28 Sep 2023
ArticlesMark Jarram of Loughborough University makes the case for systemisation in sport.
“They’re about people,” says Mark Jarram. “Sport is a relationship business and everything should be people-focused. It’s about a person over performer, whilst there will always be an element of perform-on-demand in sport. The purpose of KPIs is to keep people informed, keep them involved, interested and inspired.”
Jarram, the Head of Coaching & Performance Development for Sport at Loughborough University, is talking to the Leaders Performance Institute about the benefits of performance planning and how KPIs feed into the systemisation of performance.
“Things that get systemised get done,” he continues. “In the world of coaching and sport, there’s so much going on and there’s so many things to do and achieve. If you can find ways to systemise and automate certain things or certain interventions it means it will actually get done.”
In the first part of our interview, we discuss five benefits of taking the time to systemise a performance programme, from the performance planning of a head coach to the daily work of a practitioner.
“A lot of us in sport sometimes fall short of systematising the things that matter most,” says Jarram. “If you do a good job of keeping the main thing the main thing, it lends itself to achieving consistency.” Reviewing and closing feedback loops, or even the art of effective feedback is commonly the one thing that is not done or, wrongfully, often the first thing to leave out. Consistency is essential in the act of performance planning and, as Jarram explains, when there is a strategy in place, you can create the framework – the system – for your feedback interventions. “You’ll know that the intervention gets made rather than sometimes you do and sometimes you don’t. Sometimes it’s not relevant to have a feedback intervention but if you don’t systemise something then it’s less likely to be done and you may miss an opportunity for really good feedback.” Ultimately, “you’ve got to have something that’s manageable and repeatable otherwise there is no chance of it being effective. It’s got to add value.”
Jarram uses the example of an S&C coach to outline the benefits for coaches and practitioners alike. “What’s the S&C systemising?” he asks. “What are they tracking and what are their metrics? Is that systemised and automated? I guess it’s the same for all disciplines. What are they doing to create a form of measurement that can determine if they are making a difference. Systemisation can help to determine if we’re focusing on the right things and can create the opportunities for collaborative conversations.”
“Systemisation should prevent you from going astray and it should help make your workflows easier and bring efficiency,” says Jarram, with performance planning firmly in mind. “It allows – but doesn’t guarantee – the opportunity for complete clarity and building alignment amongst staff teams. Some of the best organisations and people I’ve been around hold clarity paramount. It contributes to the power of your purpose in that it promotes buy-in and supports your vision and mission. It allows the opportunity to ask ‘how can I contribute? What are my deliverables?’ and therefore lets you hold people accountable.” There is, he says, also an opportunity to establish what it takes to win. “There’s elements of that. Systemising helps us to confront brutal facts,” he adds. “There’s also an element of avoiding assumptions. Fewer assumptions will be made as you won’t be navigating blindly or be caught off guard. As humans, we hate being caught off guard – coaches, practitioners and athletes all do. How can we systemise something so that everyone is like ‘we know this is important and we know it’s coming’.”
Does a systemised approach to performance work better for bigger or smaller organisations? “It can be effective in both depending on the quality of the leader, quality of the conversations, quality of that aforementioned clarity,” says Jarram. A huge anchor for Jarram is “the quality of a conversation is determined by the quality of the question,” adding, “are we asking the right questions at the right times to complement performance, encourage development and provide collaboration, with the athletes at the forefront?” Even a programme with 60-plus athletes and those with a more intimate 10-plus can function efficiently if it is lead effectively. The experience of the coaches and practitioners is also significant. At Loughborough, which provides 64 sports, including 20 high performance programmes, there are sports with all full-time staff, others with part-time staff, some with placement students and a number with volunteers. “They all come with different expertise, they’re all at a different age and different stage of their journeys, so the maturity factor is real,” says Jarram. “We hear a lot about coaches wanting practitioners to know their sport really well. Do you have to be an expert in that sport to be an effective practitioner? Not necessarily as long as the practitioner is managed and led really well.”
Tensions surrounding the head coach are all but inevitable in performance planning. “At Loughborough, we’re trying to encourage coaches to take a needs-based approach – what are the needs of the team and the individual? Are you helping and supporting that rather than merely doing what you’re comfortable with? – that’s where there are frictions. Are they choosing the right style of play and the right systems and strategies to complement what it’s actually going to take to win?” Sometimes coaches can be wrong and sometimes what it takes changes mid-season or mid-cycle. “We’re saying ‘choose and commit to something based on the information you have and pursue it’. There should then be a review process because every sport evolves all the time. Did you misjudge what it takes to win in your league? What’s actually happening? What are other teams doing? Did you think you had a certain type of player in your team in pre-season and they turned out differently? You’ve got to pivot and adjust. It’s very natural to do and by systemising it we hope to shorten that timeline. Okay, let’s make sure we’re doing it when needed rather than later when it’s maybe too late.”
In part two, we will look at how Jarram and Loughborough support coaches in their performance planning.
