By John Portch

• What are the good practice habits that determine your athletes’ trainability?

• How are you looking to assess decision making under pressure?

• How do your athletes think about risk?

Indications of desire to serve

Lieutenant General John Daniel Caine of the US Air Force is the Associate Director of Military Affairs of the Central Intelligence Agency [CIA]. Back in 2020, he spoke about Special Operations Forces [SOF] recruitment at the Leaders Sport Performance Summit in Charlotte. At the time, while still ranked Major General, he was serving as the Director of the Special Access Program Central Office of the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment.

SOF personnel, Caine explained, are volunteers drawn from elite units in the US Air Force, Army, Marine Corps and Navy. “What we’re getting out of that, even though it’s subtle, is indications of desire. And it’s more so than indications of desire just to be, it’s indications of desire to serve,” he said.

Trainability

Trainability is the first of three basic criteria at the assessment phase. SOF will teach all candidates how to use a compass or fire a weapon regardless of their experience. “These are tactics and these are assessment techniques that are steeped in years and years of datapoints,” said Caine, much like a sports coach or music teacher who understands good practice habits. “We need you to be able to learn how to do things our way and we start with the very basics like land navigation so that when we’re teaching you how to do close quarters combat, shooting in constrained spaces, you’re trainable. We’re constantly looking in assessment for your trainability. Are you able to listen precisely?” If not, “we know that you have a trainability problem.”

Durability

The SOF training environment pushes candidates to the brink of physical and mental failure. “When you are in ‘the suck’ what are you going to do about it?” said Caine when discussing the importance of durability. “Do you turn inward or do you turn to your brother or sister next to you and figure out how to get through this together? That’s the key to success. When it sucks, and it sucks really bad; you’re sleep-deprived, it’s cold, it’s snowing on you, what are you going to do?”

Suitability

Suitability in SOF is assessed on several levels. Firstly, are you selfless or do you only look out for yourself? “We’re going to seek that out through your suitability,” said Caine. The candidate must also be able to operate under intense stress. “We seek emotional people as well but who, under fire, and in the crucibles of combat, smoke a Lucky and stay frosty. When gunshots are ringing, what is the tenor and tone of the person on the radio? Is it ‘holy shit!’ or is it ‘hey man, I’m getting shot at’? We test for that constantly.”

There are psychological evaluations for all personnel but, as Caine said, “The officers get an extra dose of love and attention during the assessment phase to determine how it is they think, how it is they understand risk, what they do when they’re faced with dilemmas that have no right answer, what is their bias for action, what is their acceptable risk?”

Assessment boards

Another element of the assessment is when candidates are summoned before a board of 30 or so people to answer questions on their performance. Caine describes it as a “free-for-all” with no limits on questions or lines of enquiry. “The goal there is mental agility, durability, sustainability,” he said. All SOF personnel, including Caine himself, are held accountable. “I make mistakes every single day,” he added. “We look in the mirror critically and it’s not about who is right but what is right.”

A view from inside the English Premier League

Service personnel have long been some of the most popular speakers at our events and we asked Leaders Performance Advisor Edd Vahid, the Assistant Academy Director at English Premier League club Southampton, what sports stand to learn from talent development in a military context.

At a football club, what can you learn from listening to or watching speakers from military discuss their pathways?

The opportunity to draw insight and inspiration from different environments is a critical feature of any organisation that has aspirations to evolve. During my time at Southampton we have had a number of interactions with former or current military personnel, which have always added value to our programme. From a pathway perspective, lessons in leadership, strategy, assessment, managing transitions, and pressure training represent a selection of topics that have resonance in a military and football setting.  

How important are trainability, durability and suitability on a football pathway? Can they always be measured?

Whilst the specific language of trainability, durability and suitability appear less frequently in a football pathway their relevance is significant. During our player audits we often discuss an individual’s capacity to learn (i.e., trainability) as a positive indicator of potential. These judgments have historically been subjective in nature. However, increasingly the use of data permits an objective insight into a player’s learning trajectory and response to training or feedback.   

Lieutenant General Caine’s acknowledgment of what can be learnt in periods of adversity is certainly relevant in football. Our aim is to design a pathway that includes deliberate and carefully planned experiences that challenge the players, in addition to supporting an individual’s ability to debrief emerging or unplanned difficult moments.

A player’s suitability to progress in the pathway is a frequent topic of discussion amongst staff. Importantly, this is often aligned with an agreed individual development plan that highlights key strengths and development areas. It is essential that we afford players a breadth and depth of experience that enhance their prospects. Given the development ethos in an Academy and the range of pathways to a successful career, it is perhaps wise to consider suitability as dynamic.

By John Portch

• Do you understand the young athlete that has walked through your door?

• Can you meet their needs without diluting your programme?

• What steps can you take to build their resilience?

Putting the learner at the heart of the coach’s decision-making

“The idea of meeting the person where they’re at has never been more prevalent in sport – we can’t take for granted that the previous experiences have [enabled] a particular athlete to knock on the door,” said John Alder at a 2021 Keiser-sponsored Webinar titled ‘The Effectiveness of Performance Pathways for Nurturing Young Talent’. Alder, who now serves as Head of Player Development at  Welsh Rugby Union, was speaking in his previous capacity as Head of Performance Pathways at UK Sport and the English Institute of Sport [EIS]. “Based on what am I making judgements about what the learner needs next?” he added. The coach must understand what the young athlete arrived with, the experiences they will need henceforth, and the future direction of their development.

The pedagogue’s duty of care

Alder explained that UK Sport and the EIS’s focus has gradually shifted from talent ID towards development and a more rounded understanding of what constitutes ‘success’. “Only a finite group of people will ever go to an Olympic Games let alone win anything,” he said. “What’s our duty of care as custodians of our industry to ensure that those developmental experiences, if they are to be effective, not only prepare those who are able to make the long journey to an Olympic Games but they also give a really rich experience that they leave better for it and they are custodians of their sport and good citizens as well?”

He added a crucial caveat: “Yes, it is identifying what might be needed here and working backwards, but it’s not a watering down. It’s understanding how do these things manifest at different stages of the journey because it is complex and non-linear; and [we want to be] attuned to that rather than being reductive.”

Do not undervalue your pathway coaches

The depth and breadth of responsibility goes further still, as UK Sport and the EIS acknowledged in their December 2021 Performance Pathway Coaching Statement. Its purpose was to help establish UK coaching as a competitive advantage. “The genesis of it was a dissatisfaction with the undervaluing of coaches in the development domain,” said Alder. “Therefore we went to see what differentiated that domain. When you talk about redefining the pedagogical relationships, and therefore the domain-specific skills, qualities and experiences required to be effective, there’s inevitably a real emphasis on pedagogy and developmentally-appropriate ‘ologies’, so not just our more traditional sports science and disciplines and ologies we’d find in broader sport. [It is about] how those disciplines are brought to bear on the developing person and what that means for the coach, the pedagogue, in terms of making those professional judgements as to what are the needs here and ‘how do I go about designing experiences that will nourish and allow this young person to develop?’

How does your curriculum consider the development of resilience?

Resilience, as Alder explained, is merely one manifestation of a young athlete’s psycho-social development, but it is a necessary characteristic if they are to flourish in a high performance environment. At UK Sport and the EIS they feel that an athlete’s curriculum is essential in providing the necessary challenge and support. “We’re quite interested in the idea of curriculum; and curriculum being the totality of experiences that an athlete has,” said Alder, “and the role of the pedagogical relationship, the coach, and others, leaders included, in creating that curriculum; the importance of it being progressive and coherent so that it builds on what came before in equipping young athletes for the road ahead.”

By Sarah Evans

• Harness the athlete’s internal drive, create a realistic vision.

• Encourage your athlete to be their own best coach.

• Create a belief that no matter what happens your athlete will rise from setbacks.

Cultivate a clear vision

Cameron McCormick, who has coached an array of PGA and LPGA players, has been Spieth’s coach since the latter was a 12-year-old dreaming of winning golf’s most prestigious major, the Masters. He saw in Spieth “the drive and determination that fuels the necessary ability to do work,” as he told the 2016 Leaders Sport Performance Summit in New York, and worked to support Spieth’s goal of winning the Masters for almost a decade. Spieth possessed what McCormick called the “internal drive that sees a future reality,” making the link between Spieth’s drive and vision of the future. The youngster set his goal very high from a young age and, with the right support, was able to chase his Masters dream without being afraid to aim high. In 2015, aged 21, Spieth became the youngest player to win at Augusta since a 19-year-old Tiger Woods in 1997.

Self-belief and resilience

McCormick explained that one key way of being able to bounce back from a defeat or bad performance is “a self-belief that no matter what happens I will rise again”. He emphasised the critical importance of self-talk, and “signal-to-noise management”, whereby the noise that exists has a decided advantage, i.e. taking in the jeers from Augusta or playing forward negative situations in your mind versus the signal that you want to control. “Be a creator of the scene in your mind, not a viewer of what you are experiencing,” he said. McCormick is able to measure this with the athletes by reframing the scenario and creating perspective. It is a centring process, and needs to be repeated and cultivated consistently over time.

He then spoke about the round briefings he has with Spieth and how he uses these as an opportunity to “pump his tyres” and how Spieth is then able to build his self-belief. It is all about the principle of reinforcement, the more you think about and talk about something happening, you increase the probability of it taking place, which works, of course, both positively and negatively. Therefore, playing a highlight reel, remembering your strengths and building positive self-talk before competition is paramount.

The Three C’s – Collect, Correlate, Correct

McCormick‘s goal, although it seems counterintuitive, is to make himself redundant to the athlete. He fosters a sense of self sufficiency amongst the players, and sets out to educate them on how to be their own best coach. McCormick only wanted his players to come back to him when they really needed his help. He calls this process the three C’s: collect the clues, attribute a correlation or causation, then close the loop with a correction. This ability for the athletes to figure it out themselves and “dig it out of the dirt” is critical when their contact time is at a minimum.

Get buy-in from key influences

Athletes rely upon a good support system and McCormick understands how important it is to filter his core coaching messages through the key influences in an athlete’s life. Done well, those messages will resonate beyond the coaching session itself. McCormick called it “the rule of 168”. There are 168 hours in a week and he might only get one hour with an athlete. “Therefore that hour needs to be high octane and have longevity over a week or two-week period so when they come back, you’re not in the same place,” he said.

By John Portch

• A holistic approach is essential if students are to have viable exit strategies.

• Self-regulated learning is better for development.

• How can you better use parents to support the work of your talent pathways?

Plan exit routes from the off

Much like aspiring athletes striving for elite level, not all students at the Royal Ballet School will forge a career in classical ballet and so it is incumbent on the school to prepare its students for that eventuality. As Christopher Powney, the school’s Artistic Director, told an audience at the 2021 Leaders Sport Performance Summit in London: “We want to make sure that students have the proper education and the proper nurturing to maximise who they are as a person and that ‘success’ is actually anything they can take from the school that they can employ in their future life, whether it be in dance, or if they’re unsuccessful in getting there – because there’s no guarantee at all they will achieve that – of being able to take what they’ve learnt and take that into whatever profession they decide to go into.” The Royal Ballet School’s approach is holistic. “Success for me is that the child is OK coming out of school and they are a good human being who can maximise themselves, they feel confident, they’re curious about life, and they want to develop themselves into whatever field they want to go into,” added Powney.

Build paths towards self-regulated learning

Youngsters in sports academies – and sometimes even accomplished senior athletes – may not be fully cognisant of how to train to attain and sustain their level. It is often a similar scenario with students at the Royal Academy of Music [RCM]. “By the time they get to us they will have already accrued 10,000-15,000 hours of practice and yet some of them say that they don’t know how to [practise] effectively,” said Dr Terry Clark, a Research Fellow for Performance Science at the RCM, who spoke alongside Powney at London’s Twickenham Stadium.

The RCM offers a range of courses based on the theme of effective learning that are designed to enable students to be less teacher-dependent as they transition through the course. Clark continued: “We’re looking at how we might be able to use novel technology to support our students’ development in things like self-regulated learning.” This includes peer support models as well as the RCM’s self-regulated learning framework, which starts with planning. “Being able to identify goals that they want to achieve in a short practice session and strategies for being able to do that. Being able to monitor focus, concentration, self-evaluation in the moment, but then, post-practice, reflecting and debriefing back on that. We have a lot of courses devoted to these things but we also do a lot of one to one work with our students as well, taking them through this process.”

The mental side of training is paramount

Clark, who works at the RCM’s Centre for Performance Science, spoke of the College’s performance simulator as a practice tool. The simulator, which places students in a performance situation with features such as a stage, a backstage and, if desired, even a restless audience, helps students to develop not only their performance but their coping and regulating skills. The simulator is essential for performance reps. “Performance opportunities are not as plentiful as the student might like but they’re also high-pressure events and there may not be opportunities necessarily for our students to learn from and debrief those performances,” said Clark. “It’s a safe space, musicians can try out new things, make mistakes perhaps, but there are no repercussions from that.”

Bring the parents onboard

“The majority of the parent body are fantastic,” said Powney when acknowledging the challenges that parents may pose. Historically, the Royal Ballet School used to keep its students’ parents at arm’s length. Not anymore. “We try to teach parents what’s involved with it,” he continued. “We also encourage the parents to talk to the children and the children to talk to the parents constantly about how they’re feeling, how they’re doing, and to allow them the space to say ‘actually, I’m struggling’. And then we put in place the supporting measures we need to help them with that.”

By John Portch

• People are emotional and not necessarily rational – you need a student’s trust more than you need a 10-point plan.

• Progression is not linear so be sure to have an environment where youngsters feel safe when making mistakes.

• Life skills – resilience, collaboration, communication – should be baked into your curriculum.

Do your youngsters trust you when setbacks arrive?

The Chicago Academy of the Arts recruits some of the United States’ finest performing arts talents but, much like a gifted child entering a sports academy, their abilities may no longer stand out on campus. There is the potential for friction as teachers and coaches break down and rebuild their performance. “They might not see results today or tomorrow and we’re asking them to take that on faith that this is going to work,” said Jason Patera, the Head of School, when speaking at the 2017 Leaders Sport Performance Summit down the road at Chicago’s Soldier Field. Patera and his colleagues know how to manage bumps in the road that students inevitably encounter and that is where trust can be developed with the young person. “When we as the leaders can get out in front of [setbacks], we know it’s going to happen, when we can set up in their mind to expect that, not only can we help prepare them for that, but when it does happen, they say ‘oh yeah, [you] told me about that thing. What else can you tell me? I am ready to hear you on these other things because you called it and I believe you.’”

Are your young people ready to take a leap of faith?

Patera explained that even if a student tells him they want to be the next Steven Spielberg or a prima ballerina, he knows that deep down kids set personal limits that need breaking down. “The first thing we have to do is help them expand that conception of what it’s possible for you to do,” he said. “We have to take them from thinking about who they are – ‘I am an athlete, I am a dancer, I am a singer’ all these static things – and get them focused on ‘what can you change by the work that you do? What can you change by the training that you do?’ To help them understand that ‘where I go is related to the things that I do’.  That’s the first part. Then the second part is creating that trust. If they don’t trust you in this scary time, they’re going to cower in fear and not take that leap of faith into trying something new.”

Are you preparing your youngsters for plan B?

Chicago School for the Arts alumni includes Grammy winners, Broadway stars and world-renowned ballerinas, but it also includes computer programmers, attorneys and game designers. “There’s so much luck involved that we have to prepare them for the other thing,” said Patera, who defines ‘the other thing’ as those careers beyond the arts. “We have to think in our training of not compromising that dedication to the dream, but it would be enormously irresponsible to say we’re going to spend the next four years of your life preparing you for that Juilliard audition that you have a one in 50 chance of passing, and if you don’t make it, say ‘sorry kid, you’re kind of irrelevant.’” The school’s curriculum is designed to prepare students for plan B, especially if they realise the arts are not for them. Patera added: “When people get a sense of how to collaborate better, when they get a sense of how to lead better, when they get a sense of how to respond to failure better, not only are they going to make the team better – or in my case it’s the ensemble – not only is the main product going to be better, but they’re more useful in whatever path they go on.”

By Sarah Evans

Framing the topic

This was session one of our three-part Performance Support Series focusing on the overarching theme of talent development, with the title ‘Synchronising Player & Coach Development’. Across these sessions, which are being hosted by Edd Vahid, Assistant Academy Director at English Premier League club Southampton FC, the aim is to understand the challenges faced during transitions for talent, whether this be players or coaches, and explore a number of interventions to positively influence this in your environments.

Understanding the challenge

• When we say ‘challenge’ within this session, it means the transition of players through the pathway from academy to seniors.
• First and foremost its crucial to understand what these challenges are in relation to transition.
• The challenge of transition is at the heart of most sporting visions.
  • UK Sport – ‘Keep winning and winning well’ places a requirement on young athletes to have an impact on the senior stage.
  • Southampton – ‘Be the Number One Player Developer in Football’

 Aims of the session

1. Provoke thinking on player/athlete transitions
2. Create space(s) to reflect on existing approaches and challenges
3. Explore the utility of several sense-making models
4. Encourage a commitment to action

Discussion points

How effectively is your club / organisation facilitating the transition of an talented academy player to first-team player? Or in turn, how are you facilitating the transition of talent coaches within your environment?

Pre-Mortem: Your highest potential academy player / coach does not transition into the first team / elite environment. What would have contributed to this outcome?

• Opportunity: pathway, lack of bumps in the road, long-term injury.
• Competition: insufficient game time, too much expectation, mentality.
• Assessment: coaches decisions, selector bias, positional decisions.
• Differences between professional sport and Olympic sport, and individual vs team sports.
• Pressure to win games now, focuses on short term rather than a longer term developmental outlook.

Performance = Potential – Interference (Timothy Gallwey)

The reality of transitions is that they’re a zero sum game, meaning that if someone makes the step up into the senior team, someone else will move out of that space.

Challenges in creating effective transitions

• Recognising the landscape or ecosystem you operate in.
• The tension that exists between the first team environment, which naturally prioritises a shorter term focus, than a development environment that has a longer term outlook and possibly greater stability.
• Trust and Empathy: the heart of talent development work is trying to influence the trust that the senior staff have.
• Vision: the aligned vision between the first team and academy. Club’s vision led by board must have buy-in across the organisation.
• Individualised element: everyone’s pathway is so different, so it’s important to create a system that acknowledges that individuality.
• Ensuring there are aligned processes between the various stages of the pathway.

Sense Making Models : Pierre Bourdieu – Habitus, Field, Capital

• Habitus: ‘The Individual’, a product of their history, influenced by a multitude of factors. Their history will influence how they perceive, how they think and ultimately how they behave moving forwards. Are we preparing these individuals to be a ‘fish in water’ in the senior teams?
• Field: e.g. The training complex. A social arena where people compete for resources and demonstrate their power. The new ‘field’ establishes the ‘rules of the game’ and the individual must adapt if they want to succeed. This could be their attitude at training, their image, where they sit in the changing room etc. How well are we preparing them to make a good first impression?
• Capital: The currency that is going to influence success – physical qualities, cultural qualities, reputation you come with.

How well do we know our players’ Habitus? Their History?

How well do we understand the Field, and the Capital required to succeed?

Task: What are the key influences on the First Team ‘Field’? For example, the pressure to win on Saturday?

70% of behaviour is determined by our environment. Therefore if most behaviour is understandable then we need to understand where the behaviour comes from.

Understanding the landscape – O’Sullivan, Bespomoshchnov and Mallett (2021)

• Microsystem: the immediate environment – e.g. an individual playing in the academy.
• Mesosystem: the interconnection of settings – e.g. interconnection of academy and senior team. Things that can influence this are the managerial tenure, which in football on average is 18 months, financial incentives, and the average age of players in the senior team.
• Exosystem: the broader context – e.g. the Premier League, with many players being brought in from overseas, player contract length, and the transfer spend of the club.
• Macrosystem: cultural elements – e.g. the role of the media and social media.

In summary:

1. Successful transitions are critical to our talent development aspirations.
2. Understanding the transition challenge precedes intervention.
3. The transition challenge is influenced by factors that exist on multiple levels.

By John Portch

• The way we feel is the biggest variable in performance – we need to better understand the power of feelings when designing learning and development experiences.

• Consider: what is it about your experiences that makes you experienced?

• Look to create uncertainty, learn from performance limitations, begin to bridge those gaps.

Why experiences matter

“All experiences are transformative – they change people and allow them to adapt,” Glenn Hunter, a performance innovation consultant formerly at the English Institute of Sport, told an audience at the 2019 Leaders Sport Performance Summit in London. “The challenge in high-performance sport is to keep designing new experiences that can engage athletes and coaches, turning ordinary into great.”

How we feel – one of the biggest variables in sport

Hunter, whose role involves the assessment of training strategies, believes that understanding how athletes feel, as a consequence of their experiences, is essential. “I will be bold enough to say: that in my research over the years, looking for the big step in performance, this is up there as a contender,” he said. “Our experience changes how we feel, how that changes how we act, and how that changes how we perform. The inconsistency in performance plots very closely to variation in how people feel and the experiences they are having.

“If we could understand this a bit better, make it a discipline that’s central to performance, and do this a little bit better through our understanding, to create better human and performance experiences, I think that would be a really good thing.”

What is it that makes you ‘experienced’?

Defining experience by years on the job is not enough. “The thing we’re talking about here are these two critical aspects of performance that are missed in day to language: something that happens to you that affects how you feel and the way something that happens to you and affects how you feel. To express this a different way: you’re all experienced, but what is it about the experiences you’ve had that makes you experienced? Focusing on that means the end-product, the experience you have, becomes more vivid, fruitful, therefore more rich and valuable.

Authentic experiences that appeal to people’s values

Central to better human and performance experiences are the need for uncertainty, which sits in contradiction to our desire for certainty. “As human beings, we’re most relaxed and comfortable when we have what I might call the ‘illusion of certainty’,” said Hunter, who cited both science and religion in making his point. “Ironically, when we’re most alive as human beings is when we’re in situations of uncertainty.” This is an evolutionary trait in people. “In essence, uncertainty is part of performance.”

Designing meaningful experiences does not necessarily mean happy or joyous moments. Hunter continued: “It can be a failure – meaningful moments are things that move you on, that make you who you are, that you learn from and makes you better even though the experience at the time might not be a great one.”

But it’s not just learning from failures or setbacks. “How might you design your next game? How do you enjoy an experience when you’re in it, and having had the experience, how might you look back on it, learn from it quickly, so that you change the next experience into a better one? The point being that it’s not just when things go wrong, it’s how we can design and shift ordinary into great?” It is much like a designer and a successful design process understands its audience and listens to their world.

“In the dynamic environment of sport, you must continue improvising to create performance experiences that are authentic and appeal to the values of different people. By doing this, you are helping those people to stay ahead of the competition and be true to who they are.”

By John Portch

• Public speaking is an art not a science – find what works for you.

• Practise using these tools, just as you would expect an athlete to practise.

• Use the listener’s language to forge that connection.

There are no rules – but there are tools

Chris Anderson, the Curator at TED, told an audience at the 2016 Leaders Sport Performance Summit in New York that public speaking matters more than ever. “The thing I want to emphasise is that there’s no formula to doing this,” said Anderson. “But there are tools that you can choose from to construct the talk that is right for you in the moment – and these tools teachable – I am convinced of this.”

Start strong

Anderson suggests that people dispense with platitudes in an attention-demanding world. “I’m not saying in the first sentence you have to sock people between the eyes. You have about a minute. In the first minute you have to give them a sense of what it is you to build in their minds and have them trust you to do it.”

Be human

The trust to which Anderson alluded is rooted in authenticity and being human. “There’s lots of ways to do this,” he said. “A bit of humour can help, tell an anecdote, maybe some vulnerability, or you can actually just look at people. Your eyes have super powers. When two humans look at each other their minds literally start to sync up. So don’t spend your talk with your eyes buried in your notes or projecting out as many speakers do to this place where no one actually lives. Find faces in the first few rows and look at people and speak to them conversationally because everyone can actually sense that connection when you do that. It’s powerful.”

Tell a story

Storytelling can be a powerful tool in sport. “Stories can make or break so many talks. Our minds are wired to love them,” said Anderson. “A story can also set up the idea that you want to share.”

Explain

Anderson said that in order to construct an idea in someone’s mind you have to be able to call upon elements that are already in their minds. “You can use your language, your jargon, you have to use concepts that the audience already has,” he said, “and the key tool to connect those is metaphor. Metaphor is literally is shaping an idea based on a shape the audience already has. So when the science writer Jennifer Kahn came to TED, she wanted to explain to us CRISPR, this bio technology. She said: ‘it’s like a word processor for the genome. You can cut and paste the gene from any part to any other part’. I know what a word processor is so I know what CRISPR is. It’s powerful.”

Persuasion

Anderson said: “If explanation is the construction of an idea in someone’s mind, persuasion first involves a little bit of demolition. You have to take out something that isn’t right first. How do you do that? By showing how implausible or even ridiculous it is.”

Rehearse

Don’t expect to just wing it. “Your teams practise, actors practise, musicians practise, speakers should practise – it really matters,” said Anderson. “The difference between owning a talk and being owned by it is rehearsal.”

Talk your way

Feel free to sit, stand, walk, use a lectern or do cartwheels. Anderson said: “Do it your way. because, when all is said and done, the only thing that really matters in public speaking is this: that you have something worth saying and that you then say it in a way that is authentic to you.”

By Edd Vahid

Fifa describe the transition from talented academy player to first team regular as a ‘delicate phase’. The term ‘delicate’ arguably underplays the challenges characterising this period.

Whilst many young players harbour dreams of playing Premier League football, the well-publicised reality is reserved for a minority. Enhancing the existing transition rate remains a priority for most academies and requires a collaborative approach engaging key internal and external stakeholders.

Before exploring existing and future interventions, an awareness of the current landscape is important.  According to the Football Observatory, during the first half of the current season (2021-22) the average age of a Premier League player has been 27.16 years old with only 4.2 per cent of these players younger than 21 years old. Significantly, 59.5 per cent of players currently plying their trade in the Premier League would be considered expatriates (i.e., their origin exists outside of England) who have been secured on lucrative and often long-term contracts (the average stay in a Premier League club is 37 months).

A gross transfer spend of £1.4 billion by Premier League clubs during the two available transfer windows this season, significantly eclipses the €380 million combined outlay by clubs in La Liga (Spain), Serie A (Italy), Bundesliga (Germany) and Ligue 1 (France), and reflects a generally positive trend in expenditure since 2003. These insights arguably highlight a league that present limited opportunities and favour more experienced players. Young players are competing for game time with the finest players in the world. This clearly represents a challenging landscape for young players with Premier League aspirations, and clubs with a desire to facilitate the transition of academy graduates.

The challenges evident on the pitch are often further exacerbated by an incentivised short-term focus and instability that can characterise off-pitch activity. Indeed, in 2021, Statista reviewed the average tenure of Premier League managers in the past ten seasons. According to the report, the average tenure at Southampton Football Club (accurate as of 08.11.21) during this period was 513 days. Our current Manager, Ralph Hasenhüttl, has surpassed more than 1000 days in post and offered a stability that encourages a more future-oriented outlook. Coupled with the financial incentives available when winning games, managers might understandably prioritise short-term results. Arguably, young players may require time before delivering game impactful performances at a Premier League level. Clubs must negotiate this tension, and there is evidence of positive progress in the past decade.

Despite the challenging context, since the inception of the Premier League-led Elite Player Performance Plan (EPPP) in 2012 a positive increase in home grown talent is evident. Notably, last season young English players were securing significant game time domestically and in European competition relative to their homegrown counterparts in the big five leagues (i.e., Premier League, La Liga, Serie A, Bundesliga, and Ligue 1). Specifically, English under 23 players ranked second for domestic minutes (behind France) and first in Uefa club competitions. Given the challenges presented, this represents a positive return and evidence of sustained progress.

Whilst clubs must ultimately take responsibility to review their pathway and explore ways to improve the transition rate of young academy players, organisations occupying leadership roles in the wider footballing ecosystem (e.g., leagues and governing bodies) represent important collaborative partners.  For clubs, a clear and agreed vision, the existence of trust and empathy, underpinned by aligned processes responsive to an individual’s needs, appear to represent necessary elements. Firstly, an ownership and board-led long-term vision that acknowledges the club’s youth development aspirations is critical. A clear and agreed vision importantly provides a framework for decision making. If youth development is prioritised, this should have clear implications and evident impact on the decisions related to player transfers, contracts, and general investment.

Creating a viable pathway for talented young players is important. Victor Orta, the Director of Football at Leeds United Football Club, recently highlighted a policy that protects space in the squad for young players. The approach represents a deliberate attempt to create a pathway that facilitates the development of homegrown players. Separately, during a 365-day period commencing in February 2021 our first team played 40 games in the Premier League. These fixtures were fulfilled with the use of 32 players, a figure broadly reflective of the average across the league. Significantly, more than a third (n = 11) of these players would be considered academy graduates; each player accruing varying levels of game time and sustained activity with the first team.

Given the relatively short tenure of a head coach or manager, it is vital that clubs employ guardians of their philosophy. Radically Traditional studied organisations who have enjoyed sustained success.  These ‘centennial’ organisations, as they termed them, were characterised by two distinct headline features, namely a stable core and a disruptive edge. A new manager arguably provides the disruptive edge that is necessary to evolve. This might involve changes to a playing style or training methodology. Complemented by a stability that safeguards an organisation’s identity, this represents a formidable partnership for progression. An instable core where purpose and identity are frequently negotiated ultimately creates confusion and inhibits continuity.

Deploying strategies that help support the development of trust between an academy and first team is vital. In his 2006 book Speed of Trust: the one thing that changes everything, Stephen R Covey considered trust a function of character and competence. In a transitional space this has implications for both staff and players. Senior academy staff and first team personnel must develop relationships embodying trust. An absence of trust will be debilitating and potentially impact the opportunities presented to young players. Whilst character arguably exists on an individual level, competence can emerge from a shared understanding of player development and potential. A shared understanding is often the product of a regular dialogue, which effectively serves to calibrate people’s views of individual players. This might involve discussing match performances and sharing training observations. Importantly, frequent feedback amongst staff operating in the transitional phase (i.e., academy and first team) should help enhance a player’s experience by clearly identifying agreed areas for development.

Empathy is closely intertwined with trust. It is important that both parties (i.e., academy and first team) appreciate and seek to understand their respective challenges. It is also important to acknowledge the inevitable tensions that exist. For example, an academy affords a time and space that is rarely available to a first team, which is under constant scrutiny from media and fans. Results in a first team setting represent the essential currency and this can conflict with the developmental needs of transitioning players. Arsène Wenger described management as ‘living on a volcano’, presumably in acknowledgement of the intensity and uncertainty inherent in the profession. Michael Calvin later adopted this phrase as the title for his 2015 book Living on the volcano: the secrets of surviving as a football manager, which provides an insight into the challenges experienced by managers. The competing tensions further emphasise the necessity for a vision that transcends a pathway and the importance of a clearly defined and stable club purpose.

The partnership between academy and first team staff is helpfully supported by aligned processes. This might include similar playing styles and approaches to set plays, which are designed to minimise turbulence during this critical transition. Indeed, our B team model at Southampton was introduced under this premise. The B team are philosophically aligned with the first team, operating a playbook that encourages a consistency in approaches to training and games. Ideally, individual development plans for the highest potential players are co-created amongst selected first team and academy staff. This should ensure a common language is deployed and a shared understanding of the demands and expectations evolves. Additionally, a schedule that permits regular opportunities for academy players (and staff) to observe and participate in first team training provides an important benchmark for performance. In recent seasons this has more formally involved a season-long sabbatical for selected members of the senior academy coaching team. Importantly, these interventions should help determine the training and competition needs of each individual player.

Facilitating a successful transition from senior academy player to first team player is difficult. However, this difficulty can be mitigated if an ownership-led and collectively agreed vision promoting young players is supported with an infrastructure characterised by the interdependent features of trust and empathy. As previously mentioned, each club is ultimately responsible for supporting the development of their players and creating conditions that enhance an individual’s progress. However, clubs operate within a broader ecosystem, and it is important to acknowledge the important role of leagues and associations. For example, the Premier League and Football League have effectively collaborated to provide young players an opportunity to feature in competitive fixtures against senior teams. The initiative, introduced during the 2016-17 season, invites senior academy teams to participate in the Football League Trophy. This opportunity complements the under-23 fixture programme and adds to the breadth of experiences that are necessary to prepare young players for the challenges evident in the senior game. Whilst it has not been universally accepted, the intent is clear and should be recognised.

The Premier League have previously reported the valuable role that a loan experience can have in a young player’s development. Specifically, there is evidence to indicate that a loan (or multiple loans) can provide a helpful platform preceding future Premier League appearance milestones. Whilst causality could be speculated and is likely to be individually determined, it is important that a loan system permits an appropriate degree of flexibility. A scenario where a young player has restricted playing opportunities and is locked into a loan experience for several months is counterproductive for all parties.

It will also be interesting to observe how the re-introduction of a rule permitting clubs to make five substitutions during Premier League fixtures will impact young player’s next season. Clubs will continue to be able to name a total of nine substitutes in their match day Premier League squad. Whilst intuitively this appears to present more opportunities, clubs must be mindful of an unintended consequence that could see young players deprived of meaningful game time and restricted to the role of an observer. This further emphasises the importance of detailed individual development plans with clubs ensuring their highest potential players are exposed to the appropriate training and match stimulus during a critical stage of their development.

Gareth Southgate recently called up 26 players to the England international squad in preparation for fixtures against Switzerland and Ivory Coast. The initial squad comprised players from 15 different teams, with individual development histories reflecting the diversity in transitioning experiences. A minority of the group have enjoyed Premier League opportunities as a teenager with their parent club, transitioning seamlessly following their academy experience. Several have negotiated the lower leagues (as both permanent and loan players) with carefully crafted and deliberately implemented development plans. Others have enjoyed less refined journeys that have seen them respond to setbacks during the infancy of their career. Each player has a unique story, which further emphasises the importance of a footballing ecosystem that is agile, responsive, and capable of facilitating multiple pathways to a first team transition. This outlook is broadly consistent with the conclusion Fifa reached following their extensive research into the transition of talent.

Edd is one of six Leaders Performance Advisors, a group of leading performance thinkers providing more subject expertise to our member-only content and learning resources. To find out more about all our Performance Advisors, click here.

An article brought to you by our Main Partners

By Sarah Evans & Luke Whitworth

Our first Leaders Meet of the year took place at Cardiff’s Principality Stadium this week [Thursday] and proved to be a resounding success.

Members of the Leaders Performance Institute came from far and wide to discuss the dynamics of coach and player development.

Across the numerous conversations on the day ran a consistent thread that often boiled down to a single question: how is this dynamic evolving and what could it look like in 10 years’ time?

With this dynamic in mind, here are the choice insights from the day’s proceedings.

Session 1: Coaching & Development – What Does the Research Tell Us?

Speaker: Dr. Dan Clements, Performance Coach Manager, Wales Rugby Union

For the first session of the day, Dan opened up the conversations by sharing some stimulus around the challenges and considerations when reviewing our coach and player development frameworks. Dan leant on some evidence-based research to explain some of the embedded principles that Wales Rugby are currently focused on.

Questions to ask ourselves:

• Why do we look at coach development and player development in silos? How do we make more connection between the two, as we know there is a tendency to focus on the specialisms in isolation?
• Are we adding value to the coaches that are operating within our programmes? Are we adding value to the players within the system?
• How can we make an impact on coaches that sustains change – benefitting them and the players?
• Are we stuck in a paradox of fixing problems? Generally in performance sport we are in this mode of thinking.
• How can we make an applied development approach the norm?
• When it is going well, how can we keep a coach working in a specific domain (a perceived natural transition for a successful under-18s coach is to go to the senior game, but are they better skilled or better suited to working with younger talent?)
• How do we ensure alignment across the pathway in what to coach through a curriculum that encourages innovation?

Wales Rugby coaching principles:

• Wales Rugby principles: contextual understanding… how do we help coaches deliver better on the work included in talent development frameworks?
• Adding value: the Wales Rugby framework considers coaching support, the learning environment and then the player.
• Principles to add value: a flexible and accessible offer. Continuous learning is vital. Collaboration across the game is key. Focused on the needs of the player and coach.

Coaching matters:

• Coaching is the key to sustained success. From community, to talent to the professional stage, the most significant influence on a players.
• We are not here to develop players to do what has already been done – it is our job to do it one better. The game is constantly changing, innovating, and has evolving demands.
• Every journey is unique. We need to do more around understanding what those environments are like? How do they differ to others?
• Coaching is multifaceted, non-linear and context specific. A question we have to reflect on is are we seeing an impact in terms of player development? How can we as coach developers help to better deliver on this?
• As coaches we want to prepare you to be the best person to handle the problems you will face.
• Wales Rugby philosophy: self-concept, leadership, people and coaching craft – all wrapped around the notion of contextual understanding. It’s all well and good having a philosophy, but what does that look like in practice so it isn’t just words on paper?
• What works in coaching? Actual coaching. Observation of other sport. Discussion with peers. Self-reflection. Mentoring. With these in mind, are we providing enough opportunity around these for meaningful learning experiences?

Action research – interactive inquiry:

• Action research is transformative change through the simultaneous process of taking an action and doing research, which are linked together by critical reflection. It involves learning through action and reflection, with a practical-based approach.
• Action research has four core stages: plan, act, reflect, observe. It’s important to identify that this is constant and ongoing.
• Leveraging action research in practice and how it applies to the enhancement of learning environments (motivational climate); coaches positively engaged with their peers in learning. It gave them more confidence. Increased ability to manipulate the environment. It impacted sustained engagement – too often we do one thing, move on and under appreciate the need for something sustained.

Leveraging appreciative inquiry:

• Appreciative inquiry is similar to action research. It is strength-based, more collaborative and has an applied focus. It allows you to start with strengths and encourages engagement with new ideas
• Performance sport generally is obsessed with problem solving. We actually want players that can problem-solve. Can we move to a more asset-based approach and spend more time unpicking success?
• Considering the 4 Ds: Discover / Destiny / Design / Dream
• Positives of using appreciative inquiry: safe, agile, instructive, new knowledge, solution focused, iterative and democratic. It doesn’t ignore hard issues or problems and really attempts to achieve a healthier balance where it can often be more deficit-led.
• Some of the findings from leading an appreciate inquiry study with talent coaches: there was more positivity, collaboration and generative capacity for developing new ideas and increased innovation.

Tiered approaches to learning:

We can’t be everything to everyone. How can we do more to influence people?

• Tier 1: Bitesize Self-Directed
• Tier 2: Network Driven
• Tier 3: Collaborative Learning
• Tier 4: Individual & Bespoke

Session 2: Coaching & Development – Problem-Solving: How Does Our Approach to Player & Coaching Development Need to Evolve?

For the second session of the day, we leaned towards the expertise in the room to explore the question of how the space of coach and player development needs to evolve. Through the method of ‘diamond thinking’, the groups came up with a number of ideas and filtered them into recommendations for the wider room.

Group recommendations:

Group 1:

• Courage to challenge: in a lot of programmes there can be an underpinning fear and a lack of psychological safety in offering sufficient challenge.
• Specialism with caution: exploring the power of specialism but appreciating the blind spots that can come with this? e.g. an under-14 foundation phase coach with a specialism in coaching teenage footballers.

Group 2:

• Changing demographics in coaching pathway: the demographic of those transitioning into coaching is changing.
• Development of domain expertise: a continuing area of opportunity is to enhance the expertise in specific domains (pedagogy, sciences etc).

Group 3:

• Development space is disaggregated: bringing everything back together with performance at the heart in a more holistic way.

Group 4:

• Bespoke learning pathway: opportunities for coaches to have more options and take on a more self-directed learning approach.

Group 5:

• Balancing elements of technical, tactical & social: factoring this all in collectively. The humanistic element is often left out; so how can we make it more integrated?
• Technological Opportunities: sense-checking what’s good and what’s not across the core elements of technical, tactical and social.

Group 6:

• Enhancing learning environments by using technology: imagine a coach you’d benefit spending time with? What is the context you’d like to be in with that coach? What would you like to interact with them on? Using technology and potential impacts of VR to create realities and enhance learning environments.

Group 7:

• More accessibility: providing a highly personalised offer. Shifting the narrative around us going to the coaches to them coming to us.

Session 3: Coaching & Development – Developing Your Non-Directive Coaching Skills

Speaker: John Bull, Director & Lead for High Performance Research, Management Futures

For the third session of the day, we shifted our attentions to exploring a skill that can be hugely impactful in working with others, whether coaches or players. Non-directive coaching skills: believe in people’s potential, give them autonomy and have the skills to draw out, develop and focus their talents. To explore the skill, we leaned on the situational leadership model.

• Situational Leadership Model: pull & push. ‘Pull’ refers to the degree of coaching and motivation. ‘Push’ refers to the degree of directive input of ‘how to’.
• Situational Leadership Model: there are four types of activity – directive (instructive), delegation (hands-off with clear intent), mentoring (combination of directive and coaching) and non-directive coaching (we are not the expert, the other person is).
• How much of the conversations you have should be pushed or pulled? When you consider your conversations, consider the three levels of listening below and what gets in the way of these different levels?
• What gets in the way of your ability to listen and be open?
• If you think of times when you’ve been really good at listening, what helped?

Three levels of listening:

1. Level one – focused on your own agenda

• Relating what they’re saying to your own experience.
• Listening with our own agenda in mind, and to influence.

2. Level two – seeking to understand

• Respect their insight and expertise.
• Listening to understand without judgement.
• Fully engaged, creating good thinking space and being more curious.
• Summarising back to check understanding.

3. Level three – listening for what is not being said

• Observing body language and listening to tone of voice.

Session 4: Coaching & Development – Real Life Examples from Football & Netball

For the final session of the day, we had the opportunity to explore coaching and player development from two different organisations, supported by the research and questions that had emerged throughout the day, with England Netball Head Coach Jess Thirlby and Southampton FC’s Head of Technical Development Iain Brunnschweiler. Jess and Iain shared some of their thoughts around the siloing of coach and player development, impactful learning experiences, and developing oneself.

Speakers:

Jess Thirlby, Head Coach, England Netball

Iain Brunnschweiler, Head of Technical Development, Southampton FC

• Frameworks & curriculums: at Southampton, there is a written coaching philosophy and 11 statements about coaching. The club has evolved from having just curriculum topics to having documents around how to bring these coaching skills to life. Contained in the documents are coaching skill pillars and a number of principles that sit around the coaching sessions – the coaches are held to account so anyone visiting the environment should be able to come along to a coaching session and there is an expectation that you can see some of those in practice.
• From a England Netball perspective, there is a focus on trying to capture what ‘the Roses’ way’ looks and feels like – it includes skills, behaviours and character. Character was something that wasn’t included in previous frameworks. There is also as much a focus on social skills as technical and tactical.
• What is your point of difference? In the Roses environment, they are diverse both in terms of personnel but also tactically.
• Curriculums can be highly rigid, so it is important that there is space and scope for flexibility, or we are undoing the message of creativity and innovation that we as coaches we want to convey? The players need a sense of autonomy and freedom.
• During the Coronavirus pandemic, Southampton First Team Manager Ralph Hasenhüttl created a ‘playbook’ for the club’s playing philosophy. An ongoing challenge is balancing that tension between preparing talent to go into a really clear and specific environment, whilst also understanding they need a variety of developmental experiences within the pathway. The challenge however, is that we have to be cognisant of not filtering people into one way of doing something.
• What does the future game look like, then, what does future coaching look like and what do future environments look like? Have clear intent of how to get ahead of the curve. We know players are very knowledgeable, so it’s important to embrace this as opposed to avoiding it.
• Meaning and learning experiences: Jess shared the story of one of her richest experiences in netball. It came during a tour to South Africa where the senior players were given the opportunity to lead the team, whilst getting high challenge and high support from the actual coaches. It’s all about the timing of experiences and rubbing shoulders with others in the environment – one thing Jess is trying to create in the Roses environment is providing more opportunities for the younger players coming through who perhaps aren’t ‘Roses ready’ to rub shoulders with more senior players.
• A meaningful learning experience that Iain shared around Southampton’s coaches was in observing the coaches – filming them, coding and feeding back. This allowed the coaches to see themselves as a coach and hold a mirror up in a non-judgemental way.
• What are the relevant experiences we need? Iain talked about Southampton starting to use an ‘experiences tracker’ with the aim of identifying trends and mapping into the development plans of talent.
• When thinking about people development, find people who are disruptive to your thinking. There is also a lot of positives in wearing lots of hats.
• Coach burnout: it’s a very personal thing. If we are really clear on what we are going after as outcomes, and we empower people to do that in their own way, that’s a very powerful thing. There isn’t one way of doing it, so we shouldn’t judge others on how they go about it. If you want to be in a lead coaching role over a sustainable time, you need a stable base. What nourishes you as a coach and allows you to be the best version of yourself?
• Embrace difference: seek out people who are and do things differently you.
• Future development: Iain is studying the power of language and interacting with others – understanding their map of the world and helping them to understand it. He is also learning to play the piano to stimulate his creativity and support his mental health. Jess shared that she has a better understanding herself and how that impacts how she coaches – to tie in with an earlier point, rubbing shoulders with others away from the sport and surrounding yourself with different thinking is hugely important.

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