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By John Portch with additional reporting from Luke Whitworth

“A question to reflect on in your teams is the impact of IQ and EQ,” said Holly Ransom.

The renowned leadership consultant was onstage at the Leaders Sport Performance Summit at Melbourne’s Glasshouse speaking about her book The Leading Edge, in which she proposes a framework for leadership based on notion that when we are able to lead ourselves we are better equipped to steward others through periods of change and development.

An audience of more than 200 Leaders Performance Institute members sat with rapt attention as Ransom joined coaches and leaders from organisations including the Brisbane Lions, San Antonio Spurs and Melbourne Business School, all of whom laid out how they are working to ensure their people can navigate the shifting sands of high performance in years to come.

“Research suggests some of the most in-demand skills by 2030 will be how we work together, connect, and build empathy,” Ransom continued.

Here, in light of those skills, we explore eight ways those who took to the stage are working to future-proof their teams.

1. Winning strategies are co-created, not imposed top-down

The recent renaissance in Australian cricket – the men’s and women’s teams are reigning world champions across four different formats – has not been a happy accident. Andrew McDonald and Shelley Nitschke, the head coaches of the men’s and women’s teams respectively, stressed the need for thorough performance planning, skilful execution and finding the space to pick up lessons along the way.

‘What is high performance? It’s the ability to move quickly and make good decisions.’

Andrew McDonald, Head Coach, Australia men’s cricket team

‘A large focus for us has been trying to create a welcoming and open environment.’

Shelley Nitschke, Head Coach, Australia women’s cricket team

Next steps:

• Bring your athletes onboard by giving them the agency to help shape your performance plan. McDonald sought to do this by shifting the discourse from talk of ‘culture’ to one of ‘environment’ so that players, particularly when on the road, can fashion for themselves safe spaces to share ideas. Whether it’s tactics or using data, Australia’s players are now empowered to make critical in-game decisions.
• Success may not be instant and outcomes may be erratic at first. Use low-consequence preparation matches to trial new tactics and strategies; then re-frame what winning means in those moments.

2. Role-model good leadership

Burnout is a universal problem, with New Zealand and Australia suffering some of the highest rates in the world, according to leadership consultant Holly Ransom. She argues that while stress is inevitable, and can be abated, burnout can be entirely avoided. In her view, the conditions necessary for eradicating burnout stem from empathetic leadership and, when a leader adapts their habits, it gives permission for others to do the same.

‘If we want to see it, we have to be it.’

Holly Ransom on the notion that we can’t sustain leadership, without leading ourselves first.

Next steps:

• Spend time reflecting on whether the habits you’re living by and leading with are still serving you well. Are they supporting you using your energy on the tasks that matter most? Are you getting a return on that energy?
• Ransom suggested three steps for deactivating the nervous system and returning to a state of calm and relaxation:

1) Complete an energy audit – when are our natural highs and lows in a day, and how are we using them?

2) Establish your building blocks – do the little things that help you build momentum.

3) Set your micro-breaks – take time to get mini hits of new energy.

3. Do you promote safe risk taking in the pursuit of innovation?

Kit Wise of the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology [RMIT] and Budi Miller of the Theatre of Others, an innovative performing arts company, were invited onstage to share their approaches to fostering creativity and risk-taking in their environments.

‘Our philosophy is centred around inspiration, aspiration and expectation. Inspiration is liberating, fun, and what gives us desire. Aspiration – the why and our values and purpose. Expectation – have fun and think deeply about what you do so we can hold one another to account.’

Professor Kit Wise, Dean, School of Art, RMIT

‘We talk a lot about play and playfulness in our philosophy. It is a sense of freedom where play and risk exist together. Play and playfulness elevate the speed of curiosity and problem solving.’

Budi Miller, Co-Artistic Director, Theatre of Others

Next steps:

• Risk-taking can be brave. Find ways to build trust and empathy within your team.
• Encourage risk-taking and rule-breaking in the pursuit of innovation. They are fundamental to innovation, not merely in-the-moment flashes.

4. Learning and development is easier when people feel connected and a sense of purpose

The New Zealand All Blacks and San Antonio Spurs are worlds apart in sporting terms but share numerous commonalities when it comes to bringing to life and sustaining a winning culture. Beyond results, both are renowned for creating environments where people and innovation flourish, as the All Blacks’ Mike Anthony and Spurs’ Phil Cullen explained.

‘We want to have teams that you never want to leave. The environment has to be special to keep people there.’

Mike Anthony, High Performance Development Manager, New Zealand Rugby Union

‘When we were planning our new training facility, Coach [Gregg] Popovic had only two requests: take care of the people and take care of the culture.’

Phil Cullen, Senior Director of Basketball Operations and Organizational Development, San Antonio Spurs

Next steps:

New Zealand Rugby have identified five factors that enable their group to flourish:

1) Connection – players take pride in serving their community.

2) Balance – the group looks for learning, stimulation and edge.

3) Fun – a big part of balance.

4) Learning – athletes learn by doing; so what environment will facilitate the best learning?

5) Family – the organisation has worked to bring families in while also helping them to understand the expectations of an athlete in high performance sport.

The Spurs have their three core values:

1) Character, which is based on values.

2) Selflessness, which is culture-focused.

3) ‘Pound the Rock’. A metaphor inspired by 19th Century Danish-American social reformer Jacob Riis. His Stonecutter’s Credo perfectly captures the Spurs’ drive for championships:

“When nothing seems to help, I go and look at a stonecutter hammering away at his rock perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet at the hundred and first blow it will split in two, and I know it was not that blow that did it, but all that had gone before.”

The Stonecutter’s Credo, Jacob Riis

5. Empower athletes in their learning

The Brisbane Lions men’s team, under the stewardship of Senior Coach Chris Fagan, have in recent years returned to prominence for the first time in a generation. Amongst the factors responsible for their rise is their ability to out-learn their opponents, as High Performance Manager Damien Austin explained.

‘Do we do what makes us comfortable or do we do what the athlete needs to do or learn?’

Damien Austin, High Performance Manager, Brisbane Lions

Next steps:

• You have to educate the ‘why’ for athletes and encourage them to take responsibility. Start by gathering their input when shaping your habits and standards. And remember: no one is above the basics, no mater how good they are.
• Consider: what are your athletes taking away from training? Did they retain the requisite knowledge? Are they enjoying your training environment? Do they have any fears or concerns? Find out and iterate. Be sure to check for misunderstanding and guide them in their learning.

6. Dare or challenge your people to change

Models for change are all good and well – change is inevitable, so perhaps they are entirely necessary – but what are some of the so-called ‘soft’ factors that enable a leader to influence change? Professor Jen Overbeck was on hand in Melbourne to dispense some tips for explaining and justifying change to others.

‘We can make people change, or we can persuade them to change. We should choose deliberately, and be clear about what makes them listen to us.’

Jen Overbeck, Associate Dean, Melbourne Business School

Next steps:

• Your capacity to influence – built by your credibility in the eyes of others – must be established well before you need to rely upon it. What gives you credibility and lets you influence others? If you get it right: they will admire, like and trust you. They’ll think they’re in good hands, that you bring success, or access to good things. They’ll think you got to where you are in the right way.
• A leader has to balance their social capital (their membership of ‘the tribe’) and their intellectual capital (their competence). Sometimes you have to simply be part of the tribe. At other times, you can simply demonstrate that you support the values and core identity of the tribe, and that you’re willing to fit in with them instead of challenging or resisting them.

7. No sustained performance without wellbeing

Wellbeing and performance are indivisible, yet there is more we can all be doing to ensure our people can flourish. At the Glasshouse, Emily Downes of High Performance Sport New Zealand and Sonia Boland from the Australian Institute of Sport provided an insight into their work helping people to thrive amidst the challenges presented by high performance sport.

‘A lot of conversations around wellbeing have centred around the duty of care but not touched upon its direct impact on performance. We are now observing a shift and evolution in the system where there is a readiness to have conversations around the benefits of wellbeing.’

Emily Downes, General Manager – Wellbeing & Leadership, High Performance Sport New Zealand

‘We are striving for sustained and repeated performance outcomes. Wellbeing is a performance enabler and opportunity.’

Sonia Boland, National Wellbeing Manager, Australian Institute of Sport

Next steps:

• Language is so important. It is becoming evident that we are all talking about different things when we discuss wellbeing. Find terms that makes sense and have meaning to your people.
• Resource alone is not enough. None of it means anything if those above and below are compounding the problem – it requires integration at an organisational or system level to have a true impact.

8. Better athlete and coach development for women and girls

As women’s sport continues to evolve, the system will need the athletes and the coaches to fill the spaces created. Given the hitherto piecemeal approach to developing women’s sport, and the often misunderstood differences between men and women athletes, this is far from a given. Helene Wilson of High Performance Sport New Zealand and Tarkyn Lockyer of the AFL are two individuals meeting this challenge head on.

‘Athletes aren’t as exposed to women coaching. Could this actually bring a point of difference?’

Helene Wilson, High Performance Sport New Zealand

‘The easy way would be for women and girls’ pathways to mirror the boys and men’s. In terms of resourcing, it is the same. However, feedback collated from the clubs and players shows that girls and women want more education around high performance and knowledge of preparation and recovery. Boys and men prefer more competition and game time. The needs are different so the curriculum needs to match that.’

Tarkyn Lockyer, Australian Football League

Next steps:

• Given the speed of growth in women’s sport, the focus needs to be on creating adaptable and malleable athletes. To do this, focus on the fundamental skills in a high challenge, high support environment.
• For the development of both women coaches and athletes, it’s not just about providing opportunity. We need to wrap support around them as we set them up to be successful.

By John Portch with Henry Breckenridge

• Champion teams act and think like champions before they lift the trophy or wear the ring – and they do it 24/7.

• Team values need collective input and meaning or they’re just ‘words on a wall’.

• Success doesn’t ‘root out the weeds’ on its own – culture needs constant renewal.

Culture often precedes results

The Texas Rangers’ transformation under General Manager Chris Young and Manager Bruce Bochy saw them go from 102 losses during the 2021 Major League Baseball season to the World Series just two years later. Bochy, for one, could not have enjoyed a more successful first campaign in Arlington.

It is tempting to attribute part of the turnaround to the organization’s increased focus on personal development, particularly when Ben Baroody was promoted to Director of Leadership & Organizational Development, Player Enrichment Programs, and Mental Performance in November 2021. But the truth, as he told us himself, is that the groundwork had been laid for years by the staff, coaches and players independently of on-field results.

“I’ve been here nine seasons and there have always been a lot of positive elements to our culture,” Baroody told the Leaders Performance Podcast in January.

The team did, however, revisit their values in light of that 2021 season. Baroody continued: “It came down to refining our core values – who we are and what we represent, how we live out those values – and [establishing] a belief in what we can accomplish together when everyone has a clear picture of what those priority values are. [Then] it’s easier to embody them and be held accountable to them. We know what matters most and what we are working towards.”

The Rangers values include “be a good teammate”, “compete with passion” and “dominate the fundamentals”. “On the surface they seem over-simplified but they mean a lot and can be applicable in a lot of different ways.”

Your values need to be reinforced daily

Too often teams fall prey to the words they stick on the clubhouse wall and the Rangers were no different in the past. “We’ve been victims of that,” said Baroody. “I think that every organization is.” One solution, he added, is continuous reinforcement “through meetings, through presentations, through discussions – they aren’t just on a wall somewhere – they are truly part of how we operate, they are included as we constantly evaluate our decision making and in our evaluation of personnel, both players and staff. They are the main component of our performance reviews from a staff standpoint.”

Values, when they are perceived as meaningful, can be applied by people on a 24/7 basis. “You can boil them down to the most obvious application, but when you think through how you’re structuring your day, how you’re structuring your week, your season, your lifestyle. They can be applied 24 hours a day and we’ve tried to really live them out and not be selective in when we embody them,” Baroody said.

They should resonate beyond your sport or competition

The Rangers’ values are defined by all domains of the organization. “We all have clarity into what they mean for us personally in our different sub-departments,” said Baroody. The same goes for staff and players. In fact, it is a fundamental development exercise for young players at the Rangers’ minor league affiliates. “We’ve put it to them to speak amongst themselves, have collaborative discussions, to create the definitions around those [values] and to set forth the behaviors that exemplify those values.”

At a staff level, “it comes down to simplicity and clarity in having values that are applicable to everyone in the organization whether you’re a player, whether you’re a scout, whether you’re a coach, whether you’re an analyst – you know what it means to the organization as a whole.”

Even if you’re a non-playing member of staff you’re still “leading with a competitiveness. The communication and collaboration and care you have for others – that’s how you’re exemplifying being that good teammate.”

It doesn’t end with winning

The process did not end with the Rangers’ World Series victory in November. “It reinforced we’re on the right track with culture,” said Baroody. However, “as soon as you think you have it figured out, you’re close to being humbled.” The word ‘culture’, as he explained, has its roots in agricultural cultivation. “[Your culture] has to be cultivated so you’re always going to have to pull some weeds and tend to things, and give it water and give it sunlight. It can’t be stagnant.”

Therefore, he does not perceive a hunger issue as the team prepares for Spring Training. “There’s pride, there’s accomplishment, there have been celebrations, but there’s definitely not been contentment and our focus is on building on 2023 with a competitive focus on 2024 and beyond. And I think that in itself is a good insight into who we are and who we aim to be and what we try to represent.”

Listen to the full interview with the Texas Rangers’ Ben Baroody:

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By John Portch with additional reporting from Luke Whitworth

The last Leaders Performance Institute Think Tank took place at Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons, a renowned manor hotel and restaurant in Great Milton near Oxford in November.

The Think Tank is designed to connect general managers, coaches and directors of performance – the people with responsibility at the highest levels of world – sport with each other and the ideas that have served their peers best.

The discussions on the day were wide ranging, as the participants delved into five common problems and identified possible approaches and solutions.

1. Taking the pain out of evolution

Renewal is a continuous process in sport, which is not to say that it is always easy, frictionless and without complications. If you are the person tasked with delivering upon your team’s vision, consider:

• How you will establish alignment. Do you have the right athletes and staff in the room to implement your desired style of play? You have to select athletes with the right profile and surround them with staff who can positively reinforce your message.
• Enabling your athletes to see the need for change. It is important to define the ‘old’ and ‘new’ and demonstrate the value of the latter. It is not aways easy but the leader must tackle any obstacles from the outset.
• Making time for your managers. Your owners or front office need to understand the direction of travel if they are to successfully communicate your messages. Get to know them where possible or find the right conduits; and be sure to conserve your own energy in the pursuit of team harmony.

2. Safeguarding the energy of the coach

It is often incumbent on the head coach to provide the energy to the playing group, but who is looking out for the energy of the coach? At a time when coaches fear coming across as ‘weak’, here are some tips for coaches seeking to protect their personal energy.

• Ask yourself: does your executive leadership truly understand the challenges? It is not a given that executive leadership understand the demands of being a head coach. A conduit between executives and the coach can be useful as can a coach development lead with scope for supporting staff members.
• Can you call upon a ‘critical friend’? This is essentially a colleague off whom a coach can bounce ideas and share challenges. It can be useful to provide a safe space for a coach to feel vulnerable without undermining the confidence of the wider group.
• Consider making those relationships formal. Good intent can be fragile and there are financial considerations too. Establishing coach support as a practice can give individuals greater confidence in the resources at their disposal.

3. Developing the next generation of coaches

Succession planning is hard, particularly when one considers that generation-defining coaches are more a product of circumstance than formal programmes. Nevertheless, how can we give aspiring coaches a better chance?

• Do you have a teaching background? In some quarters, pedagogy – teaching practice – seems to be fading from modern coaching. Yet some of the most accomplished coaches have backgrounds in education. There is room for athlete-to-coach transitions but other pathways are available.
• Find the traits that matter. Curiosity and emotional intelligence are critical factors beyond any technical or tactical knowledge. Such individuals love to learn and inspire curiosity in those around them.
• Assess their ability to communicate the details. The finest coaches are able to give clear direction around their often detailed plans. Some coaches are also adept instructing their staff in the nuances of their plans.

4. The creation of sustainable talent pathways

No one has the fully come to terms with talent development pathways, hence the ever-present questions around attributes, development gaps and purpose. What can we do to better identify and then develop our young athletes?

• Understand the difference between innate and acquired attributes. Coaches cannot always comprehend the distinction, which makes it hard to set benchmarks on a talent pathway.
• Talent is developed from a place of safety. Some teams want to entertain their fans and other onlookers – it is nearly impossible to express yourself from a place of fear.
• Ensure greater accessibility. When youngsters have been inspired to try a sport it is important for provide opportunities for participation and progression.

5. The use of AI and other technology

No other area is as widely misunderstood by coaches and practitioners as artificial intelligence and its role in sport. There is, however, no need to stray from your performance principles in putting them into practice. Remember:

• Data is just an input. It is at its best when combined with instinct and judgement.
• AI can free up your staff to focus on other areas. AI is primed to remove time-consuming tasks such as coding. A scout, for example, may be freed up to focus on assessing the person and their character.
• AI can challenge the primary knowledge base of your team. This should further enable staff to develop when adhering to guiding principles around the safety and use of AI.

Participants

Mo Bobat, Director of Cricket, Royal Challengers Bangalore

Michael Bourne, Performance Director, Lawn Tennis Association

Matti Clements, Executive General Manager, Australian Institute of Sport

Steve Cooper, football manager

Chris Fagan, Senior Coach, Brisbane Lions

Rob Key, Managing Director of Cricket, England & Wales Cricket Board

Marc-Oliver Kochan, Managing Director, Red Bull Athlete Performance

Sean Marks, General Manager, Brooklyn Nets

Tabai Matson, Director of Performance & Development, Harlequin RFC

Sara Symington, Head of Olympic & Paralympic Programmes, British Cycling

Jess Thirlby, Head Coach, England Netball

Simon Timson, Performance Director, Manchester City FC

Gregor Townsend, Head Coach, Scotland men’s rugby team

By Luke Whitworth

This member virtual roundtable centred around the theme of ‘belonging’, in which we dedicated time to collaborate as a group on sharing insights and experiences around why belonging is a key cornerstone of a high performing environment, as well as how we are working to bring the notion of belonging to life in our respective environments.

The notion of ‘belonging’ can be simply defined as ‘a sense of connectedness to others and what you are doing’. The Cambridge English Dictionary extends the definition of belonging to ‘a feeling of being happy or comfortable as part of a particular group and having a good relationship with the other members of the group because they welcome you and accept you’.

Psychology research shows that in cultures and environments that show autonomy, competence and belonging, individuals will elevate their engage in tasks and activities they are asked to commit to.

It’s clear from both the literature and lived experiences of the group that creating belonging is a powerful tool for a harmonious and high-functioning environment. The aim of this particular roundtable was to share best practices and examples of how we are trying to foster belonging in our environments.

It starts at the induction stage

In one of the breakout groups, they reinforced the idea that the process of creating positive belonging starts at the induction or onboarding phase and how important it is to dedicate time and intent towards this process to set the right tone. The work to create belonging continues week on week during this onboarding phase, with the acknowledgement and value that an individual or individuals bring to the team. From a team perspective, it is an opportunity to acknowledge the variety and diversity of backgrounds, skills and views of those in the department or organisation from the outset.

In summarising this first point, there was an excellent reflection that how we make people or an individual feel is the most important thing. Every interaction matters and what you do is about making them feel the way you want them to feel.

Setting the stall out around the culture

There were a number of reflections on how to give your environment the best opportunity for positive belonging. Identify the values and culture expected of individuals within your environment, and perhaps most importantly, find practical ways to instil them. Is everyone in the environment crystal clear on what the behaviours and expectations are? If you have this in place, there can be collective accountability. Similarly, it is important to be consistent in positively reinforcing, noticing and celebrating positive examples of those behaviours.

A couple of people on the call also suggested that coach buy-in is really crucial in this process. If the head coach buys into the values then the majority of people in the environment tend to follow, such is the influence the head coach carries.

In setting yourselves up for success, create opportunities for athletes, coaches and staff to convene and build the culture together. Creating opportunities for discussion on values and behaviours supports the idea of creating a sense of belonging. It is widely acknowledged that engagement, contribution and a love for what you do leads to a sense of belonging, therefore lies the challenge in ensuring we are bringing this to life.

Finally, there was a discussion around language and its importance. There was a fantastic phrase shared on the call that ‘above-the-line language is powerful, but below-the-line language is powerless’. There is a responsibility to own the standards of the language.

The power of storytelling

A common response from the group around effective ways to instil belonging was utilising the power of story. Find the story that connects to the people that you’re working with, whilst recognising the significant cultural differences that exist in the environment. The story that you use must align with the culture. One environment on the call shared how they leant on metaphor in creating an overarching theme that is reframed every year.

Story also presents the opportunity to connect those across the backroom staff, athlete population and other forward-facing roles. There was a suggestion this should also extend to family members of those involved, bringing them into the culture and environment, knowing the importance of the environment off the field. Do they feel that sense of belonging as well?

Finally, we also discussed the impact story can have around connecting individuals to the cultural environment of the country that you are in. It also presents the opportunity to embrace the culture that individual is bringing into the environment.

Create opportunities for shared experiences & collective input

Responses from the group indicate that every interaction matters and it is important to be mindful of that. Therefore, how are you intentionally creating opportunities for shared experiences and opportunities for collective input from different stakeholders?

A simple initiative to instil is celebrating ‘the good’ when done well and highlighting small wins and successes.

Encourage active listening and understanding of everyone’s opinions – providing a space and opportunity for everyone to have a voice in key decisions is found to be an effective way of supporting belonging in an environment. To ensure the above is both effective and a success, organisational leaders require an openness and receptivity to ensure the environment is designed to be safe.

There were also a number of reflections around the power of ‘inclusive initiatives and rituals’ that bring people together. Finally on this point: are you formally capturing information from the stakeholders in your environment in a consistent way? This is a simple tactic to remain on the pulse of the environment, ensure those in the organisation have a chance to provide feedback and contribute to decision-making and the state of play on the culture.

Providing space to better understand the ‘whole person’

One of the final key buckets of discussion around instilling a sense of belonging in your environment was formal and informal opportunities to better understand the whole person. We should strive to provide space to celebrate authenticity and our true selves. Does your environment provide an opportunity for employees to breathe and express themselves?

A foundation stone of the High Performance Strategy in the Australian Olympic System is the athlete’s voice. The idea is to provide opportunities to understand one’s journey, both as an athlete and as a person. The self-determination theory concept is something that is really key in this piece and its relatedness to belonging. Creating opportunities to understand the whole person allows for further insight around ones intrinsic motivation and the opportunity for honest, open conversations within the environment.

Final reflections

At our Leaders Meet: High Performance Environments event in Melbourne back in 2023, we ran an Open Spaces session on this exact topic. The aim of the session was to allow the audience on the day to share stories, experiences and perspectives on belonging. Five things came through strongly from those in the room that day around what we can do to enhance belonging in our environment.

1. Recognition and feeling valued: leaders having an understanding of the individual and what they contribute to the team.
2. Understanding the whole person: creating opportunities, both formal and informal to get to know more about the people you work with other than what their role is. Having a forum to share your story, providing awareness and respect of outside of work commitments.
3. Inclusive rituals: how are we making others part of the family?
4. Shared experiences: opportunity for trust and friendship to be developed. Celebrating others’ successes rather than just the outcome of competition.
5. A safe and welcoming environment: explicit commitment to psychological safety. Creating an environment that gives people a high degree of autonomy and trust to do their job. Provide a healthy space for debate and then valuing and actioning that input.

By John Portch

Helene Wilson came to high performance coaching from a background in education, so it is no surprise that she places a premium on learning.

“Working in netball, in a woman’s environment, and coming from a background of being a teacher, I think that learning is incredibly important,” she told the audience at September’s Leaders Meet: Driving Step Change in Female High Performance at Manchester’s Etihad Stadium.

“And how do we create an environment where high performance comes from out-learning your opposition and people are on a journey together to get there?”

Wilson, who currently serves as Manager of High Performance Sport New Zealand’s [HPSNZ] Women in High Performance Sport programme, was primarily at the Etihad to discuss her five years as Head Coach of the Northern Mystics, a netball team in New Zealand’s ANZ Premiership.

She took the Mystics’ reins in 2017 and would eventually lead the Auckland-based franchise to success in the 2021 Premiership Grand Final, ending their 24-year wait for a national championship. But not before the team bottomed out in 2019. “We were the wooden spooners,” she said.

The team had performed promisingly in the preceding seasons but, in 2018, the unforeseen departure of goal shooter Maria Folau due to personal reasons left the Mystics underpowered. It showed on the court and Wilson admitted that she was perhaps fortunate to retain her job at one stage given the turmoil behind the scenes, “but the players wanted to come back and play for the team because they believed in what we were trying to do.” Two years later they were champions.

Beyond reaching and winning a Grand Final, Wilson and the Mystics wanted to rewrite the history of netball underachievement in New Zealand’s Northern Zone, where Wilson coached the sport for three decades.

“The Northern Zone has the biggest number of participants in netball – a third of our netball-playing population is there. There is also a population of ethnic diversity, age diversity, socio-economic diversity,” she continued. “We had 17 netball centres across that area and I inherited a narrative over that time that we’re talented – more than anyone else – but it’s actually a curse in high performance because that doesn’t matter.”

There had, according to Wilson, been a history of disharmony in the Mystics ranks. “The landscape of where we come from, and thinking about the land, it was actually quite disjointed. Auckland, our biggest city in New Zealand, is groups of little villages that are quite insular and quite different to each other. And we were also sitting on volcanoes and literally it was pretty explosive the way we used to behave.”

By the time they won the championship in 2021 and went close again the following year, this was a team transformed. “We won the Premiership after 24 years of trying, but really the learnings, what happened between 2017 and 2019 and up to 2021 was massive and it’s not just about me and what I did – it was about what we did together.”

Finding energy and bringing clarity to the changing room

The “catalyst for change”, as Wilson describes it, was her involvement in HPSNZ’s Te Hāpaitanga: Women in High Performance Sport Coaching Initiative. Its pilot programme ran in 2019 with Wilson serving as a mentor to women applying to be high performance coaches.

The cohort visited a ‘marae’, a Māori meeting ground, of which the focal point is the ‘wharenui’, the communal house where people meet. A wharenui, with its ornate wooden carvings and elaborate design, is steeped in Māori metaphor. It provides a space for collective, inclusive, reflective practice (‘Rongo’ in Māori) that enables people to reengage with problems in the world beyond (‘Tū’) having formed a consensus on the best solutions.

“There is an energy about it,” she said. “The process and energy is like a coming together and moving apart in a state of clarity, which is collectively built together. The process of ‘Karakia’ – transitioning from one realm to another – takes us from the worlds of Tū and Rongo.”

It was a cultural element that resonated first with Wilson then with her playing group. “You don’t need to know it’s Māori,” she said. “If I stood at the front and tried to be Māori I think people would think I’m a fraud and I’ve got to be respectful, not being Māori, but having a deep understanding because I do come from New Zealand.” Wilson encourages coaches working in other regions or nations to find the cultural artefacts that are authentic their groups. “There’s stuff around us everywhere that you can apply in different ways and it’s the framework that is key.”

Coming away from the pilot programme, Wilson drew on the work of corporate anthropologist Michael Henderson who wrote a book in 2014 entitled Above the Line. According to Henderson, people will come to a team with their own beliefs, which play out as behaviours. People’s values are born of their beliefs and behaviours and, in a team setting, these all help to construct the group’s collective behaviours. These eventually become the team’s culture.

At the Mystics, group behaviours tended to be a product of the disharmony that denoted the team’s decades of under-achievement. The group would seemingly generate a lot of heat but not necessarily much light.

It ultimately comes down to the leader. “The mistake we often make is starting at values rather than giving space for beliefs to be heard,” said Wilson. The trick was to create a space where everyone felt empowered to share their beliefs. “We came together as a group and said ‘everyone’s a leader. The standard we walk past is the standard we are prepared to accept’ and it’s super important not to walk past unacceptable standards. So we redefined our environment so that everyone on our team was a leader and ‘leadership’ was simply our actions and our behaviours. It wasn’t the role or the position we were given.

“We needed to have a better understanding of what being valued and contributing to value looked like and how that would affect performance. So there was intense learning at this time because the players wanted to be a leader but there needs to be clear evidence of what that means for performance – and intense learning is how do we care, listen and bring those diverse opinions to the table, as well as skillsets the people bring. I think we learned that together as staff, performance experts and players.”

Learning from the ‘moment of truth’

In his 2021 book Belonging, Owen Eastwood cited Harvard professors (the late) Richard Hackman and Ruth Wageman, specifically their renowned 2008 publication on corporate leadership teams entitled Senior Leadership Teams: What it Takes to Make them Great. ‘Of all the factors we assessed in our research,’ they wrote, ‘the one that makes the biggest difference in how well a senior leadership team performs is the clarity of the behavioural norms that guide members’ interactions’.

It was on Wilson and Sulu Fitzpatrick, who was appointed as the Mystics captain in 2021, to create the right environment. “We were trying to learn what stuff we will deploy in that circumstance to ensure that the collective performance outcomes we needed were going to happen. In the Māori world we call this ‘Kotahitanga’. ‘Ko’ meaning a central point’; ‘Tahi’ meaning one; ‘Kotahitanga’ meaning collective unit.”

For the Mystics, Kotahitanga meant reaching a consensus through ‘Wānanga’. “It’s a word that means coming together and meeting to discuss, collaborate and consider,” Wilson told the Etihad audience. “It could look similar to a team meeting but it can take many forms and Wānanga happens in many ways. Conceptually, it happens in the world of Rongo; you’ve got to go deep. At a Wānanga, I put a concept on the table, a picture of performance that I may see as a head coach, or someone else may put it there depending on who’s taking a lead that day, and the Wānanga takes the form of questions, from multiple perspectives, and we keep going until we get some sense of alignment. It doesn’t come with any level of expertise or experience, it comes with everybody’s level and everybody contributes.”

The Mystics would typically hold a team-wide Wānanga once a week and any time the group deemed one necessary. Wilson’s role was to ensure: “enough creative tension in the room to drive performance and shift performance but also making sure that people were able to learn the art of listening, hearing, weaving different perspectives and energy that people brought to the Wānanga.

“Wānanga can get heated, it can be soft and gentle, it can be all of those things, but Wānanga is about is that you sit there in the world of Rongo until you get it done. Sometimes we had training or practice [in the world of Tū] straight after and we were running late because the Wānanga is more important than the physical practice – practice had to happen whenever it needed to happen based on the Wānanga.”

Wilson explained that there were three broad categories of people, characterised through their ‘energy’, who would join a Wānanga: people who connected to others from the heart, those who had insight from their intellect, and people with the drive and willpower to perform. “My shift as head coach was to connect to those three levels of care of where I was with an individual.”

It was not easy. At first, there was a lack of intent, decisiveness and the results did not necessarily translate into performance. “I think setting this up was one of the most challenging things I’ve ever done and one of the spaces where I learnt so much as a coach.”

Crucially, the group bought-in, even after the underwhelming 2019 season and the disruption of the pandemic. In time, the group developed its own lexicon, which included the term ‘moment of truth’, meaning a reference to the key moments in a match as defined by players and coaches individually, who would then weave their ‘moments of truth’ together in a Wānanga. “We would stay there until we were ready to define the moment of truth that was going to give us the greatest learning going forward.”

As she said, it was not always Wilson who led the Wānanga. She recognised the need for others to take the lead in order to feel that they belonged and that their input was valued. ‘We look for proof of our values from our leaders,’ wrote Owen Eastwood in Belonging. ‘We do not want our leaders’ personal beliefs forced upon us – we want our tribe’s authentic values articulated.’

That is where Wilson felt the key knowledge sat in any case. “My learning was to sit at the back and know that my knowledge was not sufficient; that the knowledge was in the room and I was there to sense the problem and the Wānanga would sort out what the problem was. I needed to be the last one talking in the room.”

In Part II, we explore how the coaching staff helped the Mystics players to transfer their personal and collective development to the court.

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Lydia Bedford, the Head Coach of the Brentford men’s under-18s team has some firm coaching advice.

“There’s no shortcuts, even though everyone seems to want them these days,” she tells Henry Breckenridge and John Portch on the Leaders Performance Podcast, which is brought to you today by our friends at Keiser.

“Time on the grass, working in different environments, working under different people as leaders will help you to understand what it looks like for you.”

Bedford, who has also coached with underage women’s teams at the Football Association [FA], Leicester City Women in the WSL, and served as an assistant coach at Arsenal Women, talks enthusiastically about her first six months Brentford.

In her new role she is a pioneer. One of the few women coaches operating at the top level of the men’s game.

Elsewhere in this episode, she delves into the importance of her mentors, who include Mo Marley, the current Head Coach of England Women’s under-23s.

Bedford recalls a time at an FA training camp when, at Marley’s side, she encountered the senior women’s England squad. She says: “Every senior player that walked passed her gave Mo a hug and I was like ‘I want to be Mo, I want to have that impact’. But actually, the more I worked with Mo, whilst I love her to bits and still have tremendous respect for her, how Mo leads is not how Lydia leads.

“You learn loads of things, good and bad, from people that you work under and then you find your own way.”

Elsewhere on the agenda, Bedford spoke about:

• Her status as a pioneer in the men’s game [12:30];
• Facilitating challenge and support in an environment where results are less significant [17:00];
• Her relationship with her assistant Jon-Paul Pittman [30:00];
• Integrating players who are not used to academy environments [33:30].

Henry Breckenridge Twitter | LinkedIn

John Portch Twitter | LinkedIn

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

By Luke Whitworth

For our final Leadership Skills Series session of the year, we focused on the skill of managing up.

It is a popular topic of conversation within the Leaders Performance Institute for those overseeing departments or who have direct lines into executive leadership or board level personnel.

Throughout this session we focused on some key concepts for managing up effectively, taking time to discuss and share best practices around:

• Having the right mindset.
• Understanding your boss or senior personnel.
• Understanding oneself.
• How to proactively develop the relationship.

Your mindset towards the relationship

Before exploring some of the practical examples of effectively managing up, we need to set the tone through ensuring the right mindset is in place to approach this. Leaning on the work of Richard Boston in The Boss Factor, we focused on four different mindsets you could engage with as part of the relationship and process of managing up.

Boston offers a useful framework to reflect on this mindset towards your relationship with your boss. The key insight from Boston’s framework is to consider the impact of this mindset on the relationship, notably your engagement, motivation and ability to manage up. These are the four mindsets on which we focused:

1. Compliant: dependant or accommodating.
2. Defiant: counter compliant, competing.
3. Compromising: both give up something / meet in the middle.
4. Collaborative: make the most of each other’s strengths.

Understanding your boss

We previously explored your mindset towards your relationship with your boss. As an extension to this point, understand their drivers and pressures so you can both support them and understand their point of view will boost you ability to be collaborative in the conversations.

What can you consider about your boss or direct report which will support these conversations?

• Goals and pressures.
• Strengths and weaknesses.
• Preferred way of working.
• Preferred communication style.
• What information do they trust.
• Decision making style.
• The relationships with their boss and peers.
• Their values.

Understanding yourself

We’ve evaluated the drivers and pressures of the person you are managing up to. As part of this process we also need to increase our self-awareness around our trigger areas. Before engaging in these interactions, do you have a clear understanding of your own thoughts and feeling to the below?

• Predisposition towards hierarchy and authority.
• Preferred way of working.
• Preferred communication style.
• Strengths & areas for development.
• Emotional resilience.
• Your values.

Proactively develop the relationship

Finally, how can we proactively develop the relationship to make managing upwards effective and collaborative? Below are nine considerations for you to reflect upon:

1. See it as a partnership.
2. Clarify mutual expectations.
3. Understand what motivates them.
4. Don’t make assumptions.
5. Use their time well.
6. Keep communicating: ensure your boss is informed and updated.
7. Schedule regular 1-to-1 meetings.
8. Reach out when you need help.
9. Give and receive feedback.

By John Portch

Does the thought of transformation scare you and your peers?

Removing the fear from performance was at the heart of this month’s Leaders Sport Performance Summit at London’s Kia Oval.

Over the course of two days, speakers from organisations including the England & Wales Cricket Board [ECB], the Football Association [FA], Australian Institute of Sport [AIS], Brisbane Lions, British Cycling and the National Health Service [NHS] continually returned to the theme of removing the fear factor from performance.

Here we present seven steps towards generating the clarity and purpose that fills people with energy, delivers alignment, and enables people to adhere to principles when challenged.

1. Eliminate negativity – be positive

When Rob Key, the Managing Director of Cricket at the ECB, took the reins in April 2022, the England men’s Test team was at its lowest ebb in decades. The team had lost its last five series when Key, alongside ECB Performance Director Mo Bobat and new Head Coach Brendon McCullum, decided to adopt an approach to performance rooted in positivity rather than negativity. England were accused of naivety – until the team started performing in fearless fashion. Critically, they stuck with it following setbacks and defeats across all formats of the game.

“English cricket has [historically] spent its entire time looking at the danger… my view is that we have so many talented players… it’s not a lack of talent, it’s the mentality of English cricket, especially county cricket, which is so conservative. That was my thing: we need to change the way we think about the game, the way that we do things, the mentality. It wasn’t about winning. There isn’t a person that doesn’t want to win… this informed every decision that Mo and I ended up making.”

Rob Key

2. Promote playfulness

Key readily admitted that he could have achieved very little in his first months without the counsel and support of Bobat. He needed Bobat onside – and free to speak without fear or reservations – if the ECB’s renewed emphasis on positivity was to deliver tangible outcomes. It was not mindless idealism.

“Rob immediately made me feel valued… and then I was going to give it my all. The thing that I enjoyed most from him, having worked with him for a year and a half, has been [the realisation] that I am at my best when I’m playful; and working with Rob encourages me to be playful and I think that enabled you to do not worry so much about the risk and the threat. And I think if you’re playful and you don’t take yourself too seriously what appears like a risky decision or brave decision to someone else just seems like the right thing to do.”

Mo Bobat

Bobat’s point was underlined by Lucy Pearson, the Director of Education at the FA, who has worked in both sporting and academic settings. Pearson explained that playfulness in the FA’s approach to education enhances skill acquisition and attainment for athletes and coaches alike.

“I think play and playfulness is really important if we’re going to achieve high performance in any area. How do you foster playfulness in your workplaces and challenge the seriousness that comes with the serious thing of high performance? Because we take ourselves too seriously at times. That doesn’t mean that everything’s hilarious – maybe it is – but it does mean that we adopted a slightly different approach.”

Lucy Pearson

3. Create safe spaces for failure

Positivity and playfulness count for little if every error is pounced upon. The fear factor would return in an instant. Chris Fagan realised this upon his appointment as the Brisbane Lions’ Senior Coach in 2017. He took over a team in turmoil and the results remained poor for the following two campaigns. Then Brisbane started winning and gradually became one of the finest teams in the AFL [Australian Football League]. Their grand final appearance in September showed how far they’d come.

“I told the players at the very start when we got together that we’re going to fail our way to the top and not to worry about that because it’s through your failures that you learn. These blokes were really frightened about failing and I had to take that fear out of it for them… [the concept of having a growth mindset] we’ve pretty much been doing that stuff for the last seven years.”

Chris Fagan

4. Have you prioritised your debriefing?

The OSAD [Observational Structured Assessment of Debriefing] tool is a useful way of reducing the fear factor in surgical operating theatres. It was based on studies in the UK, US and Australia and, not only does it allow for analytical objectivity and precision, its emergence has seen processes of debriefing brought into an environment where debriefs were unpopular with those who might benefit the most from self-reflection. As consultant emergency surgeon Sonal Arora told the Leaders audience, OSAD seeks to provide evidence-based performance debriefing so that surgeons and surgical teams can train “the gold medallist” rather than the “runner-up”. However, as she explained, such a system must be baked into the culture.

“People said to us… things like debriefing and feedback need to be part of the culture. People need ring-fenced time for this, it can’t just be an add-on, ad hoc that some people are doing well and other people are doing it off the cuff at the end of a game, at the end of an operation, and the end of the week. It actually needs to be given the time and the importance. And that comes from the top down, it’s not going to be down to the individual person in their organisation – we need to get buy-in from seniors… we looked at the components of the ideal debrief from looking at all of the literature, all of the interviews, gathering all the experts.”

Sonal Arora

5. Leave no one behind

The safe spaces and psychological safety stem from people feeling that they belong – something that was not true of the AIS. In 2022, the organisation was still developing its 2023+ performance strategy as the nation prepares for the 2032 Olympic and Paralympic Games on home soil in Brisbane. Before the strategy launched, Matti Clements, the organisation’s Executive General Manager, was given a reality check by some of the nation’s Paralympians.

“[Some Paralympians] felt that they were an afterthought. Our system had been created around able-body and that they were just a consideration once everything else had been done. For them to belong to the strategy, they needed to see themselves as part of that strategy. So we made a very considered commitment to them to ensure all of our programmes, the frameworks, models etc. in the future had inclusive design as a basic fundamental principle, which would not only benefit them but broader cohorts in our system.”

Matti Clements

Similarly, Clements explained that Australia has the “longest living culture in the world yet we are white and middle class and do not utilise the knowledge of our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peers about passing on knowledge from generation to generation and getting better. We’ve made a commitment to do better at that.”

Her colleague Bill Davoren, the AIS’s Head of High Performance Coach Development, spoke of some of the progress being made.

“I’m very proud that I’ve got a gentleman in my team who comes from an indigenous background. He is a former Australian boxing coach, an amazing story. Was Australian military before he became a boxing coach and he went on to get a PhD in coaching theory and coaching methodology. He’s probably been my greatest teacher over the past three years. He’s talked to me a lot about the concept of yarning, sharing stories, sharing information, building connections.”

Bill Davoren

6. Empower your people

Inclusion is not just a nice-to-have or merely a moral imperative. Time and again studies have demonstrated that diverse teams produce better results. Remove the fear, make people feel welcome, and when they are empowered to input you’ll alight on a better performance strategy. The point was convincingly made by Jon Norfolk, the Head Coach of British Cycling, who explains that strategising cannot be the preserve of the few.

“The clearest plan wins… the clearer your plan is the more people can access it, the more people understand it, and the more people you’ll have to back your plan. I’ve seen situations where the plan is the product of the coach and it’s only the coach that’s inputted into it… if you have one person inputting into a plan you’ve got their biases baked into that plan. The more people that input the more that bias is neutralised. The clearer your plan is the more people can input into it and the better plan you get. The clearer the plan, the more impactful the plan.”

Jon Norfolk

7. Finally, win well

The AIS’s strategy for 2032 includes in its vision the need to ‘win well’. They embody the growing belief that wellbeing and performance are indivisible. Taking the idea further, wellbeing is critical to the elimination of fear.

“We believe wellbeing is fundamental to sustainable high performance success in our country and we wanted to make a commitment to our athletes, future and current, that we would do better. When all those leaders signed their commitment to standing behind Australia’s first-ever united strategy, they also committed to a win well pledge. As leaders of the system, they said: ‘we stand here and we’re going to commit to creating cultures that consider wellbeing at the core of all high performance programmes now and in the future and we believe it’s going to be a performance advantage.’”

Matti Clements

By Luke Whitworth

As part of our final Case Study virtual roundtable of 2023, we focused our attention on the theme of change management and, in particular, exploring experiences and approaches for doing this effectively from a position of leadership.

For the first part of the discussion, we heard from Bobby L Scales II, a former professional baseball player and front office executive, before engaging in some thoughts and experiences of our own around the topic.

This summary is split into two parts, the first, highlighting the insights from Scales, the second, the group’s thoughts on what they have seen work well when it comes to effective change. When considering the topic of organisational change, you will often here of the ’90 Days’ concept, which underpinned some of the experiences Scales shared with us in the first segment of the roundtable.

Win the people

Before we explored different elements and specific details for the ’90 Days’ approach to change, Scales shared that from day zero it is crucial to ‘win the people’ as part of this process. The leader or those involved need to show strong emotional intelligence through understanding contractual situations, team structure and roles. There is a need to be authentic. There must be clear intent around communication and decision-making. Finally, acting with integrity and communicating effectively are important elements to set the stall out successfully from the very outset.

First 30 Days – how did we get here?

Being clear on how you ‘win the people’ in Scales’ experiences is an important cornerstone of the effectiveness of the change process. Now this has been outlined, we can look towards three other key foundations: how did we get there, strategy formation and strategy implementation. In the first thirty days, we must think and reflect on the circumstances surrounding why you as a leader or team are there. Reflective questions you can explore include: what is broken? Are these challenges technical, tactical, cultural? What is needed to resolve what is broken? Is it a case of filling the cracks, re-modelling or tearing it down and starting afresh? Finally, what role do you as the leader play in fixing this?

First 60 Days – strategy formation

Using the first 30 days to evaluate the situation allows you to move into the next phase of the process, which Scales refers to as strategy formation and something you can do around the 60-day mark. This is where you develop your strategy, so what is important to get right? First and foremost, involve the stakeholders in the process as this gives you the insight and data to find out more about your people’s ideas, abilities, strengths and weaknesses.

Secondly, by this stage we should have clarity on what needs fixing, so development of the technical and tactical items that you are going to feed into the strategy formation. Finally, developing and clearly outlining the roadmap of an action plan that is different to the previous regime that can generate collective buy-in and clear direction. As the leader initiating the change, clear and effective communication of the process, procedure and expectations are crucial; as are the formulation of key performance indicators that reflect the new direction to allow for measurement in defining and measuring the success of the process.

First 90 Days – strategy implementation

Finally, time for implementation and action. It often sounds easy but as Scales reiterated, it is far and away the most difficult stage of the process. What is important to look out for? He explained that it is natural for people to revert to what is comfortable. As the leader, you need to be aware of this to not stifle the action plan. To support this, ensure there are active reviews along the journey to provide opportunities to reflect and adjust if needs be. This stage is also going to be a key insight around personnel, and specifically if you have the correct people on the bus and if they are in the correct seats. Your active reviews will help provide key information around this – here is where you may have to make difficult decisions if certain individuals aren’t on the bus with you or if adjustments around roles need to take place.

Change management checklist

For the second part of this roundtable, we asked attendees when thinking about effective change management, what have you seen work really well? The idea for this segment of the call was to create a checklist of best practices and considerations based on the experiences of those on the call, complementing what Scales learned from his personal experience. All of the responses from the group could be categorised into: transparency, commitment to philosophy and core values and alignment.

Transparency

There were a number of responses that fed into the bucket of the importance of transparency. Having transparency with all decision-making and structural changes that are decided upon. The leader or group being personally or collectively transparent in sharing information about themselves, what they value, expectations of one another and clarity on what their leadership approach is. Being clear in the message, with transparent and outlined goals and roles for all involved, providing autonomy for people so they feel a part of the progression. Creating the conditions for empowerment with accountability, and even safe space opportunities to let people talk, ensuring they feel that empowerment in the first place. When change is done well, the leadership demonstrate vulnerability to ‘open up the room’ and accompany this with active seeking feedback throughout the change process. One participant shared the importance of tapping into the self-determination of employees, notably their competence (the recognition of skillsets), connection (building relationships) and choice (collating opinions and fostering  a sense of autonomy).

Commitment to philosophy and core values

A second core section for effective change as outlined by those on the call was a commitment to a philosophy and core values. Those that have seen change done effectively suggested that it is important for the leader or leadership to be themselves and intentional, displaying their core values as a person or collective. They outline clear expectations with a clear vision, but without judgement. They also have the ability to show what excellent looks like and galvanise an organisation around the philosophy and commitment to high standards.

Alignment

Finally, a word that you could expect to see when considering important elements of change management – alignment. Those who are effective change agents are able to co-develop the change with key stakeholders, creating a chain of clarity and alignment. They are skilled at being emotionally intelligent, so in getting to know those involved, are able to align tactics and strategies to best support them through the process. They are able to build strong relationships and trust with all involved, thus actively engaging them on the journey. As part of channelling alignment, consider asking your people for their suggested changes or ideas before suggesting yours to continue to develop their sense of empowerment. Finally, another effective strategy is finding out who the early adopters are or those who are the biggest influencers, seeking to generate alignment with them to continue positive momentum.

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A Gambling Harm Prevention Podcast brought to you by our Partners

“You can watch the room change from that lived experience approach,” says Marc Williams, a programme facilitator at gambling harm minimization consultancy EPIC Risk Management.

Marc, a former professional footballer who suffered the consequences of gambling harm, will speak to athletes and teams with a view to educating and informing them about the pitfalls and trigger associated with gambling harm.

“They can see what we’ve been through, where gambling took us, and from that they can really relate to it themselves and think ‘wow, this could be me’,” he tells John Portch on the Leaders Performance Podcast.

Marc is joined by Rachael Jankowsky, the Head of Player Care & Well-Being at Major League Soccer’s Chicago Fire, to discuss EPIC’s work with the club, which included Marc presenting in front of young players.

On today’s special episode, we discuss topics including:

• The beginnings of the Fire and EPIC’s collaboration [6:30];
• The difference between ‘textbook’ education and an in-person presentation [10:00];
• Marc and EPIC’s post-session support services [15:30];
• Overcoming the challenges of low base knowledge and the language barrier [18:30].

For those seeking more information on gambling harm prevention, check out EPIC Risk Management’s white paper review from February 2023.

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