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The Performance Director of MLS champions New York City FC is talking to the Leaders Performance Institute and Elite Performance Partners [EPP] about his own experience as both a practitioner and a leader.
“In my first leadership roles,” Bettle continues, “I really thought having the best strategy or having the best ideas, that was what was going to make me a great leader, that people would just hear my idea and say ‘this is brilliant! Let’s do it!’ And you very quickly realise that it’s all about the people that you’re going to be leading.”
Bettle speaks from his experience leading performance divisions at teams including the Anaheim Ducks and Toronto Maple Leafs. “Yes, you have to have a strategy but the other side of it is that you need to have empathy for what people are going through, their sense of threat from your new system, and the humility you must have to go into a new environment and take it all in. There’s a huge component of leadership you almost don’t realise until you’re in the job already. Hopefully you ride that storm out where you last and get to take that next step.”
The Leaders Performance Institute and EPP’s Dave Slemen and Anna Edwards are also joined by Darren Burgess, the High Performance Manager of the Adelaide Crows who also leads EPP’s search offering in Australia, and James Thomas, the Performance Director at British Gymnastics.
Although the trio offer three different perspectives from three different sports, systems and countries, they hit on the numerous performance principles that EPP, a performance consultancy and search firm, discuss with their clients on a daily basis. One such principle being the need to ensure people are developing a range of ‘human skills’ over and above their technical competence in order to prepare for leadership. Here are some of the other key considerations they identify for performance directors going into new roles.
Cultivating high performance habits
The environment is uppermost in the minds of all three, playing to EPP’s belief that culture and strategy hold equal weight in an organisation – like two strands of a DNA helix, with strong leadership binding the two together and enabling the team to retain its core structure when pressure is inevitably applied. “You don’t have to get it perfectly to succeed at all because talent will probably beat that, but where talent is equal, the environment becomes really important,” says Burgess, who has led high performance teams in the English Premier League at Liverpool and Arsenal, as well as in his native Australia, where he helped Melbourne to win the AFL Grand Final last year.
The dynamics are not quite the same in Olympic sport but the need for a clear performance vision is paramount, as Thomas explains. “I’ve always described culture as turning expectation and beliefs into behaviours, and then behaviours into daily performance habits,” says Thomas, who has previously worked with British Judo, Welsh Boxing and Great Britain Wheelchair Rugby. “The people I’ve seen be successful have had consistently high performance habits in an environment that allows people to express those habits daily, to allow them to be reinforced and celebrated in training and competition.”
It takes time to reach that point, as Bettle points out. “People need to be open-minded and have humility, both me coming into an environment and the people there,” he says. “In a positive environment, there’s a lot of work done to prepare for your entry, but that isn’t always the case and staff can have no clue as to what’s expected and why we’re making a change. You have to spend a significant amount of time on the front end just letting the staff know exactly what the new org chart looks like.” Even when you get there, leaders need to remind their teams of the culture they are trying to build on a daily basis, EPP’s Dave Slemen adds.
Stop, look and listen
That said, it is important not to rush. “I think the most important thing that I’ve done is taking some time to not do anything,” says Bettle. “Really just observing the current culture, the current systems; really taking it all in before you actually start plugging your system into it.” He admits it is an error he has made in the past. “You go in too quick and you’ve got a system that you want to drop on this new culture and you miss things that are being done really well. You lose sight of the fact that this is a big change management project, and so people can’t change as fast as you would like them to if you just go in on day one and start to change systems and processes and reporting lines.
“For 60 days, you should observe and plug in little pieces where you can, and then once you’ve done that evaluation, you can plug in your system to really complement the things that are being done really well; and you can give them small pieces to change over time, and look at it as more of a long-term project than ‘at day one you’ve got to come in and produce results’.”
Burgess concurs: “People need to feel safe and they need to feel appreciated, and they need to feel that just because there’s change that doesn’t mean there will be wholesale change, and that’s a tough balance because, in a lot of clubs, in a lot of situations, you’re brought in for a reason, and they know that and you know that and the players know that, so there is a delicate balance there you have to find.”
The performance director role must begin to engender trust. “Unless you spend the time to build the connection with somebody I’ve often found it falls a little bit short,” says Thomas, who understands the importance of giving his staff a sense of psychological safety. “I’ve always taken the time to stand next to a coach during training, watch, ask questions, be inquisitive, and give them a sense that I’m interested rather than coming in and make a big change. It might not need a big change, but unless you talk to people and find out, you’ll never really know. It’s probably quite simple, but I just stand, watch and ask questions and try to be humble. I’ve come in, I’m not going to fix everything for anybody, but I’ll happily try and help. But I need to know about what you feel, what you think the issues are, and what you think doesn’t need fixing. What you think is great and really sacred to the sport, what needs to be maintained for the next few years.” Burgess points out you also need to speak up when it’s required, which fits with the definition of psychological safety held by EPP. “It’s not just about creating an environment in which everyone can speak up and be heard, it’s about creating one where you have an obligation to if you think something is wrong,” adds Slemen.
Thomas’ inclusive approach proved useful as British Gymnastics devised its plan for the 2024 Paris Olympics. “By the time we’d launched our plan, which was just before Tokyo, everybody had seen it and heard the words, heard the language, and heard the ideas of change, so it felt quite normal,” he says. “It felt like people took and breath and just said ‘onto the next four years’. There’s a few changes and I’m sure people will have to work through that, but we’d taken on such a journey and evolved the team quite early on. There was actually a big sense of togetherness rather than a secret thing that was cooked up in a boardroom that no one had ever seen and all of a sudden now you were putting it on them.”
The importance of a criteria-based approach
As Bettle says: “You want to be clear about your standards and how people are going to be held accountable and, within that, being as supportive as you can.”
To that end, Burgess has adopted a criteria-based approach. “I tend to give the staff a practical job description and say ‘there’s your practical day to day responsibilities’ and then there’s a real clear expectation and they can be as little as ‘you’re putting out the cones for the warm-up’ to as extensive as ‘you’re responsible for delivering the training analysis to the coach’, he says. “Whether that’s a physio, doctor, psychologist, a performance analyst, they all have their practical job description and therefore they know what they’re going to be held accountable for, and that tends to be a little bit more specific and practical than a human resources-designed job description. That’s helped a lot. It’s helped us to get people aligned in what they’re doing, it’s also created its own issues when people fall short because it’s only mine and it’s not HR’s, but within our staff context it works quite well.” Which is perhaps why he’s such a good fit for EPP, who take a similar criteria-based approach to their hires, taking time upfront to ensure all are aligned on the key priorities for any role and why they are hiring, rather than getting blinded by names of prospective candidates or silverware.
For Thomas, it is a question of impact. “I’ll say, ‘where do you, as an analyst, as a physiotherapist, show impact? Can you talk me through where you impacted on performance?’” he says. “And then we move away from KPIs and job descriptions to actually showing me or telling me a story about where they impacted and connect to the team going after world championships and winning four medals; the nutritionist can tell me a story of the six weeks before and you get a real sense that somebody really can give you a great story of where they’re adding value; or if someone can’t quite describe that to you that’s where I start to think where are they? Where are they working? Where are they impacting? Moving forward, is this an area that we might want to change?”
Find your authentic voice
Authenticity is important and, in Edwards’ view, the most important leadership trait, alongside vulnerability. “It’s just what is right for me and what allows me to be my best, draw from my experiences, inspire others, but in a way that suits me,” says Thomas. “I’m not a stand on top of a desk and beat my chest person, I try to inspire through relationships, caring about people, good strategy, but actually allowing other people to feel empowered to do it. So for me it’s been learning about myself, trust myself, but do it the way it feels right for me.”
For his part, Burgess initially noted down the qualities he liked and disliked in his leaders. “I would just come back and check those quite often,” he says. “The big one for me, in every organisation, was that I barely got feedback and that might be a conversation on the pitch or more formalised feedback and those things are really important because most of the staff are just craving some sort of information on how they’re doing.”
Mentors and blind spots
Thomas found a mentor early in his career. “I wanted someone to challenge me outside of the gymnastics space,” he says. “It was a safe space where someone could really push me, get me asking the right questions, and give me feedback about how I was doing and how I was coming across.”
It’s something that I always quite pleased on, my ability to make tough decisions, and someone held the mirror back at me and said ‘you’re great at making tough decisions, but do you have tough conversations before that?’ That’s something different. Making a tough decision and just doing it, that’s one thing, but actually telling people beforehand or getting their views beforehand and having those tough conversations, that was a little bit of a blind spot for me and maybe I’m shying away from the tough discussion but then going straight to the tough decision. That’s something I’ve learnt, that they go hand in hand, but they’re two very different skills.
The importance of mentors came out as a key theme in Slemen’s dissertation for the Executive MBA he completed last summer. In interviewing ten of the UK’s top performance leaders, he found all had leant on mentors throughout their careers, and most highlighted it as the most pressing factor in their success.
Thomas advocates the same for his team. “It was something probably two years in that I pushed really hard with my senior team; ‘get yourself a mentor, get someone who can support you outside of the work environment’. It’s been a massive success for gymnastics in terms of the growth I’ve seen in my team and them enjoying more leadership responsibility. A lot of that has been in seeking feedback from other members of the team.”
Quarterly 360-feedback is now part of British Gymnastics’ programme and Thomas relies upon it. “They might not even be involved in performance, it might be PR or marketing or finance, but tell me how I’m doing, tell me how I’m coming across, what grates on you that I do that I’m not aware of, that I need to think about, where my blind spots are that I’m just not aware of day to day; and it’s that ability to reflect based on other people’s feedback has been really important.”
Bettle agrees. “I’ve worked with a mentor and coach for some time now and I think that that process of self-reflection has been one of the most important things in my career, certainly transitioning into leadership, just general self-awareness, self-reflection and getting to know yourself better, getting to know what my defaults are and what my blind spots are has been really important coming into environments as we try to increase diversity within an organisation; and you just know that you’ve got blind spots that you’ve got no way of knowing how other people are really thinking unless you’re really seeking it out.” Having seen the importance of such guidance in the careers of many of the leaders they work with, Edwards has undertaken a Master’s in Mentoring & Coaching, allowing EPP to offer this as an additional service to those with whom they work.
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“A few years ago, there was a bigger emphasis on numbers and trying to hit specific targets and outcomes, whereas now, especially with those younger athletes, we spend more time talking about trying to show specific behaviours.”
Dan McPartlan, a Strength & Conditioning Coach with British Cycling, is reflecting on how his work with athletes continues to change in this latest episode of the Leaders Performance Podcast.
Also on today’s show, we discuss:
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“When you invest in a new job you feel that you have to do everything but, as I’m getting older, I don’t want to have to do everything,” he tells the Leaders Performance Institute’s Jimmy Worrall.
The conversation took place in August just as West Ham and Moyes had made a promising start to the current Premier League season. The Scot was still basking in the glow of West Ham’s highest finish since 2001 and their first qualification for European football since 2006. As December arrives, they are again challenging at the top of the table.
At the time of his appointment in December 2019, however, delegation was not a priority. The club was mired in relegation trouble and Moyes’ remit was for a swift turnaround. “I think to get things up and running you need to have your hands on everything. You need to try and get all departments pulling in the right direction,” he continues.
Just three months later, the pandemic brought the 2019-20 Premier League season to a standstill. Moyes relished the opportunity to work closely with his playing group during the enforced hiatus. “We were on the pitch every day and, in a way, I think it helped me,” he says. “It certainly helped the team because I got the chance to do individual work with them every day. We were only allowed one member of staff and that was me at the time. The more I saw it, the more important I thought the individual work was. The players were probably having a closer relationship with the manager and the coaches as well.”
While positive results tend to produce a better atmosphere, and soft skills alone will never produce results, it is clear that Moyes’ players are both happy and receptive to his ideas. “I’ve played in teams here that have fought relegation and been mid-table, but in the last two seasons, what the manager has built for us, and what we’ve bought into as players, has been amazing,” West Ham midfielder Declan Rice told a press conference in September.
Rice, who represented England at the delayed Euro 2020 this summer, reported back for West Ham duty earlier than requested and has maintained his superb form in claret and blue. “It’s a place where you wake up in the morning and you look forward to going in and having breakfast with the lads. You look forward to having a laugh and you look forward to training.”
Rice’s words resonate with Dave Slemen, Founding Partner at Elite Performance Partners [EPP], a performance consultancy and search firm working across elite sport. Slemen says: “Tapping into why players love football and keeping it fun is such an underrated quality in a coach. So much pressure is put on players externally – if you can make it fun, it releases the stress so players are only in that state during games, when it matters.”
Nor has there been unrest from those fringe players with limited game time. Moyes has made every effort to ensure they feel included. “It’s like a big family,” added Rice. “I think the gaffer said it before, we’re all like a bunch of kids. Honestly, it’s such a great place to be around at the moment. With the results and how well we’re doing, that makes it that bit more special.”
“Winning makes a big difference and, in the sport we’re in, it really does change how you feel, how the media perceive you in all things,” Moyes previously told the Leaders Performance Institute. “But I would hope that I would still be treated the same way if we were losing.”
Changing perceptions
Moyes has been more directly involved in player transfers than during his first spell with West Ham. A number of his signings have sparkled including, in January 2020, Tomáš Souček [initially on loan] and Jarrod Bowen. They, along with many who made up the squad Moyes inherited, did their bit to stave off relegation that season.
“Getting a couple of players right was really important for me because suddenly we changed the dynamics, the mentality of the club,” says Moyes of his first weeks back in charge. “Yeah, the manager’s got a lot to do with it but, ultimately, it’s the players. Whether you buy them, whether they’re already in the building, you need them to be the ones to do it for you and, fortunately, we got a couple of players in the January window not by massive design, not by massive scouting networks and watching them for 20-30 games; a bit of simple work, looking at a few stats and you hit the jackpot. Now and again, you hope to be lucky and a couple of Januarys ago I was, we got these boys in.”
First-Team Coach Kevin Nolan – a former West Ham player and the coach with perhaps the strongest links to the playing group – has spoken of the club’s growing preference for younger players with a point to prove. “We can’t match the financial side of a lot of clubs but we can match it by hard work and determination,” he told the Athletic in May. “People will want to come here and work hard and not be seen as a club where players look to finish their careers, or come and enjoy a year in London. That’s not what this club is about. The gaffer wants to make this club better day by day, week by week, month by month and year by year.”
Moyes has also taken a keen interest in the fortunes of West Ham’s youth and under-23s teams, regularly attending matches home and away when his schedule permits. He also tells Worrall of the importance of getting to know the grounds and kitchen staff at West Ham’s Rush Green training ground. “I hope in some ways to start to build the club and show people that you’re trying to build a better and brighter future for all the people who are involved in the club.”
This approach is crucial for alignment. “The team is bigger than just the players,” adds Slemen. “We believe alignment can have a big impact on the behaviours of the group and its sense of identity. It can bring people closer together, especially when things get tough.”
Perhaps this is all circumstantial. Moyes is wary of trying to pinpoint empirical evidence in a conversation of his successes and shies away from attributing his success to any particular cause, but he does highlight the organisational stability and job security he currently enjoys. His tenure has long surpassed his six-month spell in 2017-18 when he first helped West Ham to retain their Premier League status. “Getting the chance to feel that you’ve got a bit of time I think gives you the feeling that there’s stability, you can get a bit of power and you can start to make decisions that you think are correct. I think when you feel as if you’re on a short lead you find that you have to do things quickly, you’re maybe making rash decisions.
“I’ve got to say, though, when we came back in here at West Ham this time, I felt under pressure that we would have to make quick decisions. We had to stay in the Premier League.” Results were required and, when they came, he gained a little more latitude. “Sometimes, people will get jobs that are already nicely prepared for you, all nicely packaged up for you to be a success.” Most managerial appointments, however, follow a poor run of results. The incoming manager is required to firefight. “Quite often the job is that you have to correct things, put things back, and try to start again.”
Moyes is also keenly aware that he, like any manager or head coach, is just a few bad results away from being pilloried. He is familiar with both ends of the spectrum. He built his coaching credentials at third-tier Preston North End, where he began as a player-manager in 1998, and led them to promotion to the second tier in 2000. He further burnished his reputation during an 11-year spell in the Premier League at Everton. Less fondly regarded are his spells at Manchester United, Real Sociedad and Sunderland, which seem like a distant memory at this stage.
He has always backed his ability as a coach, but understands that he had to continue learning and relearning the art of coaching. “To become a better leader, you need good people and staff around you,” he says. “It’s vitally important.” Each of Moyes’ first-team coaches – the aforementioned Nolan, Billy McKinley, Paul Nevin and Stuart Pearce – have been managers in their own right. “Even leaders need to be told ‘well done’ now and again because the leaders make the decisions and, quite often, the decisions are not right. It’s not a bad thing to have people around you to say ‘well done, you’ve done a good job today’.”
“No one gets there on their own – no one,” says Slemen. “You need to be both challenged and supported in any coaching role, this is especially true of the head coach. You would hope they are having the biggest impact so need the most help to get it right. In fact, 55 percent of CEOs in FTSE 100 have executive coaches and it wouldn’t surprise me if that will be the next trend at the top of the game.”
Moyes says: “We’ll all have bad days, it might not go right, but I think that’s when you need the support even more so than when you’re winning. We can be very isolated, very lonely. Yes, you have staff to help you but you still need good mentors in the background, good people that you think you could speak to about something you’ve got a concern about; people who if you’ve got a decision that you’re torn between could maybe clear it for you. I think to have one or two people around you who can help you with that is really key when you’re in the top level in elite sports.”
Slemen suggests that Moyes is onto something. “Everyone needs help – both coaches and mentors – people to talk you through what you do but also people who have been there before that can relate specifically to the challenges you are going through,” he says, adding that during his recent MBA dissertation he interviewed ten elite sports leaders and found that their only common trait was their use of coaches and mentors at different stages of their journey.
East London calling
Moyes famously coined the phrase ‘people’s club’ at his first press conference as Everton Manager in 2002 having been inspired by the Everton jerseys he saw on the streets of Liverpool as he drove to that first media engagement. His inference being that Liverpool Football Club did not seem to be as highly represented amongst the local populace. The sentiment was warmly received at Goodison Park.
He feels West Ham, surrounded by illustrious London neighbours, can occupy a similar space in the east of the city. “I think it’s an area that needs its football team and I think, for so long, we’ve been behind it. I want us to have a new young support, I want us to have new methods of trying to attract more supporters, but I think the biggest attraction to supporters is winning, especially to young supporters. A lot of the dads who maybe want to bring their sons or daughters to the game might have been West Ham supporters but might not feel there’s been enough success to warrant getting a season ticket or coming to the games. But I think, at the moment, there’s quite an exciting young team at West Ham and some really nice young players and the team’s going well.”
Like Merseyside, he also sees east London as a hotbed of young talent. “I’d love to have 30 or 40 scouts all around the East End of London because that was the way we done it at Everton and we pulled up an awful lot of good players at that time.”
Worrall wraps things up by pointing out that Moyes seems to be smiling on the touchline these days. “I’m very much the realist and I still am – but I felt as if the realist bit is not working anymore,” says Moyes, explaining that he has to be softer with the truth. “I find some of it really hard because I only want to speak the truth. Sometimes nowadays it’s very difficult to do that, but these are the things we do as we get older and we learn a bit better.”
Moyes may be a realist but he is also an optimist. “I hope that the best period of my management is still to come, even though I’ve had some pretty good periods. I’m hoping that this period might see me doing even better than I’ve done before.”
