Day one set the bar high and we looked to carry that energy and momentum into day two. We began with a deep dive into the performing arts, looking at talent development at the Royal Ballet School and Royal College of Music before exploring the theme of diversity, equality and inclusion with Brentford FC and British department store Selfridges. We then checked in with performance coach Owen Eastwood before turning our attention to extreme adventurer Adrian Hayes in the afternoon. Aspetar then had the honour of bringing down the curtain with a fascinating look at rehabilitation and recovery.
A big thank you from the Leaders Performance Institute team and our main partners Keiser, Abu Dhabi Sports Council and Aspetar, for joining us for two days of total high performance.
For those of you who couldn’t make it – or those wishing you refresh your memories – here are the key takeaways from day two.
Full Day 2 programme:
Talent Factories: How the Performing Arts Develops & Nurtures World Class Talent
Belonging: The Ancient Code of Togetherness
Diverse & Inclusive Leadership: Exploring How Diverse Workplaces Positively Influence Organisational Performance
Lessons from Extreme Adventuring: Adaptability & Resilience in Adversity
Rehabilitation & Recovery: The Latest Thinking to Support your Performance Strategy
We were also delighted to welcome you back in person and thought we’d kick things off with a performance flourish from Premiership champions Harlequins and how they have reconnected with their roots, we then segued into Thomas Frank’s sterling work at Premier League new boys Brentford FC, took a tour of performance environments at the San Antonio Spurs and Toronto Blue Jays, before ending the day with stories from two of Team GB and ParalympicsGB’s most esteemed Olympic and Paralympic coaches.
Whether you were there or not, we’ve unlocked the Key Takeaways from Day 1 for our Digest readers. If you’re a member, recordings of the sessions are being added to the Intelligence Hub as we speak
Full Day 1 programme:
Quins Case Study: Leadership, Culture & Identity
Bee Together: Developing a High Performance Environment
Corridor Culture: Mirroring Team Culture in Physical Environments
Bringing Ideas to Life: Approaching and Executing Innovation
Gold Rush: Stories From Tokyo & the Evolution of Coach-Athlete Relationships
Coaches and practitioners will have their own thoughts on the matter but an increasing number of teams are following the practices of the business world in empowering their athletes – their people – to find their own solutions.
With more people engaged in their own problem-solving, more options and, therefore, more creative solutions, are likely to emerge across a team.
In October, the Leaders Performance Institute hosted a Virtual Roundtable for members titled ‘Approaching Complex Problem-Solving’, which underlined the trend for allowing practitioners to develop as individuals by affording them the opportunity to problem-solve, reflect and refine their practice.
At one point, a participant highlighted their use of David J Snowden’s Cynefin Framework. The framework, which is based on concepts of knowledge management and organisational strategy, enables people to place situations into one of five domains: ‘complex’, ‘complicated’, ‘chaotic’, ‘obvious’ and ‘disorder’. Where your problem fits depends on assessing its cause-and-effect relationships.
Perhaps the most common situation in both the business world and sport is ‘complicated’, where a problem may have several suitable solutions, though the relationship between cause and effect is evident only to a limited number of individuals.
The Cynefin Framework recommends that complicated situations be assessed, then analysed with the help of experts before deciding on the best response using good practice. One caveat is that leaders can be over-reliant on experts in complicated situations when others may be able to provide creative solutions. This thinking is also central to beliefs in the value of cognitive diversity.
Moreover, people like to solve their own problems, as Kim Wylie, the Global Director of People Development at the online luxury fashion platform Farfetch, told an audience at Leaders Meet: Total High Performance in 2020.
“When people solve problems themselves, they get this nice little bump of dopamine, which is a positive legal high and people feel really good about themselves and it brings really positive energy to the group and to the individual,” she says. “The point here that’s really useful to make is that by solving other people’s problems for them, we’re robbing them of this opportunity to feel good.
“Even if, as a leader, you do know the answers to things as a manager or a coach, getting people to solve their own problems is a really good thing to do. Obviously not all of the time, you need to work out the right situation, but not being the problem-solver for everything; get people to solve their own problems – it will do them the world of good and bring some positive experience to what’s going on.”
This approach to problem-solving underpinned Jayne Ludlow’s work with the Wales women’s national team, whom she coached between 2014 and 2021. Both staff and players, she believes, have the capacity to find their own solutions.
“There’s lots of collaboration between staff and players or between the players themselves,” she told the Leaders Performance Institute in April. “There was a focus within our national team camps to make sure the players could check their understanding with each other and our thought processes.”
Often, this was easier for the younger players coming into the national setup. “I’m not sure if this is because we were working with them as youngsters and we had a specific style and way of working,” said Ludlow, who also served as Wales’ under-17s and under-19s Manager. “If I think about the group of 17, 18 year olds I had with the seniors, in the last few camps, they’re growth mindset players. They want to step on the pitch and learn. It is OK if they make a mistake, they’ll adapt and they’ll learn from it.”
Why was it different for some of the older players? “That’s to do with the environments they’ve been in. How over many years and generations we weren’t coached that way. I hardly had any feedback and they were similar, whether they were in pro or semi-pro clubs. Then suddenly you were bringing them into our environment and every day they’d have a development area.
“You’d notice in presentations. The majority of our younger ones are very different in their approach. They look at training and games as a learning opportunity, whereas the older ones were still defensive in learning moments.”
How can you lower those defences? “My general approach to feedback is: goal, then highlight what you’ve done well, then highlight what the next step is to develop it. There’s the positive aspect but then there’s a development moment. With some players, I’d take a slightly different approach. It’s a bit of sandwich approach at times so there’s more positives than development; but then you’ve always got to be careful, do they actually take the development information from you?”
Ludlow observed that older players needed more support in her social constructivist approach to problem-solving. Often, it is a question of providing the right environment for athletes to feel safe to explore a problem in a safe environment with the attendant opportunities for collaboration and developing a shared language.
Matthew Mott, the Head Coach of the Australia women’s national cricket team came to a similar realisation after taking control in 2017, particularly during the post-match debriefs.
“I do think that’s probably the thing I’ve learnt the most with this team,” he told the Leaders Performance Institute in January. He found an environment that diverged in significant ways from those found at the male teams where he had previously played and coached.
“I’ve come from a male environment where you tend to be able to just debrief the games straight after. They get quite emotional about the games and call it out for what it was.” He took this approach to the women’s team and, like coaches who work with both female and male teams, realised things needed to change. “Certainly, throughout our journey, we went into team meetings where it was basically only the coaching staff talking and I quickly realise that it wasn’t a safe space and players needed smaller groups.
“So we got into smaller groups and we gave them tasks to feed back into the main group to create that safe space. But it’s interesting that we’ve gone through that and we have that complete trust in each other that you can now say things without fear of upsetting people and looking at it objectively and dissecting the game for its good parts and the areas to improve.”
He admitted that it is still a work in progress but the difference these days is profound. “Now that we’re actually in our full group meetings, the players are the ones talking all the time now and coaches are directing and starting and facilitating but, essentially, the players are the ones talking about the game and I think that’s a great space.”
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