whether that be to help support or challenge their way of thinking. She referred to this as ‘stakeholder mapping’. In her second spell at Southampton, between 2022 and June 2024, Patel came to understand that each stakeholder had a unique information threshold and that more education could have been provided in-season for different stakeholders. This was a good reminder to Southampton that as performance analysis teams and departments grow and mature, so does the quantity and depth of insights.
Know the journey
Wilson, who has been with Stockport since 2020, shared that at the beginning of their current seven-year plan, they adopted a version of the Elo Rating System (derived from the world of chess), with support from a third party, to showcase the quality differences between clubs, leagues and countries. Wilson explained that the system provided objective insights into how much better the team needed to be and how they needed to grow to progress through the leagues. Engaging in this benchmarking exercise then informed the business case of how much to invest in players, staff, facilities and other infrastructure.
Patel spoke more specifically about the influence of performance analysis on player and athlete auditing and the amount of impact it has had in this space. When primarily operating in an academy environment, there are also decisions to be made around retaining and transitioning players. These metrics formed a core part of how decisions were made at Southampton, whether they were to challenge opinions and assumptions or to simply create more productive conversations. As a matter of course, Patel’s department collected athlete maturation data, leveraged the Premier League’s game-wide injury data and, finally, garnered insights from character profiling.
As Dr Daryl L Jones explains, crises are best handled by organisations whose people are able to both flourish and perform at their best.
You may recognise the signs from your own experience; from elements of high risk and disruption to the instability and the potential for internal clashes.
They’re all familiar signs, but do you truly understand how crises emerge? It is often assumed that crises are the outcome of events that cannot be managed – but nothing can be further from the truth.
That is the view of Dr Daryl Jones, the VP of Sports Leadership at Abilene Christian University, who wrote a white paper in 2017 entitled Sports Leaders, Sensemaking, and Self-Preservation: Uncovering the Real Crisis in Sport.
Jones, during a recent Virtual Roundtable for members of the Leaders Performance Institute, explained that crises emerge as a complex interplay of behaviours, processes and emotions.
Reconceptualising what we understand by ‘crisis’
Jones honed in on three specific areas that provide the terms for analysing crises in sport:
Common misconceptions of crises in sports organisations
Jones points to four common misconceptions:
Organisational elements conducive to crisis
Crises are not strictly outcomes – they are induced by behaviours, processes and emotions. They are highly disruptive, often leading to demise for the brand, organisation and culture. They garner passive responses from leaders because they are operating in self-preservation mode, while attempting to reconcile winning today and building for the future; we often subconsciously operate from fear as opposed to strength.
Additionally, crises are accompanied by apathy and myopia. What does this mean? We tend to develop a system of rewards for people to not be innovative, but to solve for today.
During the session, Jones shared some reflections from sporting leaders who were interviewed for the research:
Six of the behavioural, process, emotion-based factors most frequently associated with crisis
The research project led by Jones uncovered the six behavioural, process, and emotion-based factors (BPE) most frequently associated with organisational crises in the sports industry. Curiously, the first factor was not even a point of consideration in his initial theory-building process:
Taking steps towards learning the behaviours and practices that promote a flourishing organisational culture
What does this research tell us? It tells us we can start to proactively manage crisis as leaders; but it’s going to require that shift from self-preservation to flourishing. Jones’ assumption was that the most frequently associated response would be job performance. However, the research revealed that no matter who the leader was or where they were operating, or in what capacity, there was some form of self-preservation that at some point entered into their workflow.
Self-preservation tend to raise its head in the following scenarios:
To wrap up, Jones offered some recommendations:
25 Jul 2024
ArticlesWe highlight the core beliefs that have strengthened the ECB’s resolve to transform English men’s cricket despite the setbacks.
Brendon McCullum had no first-class coaching experience when he was appointed Head Coach of the England men’s Test cricket team in May 2022.
Nevertheless, the New Zealander was the favourite candidate of England & Wales Cricket Board [ECB] Managing Director Rob Key, who himself had been appointed a month earlier.
McCullum, assisted by captain Ben Stokes, introduced a bold playing style that has been labelled ‘Bazball’ (a reference to McCullum’s nickname).
England have improved on his watch and are moving in the right direction ahead of their primary objective, which is a successful 2025-26 Ashes series in Australia. There have been resounding victories in the past two years and there have been some chastening defeats too, which McCullum had anticipated.
‘Are you prepared to take a punt?’ He asked Key during the hiring process. ‘This could go wrong.’ Key was not fazed. ‘What’s the worst that could happen?’
Key shared this story at November’s Leaders Sport Performance Summit at London’s Kia Oval, where he spoke alongside the ECB’s former Performance Director Mo Bobat (who now works in the IPL with Royal Challengers Bangalore). The duo discussed the ECB’s efforts to transform the way England’s men think about and play cricket following a meagre run of one Test win in 15 months prior to McCullum’s appointment.
The subsequent teething troubles were as inevitable as the criticisms that accompanied them, but they have not dissuaded the ECB.
Here, we highlight four beliefs that underpin their resolve.
1. Brave decisions lead to good outcomes
Key inherited a “bruised” performance team riddled with insecurity. Key, who believes that brave decisions made by the right people can lead to good outcomes, got to work immediately. He began to give people the latitude to make decisions without any blowback. With the atmosphere of negativity stripped away, Bobat’s playful side began to emerge. “If you don’t take yourself too seriously, what appears like a risky or brave decision to someone else just feels like the right thing to do.” This was Bazball in the boardroom.
2. Positive reinforcement is critical
McCullum is Key’s ideal frontman. His belief in a fearless style of play, much like Key’s, is born from memories of feeling stifled by coaches when he was a player. So when England batter Ben Duckett was caught and bowled for a duck during England’s 2022-23 tour of Pakistan, McCullum simply said: ‘well done, you’re going to get all your runs with that approach – keep committing to it’. It’s another story Key told at the Oval. “In that moment, it’s not about the ‘well dones’, it’s the player who got nought that Brendon’s reinforced,” he said. “I’ve had so many coaches when I was playing and they’re all over you when you’ve scored 100. What about the bloke in the corner who’s got no runs and he’s thinking that the world is coming to an end? That’s the person who needs you; sometimes they just need you there to listen.”
3. Progress cannot be taken for granted
Anyone looking for a stick with which to beat Key, McCullum or Stokes would not have to look further than their recent high profile defeats. “In English cricket we unravel quickly,” said Key of the criticisms that come his way. “That’s the time when you’ve got to look like you’re the most calm; you’re the one in control; you’ve got all the answers.” This was underlined in the one-day game, specifically following England’s group stage elimination from the 2023 Cricket World Cup. Key’s view is that he and his colleagues made the mistake of assuming their messages had landed. “When people say ‘just go out there, be aggressive and we’ll back you’ they’ve got to believe it,” he said. “We ended up with players who doubted the way we wanted to go.” Do not take your progress for granted.
4. Understand your strengths, minimise your weaknesses
England’s underage teams have adopted the same playing principles as the seniors. The ECB’s hope is that English cricket will produce players with the confidence to back themselves and their technique in the face of adversity. “We’re trying not to be overly focused on technique or fault-spotting, both of which are easy to do in performance systems,” said Bobat specifically of the England Lions and under-19s programmes. Weaknesses are addressed by coaches, but not dwelt upon. “We’re trying to be focused on moments and situations where you use your strengths to put the opposition under pressure.”
23 Jul 2024
ArticlesWho are your team’s cultural architects and cultural guardians?
Angus Gardiner, the General Manager of the New Zealand rugby team the Crusaders, once said: ‘good and bad teams have the same values written on the wall’.
The ‘saying’ is the easy part, the ‘doing’ is quite another and this idea, was the jumping off point for Dr Edd Vahid’s recent project with Management Futures titled A Cultural Hypothesis, which was published in March 2024.
Vahid hypothesised that sustained cultures of success consistently display four features:
As Vahid wrote, ‘an inspiring purpose is essential, a psychologically safe environment is critical, and a sense of belonging exists as a fundamental human need. Coupled with exceptional leadership, these elements distinguish cultures that thrive’.
The fourth has provided the basis of Vahid’s three-part Performance Support Series focusing on culture and change.
The first session invited Leaders Performance Institute members to assess themselves across the four areas; the second focused on cultural leadership as the ‘super enabler’ of culture; the third session further explored the skills needed by cultural leaders.
The three levels of cultural leadership
In A Cultural Hypothesis, Vahid explains that cultural leadership operates on three levels:
The architects and the guardians are more active in their roles and, during the session, Vahid explored the skills required for each.
Cultural architects – what skills are required?
Vahid asked members to reflect on the cultural architects in their environments and their skills. The group suggested the following:
Vahid then shared a series of observations about cultural architects based on his research:
They are often appointed by the sponsors. By contrast, the guardians will mobilise on the ground.
They lead the cultural design. They have the ability to articulate and create the environment; they make others aware of the vision and direction of travel. This needs to be done in a skilled and inspiring fashion, with language that is able to influence the culture.
Their role can also be more literal i.e. they have a role in creating a more optimal physical environment.
They acknowledge the tensions within their team and possess the ability to flex and be agile without losing sight of the purpose.
They understand the importance of stories, which can help to distinguish your culture. As Daniel Coyle asked several organisations in his 2018 book, The Culture Code, ‘tell me a story of something that happens here that doesn’t happen anywhere else?’ They know the answer.
The architect must be effectively monitoring the culture and its current state. That can be checking-in with where the culture is now or, equally, understanding the journey that it is going to go on. It’s important to invite feedback and ‘speak truth to power’. It is crucial for them to be connected to the guardians in staying abreast of goings on; they must also ensure a sense of positivity around the culture.
Architects will take a more ‘global view’ than the guardians.
In light of the ‘radically traditional’ research of Alex Hill and the Centre of High Performance, architects provide what Hill calls the ‘disruptive edge’ while the guardians maintain the ‘stable core’.
Cultural guardians – what are their other traits?
Once again, Vahid turned to members to ask what skills they felt cultural guardians possess. They suggested:
Vahid outlined what his research had to say on the matter of cultural guardians:
The guardians can provide much-needed support as well as bandwidth, space and capacity for the architects to focus on the things that really matter. It requires insight and intelligence to provide a clear view of the landscape.
They carry a strong purpose; there is a level of awareness, alignment and connectedness. The challenge for the architect is to ensure the guardian remains connected because if the connection is lost, you can lose someone who is a positive advocate and instead they become a disruptive influence.
The guardians can speak truth to power with ‘radical candor’, to cite Kim Scott’s theory; they ‘care personally while challenging directly’.
They are role models. They also need to have a degree of influence as they are the foot soldiers that can carry out the vision effectively.
The guardians are on the ground, taking that more localised view. They can make decisions on the ground for the benefit of and in alignment with the culture. They don’t need to escalate every decision or action.
Finally, guardians are identified or are emerging. Vahid’s use of the term ‘identify’ is deliberate because one of the challenges for cultures is to identify the individuals that are going to have a positive influence. He says teams have to ask the question as to whether they are doing enough to support their guardians and the development of their skillset.
Cultural architects, cultural guardians… and cultural shareholders
While there are cultural sponsors, architects and guardians, these are all cultural shareholders.
Vahid’s research suggests that cultural shareholders can be distinguished by their level of:
Those who carry significant positive influence and are highly motivated in alignment with your cultural aspirations could be considered guardians, but they are absolutely your strongest architects.
The challenge of a culture is to get an appropriate balance. Is there sufficient weight towards the guardians – if everyone’s a shareholder, are there sufficient numbers of strong and positive advocates for the culture – or are there people who might be considered countercultural?
How does a shareholder become a cultural guardian?
Vahid invited Leaders Performance Institute members to answer the question. They said that cultural shareholders transition into guardianship because:
In order to create more cultural guardians, Vahid argues that it is important to:
What are some of the fundamental change principles?
Vahid invited members to reflect on cultural change and the fundamental principles they call upon in those phases of development. Attendees suggested the following:
The change starts with observation; the sponsor then gives the architect permission to design, create and deliver what the new culture might look like. With this in mind, Vahid suggests a six-step process:
3 Jul 2024
ArticlesMoonshots, how leaders can work on themselves, and the pathway to better collaboration – just some of the topics that featured on the June agenda at the Institute.
It is always wonderful to see the great and the good of the Leaders Performance Institute gathered to discuss the pressing performance challenges of the day.
Speaking of which, the happenings at Red Bull were far from the only opportunities on offer at the Institute in June, with roundtables and community calls packed with members sharing both challenges and best practices on a range of topics.
Many are covered in this month’s Debrief. As ever, do check out our upcoming events and virtual learning sessions, which are designed to help you to connect, learn and share with your fellow members from across the globe.
Right, let’s get into some reflections on June.
What we learned at the Sport Performance Summit in LA
We had a great couple of days with those of you who made the trip; and there was plenty of thought-provoking content for us to get our teeth stuck into (full account here). Below are a few snippets that particularly caught our attention:
Four tips for avoiding the ‘Innovator’s Dilemma’
The Innovator’s Dilemma is a 1997 book by Harvard Professor Clayton Christensen that explores the tension between sustaining existing products and embracing disruptive innovations. It resonated with Jen Allum, from X, the Moonshot Factory and Alphabet, the parent company of Google, who understand they could easily fall prey to the Innovator’s Dilemma. Onstage, Allum shared their four top tips for avoiding this scenario:
Allum added that X, the Moonshot Factory “rewards project shutoffs, dispassionate assessments, and intellectual honesty” in the work they do.
How to optimise your energy as a leader
As a leader, strategic thinking is in your remit, but do you ever include protecting your energy as part of the equation? “An organisation can’t outpace its leaders,” said author Holly Ransom onstage. “So there’s nothing more important than working on ourselves as leaders.” Here are her thoughts on how leaders should show up each day:
The biomarkers of a healthy culture
Back to the myriad insights gleaned from our June Virtual Roundtables, starting off with the latest segment of our series of learning centred around culture and change. The sessions highlight findings from a recent research project by the Premier League’s Edd Vahid titled ‘Cultural Hypothesis’. The project examines the key components of cultures that have been able to sustain themselves.
Vahid posits astute leadership as a ‘super enabler’. Indeed, as Donald and Charles Sull wrote in the MIT Sloane Management Review in 2022: ‘A lack of leadership investment was, by far, the most important obstacle to closing the gap between cultural aspirations and current reality.’
What are some strategies we can consider?
Vahid’s also research reveals that cultural leadership operates on three levels:
Four features of a great debrief
Effective debriefing skills was the top of conversation for our latest Leadership Skills Series session. If you are interested to join roundtable sessions centred around developing your own leadership, there are some great topics coming up around strategy and cohesion you can find on the Member’s Area.
To keep this section punchy, a section of our discussion focused on some top line considerations for what constitutes a great debrief. Are you doing these well in your environments?
The pathway to better collaboration and multidisciplinary working
Finally, we wanted to highlight some interesting insights and perspectives from our topic-led roundtable on functioning more effectively as multidisciplinary teams, which is often a very popular topic of interest across the Institute when speaking to many of you.
Do check out the complete summary. Below are a handful of ideas from members on the call that they feel are currently missing or need to be given more attention in the quest to do this well:
25 Jun 2024
ArticlesThere are some persistent challenges but intentional leaders and their teams can find ways to flourish.
The chances are that for all your fine work fostering a collaborative multidisciplinary team there are challenges you still face daily.
At a recent Leaders Virtual Roundtable, we encouraged members to reflect on areas where there is room for improvement and areas where they have made real inroads.
Some responses, such as limited time, busy schedules and the decentralised nature of some programmes were raised by members time and again but, below, we focus on communal challenges.
Common issues that prevent efficient collaboration
Misalignment of needs, expectations and responsibilities: such issues still endure, as evidenced by the number of members who mentioned the lack of alignment within departments and teams. One mentioned a lack of role clarity and, in turn, knowing with they should collaborate or bring into the conversation at the right times. Some cited the challenge of matching the expectations of individual staff and the collective needs of the team. Others noted situations where there are competing objectives and priorities.
Expertise bias: a Leaders member cited ‘discipline protectionism’, which resonated with most attendees. There are enduring examples of intellectual arrogance from some disciplines or an expertise bias that impacts communication, information sharing and can reduce general curiosity. These are all collaboration killers.
Team makeup: there are several elements here. Firstly, when team members are hired in at different stages there is a natural impact on the functionality of the team. There are also different personalities and communication preferences. Several attendees also noted that some environments are geared towards individuals highlighting their own impact and values as opposed to the greater good of the team.
Other considerations: the leader’s ego; a lack of psychological safety; finding the space and time for reflection; a lack of understanding about what optimal multidisciplinary work looks like.
Potential pathways to better collaboration
Centralised communication: can lead to a higher quality of comms between all stakeholders. Perhaps you can profile your team members and better communicate agreed expectations.
Consistent data capturing: when multiple departments are capturing data consistently, instead of sporadically, it can create more alignment around communication and collaboration with other disciplines.
Humble leadership: the leader or leadership team must be humble enough to accept when change or re-organisation is required. They need the humility to step back, evaluate their approach as a leader, as well as the situation, and enact change. This is where clearly defined needs and a common understanding are useful.
Clear standard operating procedures: a well-functioning system promotes better asynchronous information sharing. If you can outline standard operating procedures for communication between platforms it can prevent key information and messages being missed.
Team structure and role clarity: as a team leader, it’s worth considering the effectiveness of your onboarding and offboarding approach to minimise the impact. Diversity of thought is also essential, but it’s worth considering how to feed this into the design and operation of the team. One roundtable attendee suggested hiring an independent auditor to help outline role clarity, the sharing of best practices and, in general, promoting leadership – in essence, they act as a critical friend. Additionally, discipline or team leaders can create networks within their teams to enable such sharing. Another member explained that they have adopted a ‘team of teams’ approach e.g. a structure based on a ‘constellation’ of smaller teams that work together closely. It has yielded some positive results. Finally, in an effort to encourage a team-first approach, consider how you profile team members and communication of expectations.
What’s missing and what are the further opportunities?
Support for new leaders
How are you supporting new leaders in your teams? Often we see those in technical expertise or ‘tactician’ roles move up to a leadership position but lack the requisite skills to lead effectively. The role inevitably changes, so what are you or we doing to help them ‘lead’ their teams and embed true collaboration?
Robust and thoughtful feedback
Be intentional in creating a robust and thoughtful feedback mechanism that allows for variations of approach. Detailed feedback can support team learning on a consistent and ongoing basis. True, it can be a challenge, but therein lies the opportunity.
Psychological safety and empowerment
How can we better empower people more effectively to take targeted risks within their roles, whilst still feeling safe and secure? There needs to be a team-wide understanding of what psychological safety means and what it looks like in your environment.
As Brisbane’s Damien Austin said, the Kansas City Chiefs quarterback has proved a useful reference point for a Lions team that sees high performance as a 24/7 pursuit.
The players and staff stand in awe of the Kansas City Chiefs quarterbacks’ postseason exploits, but Google images of a topless Mahomes with a less-than-perfectly-chiselled figure provide conversation-starters on training, performance and nutrition.
“He’s considered the GOAT at the moment and he’s basically got a ‘dad bod’,” said Damien Austin, picking up on the term Mahomes has used to describe his own appearance. As a three-time Super Bowl MVP, Mahomes is clearly doing the right things, and Austin, who is Brisbane’s High Performance Manager, was simply illustrating how highly attuned his athletes are to the demands of their own high performance.
“We educate the players about acute-chronic workload,” he told an audience at February’s Leaders Sport Performance Summit at Melbourne’s Glasshouse. “They know about injury management, they know about their programmes and why we do what we do.”
Brisbane are one of the best teams in the AFL; and a premiership, their first since 2003, is a realistic target. It’s a far cry from the mess Austin inherited when he first walked through the door in November 2015. He came from the Sydney Swans with a remit to revamp Brisbane’s high performance setup, but it would prove to be easier said than done. “I came to the harsh reality that we were very different.”
Brisbane rock: not all it’s cracked up to be
In 2016, Chris Fagan was appointed Brisbane’s Senior Coach. He initially focused on the physical, technical, tactical and psychological elements that could give him the biggest bang for his buck.
The team also decided to fake it until they made it; “stealing” ideas from individuals and teams, including Usain Bolt, Eluid Kipchoge and the San Antonio Spurs. Austin said: “These people reminded the players what some teams did and we mirrored [their actions and philosophies] until we could develop our own.”
They even brought a large rock to Springfield Central so that the players could ‘pound the rock’ in the manner talked about at Gregg Popovich’s Spurs, where a rock takes pride of place at the entrance to their practice facility. It brings to life the Spurs’ belief that it is not the final strike that cracks the rock but the hundred blows that came before.
While it makes for a stirring scene in San Antonio, Brisbane’s rock did not hold up its end of the bargain. “Every now and then the players would have a crack at it but the rock wasn’t hard – it kept breaking – we had to get another rock!”
On the field, the team continued to lose most weekends. “We called ourselves ‘the happiest bunch of losers’.” While Fagan’s first two years were characterised by turbulence and continued turnover, the atmosphere gradually improved because the people that stayed (or joined) believed in the direction of travel.
The team had long since resolved that at least no one would outwork them. It was their founding philosophy. Players were pushed out of their comfort zones (Brisbane introduced 3K time trials when 1K or 2K were the league norm) but given all the necessary support to prepare. Additionally, no other team had to train in the oppressive heat of the Brisbane summer (routinely reaching 29˚C/84˚F) but the local climate was reframed as a performance advantage.
The team also began to measure everything they could. “I’ve never been in a programme where strength results or running results from the general running session were put up in team meetings so much,” said Austin.
Little victories were celebrated along the way. “If a rookie player benched 60 kilos for the first time it was a pretty big deal.” The players enjoyed their progress. “It could not be us just harping on and on [otherwise] those early losses could have taken their toll.” Instead, as results turned, it led to a firm bond between the players, many of whom are locals who happily spend their downtime together.
Eight years on from teaming up with Fagan, Austin defines high performance very differently. “In the early days we would say ‘let’s do the basics and get as many gains as we can to attract younger players and hopefully they perform later down the track’. Now we’re looking for the finer edge. How we can improve our weaknesses? If you were to play us, how would you as an opposition coach or stats department play against us? Years ago we would not have looked at that.”
Best foot forward
Under Fagan, Brisbane have become known for their growth mindset and fearless approach. The staff have worked continuously to remove the fear of failure, with sessions that demanded players kick off their weaker foot being a prime example. Such efforts underlined that this was a psychologically safe environment. “Those sessions weren’t pretty, but there was an acceptance that you’re going to fail; but don’t be fearful of it. Learn from it,” said Austin, who also explained that players now routinely run their own training sessions and both give and receive performance feedback. “Leadership is not about being the best. Leadership is about making everyone else better.”
Nevertheless, for all their progress, Brisbane’s major defeats have been frustrating. These include semi-final losses in 2019 and 2021 and preliminary final reverses in 2020 and 2022. They bounced back to make the Grand Final at the MCG in 2023 but their narrow defeat to Collingwood that afternoon still rankles and they are determined to make amends. They have put their belief in a 24/7 approach to high performance to bridge that four-point gap. “You need to live it, endure it, deliver it. You need to do everything off the field, look at how you manage it; be involved and make the best out of it.”
Patrick Mahomes would no doubt approve.
5 Jun 2024
ArticlesThe May agenda was dominated by cultural enablers, the fundamentals of communication and the impact of mental skills work.
Those three, different as they are, share a reputation for sustained high performance and, as such, represent the profile we had in mind as we picked May to launch of our latest Performance Support Series.
That series – which has two sessions still to run at the time of writing – was just one of the opportunities on offer to Leaders Performance Institute members through their membership during the course of the month.
There was much more besides and The Debrief is designed to keep you on the pulse of contemporary thinking across the high performance space. Do check out some of our upcoming events and virtual learning sessions to help you to connect, learn and share with your fellow members from across the globe.
Four interconnected cultural enablers
We have all asked ourselves this question at various times but Dr Edd Vahid and Management Futures decided to delve a little deeper.
In June 2022, the business and leadership consultancy commissioned Vahid, the Head of Academy Football Operations at the Premier League, to undertake a piece of research to discover the ‘secrets of culture’. Two years later, this project, titled ‘Cultural Hypothesis’, is on the cusp of publication.
Ahead of its release, Vahid is leading a three-part Performance Support Series at the Leaders Performance Institute that seeks to explore the enablers in high performing cultures.
The first session, which took place in early May, was a useful way of testing the importance and relevance of the four interconnected enablers highlighted by Vahid in the Cultural Hypothesis: purpose, psychological safety, belonging and cultural leadership.
Vahid explored each enabler in turn.
Questions for you to consider in your organisations:
Questions for you to consider in your organisations:
Questions for you to consider in your organisations:
A question for you to consider in your organisations:
Achieving communication nirvana
Win, lose or draw, teams are constantly in transition and, as such, they need different things from their leaders at each stage in their development.
This can be tricky because you can’t shortcut the development of rapport, belonging and trust – all are critical to team development and effective transitions – and yet teams and leaders still face pressure to perform now.
That comes down to good communication, as discussed in a recent Leadership Skills Series session.
In fact, it is worth exploring five levels of communication as experienced in a team setting. It is useful to think of the following as a pyramid. Teams begin at No 1 and work towards No 5, with increasing exposure to risk, vulnerability and criticism at each level.
Five fundamentals when measuring the impact of your mental skills work
In the modern landscape of high performance sport, we often here the phrase ‘everything that is managed is measured’.
Such is the desire to show impact and return on investment, we are indeed measuring much of what can be measured.
Nevertheless, it can be difficult to measure the impact of areas such as coach development work or, as discussed in a recent Virtual Roundtable for Leaders Performance Institute members, mental skills work.
While it is tempting to jump into the measuring process, it is important to first build some pre-requisites.
15 May 2024
ArticlesDr Edd Vahid kicked off his latest Performance Support Series with a discussion of the traits that define cultures at the top of their game.
We have all asked ourselves this question at various times but Dr Edd Vahid and Management Futures decided to delve a little deeper.
In June 2022, the business and leadership consultancy commissioned Vahid, the Head of Academy Football Operations at the Premier League, to undertake a piece of research to discover the ‘secrets of culture’. Two years later, this project, titled ‘Cultural Hypothesis’, is on the cusp of publication.
Ahead of its release, Vahid is leading a three-part Performance Support Series at the Leaders Performance Institute that seeks to explore the enablers in high performing cultures.
The first session, which took place in early May, was a useful way of testing the importance and relevance of the four enablers highlighted by Vahid in the Cultural Hypothesis: purpose, psychological safety, belonging and cultural leadership.
Vahid explored each enabler in turn.
Most sustained high performing cultures have an inspiring purpose. Vahid referred to clothing brand Patagonia, which says ‘we’re in the business to save our home planet’ and its every action is driven by that purpose. This example calls to mind the work of Alex Hill who, in his book Centennials, suggests that organisations that have sustained success over a long period of time have a stable core and a disruptive edge. According to Hill, it is important that your purpose doesn’t fluctuate too much or disappear because its has the power to help your organisation shape society and enable you to effectively engage future talent.
Another aspect of ‘purpose’ is the idea of individual and organisational alignment. Those organisations that are tending to culture regularly are taking the time to consider how their purpose resonates at an individual and organisational level.
Questions to consider:
In The Fearless Organization, psychologist Amy Edmondson suggested that ‘making the environment safe for open communication about challenges, concerns and opportunities is one of the most important leadership responsibilities in the twenty-first century’.
The findings of Vahid’s ‘Cultural Hypothesis’ suggest that cultural leadership plays a fundamental role in an individual’s experience of psychological safety. In the session, he referred to Netflix, which has adapted its in-house feedback mechanisms to ‘lead with context and not control’ (concepts that are highly aligned and loosely coupled).
Questions to consider:
Owen Eastwood, in his seminal book Belonging, wrote that ‘our senses are primed to constantly seek information about belonging from our environment. We are hardwired to quickly and intuitively understand whether or not we are in a safe place with people we can trust’.
Organisational anthropologist Timothy Clark also highlights a bridge between psychological safety and belonging in suggesting that the first level of psychological safety is the idea of inclusion safety – you belong to something.
New Zealand Rugby provide a case study in this area, as the theme of belonging is central to their philosophy. They recognise the diversity of their playing groups. They invest in their inductions, and there’s some literature that highlights the importance of your sense of belonging on entry and the critical process of effective inductions to ensure from the very outset that you feel like you belong in your environment. There is a regular and considered approach to belonging cues and rituals that reinforce the idea that people belong, and that could be as simple as ensuring that people’s voices are heard.
Ultimately, we want to get people to a point of challenge. The most optimal environments where there is a high degree of psychological safety is where individuals feel comfortable to challenge.
A question to consider:
An inspiring purpose is essential, a psychologically safe environment is crucial, and a sense of belonging exists as a fundamental human need. Coupled with exceptional leadership, these elements distinguish cultures that thrive.
Leadership is presented as a crucial and critical part of Vahid’s ‘Cultural Hypothesis’. It feels central in that it is seen as a super enabler, that when you’ve got strong and aligned cultural leadership it will be a precursor, certainly to psychological safety and belonging.
Questions to consider:
The four traits of the ‘Cultural Hypothesis’ ranked by members
Vahid invited attendees to rank their current satisfaction with these enablers. This offers a snapshot of the state of play across elite sport, particularly in North America, Europe and Australasia:
Other reflections on culture
The ‘Iceberg Effect’
The discourse prompted a further question on the nature of ‘culture’. Vahid cited the work of psychologist Edgar Schein on the ‘Iceberg Effect’. Schein’s model likens culture to an iceberg: what we see (artifacts) is just a fraction of what lies beneath (espoused beliefs and assumptions). This is how that may look in a sports organisation:
Culture: a ‘group phenomenon’
The ‘Iceberg Effect’ chimes with the work of business academic Boris Groysberg who in 2018 co-wrote an article in the Harvard Business Review with Jeremiah Lee, Jesse Price, and J Yo-Jud Cheng. They defined culture as:
[1] ‘The Leaders Guide to Corporate Culture’, Harvard Business Review, January-February 2018
If you are interested in joining the second session of this Performance Support Series with Dr Edd Vahid on Thursday 6 June, sign up here.
