The renowned actor and comedian is a devotee of improvisation, which can enhance your leadership abilities if you can develop an improv mindset.
‘I became immersed in the cult of improvisation,’ she wrote of her career ascent in Bossypants in 2011. ‘I was like one of those athletes trying to get into the Olympics. It was all about blind focus. I was so sure that I was doing exactly what I’d been put on this earth to do, and I would have done anything to make it onto that stage.’
Fey had a point, and the ability to improvise is also an essential leadership asset.
‘Improvisation thrives at the pivotal intersection where planning and strategy meet execution,’ wrote Bob Kulhan, another highly regarded improv comedian, in his 2017 book Getting to ‘Yes And’.
A recent Leadership Skills Series session used Kulhan’s premise to explore how improvisation can enhance your leadership. Here, we explore some of the elements that emerged during the discourse.
How does the ability to improvise elevate performance in both individuals and teams?
There are three elements:
How do the principles of improvisation correspond with the skills required for effective leadership?
This is where it is useful to visit The Four C’s of improvisation:
The role of psychological safety
Google initiated its two-year Project Aristotle in 2012 with a view to better understanding what makes teams successful. The organisation studied 250 attributes in their 180 teams and learned that psychological safety is by far the most important factor in determining a team’s performance.
Psychological safety can be defined as ‘a shared belief that it is OK to speak up candidly with ideas, questions, concerns and even mistakes’. It is a driver of innovation, creativity, engagement and productivity.
Additionally, an improvisation mindset is fundamental to how we might create a psychologically safe environment.
It can allow you to have more open conversations. If there is a feeling of being able to speak up without being judged and critiqued, you are likely to witness a higher level of participation and engagement in your teams.
We know that teams function better when there is a mutual feeling of respect and security.
Psychological safety increases people’s willingness to be open and accountable. This can lead to getting more ideas on the table and increased contributions from across the team.
Common signs of psychological safety:
Tina Fey’s rules of improvisation
In Bossypants, Fey outlined some of the improv principles that have supported her work and career:
Questions to help you become a ‘Yes, And’ leader
Kat Koppett, the author of Training to Imagine and herself an esteemed improv specialist, suggests a series of questions that can help people in sport to reflect on becoming a leader in improvisation:
Firstly, ‘what can I notice here?’ What am I tuning into in terms of what others are communicating? Pay close attention to what others are communicating verbally and non-verbally. What are your senses telling you about how the other person is showing up?
Secondly, ‘what can I accept here?’ This is really important, especially for leaders who are often looked up to as the ones who have the answers. Let go of your personal agenda and allow others to influence your thinking.
Thirdly, ‘how can I build on these ideas or perspectives?’ It’s important to consider that the goal is not to debate competing ideas but to co-create something.
LASER: a five-pillar approach to using improv in the leadership space
Neil Mullarkey is one of the world’s premier improv actors and, in 2023, he released his book In the Moment. In it, he details some practical skills to help leaders demonstrate the behaviours that help create the conditions for teams to be more creative.
There are five:
25 Jul 2024
ArticlesWe highlight the core beliefs that have strengthened the ECB’s resolve to transform English men’s cricket despite the setbacks.
Brendon McCullum had no first-class coaching experience when he was appointed Head Coach of the England men’s Test cricket team in May 2022.
Nevertheless, the New Zealander was the favourite candidate of England & Wales Cricket Board [ECB] Managing Director Rob Key, who himself had been appointed a month earlier.
McCullum, assisted by captain Ben Stokes, introduced a bold playing style that has been labelled ‘Bazball’ (a reference to McCullum’s nickname).
England have improved on his watch and are moving in the right direction ahead of their primary objective, which is a successful 2025-26 Ashes series in Australia. There have been resounding victories in the past two years and there have been some chastening defeats too, which McCullum had anticipated.
‘Are you prepared to take a punt?’ He asked Key during the hiring process. ‘This could go wrong.’ Key was not fazed. ‘What’s the worst that could happen?’
Key shared this story at November’s Leaders Sport Performance Summit at London’s Kia Oval, where he spoke alongside the ECB’s former Performance Director Mo Bobat (who now works in the IPL with Royal Challengers Bangalore). The duo discussed the ECB’s efforts to transform the way England’s men think about and play cricket following a meagre run of one Test win in 15 months prior to McCullum’s appointment.
The subsequent teething troubles were as inevitable as the criticisms that accompanied them, but they have not dissuaded the ECB.
Here, we highlight four beliefs that underpin their resolve.
1. Brave decisions lead to good outcomes
Key inherited a “bruised” performance team riddled with insecurity. Key, who believes that brave decisions made by the right people can lead to good outcomes, got to work immediately. He began to give people the latitude to make decisions without any blowback. With the atmosphere of negativity stripped away, Bobat’s playful side began to emerge. “If you don’t take yourself too seriously, what appears like a risky or brave decision to someone else just feels like the right thing to do.” This was Bazball in the boardroom.
2. Positive reinforcement is critical
McCullum is Key’s ideal frontman. His belief in a fearless style of play, much like Key’s, is born from memories of feeling stifled by coaches when he was a player. So when England batter Ben Duckett was caught and bowled for a duck during England’s 2022-23 tour of Pakistan, McCullum simply said: ‘well done, you’re going to get all your runs with that approach – keep committing to it’. It’s another story Key told at the Oval. “In that moment, it’s not about the ‘well dones’, it’s the player who got nought that Brendon’s reinforced,” he said. “I’ve had so many coaches when I was playing and they’re all over you when you’ve scored 100. What about the bloke in the corner who’s got no runs and he’s thinking that the world is coming to an end? That’s the person who needs you; sometimes they just need you there to listen.”
3. Progress cannot be taken for granted
Anyone looking for a stick with which to beat Key, McCullum or Stokes would not have to look further than their recent high profile defeats. “In English cricket we unravel quickly,” said Key of the criticisms that come his way. “That’s the time when you’ve got to look like you’re the most calm; you’re the one in control; you’ve got all the answers.” This was underlined in the one-day game, specifically following England’s group stage elimination from the 2023 Cricket World Cup. Key’s view is that he and his colleagues made the mistake of assuming their messages had landed. “When people say ‘just go out there, be aggressive and we’ll back you’ they’ve got to believe it,” he said. “We ended up with players who doubted the way we wanted to go.” Do not take your progress for granted.
4. Understand your strengths, minimise your weaknesses
England’s underage teams have adopted the same playing principles as the seniors. The ECB’s hope is that English cricket will produce players with the confidence to back themselves and their technique in the face of adversity. “We’re trying not to be overly focused on technique or fault-spotting, both of which are easy to do in performance systems,” said Bobat specifically of the England Lions and under-19s programmes. Weaknesses are addressed by coaches, but not dwelt upon. “We’re trying to be focused on moments and situations where you use your strengths to put the opposition under pressure.”
23 Jul 2024
ArticlesWho are your team’s cultural architects and cultural guardians?
Angus Gardiner, the General Manager of the New Zealand rugby team the Crusaders, once said: ‘good and bad teams have the same values written on the wall’.
The ‘saying’ is the easy part, the ‘doing’ is quite another and this idea, was the jumping off point for Dr Edd Vahid’s recent project with Management Futures titled A Cultural Hypothesis, which was published in March 2024.
Vahid hypothesised that sustained cultures of success consistently display four features:
As Vahid wrote, ‘an inspiring purpose is essential, a psychologically safe environment is critical, and a sense of belonging exists as a fundamental human need. Coupled with exceptional leadership, these elements distinguish cultures that thrive’.
The fourth has provided the basis of Vahid’s three-part Performance Support Series focusing on culture and change.
The first session invited Leaders Performance Institute members to assess themselves across the four areas; the second focused on cultural leadership as the ‘super enabler’ of culture; the third session further explored the skills needed by cultural leaders.
The three levels of cultural leadership
In A Cultural Hypothesis, Vahid explains that cultural leadership operates on three levels:
The architects and the guardians are more active in their roles and, during the session, Vahid explored the skills required for each.
Cultural architects – what skills are required?
Vahid asked members to reflect on the cultural architects in their environments and their skills. The group suggested the following:
Vahid then shared a series of observations about cultural architects based on his research:
They are often appointed by the sponsors. By contrast, the guardians will mobilise on the ground.
They lead the cultural design. They have the ability to articulate and create the environment; they make others aware of the vision and direction of travel. This needs to be done in a skilled and inspiring fashion, with language that is able to influence the culture.
Their role can also be more literal i.e. they have a role in creating a more optimal physical environment.
They acknowledge the tensions within their team and possess the ability to flex and be agile without losing sight of the purpose.
They understand the importance of stories, which can help to distinguish your culture. As Daniel Coyle asked several organisations in his 2018 book, The Culture Code, ‘tell me a story of something that happens here that doesn’t happen anywhere else?’ They know the answer.
The architect must be effectively monitoring the culture and its current state. That can be checking-in with where the culture is now or, equally, understanding the journey that it is going to go on. It’s important to invite feedback and ‘speak truth to power’. It is crucial for them to be connected to the guardians in staying abreast of goings on; they must also ensure a sense of positivity around the culture.
Architects will take a more ‘global view’ than the guardians.
In light of the ‘radically traditional’ research of Alex Hill and the Centre of High Performance, architects provide what Hill calls the ‘disruptive edge’ while the guardians maintain the ‘stable core’.
Cultural guardians – what are their other traits?
Once again, Vahid turned to members to ask what skills they felt cultural guardians possess. They suggested:
Vahid outlined what his research had to say on the matter of cultural guardians:
The guardians can provide much-needed support as well as bandwidth, space and capacity for the architects to focus on the things that really matter. It requires insight and intelligence to provide a clear view of the landscape.
They carry a strong purpose; there is a level of awareness, alignment and connectedness. The challenge for the architect is to ensure the guardian remains connected because if the connection is lost, you can lose someone who is a positive advocate and instead they become a disruptive influence.
The guardians can speak truth to power with ‘radical candor’, to cite Kim Scott’s theory; they ‘care personally while challenging directly’.
They are role models. They also need to have a degree of influence as they are the foot soldiers that can carry out the vision effectively.
The guardians are on the ground, taking that more localised view. They can make decisions on the ground for the benefit of and in alignment with the culture. They don’t need to escalate every decision or action.
Finally, guardians are identified or are emerging. Vahid’s use of the term ‘identify’ is deliberate because one of the challenges for cultures is to identify the individuals that are going to have a positive influence. He says teams have to ask the question as to whether they are doing enough to support their guardians and the development of their skillset.
Cultural architects, cultural guardians… and cultural shareholders
While there are cultural sponsors, architects and guardians, these are all cultural shareholders.
Vahid’s research suggests that cultural shareholders can be distinguished by their level of:
Those who carry significant positive influence and are highly motivated in alignment with your cultural aspirations could be considered guardians, but they are absolutely your strongest architects.
The challenge of a culture is to get an appropriate balance. Is there sufficient weight towards the guardians – if everyone’s a shareholder, are there sufficient numbers of strong and positive advocates for the culture – or are there people who might be considered countercultural?
How does a shareholder become a cultural guardian?
Vahid invited Leaders Performance Institute members to answer the question. They said that cultural shareholders transition into guardianship because:
In order to create more cultural guardians, Vahid argues that it is important to:
What are some of the fundamental change principles?
Vahid invited members to reflect on cultural change and the fundamental principles they call upon in those phases of development. Attendees suggested the following:
The change starts with observation; the sponsor then gives the architect permission to design, create and deliver what the new culture might look like. With this in mind, Vahid suggests a six-step process:
22 Jul 2024
ArticlesAs the San Antonio Spurs’ Phil Cullen helps to explain, there is much more at play in an environment carefully cultivated by Coach Pop to say ‘this is a safe place to give effort’.
The San Antonio Spurs’ Head Coach, a graduate of the US Air Force Academy, is known as an disciplinarian; and he might also be regarded as an anachronism were it not for the fact that he is revered for creating – and sustaining – one of the most harmonious cultures in elite sport.
Some might say Coach Pop’s gruff demeanour and willingness to yell at players would be sub-optimal in any other environment, especially with a roster full of Gen Z players, but his focus on the people and the environment afford him all the leeway he needs to express himself at the Spurs.
Coach Pop, the alchemist
Popovich, having served as an assistant coach at the Spurs between 1988 and 1992, returned to San Antonio as Executive Vice President of Basketball Operations and General Manager in 1994. He added the head coaching role early in the 1996-7 NBA season
He would in time relinquish his other responsibilities but there was no guarantee that Popovich could make a successful step out of the front office, particularly as his coaching resume amounted to little at that stage.
“He said, ‘hey, I want to do this and I probably have one crack at it’,” said Phil Cullen, the Spurs’ Senior Director of Organizational Development & Basketball Operations. Cullen did not join the Spurs until 2016, but this story, like so many featuring Popovich, has long since entered Spurs folklore.
“Pop said, ‘I want to do this and I want to do this with the people I want to be around’.”
This desire shaped the Spurs’ famous ‘pound the rock’ ethos, with its emphasis on persistence, patience and resilience. It helped to create an environment where a previously inconspicuous franchise could claim five NBA Championships between 1999 and 2014.
Cullen, speaking at the Leaders Sport Performance Summit at Melbourne’s Glasshouse in February, talked at length about the Spurs’ culture, which has been emulated across the globe, albeit with varying degrees of success.
Look a little closer at those other teams and it seems that some have been seduced by ‘pound the rock’ without paying full attention to San Antonio’s unique alchemy.
Not a Spur?
Good people are very important to San Antonio. As Cullen explained, their scouting template includes a check box labelled ‘Not a Spur’. It is a short-hand way of saying that a player lacks some of the team’s character-based values such as integrity, accountability or humility. “It’s very difficult to uncheck that box,” added Cullen. “We have to understand that when we do that there’s a reason why.” They do not always get it right, as he admitted, but their success rate is admirable.
All the same, many teams in the NBA and beyond, have adopted a similar approach, so there must be more to the Spurs success story than any notions of character.
Popovich himself is certainly a major factor, particularly at a time when the Spurs have the NBA’s youngest roster, with an average age of 23.52.
“Right now, we’re probably a coach-led team because of the youthfulness of the roster,” said Cullen. “Ideally, you’d have players that are actually holding each other accountable.” That is the end-game but, in the meantime, “the coach is having to manage the game, not coach the game – there’s a big difference.”
So coachable players are important, as is the coach; there are also key environmental factors at play.
Community, casual collisions and fine dining
The primary environmental factor is food. Cullen shared an image of the cafeteria at the Spurs’ new $72 million Victory Capital Performance Center practice facility, which opened in 2023. “This is the most important room in the building,” he said.
Popovich places a premium on team meals; the players’ families are regularly invited to eat with the team and staff . Cullen said: “There is nothing better than sitting across the table from somebody else from a different culture, with a different set of experiences, and just being able to share a meal together. Food and drink is very important to us.”
Mealtimes, they believe, help to develop mutual empathy and promote selflessness. “This job is hard and if it’s going to be all about you, you’re probably not going to reach your max potential,” said Cullen. “We want to be part of something bigger than ourselves – it can’t just be about you.”
Cullen played a significant role in the design of the facility and was influenced by Popovich’s words of advice when the project was green-lighted. “He goes: ‘I’ve got two things for you: protect the culture and protect the people’.” It confirmed Cullen’s belief in human-centred design. “I may never have the conversation directly with the player, but what we can do is design the space so that Coach can have that conversation with that player,” he said, explaining that players spend more time at the new practice facility than they did at the old one. “It’s shocking as you’ll go in there today and the players will be sitting there next to an equipment manager, next to the travel guide, next to your lead physio; and they’re just hanging out.”
Life beyond basketball
Beyond mealtimes, Popovich promotes a wide range of extracurricular learning opportunities. Cullen recounted the time ahead of a road game at the Washington Wizards in 2018 when Popovich took the team to the US Supreme Court. There are numerous examples on his watch of similar site visits and non-basketball focused discussions, with topics ranging from US federal law and international politics to same-sex marriage and social justice.
Again, these are issues far bigger than the individual or the sport of basketball. “It’s so easy to be insulated when you’re a professional athlete,” said RC Buford, the former San Antonio General Manager (2002-2019) and current CEO, in Dan Coyle’s 2018 book The Culture Code. “Pop uses these moments to connect us. He loves that we come from so many different places. That could pull us apart, but he makes sure that everybody feels connected and engaged to something bigger.”
Coyle also explained that Popovich relies on three types of belonging cue and ‘toggles’ between each in an effort to say ‘this is a safe place to give effort’. Those cues involve:
It led to Coyle conclude: ‘Popovich’s yelling works, in part, because it is not just yelling. It is delivered along with a suite of other cues that affirm and strengthen the fabric of the relationships [at the Spurs].’
Consider this the next time you see Popovich raise his voice.
Team USA’s Managing Director tells us what it takes to enable the athletes of one of America’s greatest sporting success stories to thrive in the pressure cooker environment of an Olympic Games.
A podcast brought to you by our Main Partners
So says Lindsay Mintenko, the Managing Director of USA Swimming’s National Team, in the second episode of this new series of the Leaders Performance Podcast, which is brought to you by our Main Partners Keiser.
“Just being able to sit with an athlete; sometimes you don’t even have to talk,” she continues, “it’s just so they know you are there.”
It is difficult to imagine many of her predecessors demonstrating such empathy with athletes whether they’re a multi-medal winner like Michael Phelps or Katie Ledecky or a swimmer who came agonisingly close in some of sport’s most competitive trials. The top-two finishers are guaranteed a spot on the roster; those in third – who would likely medal with other nations – are almost certain to miss out.
“After the trials, our main job is to make sure our athletes are focused on Paris, but we don’t always take a step back and look at those who came third by a hundredth of a second. That’s a tough place to be; so we really need to make sure that we do a better job of looking out for those athletes afterwards.”
It is perhaps no surprise that USA Swimming is currently the only national governing body in the US to have an in-house licensed clinician on staff.
This has happened on the watch of Lindsay, a two-time Olympic gold medallist in the 4x200m freestyle.
She is the first former athlete and first woman to serve as Team USA’s Managing Director, but as she tells Henry Breckenridge and John Portch, it is not about her but serving her athletes and their coaches.
Lindsay also spoke about her role being analogous to that of a general manager in the major leagues [8:00] and the importance of providing a challenging but safe environment [17:40].
Elsewhere, she elaborates on the importance of providing mental health support for her athletes [29:50] and explains how her swimming career began when as a six-year-old Lindsay fell out of a tree [5:30].
Henry Breckenridge X | LinkedIn
Listen above and subscribe today on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher and Overcast, or your chosen podcast platform.
3 Jul 2024
ArticlesMoonshots, how leaders can work on themselves, and the pathway to better collaboration – just some of the topics that featured on the June agenda at the Institute.
It is always wonderful to see the great and the good of the Leaders Performance Institute gathered to discuss the pressing performance challenges of the day.
Speaking of which, the happenings at Red Bull were far from the only opportunities on offer at the Institute in June, with roundtables and community calls packed with members sharing both challenges and best practices on a range of topics.
Many are covered in this month’s Debrief. As ever, do check out our upcoming events and virtual learning sessions, which are designed to help you to connect, learn and share with your fellow members from across the globe.
Right, let’s get into some reflections on June.
What we learned at the Sport Performance Summit in LA
We had a great couple of days with those of you who made the trip; and there was plenty of thought-provoking content for us to get our teeth stuck into (full account here). Below are a few snippets that particularly caught our attention:
Four tips for avoiding the ‘Innovator’s Dilemma’
The Innovator’s Dilemma is a 1997 book by Harvard Professor Clayton Christensen that explores the tension between sustaining existing products and embracing disruptive innovations. It resonated with Jen Allum, from X, the Moonshot Factory and Alphabet, the parent company of Google, who understand they could easily fall prey to the Innovator’s Dilemma. Onstage, Allum shared their four top tips for avoiding this scenario:
Allum added that X, the Moonshot Factory “rewards project shutoffs, dispassionate assessments, and intellectual honesty” in the work they do.
How to optimise your energy as a leader
As a leader, strategic thinking is in your remit, but do you ever include protecting your energy as part of the equation? “An organisation can’t outpace its leaders,” said author Holly Ransom onstage. “So there’s nothing more important than working on ourselves as leaders.” Here are her thoughts on how leaders should show up each day:
The biomarkers of a healthy culture
Back to the myriad insights gleaned from our June Virtual Roundtables, starting off with the latest segment of our series of learning centred around culture and change. The sessions highlight findings from a recent research project by the Premier League’s Edd Vahid titled ‘Cultural Hypothesis’. The project examines the key components of cultures that have been able to sustain themselves.
Vahid posits astute leadership as a ‘super enabler’. Indeed, as Donald and Charles Sull wrote in the MIT Sloane Management Review in 2022: ‘A lack of leadership investment was, by far, the most important obstacle to closing the gap between cultural aspirations and current reality.’
What are some strategies we can consider?
Vahid’s also research reveals that cultural leadership operates on three levels:
Four features of a great debrief
Effective debriefing skills was the top of conversation for our latest Leadership Skills Series session. If you are interested to join roundtable sessions centred around developing your own leadership, there are some great topics coming up around strategy and cohesion you can find on the Member’s Area.
To keep this section punchy, a section of our discussion focused on some top line considerations for what constitutes a great debrief. Are you doing these well in your environments?
The pathway to better collaboration and multidisciplinary working
Finally, we wanted to highlight some interesting insights and perspectives from our topic-led roundtable on functioning more effectively as multidisciplinary teams, which is often a very popular topic of interest across the Institute when speaking to many of you.
Do check out the complete summary. Below are a handful of ideas from members on the call that they feel are currently missing or need to be given more attention in the quest to do this well:
New Zealand Rugby’s Mike Anthony lays out why the All Blacks and Black Ferns are always ‘restless’, ‘uncomfortable’ and ‘itchy’.
The former first five-eighth (fly-half), who won back to back Rugby World Cups with New Zealand in 2011 and 2015, was one of a “legacy group” of former players invited in August 2023 to observe the team’s preparations and answer any questions the younger players might have ahead of their World Cup campaign.
“It’s a new bunch and you guys know pretty well that when you finish playing, you get invited back into the changing rooms or the team room and it’s quite awkward,” Carter told former England internationals James Haskell and Mike Tindall on The Good, The Bad & The Rugby podcast.
It was a changing room Carter had shared with a number of that All Blacks squad. “I don’t know if you guys feel it but going back into that environment, you kind of feel like a spare wheel.”
At no point was this the perception of the players, coaches or the All Blacks’ high performance team. In fact, two months later Carter, Keven Mealamu, Richie McCaw, Conrad Smith, and Liam Messam were invited to return at the Rugby World Cup in France, which took place in October and November.
“Talking to our team’s leaders, they got the most from the legacy group because the players are the ones who are having to drive along with that in the environment and the playing group would look up to them,” said Mike Anthony, New Zealand’s Head of High Performance, at February’s Leaders Sport Performance Summit at Melbourne’s Glasshouse.
Here were some of the most-esteemed guardians of the All Blacks culture coming back to reinforce the connection between all those who have worn the jersey.
Anthony continued: “That group had been through adversity. They’d lost World Cups and won World Cups. They knew what it took. The legacy piece for us is important.”
Legacy – a word long-associated with the All Blacks – is crucial in bringing to life the ambitions across the ‘teams in black’ i.e. the All Blacks, the Black Ferns (current women’s world champions) and both programmes’ sevens teams.
Their three core ambitions are:
These ambitions help to plot the path towards a performance culture described by Anthony as “unwavering at it’s core, it’s inspiring, it’s empowering, it’s inquisitive, and it’s responsive to change.”
The last point is critical. “How do you bring it to life day to day and how do you refresh it so that’s it’s relevant to your current group?” asked Anthony. “I’ve observed teams being successful and then they continue to run with what worked before as the group changes. It comes down to induction: how do you make sure your vision is relevant for your current group?”
Here, we unpack how the ambitions of the teams in black are brought to life through their behaviours and habits.
The building of a legacy: the All Blacks have won three World Cups; the Black Ferns have won six of the last seven Women’s World Cups. This enduring excellence burnishes their legacy year on year. “We talk of leaving the jersey in a better place,” said Anthony. “You’re the guardian for a short time, so when you leave it to the next person, you hope to add value.”
A team-first attitude: this is a challenge for New Zealand Rugby as a whole, with the growth of individual brands and the often more lucrative opportunities on offer abroad. Yet New Zealand’s best players invariably remain at home during their peak years to pull on the black jersey. The allure runs deep and it requires selflessness. “You’ve got to be selfless,” said Anthony. “You’re an All Black or Black Fern 24/7 and it’s in the little things you do when no one’s watching. You’ve all heard the analogy ‘sweep the sheds’ – it is genuinely something that our guys do. It’s not the job of somebody who’s paid to clean up after us and we take pride in how we do that.”
A player-driven environment: Anthony explains that buy-in is at “100 percent” amongst the players and that some players “never want to leave” New Zealand. This is in part because the team is intentional in its efforts to encourage players to speak up and contribute to the culture (“you have to create something pretty special to keep players here”) but it is also due to the increasingly creative ways that players are incentivised. “We give guys sabbaticals to go away because we know the money’s good; then we bring them back and that’s worked really well,” said Anthony.
Alignment: it is obvious that no two people are alike but that does not necessarily prevent them sharing a common vision. Said Anthony: “For me, ‘alignment’ is when people understand and are deeply connected to your vision.”
It is also a consequence of effective leadership, which he distilled into several traits while adding the caveat that you have to, above all else, play well. “I think we sometimes burden our leaders and they feel cluttered,” he said. “We want the spine of the team playing well first because, generally, they’re your best players. You have to get the balance right there.”
In New Zealand rugby, leaders embody…
Humility. As Anthony said, “you’ve got to be humble and vulnerable because that’ll encourage others to step into that space and contribute.”
Inclusivity. Anthony felt that although teams want everyone to have a voice, there is too little focus on schooling people in how to give and receive feedback. “If we want our players to challenge their peers, we’ve got to give them the tools”.
A growth mindset. There is always a performance gap; always a challenge. “It’s never about ‘we’ve arrived’,” said Anthony. “That gap creates that discomfort and itch that you want in a high performance environment.”
Ownership. Being an All Black or Black Fern is a 24/7 commitment. Anthony described Richie McCaw as the embodiment of that view. “It’s doing the unseen things,” he said. “It’s easy to sweat, but when you go home, what you’re eating, your sleep, how you present around your family – those are key.”
Finally… he tāngata, he tāngata, he tāngata
Anthony wrapped up his presentation with a whakataukī (Māori proverb):
He aha te mea nui? Māku e kii atu, he tāngata, he tāngata, he tāngata.
What is the most important thing in the world? Well, let me tell you, it is people, it is people, it is people.
“The price of entry is technical knowledge,” said Anthony, “but get the people right and hopefully you can build the right environment for a performance culture that supports the athletes.”
21 Jun 2024
ArticlesThe NSWL’s Bay FC and the WNBA’s Golden State Valkyries are two expansion teams and both have women GMs. Here, we bring you the views Bay’s Lucy Rushton and the Golden State’s Ohemaa Nyanin.
In March, Bay FC began their inaugural NWSL campaign to great fanfare.
The club was co-founded by former US women’s national team stars Brandi Chastain, Aly Wagner, Danielle Slayton and Leslie Osborne, who propelled the project from an ambitious idea to a grand reality.
They hired Lucy Rushton as General Manager. Rushton, who was the second woman to serve as GM in MLS when she joined DC United in 2021, spoke at this month’s Leaders Sport Performance Summit at Red Bull in Santa Monica.
Rushton is no stranger to the Leaders stage having also spoken during her time at Atlanta United, whom she joined following excellent spells with Watford, Reading and the Football Association in her native England.
She sat next to another trail blazer, Ohemaa Nyanin, the newly appointed GM of WNBA expansion franchise the Golden State Valkyries, who will join the league in 2025.
Nyanin, a Ghanian-American, had been with the New York Liberty for five years, most recently as Assistant GM, jumped at the chance to bring further basketball prestige to this corner of southern California. She previously served as Assistant Director of the US women’s national team and helped Team USA to Olympic gold in 2016 and World Cup gold in 2018.
The duo delivered insights into how they are shaping the cultures of their nascent organisations; how they’re working or planning on working with their athletes; how they’ve chosen to lead; how they’re supporting their staff; as well as how they’re changing the sporting landscape.
Owners must establish the culture and values
The Bay culture was clear well before Rushton had even accepted her position: everything is about the people, from the staff to the players. The owners want everyone to be B-A-Y. That is:
Brave – the ownership want the franchise to be bold in the industry, pushing boundaries, breaking barriers by being innovative.
Accountable – the staff turn up everyday and are responsible for their actions and drive, and push themselves forward.
You – Bay FC also celebrate themselves as individuals and bring their true authentic selves to work every day.
The three concepts have helped shape the mindset each day and give the staff and players something tangible to hold onto. The organisation’s vision is to be a global sport franchise at the head of innovation and change.
How can these be measured? For Rushton, “it’s the feeling when you go to bed or wake up and how you feel about going to work the next day or that morning”. She believes the staff feel good and know they can influence what is happening; they know it’s a positive environment and everyone is striving for the same things.
Women’s sport should not simply replicate men’s sport
Rushton’s experience of men’s football taught her a valuable lesson. “Coming into a women’s franchise, it’s so important that we understand and appreciate the difference to men’s sport and don’t try and replicate it,” she said. The club has been intentional on that since day one and strives to be people-first, player-centric, and celebrates and promotes good female health.
With Bay midway through their first season, Rushton reflected on how the staff live the values every day. They all want to work hard, but care, kindness, and mutual support are just as critical for an expansion team. You need people who want to be there, who have the grit to go through the ups and downs, but support each other when you might not have the same resources as the teams that are 5 or 10 years old.
“How we approach training everyday and present ourselves to the players gives them energy,” she continued. “Which in turn the players buy into and end up energised and galvanised.” The key is how you present yourself and how you turn up and how you live by the standards that have been set, and the biggest factor is togetherness and collaboration of all departments.
Measure success through environment and collective wellbeing
Nyanin left a household name in the New York Liberty, but her goal is not to merely recreate that team in the Bay Area. Nor does she simply want to recreate the Golden State Warriors (Valkyries co-owner Joe Lacob is also the majority owner of the Warriors). Nyanin wants the Golden State Valkyries to stand alone.
She needs to find people that are interested in a vision of winning championships, in alignment with the ownership group. Success will ultimately be measured in trophies. They are the first WNBA expansion team since 2008, so Nyanin is considering what it looks like to build a successful organisation. She said: “We need to find individuals who are interested in being challenged every day, leaning into the team. Do you want to come to work everyday, and serve the athletes everyday in a way that provides for an innovative space, that provides for us to do what we know we can do, and how quickly can we get there?”
With this question in mind, Nyanin reflected on the qualities she seeks out as the Valkyries hire and write job descriptions. “Being an expansion team means you have to be entrepreneurial. By embracing the unknown can you be empathetic too,” she added.
Rushton asked Nyanin about measuring success from a cultural perspective rather than through championships. In response Nyanin said it is about the climate of the people that come in the door. “When we ask how you are doing they might say ‘I’m fine’ or ‘I’m good’, but if you say ‘how are you doing in the terms of a climate?’; so ‘sunny, or ‘cloudy’, or ‘rainy’ – it adds depth. A way of measuring success is how we can collectively come up with our non-results-based success criteria, how do we make it such so that everyone is sunny?”
For Nyanin, ‘sunny’ doesn’t mean super excited, or super extroverted – you can be introverted but still be sunny. Success is ultimately defined by how the Golden State Valkyries create their own definitions of safety in the workplace; it stems from executives to coordinators, to players, and even changing the way agents and external stakeholders engage with the organisation.
A culture born of diversity
We all know the saying about the best-laid plans, so Rushton and Nyanin spoke of the importance of allowing culture to shape itself. For Rushton, the critical moments are when things haven’t gone to plan. “How you react to things not going to plan is how you create culture. Actions taken in those moments show the players and staff what’s acceptable and what’s not,” she said.
Some decisions have been made that may have impacted performance outcomes but certainly reinforced their culture and values. They might have been a “nightmare” at times, but they’re critical. The backing of the ownership and the Head Coach, Albertin Montoya, helped give Rushton the confidence to go ahead. Showing the group that the leaders are aligned was powerful and gave them the confidence that it was the right thing to do and that the leaders had each others’ backs.
For Nyanin, it is important to give newly-hired executives their own blank slate to contribute to the masterpiece. She said: “If everyone has a different background, you have to listen to their ideas as they’re all coming from different spaces. So it’s still being architected from all different walks and types of cultural differences.”
This means that it’s important to Nyanin to have each executive bring their own unique experience. Through these different experiences and backgrounds the culture develops. This will bring challenges and added work, as you have forces leaders out of their comfort zones. It also means that you have to be willing to think differently.
“It’s like explaining basketball to children, who all ask ‘why?’ People from different backgrounds are going to ask why do we need to execute things this way, and will ask good questions, and bring contributions beyond asking ‘why?’”
In return, Nyanin believes that the athlete will benefit, especially the female athlete who comes with different complexities. “If your own staff can challenge you and ask you why before the athlete does, then you’re giving the athlete a space for them to feel safe to be elite at their sport.”
Athlete care is paramount
What about their appeal to female players? Bay spoke with the potential recruits about player-centricity of club and how they were going to elevate player care. From starting from a blank slate, they were able to accelerate mechanisms that can help with impacting the salary cap through player housing for example. The club emphasised treating them like the athlete they are in comparison to some of their poor experiences in other environments.
In Rushton’s experience, the priorities are very different to male athletes, where pay often dictates the direction of negotiations. With females, it’s about living standards and how the organisation will elongate their career. It’s important to give them confidence in the staff who would give them the best care, medical treatment, and infrastructure. Rushton is proud that, as far as she knows, the players have no complaints about the level of care and how the organisation treats them as female athletes.
On a day to day basis it boils down to two things in her mind. Firstly, helping them be in the best position they can be for the longest time possible and, secondly, to help them live a nice lifestyle outside of football.
This focus on player care resonated with Nyanin, who was pleasantly surprised at the rapid expansion of the NWSL given her own experience of the WNBA. Bringing it back to athlete experience is hugely important because, in WNBA, athlete experience tends to focus on ‘how you do get elite talent to come through?’ Nyanin explained that longevity in the sport is different, although is it changing, because the majority of the athletes play six months in the WNBA and then go and play overseas where the conditions are often worse, but they’re getting paid more money. “Understanding the motivations of the athlete prior to them coming to your organisation and engaging in your space is important,” she said.
Attracting elite practitioners from male sport
How might top level practitioners be attracted from historically better-funded male sports? Both Nyanin and Rushton believe that efforts must be based on the vision, culture and concepts the organisations trying to build.
For the Valkyries, as Nyanin explained, the vision is to “build the best, to be the most elite, to build a space where people feel they’re being heard and their ideas being executed in a way that results in excellence. Why wouldn’t you want to come? How can I create an environment for you to thrive, and how can we do that together?”
Rushton agreed. She said: “it shouldn’t be about the gender. It does matter though – many wouldn’t be right for women’s sport. I want to make you the best practitioner in what you do, and give you the platform to excel in your specialisation.”
New franchises means recruiting for those who are willing to challenge themselves and go outside the box with their thinking. It becomes about finding the people who are comfortable with the associated risk in order to better themselves. Rushton believes they have to “believe that they can go there and make a difference.” Rushton also observed that, “a lot of males would find it refreshing to come to a female athlete team because it’s a totally different environment, with totally different feeling and vibe.”
For Rushton herself, when she moved from men’s to women’s football there were two main factors that drew her in:
How fans contribute to a team culture
There remains another crucial component of a team culture: the fans.
The final moments of the session were used to discuss how both Nyanin and Rushton, and their organisations, are forging connections with their fans. As Nyanin said, fans expect communications, but there are times when you can’t share with them. This is a dilemma considering that the fans are also investing in the franchise and so they deserve communication. It becomes about finding the balance around what to do when things aren’t going well. Working on being honest in their communications so that the fans understand that the leaders and everybody involved is working to solve any issues.
Similarly, Rushton and Bay have been deliberate in how they present the organisation to the fans. The Business Operations team at Bay go to the fans and ask them to bring the energy and passion; to be part of their story. They seek to empower the fans and have them be part of the journey. Bay have gone out to the community, had fans come and watch training, and prioritised outward action in the build-up to launch. People now want to be a part of their journey.
Rushton spoke of how Bay deliberately tell the stories of their players. This means that people become invested in the emotional side of who the player is, so if the team lose a game, the fans are more invested in the person than the result. The outcome is one of which she is proud and the Valkyries hope to emulate. “The fans have fallen in love with the team, despite the record.”
Results will surely follow but, here and now, both women are intent on proving that new women’s sports teams are not only viable but can thrive.
As Brisbane’s Damien Austin said, the Kansas City Chiefs quarterback has proved a useful reference point for a Lions team that sees high performance as a 24/7 pursuit.
The players and staff stand in awe of the Kansas City Chiefs quarterbacks’ postseason exploits, but Google images of a topless Mahomes with a less-than-perfectly-chiselled figure provide conversation-starters on training, performance and nutrition.
“He’s considered the GOAT at the moment and he’s basically got a ‘dad bod’,” said Damien Austin, picking up on the term Mahomes has used to describe his own appearance. As a three-time Super Bowl MVP, Mahomes is clearly doing the right things, and Austin, who is Brisbane’s High Performance Manager, was simply illustrating how highly attuned his athletes are to the demands of their own high performance.
“We educate the players about acute-chronic workload,” he told an audience at February’s Leaders Sport Performance Summit at Melbourne’s Glasshouse. “They know about injury management, they know about their programmes and why we do what we do.”
Brisbane are one of the best teams in the AFL; and a premiership, their first since 2003, is a realistic target. It’s a far cry from the mess Austin inherited when he first walked through the door in November 2015. He came from the Sydney Swans with a remit to revamp Brisbane’s high performance setup, but it would prove to be easier said than done. “I came to the harsh reality that we were very different.”
Brisbane rock: not all it’s cracked up to be
In 2016, Chris Fagan was appointed Brisbane’s Senior Coach. He initially focused on the physical, technical, tactical and psychological elements that could give him the biggest bang for his buck.
The team also decided to fake it until they made it; “stealing” ideas from individuals and teams, including Usain Bolt, Eluid Kipchoge and the San Antonio Spurs. Austin said: “These people reminded the players what some teams did and we mirrored [their actions and philosophies] until we could develop our own.”
They even brought a large rock to Springfield Central so that the players could ‘pound the rock’ in the manner talked about at Gregg Popovich’s Spurs, where a rock takes pride of place at the entrance to their practice facility. It brings to life the Spurs’ belief that it is not the final strike that cracks the rock but the hundred blows that came before.
While it makes for a stirring scene in San Antonio, Brisbane’s rock did not hold up its end of the bargain. “Every now and then the players would have a crack at it but the rock wasn’t hard – it kept breaking – we had to get another rock!”
On the field, the team continued to lose most weekends. “We called ourselves ‘the happiest bunch of losers’.” While Fagan’s first two years were characterised by turbulence and continued turnover, the atmosphere gradually improved because the people that stayed (or joined) believed in the direction of travel.
The team had long since resolved that at least no one would outwork them. It was their founding philosophy. Players were pushed out of their comfort zones (Brisbane introduced 3K time trials when 1K or 2K were the league norm) but given all the necessary support to prepare. Additionally, no other team had to train in the oppressive heat of the Brisbane summer (routinely reaching 29˚C/84˚F) but the local climate was reframed as a performance advantage.
The team also began to measure everything they could. “I’ve never been in a programme where strength results or running results from the general running session were put up in team meetings so much,” said Austin.
Little victories were celebrated along the way. “If a rookie player benched 60 kilos for the first time it was a pretty big deal.” The players enjoyed their progress. “It could not be us just harping on and on [otherwise] those early losses could have taken their toll.” Instead, as results turned, it led to a firm bond between the players, many of whom are locals who happily spend their downtime together.
Eight years on from teaming up with Fagan, Austin defines high performance very differently. “In the early days we would say ‘let’s do the basics and get as many gains as we can to attract younger players and hopefully they perform later down the track’. Now we’re looking for the finer edge. How we can improve our weaknesses? If you were to play us, how would you as an opposition coach or stats department play against us? Years ago we would not have looked at that.”
Best foot forward
Under Fagan, Brisbane have become known for their growth mindset and fearless approach. The staff have worked continuously to remove the fear of failure, with sessions that demanded players kick off their weaker foot being a prime example. Such efforts underlined that this was a psychologically safe environment. “Those sessions weren’t pretty, but there was an acceptance that you’re going to fail; but don’t be fearful of it. Learn from it,” said Austin, who also explained that players now routinely run their own training sessions and both give and receive performance feedback. “Leadership is not about being the best. Leadership is about making everyone else better.”
Nevertheless, for all their progress, Brisbane’s major defeats have been frustrating. These include semi-final losses in 2019 and 2021 and preliminary final reverses in 2020 and 2022. They bounced back to make the Grand Final at the MCG in 2023 but their narrow defeat to Collingwood that afternoon still rankles and they are determined to make amends. They have put their belief in a 24/7 approach to high performance to bridge that four-point gap. “You need to live it, endure it, deliver it. You need to do everything off the field, look at how you manage it; be involved and make the best out of it.”
Patrick Mahomes would no doubt approve.
Some cultural leaders are front and centre, but many work from the wings to deliver the success their teams crave. Here are some steps you can take to ensure your team has its cultural leaders too.
Those leaders can be athletes, such as England captain Harry Kane, who will lead the Three Lions in their Euro 2024 campaign. Or Breanna Stewart, the New York native who returned home in 2022 and led the Liberty to the 2023 WNBA Finals; bagging the league’s MVP in the process.
Kane and Stewart are the embodiment of local heroes who have done well, particularly if you include Kane’s remarkable spell at Tottenham Hotspur.
Then there are coaches who represent an expression of the systems that enable their programmes to excel. On that front, one can point to Kane’s international manager, Gareth Southgate, who has overseen England’s most successful spell since the mid-1960s.
Cultural leaders, however, need not be so high profile. They operate at all levels of an organisation, independent of job title or seniority. Do you recognise the cultural leaders in your team? What steps can you be a better cultural leader?
Cultural leadership – the super enabler
The link between leadership and sustained success is the centrepiece of a research project run by Edd Vahid, the Head of Football Academy Operations at the Premier League.
In June 2022, the business and leadership consultancy commissioned Vahid to undertake a piece of research to discover the ‘secrets of culture’. Two years later, this project, titled ‘Cultural Hypothesis’, is on the cusp of publication.
Ahead of its release, Vahid is leading a three-part Performance Support Series at the Leaders Performance Institute that seeks to explore the enablers in high performing cultures.
The first session, which took place in early May, was a useful way of testing the importance and relevance of the four enablers highlighted by Vahid in the Cultural Hypothesis: purpose, psychological safety, belonging and cultural leadership.
The second, which took place in early June, homed in on cultural leadership, specifically how leaders might change or sustain a culture. The concept is, as Vahid described, a “super enabler” for your sense of purpose, belonging or even psychological safety.
Culture should be an accelerator and energiser
In the session, Vahid observed that organisations are increasingly deliberate and intentional about culture because they see it as a competitive advantage. It is not a one-time annual event – it’s a regular part of ongoing conversations.
This is lost on some organisations, as Jon R Katzenbach, Illona Steffen and Caroline Kronley wrote in the Harvard Business Review in 2012:
‘All too often, leaders see cultural initiatives as a last resort. By the time they get around to culture, they’re convinced that a comprehensive overhaul of the culture is the only way to overcome the company’s resistance to major change. Culture thus becomes an excuse and a diversion rather than an accelerator and energiser’.
Four ways to get to grips with your culture
To understand culture you need keen observation and data collection. Vahid proposed several useful tools:
During the Korean War, John Boyd, an American military strategist and fighter pilot, devised the OODA Loop as a decision-making process designed to emphasise adaptation and agility in four stages:
Organisations can apply the OODA Loop to assess and respond effectively to cultural dynamics.
Vahid also pointed to other efforts to collect data around culture, such as UK Sport’s ‘cultural health check’ or retail giant Selfridges using data to better understand their most culturally-stressed communities.
Vahid also stressed the importance of critical incident reviews to help observe culture during specific moments such as exits, inductions, wins and losses.
Teams can also find their place on the Sigmoid Curve, a common model for tracking organisational growth and decline. At each stage, expectations can change, which affects what we see, hear and feel.
Five Steps Towards Cultural leadership
Vahid explored five steps that can help a team to develop cultural leaders.
