By John Portch

As Kairos CEO Andrew Trimble explains, athletes often risk missing out on vital information for the most prosaic of reasons.

“There could be something in a group chat that was buried under half a dozen different birthday messages,” he tells the Leaders Performance Institute.

That missing information could be the details of a pitch the team is training on, the details of a medical appointment or a sponsor engagement.

Trimble, a former rugby player with 229 caps for Ulster and 70 caps for Ireland, explains that teams across all sports struggle with communication channels. “There are teams with 10-15 WhatsApp groups or – just as bad – they have one group for every single topic and there are numerous threads being discussed; and no one can understand everything,” he continues.

It sounds confusing. “Then there’s numerous screen grabs of whiteboards, which are obviously non-live. In some instances, an athlete has to walk into the medical room, pick up a marker and book an appointment that way, which is very strange in this day and age.”

Trimble, who retired from playing in 2018, heads up the Belfast-based Kairos, who have created a unified digital planning platform that enables better communication within sports organisations, from operations and management to coaching and performance. The platform was designed to be not only sport agnostic, but has tools to support every level from first team down through academies.

Kairos – a Greek term meaning ‘the decisive moment’ – enables teams, through their app and desktop-based platform, to solve problems by eradicating the distractions caused by multi-channel approaches. Trimble and Kairos Chief Operating Officer Gareth Quinn, who developed the first iteration of their platform in the mid-2010s, soon realised there was no suitable tool on the market. “We received strong validation that this is a problem that’s really worth solving,” says Trimble, who explains that Kairos is compatible with third party calendars such as Outlook and Google. “With our platform, it’s all very clear, there’s no clutter, all the athletes know where they need to be and there’s greater levels of accountability.”

Their platform is currently used by teams in the English Premier League, United Rugby Championship, Premiership Rugby and a series of teams across North America and South East Asia. Trimble points out that these teams may not just be suffering from a problem of unclear communication. “From a staff member’s perspective, it could be getting assurance that if you send something important to an athlete that it’s going to be delivered, received and understood and engaged with correctly,” he says.

“If it’s one place, then it doesn’t take up any cognitive load for the athlete. They can spend 100 per cent of their time thinking about performance. If that’s compromised in any way, if they have to scroll through their screen grabs or pictures of a PDF, and they have to scroll through their email for something else and look through their WhatsApp group to find a thread, then all of that is a distraction and all of that impacts on performance. Equally, if multiple departments are speaking different languages then you’re asking an athlete to be a goalkeeper with ten different goals to defend.

Trimble delves further into the issues that can exist within a single team. “Even within one department you can have three or four different behaviours,” he says. “Take a medical department. One medic may create a block of availability that allows athletes to book appointments, another medic may book that same slot of availability but then allocate slots to athletes, there may then be another medic who bypasses all availability and pushes bespoke events or appointments to players.

Kairos helps to solve such problems. “Athletes and staff get the assurance that everything is on the platform and they can see it. It’s all live. Any department that wants to communicate with the athlete will use the one platform. Ultimately, they’ve got one goal to defend and, if anything changes, they can see notifications, reminders or updates on their notification channel; it’s very clear and very easy for them to know where they have to be, what they have to do, what the requirements are, and then how to get the best out of themselves.”

The platform can also be adapted to the prevailing culture at a team. “There’s ownership on one end and management on the other, and every team lies somewhere on that spectrum, but it’s important that we can support everybody, whatever that team culture is or environment or what the expectation of the players is; either to tell them where to be or what to do, or to allow them to manage all that themselves. We’ve got tools to capture both behaviours.

“There’s a number of different ways that you can use our software and it’s important that we can work with a team and find a way that works best for them and gets them the best results and, ultimately, gets their athletes performing the best.”

On that note, Trimble says that Kairos is continually reiterating its platform. “Every conversation for us is about discovery, finding where the club is at, and deciding what their unique issues are and, nine times out of ten, we will have encountered something similar before and there will be a mechanism in place to be able to provide a solution in the software,” he says. “We can take them through that, but often there can be something unique and there’s learnings in that for us too. That could even just be a coach with a new way of thinking about the game, a new way of communicating, or a new operational procedure. We have to capture that development.”

This attitude points the way forward for the next 12 months. “The next phase we’re going to be working on is the integration with third parties, be that GPS providers, sleep data, or nutrition and diet.”

The feedback from Kairos’ ever-growing client base has been positive too. “They say it is unthinkable that they’d be able to go back to the way it was before,” says Trimble. “Professional athletes require a platform that treats them like they’re a valued professional and communicate in a way that gives them back time and takes away distractions.”

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What Google Can Teach Your Team About Problem-Solving

Framing the topic

Google’s Global Head of Creative Capability Kirk Vallis once said at one of our events that ‘creativity and problem solving is still one of the most underrated skills for leaders and the reality of creativity is that it is just about creating more options. And with more options you can make better decisions’.

You’d probably agree if you operate in high performance sport, with the complexity and agility required, that problem-solving is a pretty critical skill. For this virtual roundtable we wanted to chat about problem-solving and, more importantly, how we are thinking about it and approaching it.

Discussion points

1. When looking at the theme of problem-solving, where is your current thinking and what are some of the things you and your teams are trying to do to positively influence it?

• We are looking at how we get our practitioners to understand and grow in the problem-solving space through reflecting on how you deal with problems. As leaders, how do we facilitate someone understanding how they problem-solve, and how to extend that ability further?
• It’s important to understand the environments you are in and trying to put in place systems so that people can learn from their practical experiences. Our philosophy means we place an emphasis on the idea that the biggest learnings you are going to take are from your day-to-day experience, so reflecting on those is important.
• Understand what the problem really is and define it. Sometimes it can be difficult to identify what the actual issue is. Use quality questioning to define and tackle the problem. To dovetail this, have an environment where you can creatively brainstorm and have a safe space to experiment with ideas. Don’t jump to the end until you have been through the process.
• We have been utilising roundtables outside of specific disciplines – one of the big things with problem-solving in a discipline or particular department is that it can create a conflict with another discipline. The approach has to be collective.
• We’re also looking at the relationship between how we recruit and solve problems. There is a focus on recruiting and developing from within but we also want the balance of bringing in fresh perspectives to challenge current processes.
• We are working on bringing a coaching approach to our problem-solving across the organisation. A large number of staff have gone through some performance coach training so rather than solving problems for people we’re trying to coach people to solve the problems for themselves. This approach is more sustainable and people become better at resolving issues themselves – we’re finding people are starting to perform better in their roles as well with those ‘grow type’ questions.
• With good questioning focused on ‘growth’ it allows the individual to think more clearly and resolve it for themselves – they solve it the way they want to solve something rather than someone else solving it and imposing their way of doing it. We want to get ourselves in a position where people are coming to us with ideas and not problems.
• We talk about ‘grow conversations’ as formal coaching but there is also informal as well – you don’t have to sit down with someone in a one-to-one and talk at length about a problem. Consider the impact of ‘big chats (formal) and little chats (informal)’. When we see the ‘little chats’ going on, that’s when we know it’s becoming part of the culture.
• We are really looking for our people and staff to be empowered to guide conversations.
• It’s important to have a strategy to solving problems and there is a balance of the short-term in having quick wins around the problem, and then the longer-term approach.
• Ask yourself, do you have a safe space across your environment for people to bring and solve problems?
• We are taking a look into The Cynefin Framework – this is a framework to help understand problems and whether it might be is a clear problem with a solution, a complicated one that can have a complicated answer, or is it a complex problem? The framework considers ‘probing’, making sense of the space and then responding.
• Problems can mutate – if you are working within a team, everybody brings with them their own journey and information, and the influence within the group can change the outcomes.

2. What next? Where are the opportunities and ongoing challenges we are facing?

• There remains a huge opportunity around collaboration, particularly in situations where a problem maybe held by one person but affect other people. We need to continue to exploring ways to bring people together in the environment to share that problem and help to open the eyes of everyone. Often we don’t see the same issues with multiple disciplines.
• A consistent coaching approach is something that can add huge value. We use a very simple term called RACI (Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, Informed) approach to communication to ensure everyone is considering who they need to speak to regarding any issue.
• We can often underestimate what people would like to know and what they want to know about what you’re dealing with – often we hold problems in our own space because we potentially feel like others aren’t interested, but this tends to limit the options for solving a problem when you close off the collaboration.
• Another big opportunity we see if seeking out solutions from other areas of the organisation or business – people who might be dealing with different types of problems in different contexts and they could provide a different lens. What can we learn from a sales team in how they sell premium tickets or hospitality if we are struggling to sell places for coaching courses and accreditation as an example? We can often get groupthink around what we see and think.
• Try and take the emotion out of this process – if there is too much emotion, there is almost no way of resolving the problem.
• An improvement for us going forward is how we best distil inputs from the collaboration and ideas that are generated around problem-solving – how do we effectively evaluate the issues and really progress the extended ideas moving forward.
• Establish if the problem a global problem or is it unique to one particular individual or area? This drives you in a direction of how you solve the problem, whether it requires collaboration or just individual support. Probe around where the actual problem is and dig a bit further into that, so when the collaboration element comes in you can pick the relevant parts to move forward. When you come through the problem-solving process with the decision, have you then investigated those enough to decide and confirm what are the challenges? We’ve talked about the problem mutating. Coming up with a solution is good but have you fully attached yourself to the journey that it is the right one for all – is there clarity around how the solution will be embedded?
• An idea we’ve toyed with is the ‘day in the life of a discipline’. Provide an idea of what others go through in their working day so there is a more holistic understanding of how interactions and communications can work more efficiently around decision-making and problem-solving.
• Diversity in this process remains a huge opportunity to get a more rounded understanding of the problem through a multitude of lenses. It broadens the way your perspective when looking at a problem or issue.

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A Leaders Performance Podcast brought to you by our Main Partners

“Sometimes you can listen to advice and it might be wrong for you, so you’ve got to figure out what is good and what is bad for you – who’s your angel and who’s your devil,” says Asha Philip.

By John Portch

The British sprinter – a two-time Olympic 4x100m bronze medallist – is speaking to the Leaders Performance Podcast as part of the Keiser Athlete Optimisation series.

Asha won bronze with her teammates in Tokyo and talks about some of the steps that enabled her to go again after winning a medal in Rio in 2016.

Also on the conversational agenda are:

• The mental strength that defines elite sprinters [10:00];
• Asha’s need to be comfortable being uncomfortable [14:30];
• The importance of self-reflection and positive affirmations [15:30];
• Why she is increasingly taking care of her mental health [22:00].

John Portch: Twitter | LinkedIn

Further listening:

Leaders Performance Podcast – Leadership & Culture Special

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

By John Portch

As a coach, you’ll almost certainly have your trusted assistants but do you call upon your wider performance staff as often as you might? Come to think of it, do you prioritise the views of your coaching assistants as much as you could?

While they may or may not share your intimate knowledge of the sport, it could be your experience, your technical expertise, that hinders your attempts to solve a performance problem.

That is the view of Kirk Vallis, Google’s Global Head of Creative Capability Development, and he shared it with the audience while speaking at the 2019 Leaders Sport Performance Summit in London.

Vallis, who was granted the freedom to choose his own job title, was at Twickenham Stadium to discuss the tech giant’s approach to disruption and creativity.

Far from being a wishy-washy concept, he explained that the World Economic Forum as listed ‘creativity’ as the third-most in-demand skill by 2020 (behind critical thinking and problem-solving). Creativity sat at No10 five years earlier and at No20 two years before that.

“Creativity is an underrated skill,” he suggests. “And creativity is just creating more options – with more options you can make better decisions.”

That is where your people can come in, as you are likely to already have the requisite expertise in the building. “We’re not lacking in knowledge or technology in the world,” declares Wired Founder Kevin Kelly from a presentation slide Vallis projects onto the screen, “we’re lacking the imagination for what to do with it!”

Vallis adds: “Those organisations that are most successful are those who use that expertise to do things a bit differently to everybody else – how do you outthink the pack by thinking differently?”

Here are five steps to help harness the talent in your building and, consequently, the creativity of your people.

1. Don’t be a slave to your success

While no one is questioning your knowledge, might your performance department suggest another way to think about a performance question? “We are slaves to our success,” says Vallis. “Our brilliance prevents us looking at things in a different way.” He proffers that it is about mindset, not skillset. “Technical expertise is overvalued – especially at the expense of being able to think differently.”

2. Create a positive relationship between success and failure

Vallis hits the audience with a stark fact: only one in four people feel they can be creative at work. “That’s a worry, especially for those of you who are leaders,” he tells the room. “Where are you sign-posting, role modelling, ‘big picture, little deeds’; where is it you’re giving people the ability to think differently or to fail? Where does failure live? I asked England rugby Head Coach Eddie Jones a couple of years ago and he said ‘Mondays’. ‘Mondays we’ll fail. We’ll try new stuff on Mondays – I don’t want to fail on a Friday when we’re trying to wriggle around execution – but on Mondays we fail loads.’” This is perfect: “Test the premise of your ideas, not the execution – do it fast and do it cheaply.”

3. Explore related worlds

In making this point about related worlds Vallis is speaking to the Leaders Performance Institute and our efforts to connect the great and the good of world sport. “Every challenge we face has been faced before in a different context,” he explains. His three-step process is 1) define the essence of your challenge 2) Explore a different world with the same issue and ‘steal with pride’ 3) Use as a stimulus for new ideas. “Value your loose connections.”

4. Break the rules

The instructions could not be simpler here: 1) List the roles or conventions 2) Choose one and break it 3) Use that as a stimulus for finding the best ideas.

5. Find expansive options for reductive decision-making

A greater variety of creative options is great – Vallis is staking his reputation on that very notion – but a decision must still be made. “Expansive options are good but not if nothing gets done,” he says. “We need to be reductive, analyse, judge and make decisions. How do we know we’ve got the best idea? You never will but you will gain confidence from the number of options considered.”

What is it going to take to win in 2020?

That is the focus of our latest Performance Special Report. Download The High Performance Manual: Winning in 2020, which features sports organisations as diverse as Red Bull, the Brisbane Lions and the Royal Military Academy discussing the pertinent topics across Leadership & Culture, Coaching & Development, Human Performance and Data & Innovation.

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