Main Image: Phil Greig, courtesy of the Premier League

By Dr Jamie Taylor

There is an enduring assumption in football that the manager of the first team is the best coach at the club.

Yes, a head coach could be an expert, but that team might also be blessed with a highly expert foundation phase coach or an expert professional development phase coach. Each faces different demands and their work as coaches is inevitably different, but each can be expert.

My colleagues and I have been influenced by the adaptive skill model of Paul Ward and his colleagues. We see coaching expertise as the ability for someone to form intentions in their coaching practice and then flexibly and adaptively work towards those intentions – or change those intentions based on the changing context.

This idea is at the heart of the Coaching Expertise Project, which is an ongoing collaboration between the Premier League and Dublin City University and Insight Foundation Ireland. The project was launched in 2023 as part of the Premier League’s efforts to cement its reputation as world-leading in coach development practice.

Most of our data was collected by Mike Ashford, a postdoctoral researcher at the Insight SFI Research Centre for Data Analytics, while at the Premier League, Scott McNeill, the Head of Coach Development, and Danny Newcombe, the Senior Coach Development Manager, have driven the work from their side.

Scott and Danny’s roles have been to ensure the Coaching Expertise Project is anchored in the real demands of coaching practice and closely aligned to both academy and first team environments. They have worked with clubs to identify expert coaches across phases and to shape the project so that it reflects the realities of their day-to-day work. This is important for them because their ambition is to impact the full coaching pathway, supporting ongoing development not only in academies but also in first team settings. More broadly, their main intention is to contribute to the wider football system by enhancing the skill and expertise of both coaches and coach developers. The Premier League sees this as part of a bigger picture as they work alongside their professional game partners.

Photo: Phil Greig, courtesy of the Premier League

At the outset, we identified six coaches per phase across the Premier League, each working at a different development phase in their club’s academy. These coaches were selected from amongst their peers – the only effective means by which we can say one coach is better than another – and invited to undertake an extensive research journey.

Through this process we seek to better identify and understand the coaching demands at different levels. If we can understand those demands then we can be better at identifying expert coaches and helping coaches to reach an expert level.

The coaches involved in the project love it too. They’re constantly trying to find opportunities to learn and develop and it has supported their efforts to step into deep, reflective practice.

And so in shifting that focus from mere competence to true expertise, the Coaching Expertise Project has challenged long-held assumptions and is establishing new industry standards.

The issue with traditional coach development plans

Too often in coach development practice there has been a tendency to focus on coaching behaviour. That’s antithetical to what expertise is because, by definition, expertise is about flexibility, decision-making, and changes to practice that are, frankly, not very observable.

The risk in focusing on behaviour and attempting to change coach behaviour is that we end up reproducing what’s already there.

If there is too much focus on behaviours there is also too much focus on the coach and not their environment. This creates coach development plans divorced from demands. It is important to ask: is a coach development plan based on the demands of practice or on a series of generic capacities that cannot be tracked?

Our project is focused on the interaction between the coach and their context because we cannot identify expertise unless we understand the interaction between a coach and the demands of their role. We’ve identified a series of coaching demands – six or seven per phase – then mapped out the cues and strategies that expert coaches use to navigate those demands. It’s not a list of qualities that says ‘every good coach does this’. The demands are consistent but the coaches are different, and they navigate those demands in reasonably unique ways.

Photo: Phil Greig, courtesy of the Premier League

What ‘expert’ looks like

The Coaching Expertise Project has used this fresh understanding of the demands and coaching context to build a profiling tool that we want to embed in coach development at the Premier League.

It will inform a needs analysis for each coach because we can better understand good practice and the development status of the coach in question.

Capacities are still important. Entry level coaches will still need to show that they’re good enough to enter a role, but the Premier League’s ambitions extend beyond that starting point.

We’re going to be able to provide recommendations for coaches on the different demands of their roles and how they might work to develop themselves against these demands. Ultimately, we hope it’s going to become embedded into coach development practices across Premier League academies and in the daily life of an academy coach.

People have also asked me if we’ve simplified anything for coaches. The answer is no. You’d never say ‘how do you simplify this for a sports scientist or psychologist?’ because we have higher expectations of those professions. Coaches are some of the most expert practitioners in any field so it’s less important that it’s simplified and more that it’s valid and useful for coaches, that it can be integrated into their workflows.

Photo: Phil Greig, courtesy of the Premier League

Evolution not revolution

This remains a fruitful area for research. There are fewer than ten studies that have used expertise as a lens to understand coaching practice – and two of those studies have been mine.

The Premier League remains committed to the ongoing development of coaches across both academy and first team settings. The central intention of the project is to contribute to the wider football system by enhancing the skill and expertise of coaches and coach developers alike. By doing so, we aim to strengthen the overall quality of coaching and create development environments where the very best practitioners can continue to grow and positively impact the game.

We hope that this will eventually have an impact in the wider sporting world, but we are promoting an evolution rather than revolution, and if we can recognise the very best coaches and we’re better able to develop coaches towards expertise, it’ll see those coaches rewarded for good practice and then ultimately every player, when they walk into a club, is on the receiving end of high quality coaching practice.

Dr Jamie Taylor

Jamie is an Assistant Professor in the School of Health and Human Performance at Dublin City University, with a focus on coaching, coach development and coaching research. As a researcher, he supports practitioners on DCU’s MSc and professional doctorate programmes and collaborates with high-performance sports organisations including the Premier League, GAA, IRFU, and Premiership Rugby. As a coach developer, he has worked across a range of high-performance environments. Alongside his academic and development work, Jamie coaches rugby union at Leicester Tigers.

If you would like to speak to Jamie Taylor, Scott McNeill or Danny Newcombe about their work, please contact a member of the Leaders Performance Institute team.

By Luke Whitworth

Stephen Torpey, the Academy Director at Premier League Brentford, was damning in his verdict on the English football academy system’s ability to give young players a happy, fulfilling experience.

“There are 18,400 players on average in the system,” said Torpey, when speaking at Leaders Meet: The Talent Journey in April. “To say that every single one of them is ready, can handle this environment, and is going to have a great time whilst in it, I would question that.”

Effective pathway transitions were a major theme of the day’s discussions and leant themselves neatly to a virtual roundtable the following week when practitioners from across the globe were invited to share insights into the development experiences they believe have proven most effective in helping young athletes to make the transition from the junior ranks into senior competition.

The conversation alighted upon six important elements.

1. Relevant competition exposure

The fact that competition exposure was up first reinforced how crucial experience is for young athletes, particularly the act of exposing them to different types of adversity and building their mental resilience through that process.

Competition experience represents an obvious focus, with one environment in the world of swimming identifying a small gap in their programme for 19-23-year-olds – those that fell between the top end of the pathway and the senior team. They plug this gap by taking this cohort overseas to compete in competition-style scenarios. They also simulated experiences they might encounter during senior competitions, from the use of coaching language and setting out behavioural expectations to the potentially unusual timing of meetings during competitions. The impact has been positive.

2. Exposure to senior environments

This is closely linked to competition exposure and includes both the opportunity to experience senior environments and train with more mature athletes and senior, high-performing coaches. A number of participants mentioned ‘taster sessions’ as a simple but effective way to improve the transition experience by offering a sample of life within the inner sanctum. Moreover, it is helpful for senior coaches to be able to benchmark future talent in a way that informs selection.

These practices hint at the importance of connection between senior and development environments and better integration of the people operating in these environments. If true alignment is to be achieved in this area, senior coaches must buy into the idea that providing exposure and opportunities is a critical element of talent development.

3. ‘Buddy’ systems

In building upon the idea of increased exposure to senior environments, the table talked about being creative and resourceful in using more experienced athletes to aid transitions. One participant revealed that rehabbing senior athletes are encouraged to mentor their team’s academy players, which facilitates consistent messaging across the board while also equipping those senior players with new skills. It called to mind proximal role modelling, which has long been discussed within the walls of the Leaders Performance Institute.

Whatever your approach to pairing senior and underage players, the table agreed that it must be consistent and cannot be just a reactive exercise.

4. Individual development plans

These are for athletes and coaches alike, as one participant said of their environment. A good IDP caters to individual needs and creates reflection moments that aid transition experiences.

One attendee from an Olympic sport spoke of their team’s sessions promoting athlete identity and a better understanding and awareness of the support systems available to them. It causes athletes to ask themselves: who are the people who can support me in this phase of my transition?

Psychological profiling is a natural corollary. A participant from a club in English football is endeavouring to better understand the psychological makeup of young talent. They want to know how they learn and what environments would encourage better growth. They also alighted upon the idea of building stronger inner resilience, which is too often overlooked in the face of tactical and technical development. To aid them in this mission, the club seeks to help its support staff develop greater emotional intelligence as their young players manage the highs and lows of their development.

5. Upskilling your coaches

The table underlined the importance of investing in coach development as a key influence on transition experiences for athletes. One element of this is ensuring coaches are equipped to recognise and understand different transitions as they occur in different contexts and, therefore, deal with them more effectively.

One environment within the Olympic system explained how their decentralised programme has witnessed new performance records at junior level due in part to their consistent approach to coach development. Their heightened emphasis on coach support and development extends not only to their current athletes but those next on the pathway.

Also, coach-to-coach exchanges enable individuals to discuss both common transitions and those lesser-considered transitions that are nevertheless challenging, such as injuries.

6. Dedicated resource

It is essential to have dedicated resource to managing athlete transitions, whether an athlete is progressing to a senior squad or leaving the sport entirely. One attendee described their specific remit for pathway transitions, which enables them to identify gaps and then create the strategies or skillsets to plug those gaps. It is important that athletes are supported emotionally, technically and tactically.

This goes for the learning and development of coaches too, with the consensus being that they can take advantage of the expertise in their high performance ranks whether that’s sports science, nutrition, skill acquisition or biomechanics. Their learning and development excels when they cede some control to their support staff.

One attendee told the tale of an experienced Olympic coach who worked with a skill acquisition specialist to ask if there was a better way to help athletes transition from reaching finals to topping the podium. In other words, how can elite training design benefit from scientific enquiry?

Final considerations

Better onboarding

Too often, the induction process for young athletes is reduced to a tick-box exercise. Mindful of this, one environment talked about adapting their induction language and approach. Beyond induction, they are providing youngsters with a longer period of onboarding, which could be months, to help create the time and space for them to ask more questions and get to know the environment better. It prompted another at the table to ponder how we might check the success of our onboarding strategies. For example, one can test for understanding when it comes to education processes.

Continuous refinement

The continuous interrogation of what went well and what didn’t will help to refine processes of transition. One attendee stated that it’s important to critically reflect and then adapt how we support young athletes through the transition phase from underage to senior level.

What to read next

The Winning Formula for the Future of Performance Sport

A Data & Innovation article brought to you by

By Rob Schaefer

Weeks after closing a $1.8M seed funding round, computer vision-powered coaching and analysis platform SportAI has secured its first major commercial contract, inking a deal with racquet sports booking platform MATCHi.

Through the agreement, SportAI’s offerings will be available on the MATCHi TV streaming service, which is underpinned by cameras installed at 2,000 of MATCHi’s tennis and padel courts. The integration lets players access highlights and technical analyses of match footage on their phones. In all, MATCHi has a network of more than 1M users across 2,600 venues and 14,000 courts in 30 countries.

Financial and duration terms were not disclosed.

Oslo-based SportAI was co-founded by Lauren Pedersen, a New Zealand native who is combining passions for sport and technology to democratize access to swing technique analysis – first in racquet sports but with the aim to eventually expand into the likes of cricket, baseball and beyond.

Image: SportAI

“Technique coaching, specifically, is still very subjective and expensive and unscalable,” Pedersen told SBJ in a recent interview at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center, where she spent time during the U.S. Open pitching prospective clients. “If you have a tennis lesson pretty much anywhere, it’s easily going to cost $100 – and you might have a good coach, but if you had three or four good coaches looking at your technique, they would all say something different, and there would be no data to back up what they’re saying.”

SportAI’s system is hardware agnostic; its algorithms can be applied to phone or camera footage and generate overlays that chart swing curves (and compare those curves to professionals), ball strike timing and other statistics like hip or shoulder rotation and swing velocity. The system also provides textual feedback, which as of now is pulled from a matrix of preset options but could in the future tap into a large language model, Pedersen said.

Here, Pedersen demonstrates the technology analyzing her one-handed backhand.

“To get to technique analysis, the computer vision, the platform itself, has to identify the boundaries of the court, identify different players on the court, be able to pick up all the biometric movement,” Pedersen said. “Before we even get to the technique analysis, we’ve got a lot of the technical data, which provides heat maps and statistics as well. We can deliver all that, and then technique analysis or coaching on top of it.”

Pedersen is charting a B2B model for the company, wherein SportAI licenses access to its software to three key segments: racquet sports clubs and coaches, broadcasters, and equipment manufacturers. She did not disclose pricing but noted it is variable based on which analysis modules businesses subscribe to.

As a coaching tool, Pedersen asserts that SportAI can reinforce instruction with empirical data, expand coaches’ influence outside of traditional lesson hours by making swing analyses accessible remotely, and unlock incremental revenue by creating a premium digital offering coaches or clubs can charge members to use.

For broadcast, Pedersen envisions the potential to improve the less objective niches of common tennis analysis and introduce technique comparisons between players or digital twin visualizations.

Integrating with equipment manufacturers, Pedersen added, would bring the opportunity for increased personalization in matching players with the appropriate racquet for their skill level and play style.

This article was brought to you by SBJ Tech, a Leaders Group company. As a Leaders Performance Institute member, you are able to enjoy exclusive access to SBJ Tech content in the field of athletic performance.

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By Luke Whitworth

Half of the practitioners at elite sports organisations believe there is limited integration between their data analysis and coaching teams.

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.

The perception is worse when it comes to analysis and recruitment, with over 60 per cent of attendees suggesting that their analytics and recruitment teams do not work closely at all.

Yet 63 per cent also believe that improved data and computer literacy across their staffs would directly impact performance.

The sense that there is room for improvement gave the session its title: ‘Mobilising Performance Analysis in Practice’. It was the second in our three-part collaboration with BASES called Advances in Performance Analysis and centred around two case studies.

The first was delivered by Julia Wells, the Head of Performance Analysis at the UK Sports Institute [UKSI], and the second by Mat Pearson, the Head of Performance Insights & Data Strategy at English Premier League side Wolverhampton Wanderers.

Five areas where data literacy can improve performance

Before Wells and Pearson delivered their insights, attendees were set a further task: ‘as a consequence of improving data or computer literacy, describe what you would see as being the most significant impact on performance’.

The responses were varied but five stood out:

1. Improved efficiency: save time and, with that time-saving ability, you have more space to explore and analyse the insights to then act upon them. Similarly, greater efficiency means less education on metrics and processes for those who don’t have expertise in the area. Finally, there will be fewer mistakes.
2. Better accuracy: this leads to better decisions, thus allowing one to be more evidence-based in wider decision-making.
3. Observing trends over time: if done well, this leads to more engagement from coaches and athletes in the process and allows for data trends to be seen over a longer period of time.
4. More evidence-based decisions: an ability to create general reports at user level with an ability to drill down and ask more specific and sophisticated questions of data.
5. Easier benchmarking: there is room for more programme guidance and testing if things are working. It leads to more objective-based player assessments rather than just the subjective.

How the UKSI are mobilising performance analysis work-ons in meeting common challenges in data analysis

The first session highlighted the four biggest challenges facing people who use data analysis in sport. To kick off her presentation in the second, Wells explained how the UKSI is trying to tackle those four challenges (plus another).

Challenge 1: integration

Go back to basics. That’s the approach of the UKSI, who have placed an emphasis skill development, support structures and a clear data strategy.

It goes like this: the relevant staff members are upskilled in areas such as collecting the right data, using the correct formats in the right places before the interrogation and analysis even begins. This is then supported by a clear data strategy geared towards performance planning. For example, roles such as the data & insight lead and the performance data lead are embedded within the organisation to better help those leading programmes with the direction and the integration of their data. Thus, the strategy can come to the fore and everyone can better understand what needs collating and why within the team.

Challenge 2: data collation

Wells described how easy it can be to stay on the “hamster wheel” of collecting data without taking the time to critically reflect and pause. Can you, for example, call upon efficient processes for collecting data and wade through the myriad datasets potentially available? She recommended asking “quality questions”: why are we creating the data, what is its purpose, what decisions is it informing, particularly in the coaching process? Teams should do this periodically and continue to plan, do and review. Wells also encouraged engaging in conversations with key leaders in the environment to discuss what to start, continue and stop. It’s important to intentionally carve out those opportunities as part of your performance planning.

Challenge 3: communicating data insights

Wells stressed the critical nature of human engagement in the process and regards communication is a highly technical skill, despite the views of those who might see it as a ‘soft’ skill.

She shared that the different performance departments within the UKSI work closely with the psychology team to help elevate understanding of self and others. Wells said, if we can better understand the people we work with, it will support how people can get the best out of each other.  As part of this process, they’ve tapped into better understanding one another’s preferences in order to be more impactful in how they support each other.

Challenge 4: buy-in

It is not uncommon for senior stakeholders to not perceive the value of the work being done. This makes it incumbent on analysts to critically assess their impact and share the meaningfulness of their work. “It’s our job, and it’s our role to be critically analysing why and presenting that back,” as Wells said.

On that note, alignment to the sport’s strategy helps to provide a clearer connection. If this alignment and connection isn’t there, you’ll naturally get disconnection so it will be more challenging to get the buy-in.

In addition, relationships are just as critical when generating buy-in. Wells advocated inviting leaders and key stakeholders into your world and shadowing them. When they immerse themselves in better understanding the process you’ll find that it can quickly lead to them becoming a voice for you in wider conversations.

Challenge 5: data illiteracy

Too often, practitioners can suffer in silence when looking for solutions. In the latest Olympic and Paralympic cycles, Wells and her colleagues are seeking to increase data literacy across the board. They have introduced an internal online data community that provides access to resources, promotes connection, and leads to the sharing of good practice.

Wells’ team also put together a ‘Data Leadership Programme’ which is focused on pulling together the data leaders in the various sports with whom the UKSI work to look at opportunities, challenges and future direction. Courses, with titles including ‘Data Camp’, ‘Project Automate’ and ‘Code School’, were created to improve skills and processes for coaches and practitioners to help them be more efficient. In her mind, this has been crucial to enable people to be upskilled; and all support staff should be able to ask a good question and have the data skills to answer them.

How data analysis is supporting coaching and recruitment at Wolves

Pearson explained that he and his colleagues at Wolves are trying to align the club to ensure there is consistent evidence available and better identification of the trends impacting decision making from a data point of view.

He focused on two key areas: coaching and recruitment.

1. The integration of data analysis with the coaching process

In the environment, the analysts are part of the multidisciplinary team. They are very much now voices in the room and, with it being a specialised discipline, all analysts must have an impact on decision making.

To that end, Pearson’s team have moved away from leaving the coaches to find the solutions themselves. Instead, analysts are encouraged to go and find solutions, present them to the coach, and then have good conversations to better find the optimal outcome.

Part of the challenge we can face, said Pearson, in particular with performance analysis at first-team level in professional football, is that many environments can be quite coach-led, which is in keeping with the nature of short tenures. The coaches will lean into their viewpoint as a way to exert their control. Therefore, education is important and, in particular, how you communicate with them to ensure the message lands. That said, Pearson observed that coaches in modern day football are more attuned to data and performance analysis and are much more data literate and comfortable with technology.

A key learning when integrating performance analysis and data work with coaching is to make insights as contextual as possible. If you provide insights to a coach that are out of context, you’ll lose them straight away.

2. How data can support the game model, recruitment and selection

Pearson told attendees that some of the biggest strides in performance analysis and the wider data team have been in the field of game modelling, recruitment and selection decisions, with the obvious caveat that subjective input is still valued immensely.

The team have worked to create objective measures against the game model. In better understanding this, it has provided an additional layer of information related to individual player requirements for the game model. These insights are helping to inform both selection for matchday but also the recruitment of new talent. When thinking about the recruitment process in particular, Pearson said this process has helped to educate scouts and other recruitment personnel in the attributes for which they should be looking.

Visuals have played a key role in this process too, particularly in being able to show what it looks like to play in this particular style that the coach or manager wants. They’ve worked to make the playing style more objective.

By John Portch with additional reporting from Joe Lemire

David Dunne believes the nature of the multidisciplinary team in sport is rapidly evolving.

“We expect a nutritionist, coaches, S&C, psych and physio – that’s what we consider a multidisciplinary team,” he told the People Behind the Tech Podcast in April.

“However, now [a multidisciplinary team includes] behavioural psychology, UX [user experience design], UI [user interface design], data science, software engineering, performance science. It’s a whole other world that has opened up new possibilities that we didn’t know were there as a practitioner.”

Dunne, who is the CEO and Co-Founder of Hexis, an AI-powered predictive nutrition service for elite athletes, has made an almost full transition from high performance sport. He previously served as Head of Nutrition at English Premiership rugby club Harlequins and still works in a similar capacity with Ryder Cup Team Europe.

While his assessment of tech’s role in high performance is unsurprising, his views on those “possibilities” now open to practitioners provide some food for thought – and not only for nutritionists or dietitians.

“What we’re going to see is the evolution of the hybrid practitioner,” he continued.

What are the implications for you and your team? Below, we set out a HYBRID framework to illustrate the concept.

H – Haste – “[Going] back to Quins, you spend a lot of time behind the laptop,” said Dunne. “You got bogged down in a spreadsheet. It’s tedious.” However, a hybrid practitioner will “use tech for tasks that can be algorithmically delivered at scale.”

Y – Yield – this can mean being receptive to others; and a hybrid practitioner “uses technology for what it’s good at” while people can focus on what they’re best at, which is “being human”. As Dunne explained: “Humans are good at building relationships, learning how to have conversations, and listening to people and actually helping them change their behaviours and change their beliefs about certain consequences or their own abilities over time.”

B – Balance – Dunne’s Co-Founder at Hexis is Sam Impey. “A brilliant scientist,” as Dunne said. “A far greater academic than I’ll ever be.” Nevertheless, Dunne is aware of his own assets. “My personal strengths have always been on the coaching side – put me in any locker room, put me in any team setting, I love to have conversations, I love to listen.” In truth, a successful practitioner needs both sets of traits. As Dunne put it, “let’s call it practitioner tacit knowledge and actually the application on the frontline.” The best example of this in Hexis’ work is how their app has been influenced by the COM-B model, which is a framework for understanding and changing behaviour – both key factors in performance nutrition. For a behaviour to occur, a person must have the capability, opportunity and motivation to perform it. Practitioners aiming to change behaviour should therefore target one or more of these components.

R – Roadmap – practitioners are too often constrained by tech being restricted to trackers. “It’s retrospective”, said Dunne, specifically of nutrition trackers. But with predictive AI entering the market, the role of the practitioner is likely to be more forward-facing. “We always need to know [and] we always want to help them know what to do next,” he added. This is particularly important in light of Hexis-sponsored research suggesting that most athletes are ‘confirmation seekers’, meaning they want to lead on “making the decision but then they want something to help verify that they’re going in the right direction.” A hybrid practitioner can cater to this need.

I – IT / MI – “I think what we’re going to see more of is a more highly-skilled human practitioner with a lot more software skills and [skills such as] motivational interviewing [MI] on the frontline, and then technology systems that ensure a standard of care across the whole organisation, 24/7, 365 days a year,” said Dunne. Key to that is reducing the “noise” around the athlete. With the right plans and structures, the hybrid practitioner can “deliver impactful value to the athlete.”

D – Data – with apps such as Hexis allowing for data integration – their collaboration with training app TrainingPeaks is a prime example – there is the opportunity for practitioners to make better use of existing data rather than merely seeking the next thing. With the right blend of skills, the hybrid practitioner is well-placed to ask: what can we do with the information we already have?

Listen to the full interview with David Dunne below:

A Data & Innovation podcast brought to you in collaboration with

David Dunne describes a perennial problem for practitioners in elite sports.

“There’s a fundamental mismatch between what practitioners can deliver and what athletes actually want and desire,” he told Joe Lemire and John Portch on the People Behind the Tech podcast.

“So we pivoted towards the COM-B model.”

During this episode we spoke at length about Hexis’ continued growth following a successful seed round, technology’s ability to influence the evolution of the practitioner, and the fundamental union of academic rigour and those so-called softer skills.

COM-B was a major part of that conversation. It has been integral to Hexis’ growth. The company used it in tandem with elements of design thinking which, as Dunne explains, stems from his time working for teams including Harlequins and Ryder Cup Team Europe.

The model is a framework for understanding and changing behaviour. It was developed by Susan Michie, Maartje van Stralen and Robert West in 2011. The model posits that behaviour (B) is a result of an interaction between three components:

Capability (C): this refers to an individual’s psychological and physical capacity to engage in the activity. It includes having the necessary knowledge, skills and abilities.

Opportunity (O): this encompasses all the factors outside the individual that make the behaviour possible, including social and physical environmental factors.

Motivation (M): this includes the brain processes that direct behaviour, such as habits, emotional responses, decision-making and analytical thinking.

Listen to the full conversation:

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By Luke Whitworth

There has been plenty happening but, before we look back, let’s look forward.

Leaders Meet: Teaching & Coaching, an in-person member event, is just around the corner so, if you haven’t already, do check it out and register to join us at Millfield School in Somerset. We have some excellent topics on the agenda, including pedagogy & andragogy, non-directive coaching, coaching neurodivergent athletes, the language of coaching, complexity science and much more besides.

The day will be most relevant to anyone working with athletes on a day-to-day basis, whether in a first team environment or within the pathway. There’s just a couple of weeks left to register so don’t miss out.

Our Debriefs are designed to set you up for success. We’ll keep you on the pulse of contemporary thinking across the high performance space and provide members with the inspiration to engage with the variety of opportunities on offer through their membership. Do check out some of our upcoming events and virtual learning sessions to connect, learn and share with fellow members from across the globe.

And now, let’s reflect on the pressing performance issues of the day.

Virtual roundtables

March was a busy month for roundtables. From topic-led conversations around Sustaining Team Culture and the Influence of AI on Performance Programmes, to a Leadership Skills session focused on Building Persuasion and, last but definitely not least, part two in our series of learning around Wellbeing and what is having the most impact.

These are the insights that resonated with us most.

The potential impact of AI

We identified some of the enablers and outlined some of the key questions we still have around the technology.

So, where do we think AI can have a positive impact on our programmes?

1. Greater efficiencies: AI can be used to speed up processes and automate insights, such as in the case of scouting reports or player tracking. It can also help streamline workflows.
2. Deeper insights: there has long been a wealth of data in sport but often far more limited means of interpreting the numbers. AI can pick up that slack and even potentially unearth insights we haven’t yet considered.
3. Enhanced injury prevention & rehabilitation: we think AI can support athlete monitoring and overall health monitoring to better inform decision-making around training loads, future scheduling, and athlete development programmes.
4. A better tactical and on-field understanding: AI can simulate fixtures and help to deliver a better understanding of how to beat opponents with the most effective tactics, which can then be shared with coaching staff as they build a gameplan.

All sounds good, doesn’t it? However, we still have some questions that need answering. Have you explored and come up with answers to these in your environments?

1. How do we make AI work? An obvious question, but there’s no consensus. It leads to further lines of enquiry: who do we need to engage to make this work in terms of disciplines, personnel, and how will their perspectives be used to educate the collective? Who are your big AI stakeholders? AI mapping, one member noted, can be a valuable tool. What type of expertise do you need? There is some uncertainty over who might be the best profile of person to help with the internal development of AI use.
2. How do we set the right foundations? Have you implemented the correct data privacy and cyber security processes? How do you intend to educate your athletes and staff around its use? One attendee spoke of the need for a working definition of ‘intelligence’. Clarity is essential for effective interdisciplinary collaboration.
3. What could AI change? One of the most common issues is the ‘role replacement v role enhancement’ debate. How will the skillsets of roles in your environment evolve as the technology begins to take affect? One member suggested that the analyst’s role may shift from collation and interpretation to communication. Coaches will need to be provided with data literacy skills too. Teams will also need to be mindful of not losing the subjective human element, which demands human interaction rather than machine learning alone.
4. How do we measure the quality of data? How clean is your data? It’s a crucial question to answer when making data-informed decisions. If there are any issues then you will need to get your house in order first.

Why persuasion is an important skill in modern day leadership

How can you master the art of persuasion? We have some tips for you. Having good ideas is not enough. In order to change thinking and enact change, we need to be able to persuade people.

The Trust Equation

The equation is a conceptual formula used to describe how to build and elevate trust. To go into a big more detail, Credibility speaks to words and credentials and simply put, how authentic are we? Reliability is the perception of someone’s integrity,  are your actions connected to your words? Are you credible in how you present yourself? Intimacy refers to the feeling of safety or security in the sharing of information and how safe and secure others feel in sharing with us. Finally, Self-Orientation reflects an individuals focus and where it is directed – is it towards themselves or others?

Essential steps in mastering persuasiveness

There was lots of gold in this skills session but as we reflected on the essential steps to impact the notion of persuasion well, there were four steps to reflect on in developing your persuasion muscle:

1. Embrace feedback and recognise areas for improvement in your own field.
2. The consistent practice and conscious application of persuasion techniques – they help to refine your leadership over time.
3. There are easy, everyday wins that elevate persuasion skills, from how you position yourself, the level of status you reflect, to how you convey a logical thought pattern.
4. Just as athletes relentlessly refine their techniques and strategies to achieve peak performance, leaders must adopt a mindset of continuous improvement and adaptability to persuasiveness.

Additional reporting by Lottie Wright

Something a little different…

As many of you will know, we at the Leaders Performance Institute pride ourselves in exploring the world of high performance outside of the elite sporting context. With this in mind, we wanted to push your attention to some golden insights from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and their Director of Actor Training. To read more on their approach to elevating performance here and also how they’ve worked to redesign their curriculum here.

Skilbeck shared with us five factors that underpin their process to developing their talent. Are yours similar?

1. Breaking the constraints of habits: these habits have developed from earliest infancy, whether physical, mental, imagination or emotional. RADA believes these can impair an actor’s work.
2. Expanding an actor’s performance capacity: as a follow on from the above, actor training aims to break habits and expand technical, emotional and imaginative capacity. Lucy shared that what they’re training is how to be a human being and how to embody human experience in imaginary circumstance.
3. Managing fears and trauma: breaking habits can be a difficult process and can potentially being up fears or trauma from past experiences. RADA works with a psychologist who hosts sessions with students on resilience early in their training, that is both psych education and giving them strategies for managing what might be potentially overwhelming traumas. The psychologist is also working with the teaching faculty to develop trauma-informed teaching spaces and practices so that teachers know how to respond and the material is less likely to provoke overwhelming responses for students.
4. Reflective practice: RADA works with students on taking the observer position so that they can create some space from the sensation and the experience of the release. Students are encouraged to keep reflective journals.
5. Embracing failure: RADA talks a lot about embracing failure because they’re encouraging people to not to try and get it right and to allow failure to be part of one’s creative practice. Lucy shared that you can’t have a creative practice if you’re not willing to fail. You can only have a complacent practice because you’ll only try the things that you know will succeed.

Additional reporting by John Portch

Community groups

In March, our Performance Support & Science community group took centre stage.

With 2024 bringing new projects and streams of work, we looked into the pressing questions and topics that are currently occupying the minds of those in this group.

Some of these will look familiar. How are you trying to approach some of these issues in your environment?

Sustaining staff health & energy

A few different people as part of the group discussion alluded to the topic of staff energy and sustainability, from the lens of the performance support and coaching team. Some of the spin off questions referred to how do we best integrate support and what does that look like, particularly due to the intensity of competition and in some environments, where there is uncertainty.

AI is coming, so how do we prepare?

Firstly, we’d recommend revisiting some of the bullet points above on what came out of the conversations of this topic in one of our roundtables. A lot of performance teams are evaluating it’s possible impact and the input it could have into our worlds. Will you be an early or late adopter and do you have a clear strategy in place to ensure there is clarity and preparation for how you will use it when that day comes?

Are you collaborating with external practitioners?

Arguably the most common response from the group when it came to current challenges. Such is the nature of modern day elite sport, performance support networks around our athletes are growing, including independent specialists who are not employed by the organisation. The crux of the conversation was, if we are to work with them, how do we do it best? Or do we not look to collaborate with them at all?

Balancing long-term planning and short-term delivery

This is a constant battle for performance support teams, such is the nature of the work that takes place in this field. The group brought to the table the question of how others are finding the balance to ensure they are moving at the ‘pace of performance’ in the day-to-day environment, but a nod to the future exists when it comes longer-term programme planning. We also discussed how to keep senior and experienced staff growing as it can be very easy to slip back into the short-term mindset, thus stifling longer-term development opportunities.

By Luke Whitworth

How do you measure the intangibles of your coach development programmes in order to demonstrate their impact and effectiveness?

The challenge facing members of the Leaders Performance Institute is one of consistently showing a tangible return on investment in this space.

This pinch point provided the basis of a recent Leaders Virtual Roundtable that enabled members to share their experiences with coach development practices; what has worked for them, elements that are showing promise, and ideas that warrant further discussion.

Below, we detail their main considerations and their attempts to answer that question of impact and effectiveness.

Factors to consider

• Do you fully understand the outcome you’re trying to achieve? If there is clarity then coach development can be explored from a variety of different perspectives. That could be coach development at a systemic level where you are measuring return on investment within a programme or sport. It could also be learning interventions for the individual. Whatever the focus, it’s important to have clarity.
• What are you actually measuring and how do you define ‘success’? Is it the growth of the coach or performance outcomes? As noted at the table, if you are too focused on performance outputs and performance it can mask what has and has not happened.
• Is your coach development work role-relevant? This question is pitched at the systemic level, with one member explaining that they are engaged in research that seeks to answer the question: ‘what is coaching expertise?’ It is important to understand how coaches can be supported both as an individual and within the context of their environment.
• Is there alignment between team performance and individual development? The table recognised the complexity around the needs of athletes and coaches which, in turn, makes it challenging to track and monitor impact effectively.
• What steps have you taken to help your coaches build self-awareness? Elements of the Australian Olympic system’s approach to coach development are built on establishing new ways of understanding ‘self’ and self-awareness.
• What does it mean to be a high performance coach? In the Australian Olympic system, athletes, staff and high performance managers were brought together to answer this very question as part of a research project. The purpose was to better understand what coaches need to be successful and then provide a coach development framework to more accurately track progress.

How are you currently measuring impact?

While the table offered differing methods, there was a consensus that the challenge of measuring the impact of coach development practices persists.

Storytelling: a counterpoint to data

One environment shared they are using mixed methods and a range of tools, structures and forms to gather information. The attendee also emphasised the importance of storytelling and the creation of narratives, which have been a big piece of understanding the impact. One of the frameworks they are utilising is the values creation framework, which comes out of the social learning space. The aim is to connect this to a ‘values’ story, created by the coach, that will complement other quantitative and qualitative sources of information. Another sport shared that they are focusing on stories of impact. They are still finding it challenging to show this clearly through numbers, but stories of shifts in behaviour or the practice of asking for feedback from others on how they feel as part of the environment the coach has created, have proven useful.

The athlete (and other staff): the missing part of the puzzle

The table looked at coaching impact through the lens of athlete – they are, after all, the beneficiaries of this coaching work. One member commented that athletes can often be a missing part of this puzzle. Similarly, it is important to collate input from others in the environment around the coach’s development journey. Solicit feedback from other staff members on the developmental differences they are seeing in the coach.

A coach’s needs analysis

Other simple methods for measurement include capturing, assessing and measuring against a coach’s needs analysis. Needs analyses often present baseline data to track across time. As part of your needs analysis, there is also an opportunity to understand what makes a particular coach tick. One environment took this idea forward by creating an ‘impact report’, which allowed them to reflect on the needs and what was delivered through subsequent interventions; identifying which had the most impact on the individual. This also provided excellent insight into how to continue to personalise learning opportunities. Another environment shared how they had trialled the use of pre- and post-mortems on specific areas of a coach’s development.

Mic’d up

In a more technical intervention, it has become common practice for coaches to be mic’d up or videoed as part of their development. The next phase being considered is the mic’ing up of the athletes to better understand what they are doing with the learning and coaching they are receiving.

Measuring confidence levels

Another environment shared how they have started to measure a confidence level pre-programme and then used feedback from different people to see where the individual is at during and post-programme. Interestingly, the coaches in this environment tend to feel confident on a topic pre-programme, then, as they get into the programme, that confidence dips as they begin to critically self-reflect, but then it builds back up through developmental support.

Future thinking

Is there a trick we are missing when measuring coach development?

Traditionally, the focus is on the individual, but coaches in elite sport seldom work in isolation. It is important to continue to take into consideration the wants and needs of the environment as well as the individual coach.

Therefore, is the next phase of coach development a better understanding of how we coach and develop teams and then working to establish what team development looks like when everyone is working collectively and effectively?

By Rachel Woodland

With fewer than nine years until Australia hosts the Summer Olympics and Paralympics in Brisbane, the Australian sports system has serious concerns about the representation of women in coaching. 

Research conducted by organisations including the Australian Sports Commission and the Australian Institute of Sport [AIS] revealed that fewer than 10 per cent of the top 36 funded high performance sports were led by women head coaches. 

To cast the figures in even sharper relief, this is despite female athlete representation at recent Summer and Winter Olympics reaching over 50 per cent. 

This underrepresentation led directly to the Women in High Performance Coaching [WiHPC] Project. It began in October 2021 with the aim of fixing ‘the leaky pipeline’ – the wide range of factors that have drained the Australian system of talented female coaches. 

Two years later, the project published its Fixing the Leaky Pipeline: Action Plan and timed its release to coincide with the AIS’s World Class to World Best conference. The Action Plan, in its own words, ‘consolidates 24 months of engagement, highlighting the experiences of women coaches and the need for change. More importantly, it reveals and connects the “bright spots” of opportunity to build momentum and create solutions for the women coaches of Australia.’ 

Upon its launch, the Leaders Performance Institute sat down with one of its co-authors, Michelle De Highden, the AIS’s High Performance Coach Development Senior Lead. 

She revealed that it’s “a snapshot of where the Australian system is at in this moment in time” and is far from complete. What the action plan does, De Highden adds, “is illustrate some things that you can do as an individual or an organisation to create changes for the women in your organisation and environment. It promotes collective responsibility”. 

De Highden explains that the ‘leaky pipeline’ concept has resonated with most. It is hard for women to get into the high performance coaching system, and if they do get in, they’re faced with enormous challenges, from parental leave struggles to poor behaviour and mistreatment, to the relentless lifestyle associated with high performance coaching.  

This leads to an opportunity for organisations to look at their own landscape and ask ‘where are our hidden talent pools?’ The high performance system must create opportunities to bring back talent that may have previously left. 

Looking more closely at the pipeline 

De Highden and her colleagues needed to understand the current landscape if adaptations and interventions were to have an impact. Working pods, including one mapping the women’s coaching pipeline – even though it’s organic and ever-changing – spoke with 24 different sports in pursuit of a contextual understanding. As she says, “it was important to answer questions such as where is the inflection point that you can target? How is the shape of the pipeline different for different sports and where does it narrow? What about women-only and traditionally female sports? Or sports that still haven’t had a woman head coach? There is no model and so there is a need to deeply understand the narratives of the women in your environment; and get some data. Some sports report on who coaches at competitions; they collect across as many areas as possible. The deep understanding piece is to know why women coaches are not getting in or staying.” 

There is no magic bullet, but the Action Plan identifies ‘toolkits’, which are high-level supports to drive implementation and change. De Highden says that the archetype toolkit, as an example, has resonated deeply. It has, according to the Action Plan, “been developed to assist organisations [and] deepen their understanding of culture, attitudes, and behaviours that their coaching staff are facing. The toolkit provides instructions and support for facilitating a workshop including archetype characters.” 

De Highden adds that it can be used to highlight narratives and facilitate storytelling. “Characters, with positive and negative impacts on women, created within and developed by women,” she says. “Individuals can then unpack themes with the group”. This process creates conversation, builds understanding and awareness, and takes the individual person out. When tested, it has had a significant impact – all based on real-life stories. Match the story to character and then have a conversation. The AIS is keen to work with researchers to test the concept further. 

Additionally, the WiHPC has made ten recommendations that ‘demand every sport, organisation and individual assumes the responsibility to act’. The recommendations come with a scorecard that invites organisations to mark themselves on areas such as: ‘Develop and implement a Women’s Talent Network’, ‘Implement a 12-month campaign to elevate the visibility of women coaches’, and ‘engage with researchers to support evidence-based interventions’. De Highden explains that organisations will report on the ten recommendations in 12 months’ time. She says: “These sports all need funding and collective buy-in, but everyone is aware there’s already good things happening, so these provide an opportunity to amplify what’s working”. 

The Action Plan highlights four strategic focus areas: 

1. Behavioural, cultural, environmental development supported by workshops, programs and audits. 
2. Systems that support diversity and what systems can do in this space. 
3. Developmental areas and strategies to support women in the system. 
4. Elevating visibility and storytelling and positive impact that is happening at a system and individual level. 

For all the talk of 12 months, there are, as De Highden illustrates some quick wins – there has to be to build momentum. For example, visibility and storytelling or the strategic use of marketing teams. “Photos of women coaching are an easy start”, she says. “We can raise the profile of the women who are coaching, celebrate the successes of the organisations who are doing it well, or showcase women wearing kit in high performance support roles. The engagement piece is the vehicle to share stories and 14 case studies have already been shared, including on parental leave. Other groups have been started. Some of these aren’t that difficult and cost no money. Everybody can do this”. 

Parental support and recruitment 

Navigating the lifestyle around high performance coaching is difficult regardless of gender, but even harder for women. There are opportunities. A parental leave toolkit is already being road-tested with the AIS. De Highden explains that all the toolkits included in the Action Plan will be iterated over time.  

There are, she says, two sports already keen to explore opportunities with the AIS, to learn about the realities of what’s useful for their staff. “Every organisation should have a policy and a plan, regardless of gender,” she observes, “but people don’t know where to look for a policy. It’s not transparent, and they don’t want to ask, as that leads to judgements. These need to be actionable, now.” 

Recruitment is another important area. Doing this well is central to everything else, including parental leave and part-time talent pool too. It has to be fair, equitable, and transparent. Organisations need to be clear on what they are looking for and, crucially, to recruit based on capability not on reputational, social, or experiential capital. Recruitment structures need to be robust and transparent. There is a ‘capability framework’ toolkit. These illustrate the characteristics of the most capable pathways coaches. It provides evidence to show that the framework is impactful. It is an important piece of work. 

De Highden details a case study at Golf Australia, who recently launched their Parental Support and Travel Program. At Squash Australia, one individual took parental leave and then job shared with their substitute once they returned. Sailing Australia wanted to recruit a retiring athlete after Tokyo who only wanted to commit to 80 per cent of the hours, so they found a complementary person for the other 20. “Recruitment, flexible arrangements, parental support, maternity return. It can work”. 

Learning and development 

The AIS runs an Experiential Learning Program. In August, it enabled 11 aspiring female coaches to gain international competition experience by attending upcoming major events. “Barriers to participation were removed,” says De Highden. There was a one-day workshop first, which was used to establish a plan for whilst on tour and what these coaches needed to learn. They were also taught reflective practices and offered mentorship and support. They were encouraged to ask themselves: what mechanisms are there to help you on and off tour? Consider your reputational capital and your ability to hold your own space in a challenging environment. What’s your role on tour, to help with the clarity of what your job is? De Highden adds: “coaches will then regroup to reflect on experiences from on tour, including an evaluation piece and discussion of what’s next. The AIS has secured funding to do it again in 2024. Not just for women, but with funding targeted to elevate opportunities”. 

For those looking to embark on a similar journey De Highden suggests that you take the time to talk to women coaches first. She says: “Listen, showcase, select top themes, focus on learning more about those while using narratives and storytelling as a framework to connect with the women. Celebrate their successes. Bring people in and keep them involved. The AIS used a complex-adaptive systems lens. There is no simple solution. Multiple things can be done to nudge the system at the organisational, interpersonal, systems, cultural level and, if you can nudge at all levels, you can make progress. If everyone takes one step, then we’ve made progress.  

“There is so much to do the question is often where do I start. The issue is bigger than just women high performance coaches. We know that there’s some things that need to be done well: understanding the DEI landscape, policies in place”. Self-assessment guides, for example, can be a useful tool. They cannot provide all the answers, but can help give an indication of where an organisation can start. “Reporting is important, and the AIS will have a 12-18 month visibility piece ready by the end of 2024, which will help the Australian sport system share more success stories of what’s working well.” 

De Highden says the AIS is looking for funding to research a framework for developing women’s talent. Opportunities come up but these come and go depending on funding. “Our aim is to create an 8-12 year framework in the developmental journey of a coach with opportunities for them throughout and proper evaluation”. 

Additionally, the Action Plan highlights 12 factors across the drivers of poor participation, the need for urgent calls to action to avoid broader system risks, and opportunities to leverage the bright spots. The AIS doesn’t want to lose oversight of them. Mentorship, allyship, sponsorship, networking are all important elements. 

Visibility in action 

De Highden cites several examples of sports and systems coming together to address their concerns. She says: “If organisations know it’s happening they can have conversations around what worked and make sure support is there too. It validates the experience through minimal financial support. Those with well-structured support can share best practices with other sports, for example netball with AFLW. Nothing can be forced, but this is the visibility piece in action”. 

This piece is not just about women coaches, as De Highden explains. She says: “If we can apply these toolkits, practices, and thinking of inclusive practice and belonging, everyone is welcome; there will be intersectionality across the board. It will impact the whole organisation”. 

Researchers who come to the AIS have previously said they are not sure what’s needed, but now they are ready. They need to work out what the piece looks like and conduct robust evaluations around the impact of these toolkits. The sporting system must forge internal alignment between community coaching and DEI – you need to do this even if it is hard to report on.  

You can benchmark to other industries. Qantas and Australian Television and Radio School, for example, both have fewer than 10 per cent of women in high profile roles. Then meet to discuss and share ideas. 

It is about deepening your understanding in pursuit of a more inclusive and sustainable sporting system. 

By John Portch

“I remember when I was a rider,” says Emma Trott. “I had a female coach, I hated it, I never wanted another female coach ever again – but here I am now sat here coaching.”

Trott, who has since stepped down as Women’s Junior Endurance Coach at British Cycling, was speaking at September’s Leaders Meet: Driving Step Change in Female High Performance at Manchester’s Etihad Stadium.

She had essentially just crossed the road, as British Cycling’s HQ happens to be a stone’s throw from the Etihad.

With a short journey behind her, she took to the stage where she spoke alongside Danny Kerry, the Head Coach of the Canada women’s field hockey team, about coaching provisions for female athletes.

“We’ve spoken about the importance of having female coaches within the organisation,” adds Trott.

The challenge of coaching teenagers continues to evolve. “I think social media is not helping. It [offers] instant gratification of their view; put a picture up and you get a like. Talking to my group, there’s been a massive boom across women’s sport. We’ve got riders turning pro younger and younger.

“That actually creates problems within the rest of the group because they think it’s normal that you should be turning pro at 17 years old but, actually, you still need to develop; and everyone’s developing at different stages. How do you get that across? Then, for me, it’s the parent piece as well. What are they saying? What are they hearing you saying?

“Teams are now set up specifically for the women. They may be connected to the men’s team just as women’s football teams are, but they’re not there to necessarily do the same thing as the men’s team. It’s about how we can get the best out of these people.”

Here, we explore Trott’s approach to coaching young female athletes as she set it out for Leaders Performance Institute members in Manchester.

Ensure their heads are in the right place

Firstly, as Trott explains, British Cycling must reconcile individual and team goals for its riders. She says: “When we’re working as a team obviously we’ve got one common goal and we need to be at the coaching session for that common goal, although everyone is working on different things behind the scenes. That’s where things will deviate. but we also need to make sure their heads are in the right place.

“That’s one of the key things for me, the emotions of the group. I work with 16, 17, 18-year-olds, which can be quite challenging at times; making sure their heads are in the right place at the right times. For riders it’s really hard because who are they? Where are they going?”

It is important for Trott and her riders to understand their mutually agreed commitments. “It means you’re effectively two people at major competitions,” she continues. “Because you are the coach that’s there for those guys, but you’re thinking three competitions ahead for the others.”

‘The others’ to whom she refers are those not selected for certain competitions. “The people at home still have their training and you’re messaging them to show them that they are just as important – because they are – and it might be that their goal isn’t the Worlds. It might be the Euros; and the Euros just happen to be after the Worlds. I always talk about ‘this is the plan, this is what we’re doing, this is why you haven’t been selected for X but you will be selected for Y. I think females work really well with that process.”

Nevertheless, she allows them to grieve when necessary. “I allow them to be upset for two or three days because that’s important. It’s important to express our emotions and allow that to happen. Once we’re over that then we can start the conversation about performance again.”

Tune into the environment, try truly listening

Trott feels that the skill of listening is often misunderstood and undervalued. “People don’t listen all the time,” she says. “We hear what we want to hear and [the reason] we hear what we want to hear is because we’ve already made a decision of how we’re going to impact something rather than listening to what is actually being said.

“And actually taking it deeper as well. It’s that question, isn’t it. ‘Are you OK?’ ‘Yes, I’m fine.’ ‘OK, what does that really mean?’ You really find out more [that way] and that’s the key thing for me. Females and males say a lot but I think you’ve got to dig a bit deeper to understand what the message really is.”

Trott and her colleagues use British Cycling training camps to connect with their riders, but as they are all based in different parts of the UK, they will also hosts regular online check-ins. Each presents its challenges and opportunities. Sometimes in camp the solution is to take a step back.

“The other thing is that I use my group. If you create the environment where they trust you, you build the strength of the group. If there is an issue happening I won’t rush straight to the cause or the person immediately. I would actually use one of my more senior riders, an 18-year-old, to get a snippet of what the problem is. I can them go to that person and use this myself and hopefully help them. The key thing is to listen. I don’t think we listen particularly well.”

It’s OK to fail – so enable clear, honest feedback

Failure presents a learning opportunity and that is never truer than at underage level. Trott will place a lot of trust in her riders as they develop as people and athletes and she promotes the idea that “it’s OK to get things wrong”. She says: “Them knowing that, it comes back to that environment where, if we’ve created the right environment, then they’re not failing – it’s a learning opportunity that then takes them to the next level.”

This learning goes hand in hand with leadership because, as Trott says, “Once I’ve sent them off on the bus it’s over to them.” Inevitably, leadership comes more naturally to some than others but each rider must be given the tools to develop their ability to lead. “If they don’t get the opportunity to [learn] then they won’t perform. They’ll never lead because they’ll be scared to lead, but once they realise they can do that they learn, they grow, not just in sport but in management, business, wherever they end up.”

Know when to cut athletes some slack

The conversation turned towards female-specific issues, such as the menstrual cycle and their impact on training schedules and competition. “It’s something I’m aware of,” says Trott, who recognises the challenge and admits she would not want to have five riders on the same menstrual cycle. “I remember having a conversation with a gym coach around this. If we move certain sessions and decrease certain parts at certain points it just makes the rider feel better.” It has changed the philosophy around a training session. “In essence, in that session, what we’re trying to achieve isn’t 100 percent what we’re trying to achieve but, from a mental stance, it’s actually better for the rider at that point.”