By John Portch

Larry Lauer, a Mental Skills Specialist with the United States Tennis Association [USTA], has seen where things have gone wrong in the past.

“Maybe too much mental training in the past has been ‘here’s a few ideas – throw them up against the wall and see what sticks’,” he told the Leaders Performance Podcast in early May.

Off the back of that conversation, where Lauer delved into his work building mental skills and resilience in young players, the Leaders Performance Institute asked him to reflect on his professional development.

What is your biggest strength?

I’d like to say – and I might be wrong, you’ll have to ask people that know me – my ability to learn and adapt. I’m not the smartest person, I don’t have the highest IQ, I don’t have the highest scores on tests, but I think I find a way. Maybe that’s a big part of why I spend so much time on this topic of resilience because I know that tennis is about finding a way. It’s messy, you don’t always get it right, you make mistakes – I’ve made a lot of mistakes – but I think my ability to get back up and find a way to learn and get better has probably been my greatest strength, especially as I wasn’t a professional athlete. I’m not coming into this saying ‘I played ATP and I played in grand slams’ – I don’t have that. So I have to find other ways to connect with these performers, adapt, and be useful to them.

What strength do you admire in others?

The thought that comes up immediately is humility. Someone who is extremely successful and great at what they do and yet humble – that to me is just awesome. They listen to others, they’re interested in others, they empathise as well. I see great coaches doing that, great sports psychologists; you know that this person is great at what they do, but they don’t really talk about themselves. They talk about the team, they talk about what the other person is doing to make them successful versus ‘well I did this, I did that’; and I always try to check myself on that because I think that, in this world, if it becomes so much about you then you’re going to lose it with the players and the coaches because it really isn’t about us.

What is the key to strong teamwork?

Communication. Communication with a shared vision and an understanding of how to reach that vision. The tension points, the challenges, getting through them. We just had one yesterday and we disagreed within the team on whether or not a player should play a tournament – and we worked it out – we decided the approach and we’re all aligned on how we’re going to move forward. To me, that’s teamwork, because you’re not always going to agree and you have to be able to work together towards the common goal and that requires a lot of communication. My friend Ed Ryan who heads up our athletic training and medicine always says ‘communication is the solution and also the root of all problems’. It’s a great way of thinking about it.

How will you look to get stronger in your role?

By surrounding myself with really good people who ask good questions and demand more of me is important. Fortunately, I work with mental coaches who do that on a regular basis, which has been amazing for me as well as other good friends outside of the USTA. And then the coaching staff. I find that when I’m talking to them I’m trying to understand from their eyes and their perspective: how is this making my player better? What are you giving me that’s going to make a difference? Sometimes me getting frustrated with myself because I don’t know how to communicate that or I can’t clearly see the plans. Then I need to go back, reflect on that, and get back to work and say ‘here’s the steps, here’s what we’ve got to do’. So I think it’s being around really good people and having those conversations and then as you branch out, it’s why I’ve really enjoyed Leaders, you can meet really good people and have these types of conversations that I’m not even thinking about; it wasn’t top of mind at that point. Different ideas, different perspectives. To me, looking for different ways to learn. Reading: I try to read something every morning, attending sessions like Leaders’ and other organisation’s, and then being surrounded by really good people. And then not being afraid to take a chance. Trying to find different ways. ‘Maybe this is a little way outside the box but let’s see if it can work, and if it doesn’t, we’ll sit inside the parking lot and maybe come up with a better way of doing it or we’ll leave it alone’. But we have to continue to find ways to get better or we get behind.

To hear more from Larry Lauer, listen below:

John Portch: Twitter | LinkedIn

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

“I don’t know how common it is per se – there are moments when I regret it!”

By John Portch

Zach Brandon, the Mental Skills Coordinator at Major League Baseball’s Arizona Diamondbacks, tells the Leaders Performance Institute that he is currently studying for a masters in Organizational Leadership at Arizona State University.

“There is never a perfect time to begin a new course, but it’s been cool because it’s put me outside my comfort zone,” he says. “It’s very much more business and organizational leadership-driven, but the work and research I’ve been able to do as part of it, has enabled me to see and learn what people are doing in these other settings and where I think there is a lot of potential transfer or application to sports settings.”

One such example is the practice of job crafting. “In essence, job crafting allows staff to customize some of their tasks and responsibilities in ways that might be more meaningful and aligned with their personal values,” Brandon continues. “I find this practice fascinating because it creates opportunities for staff to develop range in their roles and positively impact the organization in ways beyond their traditional job description.”

The Diamondbacks’ Mental Skills Department has experienced job crafting first-hand. “Although our main responsibility is providing mental performance training for our players, we’ve been able to slowly expand our reach to other facets of the organization, including injury rehab, coach development, scouting, and business operations.”

The question of employee wellness is another that is influencing Brandon’s work in the clubhouse. He says: “Building a robust, systematic, and preventative approach to employee wellness requires that leaders address policies, practices, and perspectives in their organizational culture.

“Perspective begins with organizational values and addressing if, and how, employee wellbeing is prioritized in the culture. This requires that leaders and staff be intentional and progressive with their language surrounding mental health.”

He says it is important that coaches and leaders recognize that their personal wellbeing can influence those around them. “Research has even shown that coaches with elevated stress levels can negatively affect the mental health of their athletes. At the end of the day, coaches and leaders need to model how to appropriately invest in one’s mental health and wellbeing. ‘Do as I say, not as I do’ doesn’t work. Athletes and fellow staff will look to their leaders for guidance in these areas so it’s not something that coaches can afford to ignore.

“Ultimately, leaders play a pivotal role in showing those they serve that self-care isn’t selfish. In reality, supporting wellbeing and resilience for your employees is really a competitive advantage, especially with the ever-increasing uncertainty and complexity found in work environments, which often lead to stress. Leaders should aim to install comprehensive prevention strategies within their organizations rather than rely on reactive support as issues arise.

Brandon explains that it is important that coaches and leaders establish a safe and supportive environment for athletes and staff to discuss mental health – a key step to normalizing it. “Enhancing policies might include ensuring that staff have trusted and affordable mental health and wellbeing resources available to them, and their families, or opportunities for temporary flexibility as it relates to scheduling and the location of their work.” he says.

“Practices could include initiatives that strengthen peer-to-peer support, such as mentorship programs or community groups; promoting personal development, with continuing education and training as prime examples; and encouraging physical and mental wellness through initiatives such as meditation classes.

“Additionally, research suggests that athletes, particularly at the elite level, perceive coaches as less effective when stressed.”

Beyond leaders, Brandon argues that mental wellness needs to be ingrained into the fabric of an organization’s culture and not treated simply as a program. “It can’t just include initiatives where employees participate in exercise challenges, yoga or mindfulness classes or company-run social events – expecting staff to participate in activities and wellbeing initiatives outside of their normal workday is an inadequate approach to promoting mental wellness.

“I am interested in how you can promote those wellness questions within the margins. All of those activities I describe do influence a person’s wellbeing, but a significant portion of people’s daily stressors are a product of their actual work environment and the demands placed on them. In addition to these activities, organizations would be wise to identify the on-the-job stressors that staff experience and design resources, or support, accordingly.

“It’s been interesting to think about things from a more organizational and system-wide perspective. It’s not just the idea of how things apply with one particular team but across a collective organization. Most organizations want to develop resilience. We want to develop resilience too, not only within individuals but within sub-teams and the organization as a whole. Leaders are architects of organizational culture and, thus, play a critical role in cultivating resilience and wellbeing for those serving the organization.

“Learning about the role leaders can play in this process has been interesting and offers a valuable opportunity for organizations to invest in their people.”

Download the latest Performance Special Report, Staying Agile: Managing Disruption and Optimising Preparation During the Pandemic – detailing the work of the English Institute of Sport with its teams and athletes.

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A Human Performance article brought to you by our Main Partners

By Sarah Evans

Recommended listening/reading

Keiser Podcast: How Leaders Can Overcome Resistance to Change

How to Create Energy in Athletes Performing Under Great Scrutiny

Framing the topic

This was session two of our new Performance Support Series, which focused on exploring the topic of ‘Making Wellbeing A Core Component Of Your Organisational Culture’, led by Dr Meg Popovic. In the last session, Meg explored culture, wellbeing and learning through an organisational / systems lens. In this session we delved into the ‘Team of Teams’ phase of Meg’s framework and the thinking of relational intelligence through subcultural understanding. There is one more session to follow, and across all of the sessions, we will look to explore three questions: how do you see? What do you see? How do you use what you see to make it better?

What is a ‘subculture’?

• Commonalities individuals share with one another – guidelines of social behaviour, overarching values that guide and reflect behaviour, known symbols (to the people within) and modes of operation that convey meaning to persons in shared system
• A smaller, more manageable unit of that culture as a whole, and differs from parent culture by embracing certain attributes. Thus, there are clear differences and specific commonalities between subcultural norms, values in the broader culture.
• Individuals of a subculture are socialised to adopt cultural definitions and perspectives, and to assert cultural identity and sense of community. They validate identity from each other and present themselves to the external society.
• Within a subculture there are varying degrees of commitment to the core of subcultural identity.
• Individuals who express high level of commitment are known as the ‘ideal type’.
• Subcultural criteria creates feeling of belonging and shared commonality. It also defines boundaries between insiders and those on the periphery.

How does this work in high performance sport?

If you want to design a new role, and have it contribute to something you’re already doing, how do you know what is possible and how do you know it will work? Ask yourself, what is the outcome I / you / we want to seek?

Success in this is when the leader hits the mark on the programme or process of the subculture. Failure, or when it falls flat, is when you’ve missed something or missed the mark within the subculture.

Meg Popovic: ‘Today we become team of team ethnographers tasked with investigating staff subcultures using this framework’:

1. How do you see?
2. What do you see?
3. How do you use what you see to make it better?

What is Relationship Systems Intelligence?

• The ability to interpret oneself as an expression of the system.
• What happens is not only personal but it also belongs to the system.

The ‘third entity’: Imagine each staff system is a living organism, a collection of parts.

• It has a life of itself, an identity that people feed into.
• The essence that emerges as an expression of the relationship or system – the voice of the system
• What is created as a function of interactions (experiences, events, behaviours etc.) in a relationship or system – the space between and among people.
• The ‘more’ in the more than the sum of the parts.

Group exercise

Step 1: Pick TWO staff departments.

Step 2: Subcultural analysis. Explore subcultures of two sub groups, think about the following for each sub group.

1. SKILLS: 1-2 capacities to be great at tasks in role
2. QUALIFICATIONS: Professional and education to obtain roles in department.
3. TIME: Busiest? Most free? Most stressful?
4. LONGEVITY: Length of time working for Club?
5. COLLECTIVE HISTORY: Describe the department 10 years ago?
6. PASSION: What are they most passionate about?
7. CREATIVE: If you could give this department a song, what would it be?

The shadow

The framework that is dragged behind, that which is in the background, seen or unseen, acknowledged or not acknowledged, but there is gold in there too.

Part of the growth process is shining light on the dark parts, and not being ashamed of those dark parts or making them wrong, but instead bringing them in and integrating them. This can happen on an individual level or on a group level.

Step 3: Deeper subcultural work – ask the following questions for the same two sub groups.

1. KNOWLEDGE: What is the wisdom this group holds for the club?
2. STATUS: How is success gauged within this group? What makes someone an outsider in this group?
3. SHADOW: What are a few qualities within this staff group’s collective shadow?
4. CONFLICT: What is the DREAM BEHIND THE COMPLAINT within the broader club environment?

Task before next session: Next Level Leadership – The Wellbeing 1%

Do one small thing for each department (or someone in the department) that honours who they are. Recall the dream behind the complaint, and think about what would connect with them. It doesn’t have to be a grand gesture, just something small, but we all know we operate in a world where the 1 per cent matters. Bring back to our group later this month to celebrate with each other.

A Leaders Performance Podcast brought to you by our Main Partners

“How do we make it more difficult for people to do what they’ve always done?”

This question is posed by psychologist and former Leaders speaker Gareth Bloomfield in this edition of the Leaders Performance Podcast, which is brought to you today by our Main Partners Keiser.

Bloomfield, who works with the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst, explores the topic of behavioural change at length and delves into:

• Understanding how the brain works when making decisions [4:20];
• What we already know about human behaviour [6:30];
• How leaders should approach behavioural change [8:00];
• Tips for overcoming the typical barriers to change [16:00].

John Portch: Twitter | LinkedIn

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

By John Portch

In June 2021, Harlequins became English rugby’s most unlikely champions when they defeated Exeter 40-38 in the Gallagher Premiership final.

Six months earlier, the team were languishing sixth in the Premiership table and were without a lead coaching figure following the departure of Paul Gustard as Head of Rugby.

A series of swift and profound decisions transformed Quins’ campaign. Firstly, Gustard was not directly replaced. Instead, the reins were taken by Director of Rugby Billy Millard, with support from coaches Jerry Flannery, Nick Evans and Adam Jones.

Off the field, the club sought the counsel of performance coach Owen Eastwood, who has worked with organisations including Gareth Southgate’s England men’s team, the British Olympic team, NATO and the South African men’s cricket team, in an effort to revive their fortunes.

“Everybody was looking at them and saying ‘there’s no energy – are they not fit?’ Eastwood tells the 2021 Leaders Sport Performance Summit at London’s Twickenham Stadium. “The team was struggling, they weren’t playing well, and they were getting a hard time for that.”

Eastwood’s role was vital. “We were lost in our DNA and Owen Eastwood started spending time with the club,” says Millard, speaking on a different day at Twickenham, where Quins lifted the Premiership trophy. “We excavated the history of Harlequins.”

By June, both the men’s and women’s teams had taken their leagues by storm, playing fast and frenetic rugby on their way to being crowned champions. Both were aided in part by the cultural reset that laid the foundations of both triumphs.

Back to Quins’ roots

As the Leaders Performance Institute speaks to Millard, it is clear that part of him still cannot believe the turnaround that took place. “You don’t have seasons like that,” he says.

His mind goes back to Harlequins’ last Premiership triumph in 2012. “We played a certain style, we behaved a certain way. Quins have always been entertainers – that’s why we’re ‘the jesters’ – and we just had to tap back into that, which we did. Our owners [Duncan Saville and Charles Jillings] set a vision, we stripped it right back, and that vision was aligned right through the playing squad.”

Sitting beside Millard is Danny Care, Quins’ scrum-half who was a key part of that earlier success. He says that he and his teammates had ‘fun’ as the club raised its game. “I think the main thing we did is that we said we were going to do it our way, we’re going to do it the Quins way, we’re going to go back to our roots, back to what we feel is the way we like to play rugby, do it with a smile on our face,” he says. “And we went and did it.”

“In 21 years of professional sport I’ve never seen it so strong,” adds Millard. “If we lost a game, which we did on the run to winning it, there was no panic, as long as we were doing what we said we’d do and play a certain way, everyone stayed true to that.”

Back in January, Eastwood had spotted the lack of energy. He would conduct 52 interviews with players and staff as he sought to make his recommendations. He says: “Just through some changes in the environment, different philosophies, all of a sudden, this team had this unbelievable amount of energy, and they were the same conditioned group and they were the same people. Something shifted that created this unbelievable energy – and that was the environment, the culture.”

TRUE values

As Eastwood, who joined the Quins board in August, began his research into the club founded in 1866 – the fourth-oldest rugby club in the world – he quickly unearthed characteristics that lent themselves to a neat and powerful acronym: TRUE, which stands for ‘tempo, relationships, unconventional, enjoyment.’

“Owen said this acronym had been around forever,” says Millard. “’Tempo’ – Harlequins play with tempo. ‘Relationships’ – everyone says relationships are important, but we live and breathe that. Our relationships are the foundation of what we do.

“We’re ‘unconventional’. As [prop] Joe Marler says, that means we can do whatever we want. Pretty close. And enjoyment, so T-R-U-E. It’s not everyone’s cup of tea, but it’s Quins for nearly 160 years.

“[Eastwood] spoke to us about all these amazing stories about relationships and unconventional and enjoyment; and we all tapped into that.”

Care takes up the theme. “I think it’s the main reason we were successful come the end of last season,” he says. “To revisit what the club is all about, I think, for players, sometimes you’re in a hard situation as a player. You feel that you can’t really speak out and say what the coach doesn’t want to hear. But when we did have this reset, I think it was a great opportunity for players, coaches, staff to sit in a room and each of them describe what we needed. I’ve never known an environment where we’ve felt more empowered because we were asked questions.”

Belonging cues

As Care says, the Harlequins players were asked for their input to help shape training and preparation in the absence of a head coaching figure. Tabai Matson would be installed as Head Coach during the subsequent off-season but, there and then, the players led the way and, most importantly, felt heard by Millard and his support staff.

He says: “The coaches fully gave us that trust and listened to us. Then, as a player, you then feel empowered and trusted to go out on the weekend.”

As befitting Quins’ ‘unconventional’ label, changes were made behind the scenes, including the abolition of the ‘captain’s run’ [the traditional final captain-led training session on the eve of a match] and Quins consistently found a level of performance befitting their talent.

Eastwood believes that a fundamental factor was the ‘belonging cues’ the players increasingly received from the coaching staff. It stems from his research into the relationship between energy and hormonal states.

“Fundamentally, from a hormonal point of view, when we go an compete, we will be stressed,” he says. “The two biggest energisers in our hormones are adrenaline and cortisol. It’s not hard to find them when we’re competing, but if we’re only fuelled by them then a) is it sustainable? And b) that type of fuel will have consequences. People in those states can have tunnel vision, they can find it hard to talk. More widely, people who are marinating in cortisol and adrenaline can get into a self-preservation mode and find it hard to connect with other people. People who are fuelled by cortisol and adrenaline can find it hard to be vulnerable; if they don’t understand something they may not put their hand up and say it.

“So what we want to do is create this balance, from a hormonal point of view, when we are in a competitive environment. The cortisol and adrenaline will be there, we don’t need to ramp it up, actually we need to calm it a bit. And what hormones like oxytocin, around our connection with other people; dopamine, which is that motivator pushing us forwards towards the goal; serotonin, which has a regulatory effect on our mood. What we really need to do is, in our environment, promote those hormones. I think there’s a simple way of understanding it and it’s all related to energy.”

Therefore, belonging cues, as Eastwood argues, can have a positive impact on a person’s energy and hormonal balance. “When people receive belonging cues, it’s a massive energiser. So many experiences I’ve had of going into teams where people, they trust me and they’ll talk to me and they’ll say, ‘I don’t know if I belong here, I feel a little bit like an imposter, I don’t know if the coach respects me. I feel like every single thing I’m doing, even training, off the field, I’m being judged and people make decisions all the time about whether I should stick around here.’

“When that happens, again, people start marinating in cortisol, stress hormones and adrenaline. They go within themselves. If they don’t understand something or if they’ve got a weakness in their game that they want to develop, they’re not going to put their hands up and say that because they feel unbelievably vulnerable. We also know that our short-term memories are affected when we’re in that state as well.

“When we feel a sense of belonging, that we actually belong here, that people respect us, we’re in a completely different hormonal state. Our dopamine, oxytocin levels are raised, we’re able to focus on our job and our teammates, if we don’t understand something we feel comfortable in saying that.”

“It was definitely different to what I’ve been used to,” says Care. “I’ve never felt more trusted, empowered, respected, but also then there was a massive responsibility on us as senior players to lead it and the younger players to follow.”

Millard says that the approach is here to stay and, when it comes to recruitment, there is “a method to the madness,” adding, “you’ve got Danny and the leaders telling stories and Owen Eastwood saying ’70 years ago, this is what Quins used to do’ and these young kids are like ‘we’re bigger than this, the spotlight’s on us now but there’s so much that came before us and, in 20 years, we’re still going to be playing this way.’”

This article originally appeared in our Special Report Enhancing Your Environment: Nurturing positive high performance set-ups. It also features insights from English Premier League Brentford FC, Major League Baseball’s Toronto Blue Jays and Google.

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By John Portch

Brentford Head Coach Thomas Frank has been a breath of fresh air in the English Premier League, but some of his experiences are wearily familiar.

“It can be very lonely at the top,” he tells an audience at the Leaders Sport Performance Summit at London’s Twickenham Stadium in November.

“My biggest thing is that I really like my family, friends and social life, and you can’t combine the two. I guess you can, but there’s no balance. So I’m constantly saying to myself to do this for maybe five more years. I’m actually on top of everything so, of course, I like to enjoy the Premier League and I’d like to stay here and all that, but it’s tough. I love it, but it’s tough.”

Frank, if his animated touchline demeanour is anything to go by, lives for the matches at the weekend and dies by the results, so to speak. Session moderator Michael Caulfield, who works with Frank and Brentford as a psychologist, asks how he copes with the work-life balance.

“It’s really simple, actually,” begins Frank in response. “My wife, she has absolutely no interest in football. So that’s good. I have two fantastic daughters, one 19, one 15, not interested in football – especially my 19-year-old daughter – she never knows if we’re playing.” Frank clearly values the division between work and his personal life, although he also tells the audience he has a son who takes a keen interest in football.

The Dane has been the Head Coach of Brentford since 2018, when he was promoted from his role as Assistant Head Coach. Three years later his team were promoted to the Premier League, although it might have been sooner had they not lost the 2020 Championship play-off Final to Fulham. The Bees made it in the end having successfully navigated the playoffs at the second time of asking last May.

As he takes to the stage, Frank has been a Premier League Head Coach for a little over three months and was still coming to terms with the increased scrutiny. “The media circus is totally insane,” he tells the audience. “I’m so happy I’m not on social media – I don’t know if any of you are – I will say get rid of it. It’s not worth it.”

Controlling the hurricane

Brentford made a positive start to life in the top tier. Their opening day defeat of Arsenal at their new Community Stadium was quickly followed by a creditable home draw with Liverpool and the Bees looked at home in the Premier League. Before the clocks had gone back observers were citing their success as vindication of their data-informed approach to performance under the owner Matthew Benham.

Frank had been identified by the club as a coach able to give life to their values when he was appointed Dean Smith’s assistant in 2016. He was as far removed as could be from the managerial merry-go-round that characterises English football and it’s questionable whether he would have been given a chance in the Premier League had he not been promoted with Brentford. Frank had worked with Denmark’s men’s underage teams in his homeland before taking the Head Coach’s role at Danish Superliga side Brøndby, where his tenure lasted three years.

The enthusiasm around Brentford has been tempered in some quarters by the club’s mid-season travails – not that Frank was ever carried away by the external narrative – and the west Londoners retain an excellent chance of staying up at the end of their first top-flight season since 1947. “We never say ‘stay up’, by the way – we try to achieve instead of avoid.”

Frank, who infamously lost eight of his first 10 matches in charge before building one of the best sides in the Championship, has developed a healthy self-awareness, which is just as well given the emotions he feels during matches. After 20 minutes of the 2021 play-off final, Brentford were cruising and the Premier League was within touching distance.

“I was thinking ‘have we done it? Have we done it? No! Just stay cool’,” he said, “and there’s just a hurricane inside you; and it’s for 70 minutes and it’s crazy emotions you’re feeling.”

Caulfield, who enjoys a weekly walk with Frank at Brentford’s Jersey Road training ground, asks how he controls that hurricane. “It’s very difficult. I use a lot of energy to stay calm. I’m quite an open, passionate person, but try to be very level with it. When I’m really shouting or anything I can lose my temper, of course, can I do that but very rarely. I’m aware of it and thinking about it every day.

“I think we – Michael and I – find coming in and among the staff and the players really good. We have a catch-up, walk around the training ground for half an hour. [I ask] How’s the staff? How’s the players? All the information I don’t get. Of course, confidential; so if it’s really confidential stuff I don’t get it. I talk about myself as well. I think that’s extremely important. Trying to work on your weaknesses and try to improve your strengths.”

Confident but humble

Frank, a former amateur player, turned to coaching at the age of 20. He says: “I never had a dream when I started coaching when I was 20 years old, 28 years ago, that I wanted to be a Premier League manager. Step by step, I was lucky and privileged to get all of these opportunities. I studied so much: how to be a good coach on the pitch, how to be really good at analysing games, and how to be specific in what I wanted to do.”

Frank recounts a tale from his time as Head Coach of the Denmark men’s under-17s team, a role he held between 2008 and 2012. “Back then, I analysed the game myself – I had no analyst. I got up, 5:30 in the morning, rewatched the game. It took me three and a half hours because I cut it down so that I could present the analysis to the team.”

Each player was presented with 10 clips and he spent 10 to 15 minutes evaluating those clips with each of them. “That gave them something to improve but also the way I wanted to play. So it was of course their individual development but also in their role. I wanted them to succeed. I don’t have the same time now but I have the same mindset.”

Privileged or not, there was nothing inevitable about his ascent to the Premier League but both he and Brentford made it happen. “In all kinds of sport, money is a big part of it. We speak a lot in football that money is 70 per cent and then the last 30 per cent is knowledge, culture, those margins. I think we do these 30 per cent and maybe let’s say 35 per cent unbelievably well.

“We have a fantastic group of staff where we have this unique togetherness and a really good group of players that we built over time and we’re really strong on culture. Togetherness, hard work, attitude and performance; and that’s what I try to drill into the players every single day. Two things I’ve stolen – I can say that out loud, no problem – I love the All Blacks book, Legacy, and that phrase ‘no dickheads’ – a fantastic one-liner.”

Caulfield says that he uses that a lot and Frank agrees. “You know, we only want good people and I think it’s extremely important. People need to be themselves and express themselves, but they need to think for the team and the club.”

Frank is also fond of phrase he first heard from Stuart Worden, the Principal of the BRIT School, a renowned performing arts college in South London. “His one-liner is ‘the right attitude is when you are confident but humble.’ You need to be confident, you need to trust yourself. I need to trust myself, the players need to trust themselves, but if you’re not humble for the work you need to do every single day, we can never achieve anything.”

He expresses deep affection for his players. He does not let sentiment get in the way of his decision-making but feels he can be better at having those difficult conversations, whether it is telling a player they are not playing tomorrow or that their future lies elsewhere.

“The most difficult thing is to keep everyone happy in the squad. It’s impossible and it’s breaking my heart when I can’t play some of the players who aren’t playing. But I trust my gut feeling and, you know, what I believe in, so I go with all the players. But it’s really tough to see some of them giving their all and they’re just not good enough. Maybe it’s only in my opinion, or maybe they are not good enough. You never know before they maybe move club, or I move, and see how their development is. I think that’s really tough. I haven’t found a way, I try to get around them, I try to speak to them, but that’s one of the things I’d like to do better, because it’s so important.”

It is a journey rather than a destination and Frank still “massively” enjoys developing as a coach. “I know when I was 30 I thought I knew everything, but even now I know nothing and I’m constantly trying to develop.”

His claim to know nothing is self-effacing but he is still trying to find the optimal level of control that enables his staff to grow and permits Frank himself to recharge his batteries. “If you don’t delegate then your staff never grow and you can never take a step back, I think that’s extremely important. But I just love to be hands on.” He then permits himself to future-gaze. “Maybe in 10 years I’ll back off a little bit,” he says, already doubling the five years he suggested earlier in the conversation.

As Caulfield draws the session to a close Frank shares a lesson he learned while listening to some fellow coaches at the Leaders P8 Summit the previous day. “We have a player who’s rarely playing but I think he’s so good for the culture. He’s such a culture builder, because he trains like a beast every single day. Now I think I’ll say that to him in front of everyone, when we meet in the coming days.”

• Allow people to be their authentic selves

• Conversations raise empathy levels

• Invite your people to take an active role

What is the biggest obstacle to employees feeling valued and understood?

SC: Psychological safety and fear. People are afraid of getting it wrong or saying the wrong things or they just don’t know how to have the conversation with people. I always say if you’re not trying then you’re not going to make a mistake. If you try, you’re going to make mistakes – it’s just part of who we are as humans. It’s about your intent and your recovery as well. You’re going to make mistakes, you’re going to get it wrong, everyone is, and it’s about normalising that as well.

There can be dominant cliques or cultures in any organisation, but how can a team or organisation work to not only celebrate but see the value in cultural differences, different modes of thought or ways of thinking?

SC: It’s really about trying to break those cliques or to have one big clique so that everyone feels a part of the team. Everyone can have an activity whether it’s bonding over food or whether it’s celebrating cultural events. That in turn raises people’s awareness and helps them to become culturally competent. You’re giving them the tools to talk about it in a really friendly, informal way as well.

What is the role of leaders in supporting and promoting diversity of thought and culture?

SC: It stops and starts with leaders – that’s a part of leadership. If you think about inclusive leadership, essentially, people just want to be seen and heard for who they are. When people say to me ‘this might seem like a silly question’. No, there are no silly questions. ‘It’s fine, just say it, because I really want to know what you think and how you feel as well’. As leaders, the only way to be inclusive is to role model that inclusivity. It’s not what you say it’s what you do as well. People can work out really quickly that this person says one thing and they mean another; or it’s a tick-box exercise. It’s really about authenticity in this space and admitting to people that you’re going to make mistakes and this is where you are in your EDI journey and this is where you want to be and what support do you need and what support do you expect from people to give you that as a leader as well. It’s definitely a two-way conversation.

What can people in the cultural majority do at an organisation to support?

SC: Talk. It’s talking about it and sharing your experiences, it’s raising empathy levels and giving people the space to open up and talk and about it. Once you’ve opened up and talked about it, it’s ‘OK, what are you going to do about it?’ Because once you start asking the questions of people you need to have some sort of plan in place. And the plan doesn’t have to all be you, you can ask people ‘what do you think we need to do as an organisation? This is the vision of where I want us to be, how are we going to get there collectively?’

At what point will we not be talking about diversity, equity and inclusion?

SC: That’s the magic question, isn’t it – I’d love to be out of a job! That’s my goal in life and I have no answer to that one. The thing is it’s human behaviours and humans evolve and there’s no one mould fits all, it’s different tactics for different people. It’s about little steps every day that create and have a massive impact. Hopefully I’ll have no role – that would be the dream.

By Bobby L Scales II

David Ortiz was elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in January.

‘The Hall’ is the single greatest individual award that can be bestowed upon anyone in American professional baseball. The numbers he amassed over 20 seasons in Major League Baseball place him among the greats, and the joy of watching ‘Big Papi’ stride to the plate with bad intentions for opposing pitchers satisfied millions over the course of his career.

People will debate his greatest contribution to the game and if you pick up any one of the hundreds of articles written about him you will read that his personality and natural ability to lead are even larger than his physical stature.

I learned all this in person at Spring Training in 2007, when the impact he had on a certain 29-year-old journeyman minor league player kickstarted my journey in leadership.

Reaching your leadership ceiling

I am a big believer that leaders can be born but they can also be made in the sense that even if people have natural ‘born leader’ qualities the true height of that ability can’t be realized unless they continue to learn, train and exercise those abilities. Everyone is born with what I call a ‘leadership ceiling’. Whether that person reaches their leadership ceiling or not is dependent on a multitude of factors, such as, how influential can that person’s leadership be in a multitude of environments? Does a person have the requisite skill set to lead in any environment and most importantly can they activate those skillsets when it matters most? The best leaders on the planet exhibit a few crucial qualities regardless of who they lead.

At the Boston Red Sox’s Spring Training camp in late February 2007, I carried my bags into their clubhouse in Fort Meyers, Florida, and began to learn that Ortiz had those qualities in spades. I was heading into my seventh season as a professional, with my third club, and had yet to crack a Major League roster. Honestly, with my 30th birthday coming in October, I was questioning my time in professional sport.

Nevertheless, Spring Training can be a tremendous opportunity for younger guys or journeyman like me to make an impression on the coaches and decision makers. The second I walked into that clubhouse the place was different. There was a feeling of calm, easiness and focus on the task at hand: winning the World Series. This team was laser-focused on doing just that. This team was different too in that it was a very veteran clubhouse, including Jason Varitek, Manny Ramirez, Mike Lowell, Julio Lugo, Curt Schilling and, of course, ‘Big Papi’.

The origins of Ortiz’s nickname are rooted in American baseball culture. The most senior Latin leader in the clubhouse is referred to as ‘papi’, which loosely translated from Spanish means ‘daddy’. Major League teams and their affiliates will have rosters filled with players from the Dominican Republic, Venezuela, Mexico, Colombia and Curacao. They are signed between the age of 16 and 18 and usually start their careers in club-operated academies in the ‘DR’. The best will progress to the US where these young men are asked to learn a foreign language, assimilate to another culture and, oh yeah, play ball at a high level! On the flip side, you have a group of young American players who are yet to be exposed to Latin players.

What we know about human behavior tells us that people tend to assimilate in groups of similar people. Clubhouse culture in baseball is no different. In each of these groups – white guys from the West Coast, black guys, Northeast guys, Southern guys, the Latin guys – leaders tend to emerge from within these groups and, usually, these guys are comfortable enough in their own skin to bridge the gaps and pull people together. For the Latin players, the role of the ‘papi’ is crucial. With that moniker comes responsibility and, often, this man is not just the leader of the Latin players but a bridge to the coaching staff and everyone else on the team.

Intentionality and integrity

At Fort Meyers, I was assigned the number 76 – an awful number. You tell yourself it doesn’t matter but we all know it’s terrible. I would arrive at 5:30am for the workouts that typically didn’t get started until 9am because you never know what might happen. Lift, eat, sort equipment, adjust to any changes, whatever needed to be done. I remember the third or fourth day of camp at about 5:50am. I had just changed into shorts and a t-shirt and, out of the weight room having finished his workout, comes ‘Big Papi’.

‘Hey, what you doing here? It’s too early,’ he said in a deep voice with a heavy Dominican accent.

‘Papi’, I said, while pointing to the #76, ‘man, unless you’re early they forget about you!’ Part of me was kidding, part of me was dead serious. His answer was something that I’ll never forget.

‘Nah, you get invited to this camp, you have a chance to help us win a World Series and we gonna do that. Get your bat… let’s go hit!” He didn’t know me from the next guy but I was in that clubhouse and I had the same uniform on. At this point of his career he had been a three time all-star, a World Series champion and a World Series Most Valuable Player. At 6am he was changing his shirt post-gym workout and heading to the batting cage.

With his actions he was saying ‘we win things around here, this is how we work and you’re part of it’. This was his routine and he was going to do this whether I was in the building or not. I happened to be there so this was his opportunity to show me the culture in the building without saying a word. Leaders such as ‘Big Papi’ act with intention because they have a vision of where they see themselves and their club and a clear plan of how they can get there.

It spoke to his accountability too. Accountability and integrity are essential and connected, as it’s very easy to call for accountability in those you are leading. Holding people to account for their preparation, performance or work is easy – holding yourself to those same standards signals integrity. What are you doing when no one is watching you? Are you holding yourself to the same standard that you expect from those you lead? In world sport today, managers, coaches, or technical directors have a vision of what they want that culture to be but ultimately it must be player-led.

Bobby at the Boston Red Sox’s 2007 Spring Training in Fort Myers (Photo: Getty Images/Nick Laham)

Communication and personal connection

It was 6:10am and I was sat in the batting cage with Big Papi, and Wily Mo Pena (a massive prospect at the time for Boston) taking turns. While Manny and Wily Mo would hit, Papi and I were in deep conversation about all number of things. He’d ask: where are you from? Where have you played? Are you married? Do you have kids?

When he hit, I watched him work through his hitting routine, how professional it was, how detailed and demanding he was of himself, how he watched Ramirez work (Manny is a legend himself). After I had my turn he asked me questions about my approach and the things I thought about when I was at the plate: did I like hitting left-handed or right-handed better? He was asking me about my baseball journey, how I ended up signing with Boston? Where did I feel most comfortable playing defensively? How did I believe I could help the club? What did the administration tell me about the opportunity I had in the organization?

Papi wanted to know who he was working with. He wanted to know what I was about. His approach in asking me these questions made me want to answer them without hesitation. Additionally, this was a two-way street. I didn’t know him, I just knew what I saw on TV. This was my opportunity to find out, besides talent, what made this guy tick. What was his journey to this point? One of the core beliefs I have in leadership and people development is the player resides within the man: if you want direct access to the player you better know the human first. He had an innate understanding that people’s talents, whatever they are, shine the brightest when there is a level of comfort in the environment.

That day the #76 felt important – like I really did have a chance to impact this club. Remember, this is 2007 and we weren’t talking about psychological safety then, but that’s exactly what it was. There was an easiness about him that was contagious. I hit early with that group the next ten days and every day was just like this. We got into real conversations, and it was incredible.

The ability for leaders to connect with everyone is vital to that person reaching their leadership ceiling or simply just having leadership qualities. ‘Big Papi’ went all out.

Authenticity

About two weeks into camp, the exhibition games against other teams start and the biggest beneficiaries of these early opportunities are guys just like myself. And I played terrific.

Early one morning I was in the cafeteria and in comes ‘Papi’. ‘Oye [Spanish for ‘listen’], I see you, you playing your ass off,’ he says. He grabs a bowl of oatmeal and takes a seat next to me. ‘There is a guy in this clubhouse that come up for one game – one series to help us win the division.’ I remember sitting in my locker later that day thinking this guy is unbelievable. The level of professionalism in his preparation.  The respect he garnered not just from his play but also by how he treated his teammates, coaches and support staff.  Most importantly, he was REAL!!!

There is a saying in baseball: ‘just remember, you can’t fool the clubhouse’. People know when you are real and people know when you are phony. When you are in a leadership position and you are an imposter in any way, you will lose the group.

Later in camp, the big boys were playing five to six innings and then the subs entered the game. We were playing the New York Mets and I replaced Ramirez in the sixth. When those guys get out of the game, they get whatever recovery they need from the physio team, shower, then leave. Well in the top of the seventh inning I was playing left field and Lastings Milledge hit an absolute rocket down the line near the corner. I took off full speed, located the baseball and laid flat out to make the best catch of my entire 14-year professional career.

The catch that caught the eye of David ‘Big Papi’ Ortiz

At the end of the inning, I ran into the dugout and waiting on me at the top step in street clothes was ‘Big Papi’. He was watching the rest of the game as he was doing his recovery with the physio staff. When I’d made the catch he’d ran outside and was waiting for me at the top step. ‘Oye, that was unbelievable! I’m telling you, you gonna help us win something!’ When he’d first said that to me almost a month earlier, I’m sure he said that to put me at ease in the beginning of camp. Now, I had played well and he noticed. I believe in that moment he really believed ‘this guy really might be able to help us.’

Well, he wasn’t kidding the Boston Red Sox won something in 2007: the World Series and, believe it or not, they did it without me! I spent the entire season at Pawtucket, the Triple A affiliate. I had one of my best seasons as a professional and I never got called up. The younger version of me was crestfallen that I didn’t get promoted to the majors that year. The version that is writing this piece realizes the intellectual currency that I took from that experience. What I got was a six-week case study on what high level leadership really looked like up close.

Leaders connect on a personal level with those they lead. Leaders are vulnerable and transparent, understanding that authenticity in relationships is central to culture creation. Leaders realize they will accomplish nothing by themselves, and they need the contribution of everyone in the operation. Leaders make everyone in the operation feel like their contribution to the group is important. Leaders set the tone for what the standard is in the organization. Leaders do all these things and do so in different styles – we will cover that in later posts.

David ‘Big Papi’ Ortiz is a three-time World Series champion, a legend of the sport and now a member of the Baseball Hall of Fame. I’m not going to pretend that I know him because I don’t. We don’t talk and I don’t have his number. Here is what I do know: Papi has influenced countless lives by modeling what real leadership looks like. For me, that makes him a Hall of Fame leader.

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

By John Portch

• The athlete needs the coach but you cannot be selfish

• Coaching innovation can be driven by the needs of your athletes

• How well do you find those moments for a cup of coffee with your athletes?

From selfish to selfless

Kate Howey was a two-time Olympic medallist who appeared at four consecutive Games from 1992 through to 2004, she was also a world champion and perhaps the poster woman of British judo. She instantly became a coach and admits her ego got in the way at first. “It was very much about winning,” she told the Leaders Sport Performance Summit in London last November in her former role as Head Coach of British Judo. “I had an ego and if I could produce somebody who was winning medals that would be good for me. Then you get a bit older and wiser and realise it’s not about me, it’s about the athlete. That was a massive learning curve.”

Howey had made the journey from selfish to selfless. “It’s about how I break down the barriers and the softer skills of coaching,” she continues. “Get the human side of the athlete out to then build the trust to get the performance.”

It needs to be this way in a sport such as judo where the coaching is close-up and personal. “I’m probably from here to the photographer [about three metres away] coaching them matt side; and something can change in a second. I have to be on it and I have to have the trust from the athlete that I am giving the right instruction.”

Never say ‘back in the day’

If a self-referential approach was outdated in 2004, it is not going to serve any purpose with current athletes who were barely in school at that time. “‘Back in the day we did this’ – never ever say that to this generation because they’ll say ‘you didn’t even have TVs in your day, Kate.’ They’ve got a totally different understanding of what goes on in the world.

“Your coaching changes and you have to be innovative with that. You can even coach using somebody’s Instagram. You have to be super innovative.”

Find out what makes them tick

In judo, as Howey says, “It has to be athlete and coach working together rather than coach-centred or athlete-centred, because sometimes the coach does make the athlete tick as well, as much as the athlete needs the coach, the coach needs the athlete.”

She can be on the road up to 250 days per year, which means it is essential she develop rapport with athletes who might be half her age. “You’ve got to know the generation that you’re dealing with,” she continues. “They’re very clued up; mental health, tech savvy. You get to learn these things so you can have an ‘in’ on a conversation or just get down to their level, as hard as it may be, and challenging as it is.” She tails off for moment. “[I’m often] sitting there watching Married at First Sight for an hour.”

Howey does not necessarily enjoy this reality TV show but it is a worthy sacrifice. “The softer skills have to come in, which is possibly knowing what they’re doing that evening, knowing what’s going on in their life, knowing what’s going to make them tick – and what’s not going to make them tick – more to the point.

“How do I motivate them? How do I bring them down when they’re slightly high in terms of they’re too eager to do too much? Then they do too much and they get hurt. It’s a two-way thing and you have to have the conversations to get the information out.

“Sometimes it’s a chat over a cup of coffee that you don’t get in a training environment. You need to get to know your athlete in order to get the best out of them.”

Louis Cayer is one of the most experienced and decorated high performance coaches and coach educators in international men’s doubles tennis.

For the latest edition of the Leaders Performance Podcast, Cayer joined Leaders Performance Institute Editor John Portch to discuss his work with the Lawn Tennis Association [LTA].

Also on the conversational agenda are:

• Why tennis coaching differs from most other sports [2:30];
• The evolution of the LTA’s coaching strategy [7:00];
• Why feedback has replaced the LTA’s culture of correction [15:00];
• Checking that processes and culture are still on track [25:10].

John Portch: Twitter | LinkedIn

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