By John Portch

The Leaders Performance Institute approached Dan McFarland, the Head Coach of Ulster Rugby, to broach the topic of change and he is happy to oblige.

“I quite like talking about these kind of things because it helps me to formulate my thinking and, at the end, I’ll have a clearer picture of how I think about things,” he says.

“What is ‘change’ in and of itself?” he continues. “Firstly, ‘change’ is someone who says ‘this isn’t working, things are terrible, and we need to change’. But change is also growth. If you’re an organisation that wants to grow, develop and learn – by definition that is ‘change’.

“How you conceptualise change and how you use it is interesting, because if you include the idea that ‘growth is change’ then there’s always a need for change, isn’t there? At least in anything that’s competitive. It is important not to box change as merely something that happens to a failing organisation or somebody who’s in trouble. Then it’s just a degree in change and, I suppose, recognising the degree of change is interesting.”

McFarland has been a coach since his retirement from playing in 2006. He took an assistant coaching role with his club, Connacht Rugby, upon hanging up his boots at the west of Ireland club. His first stint in Ireland came to a close when he joined Gregor Townsend’s coaching staff at the Glasgow Warriors in 2015 and he later joined Townsend’s coaching ticket when he took the reins of the Scotland men’s national team in 2017. Ulster came calling and McFarland took his first senior head coaching position with Ulster in April 2018.

He is a firm believer in the need to identify a “lodestone” – a foundation – when effecting change. In explanation he retells the story of his initial trek back across the Irish Sea from Connacht to Glasgow. “I was looking for change, but I needed something I was already strong in, something that was relevant to me, something that was going to hold the continuity from one place to the next; bridging that gap of change. For me, it was personal development and that needed to bridge the change of place, environment, and people I was working with. I needed that continuity and that was also part of the change.”

Continuity, as McFarland argues, is essential for players and staff. “The idea of flipping everything on its head, to me, is not great, unless you want something totally new, in which case it doesn’t come under the term ‘change’. When I arrived in Ulster, they were looking for change but I also recognised the things that were going well at the time. ‘What are the things that work here? What things are important? They might not be visible at the time, but that lodestone is generally always there; and if you can attach yourself to that and use that as a foundation, then it’s much easier to gain buy-in from the people who supply the continuity.

“People are trying hard; they’re working hard and doing good things. They just might not be going in the right direction, processes might not be efficient – but there is good stuff going on in places.”

Repurposing, systems, culture and people

McFarland explains that lodestones, as he describes them, at a rugby club can take numerous forms. He says: “It could be purpose, it could be systems, it could be individual people within that organisation. It could be lots of different things.”

He distils the focus when embarking upon change into four categories: repurposing, systems, culture and people. “Repurposing is a huge thing. People have got to have a purpose and, as I say, it may already be there,” he adds. “Creating clarity around that purpose can help. After you’ve done that, you can then look at the kinds of people that are there and how they fit within that purpose. You can look at the kinds of systems and whether they’re efficient and fit for purpose. Then, obviously, the big byword is the cultural stuff. Does that row in behind the people and fit with the systems and the purpose? That’s how I would look at it.”

At Ulster, how did he know where to look first and how does he know where to continue looking? “When I’m making assessments of things like that, I’ll do a stage of cultural mapping. That’s a huge part in the change. It’s understanding where people are. What do they understand about the organisation? From within but also without. Cultural mapping consists of conversations between people within the organisation, but it also consists of media sweeps. That was one of the big things coming into Ulster: doing a big media sweep and understanding what the perceptions of the organisation were at the time – because they weren’t good. People say ‘I don’t want to look at the outside, it doesn’t matter what they think’. You could pretend that the people within your organisation aren’t influenced by what people are saying on the outside, but that’s so naïve. They are influenced by external factors, they make a big impression. Our individual identities are built on not only what we think of ourselves but what other people project onto us. It’s just fact and how you deal with those things is really important.

“That’s why systems analysis and the functionality of the departments within the organisation, communication lines and the performance is important. You’ve got to look at the performance of the systems and what they’re actually putting out, in our case, on the pitch. And then, as I say, with the repurposing, you’ve got to look at organisational aims.”

In his case, is there an actual map? “In a sense it does look like a map,” says McFarland. “My cultural map consists of maybe three or four slides of feedback, mainly from players and sports staff who have answered certain questions. Things like ‘stop’, ‘start’, ‘keep going’; those kind of questions. How you want to be perceived, how you think you’re perceived. It takes quite a lot of time to get that data in and it was quite a lot of effort for people.” Casting his mind back to 2018, he recalls that people did, however, put in that effort, even before he’d started as Ulster Head Coach.

“I spend a lot of time analysing that and taking themes from those answers. You have to look at the language and break out the important parts or the thematic pieces that go across a number of people and then I build those into little maps. I have those on my PowerPoint sheet; you start to get clusters of themes. Some things bridge the gap between those and I’m looking for the kinds of things that are important to the people within the organisation; what they think they’re doing well now and what they really want to do.

“That’s the big thing: what do they want to do? What do they want to be like? That basically built our cultural values. Once I’d put that together I was able to feed that back to them and say, ‘look guys’. A lot of it is bridging gaps, now that I’m thinking about it.”

Fighting for every inch

The process of environment evaluation is continual and McFarland describes an important lodestone from his early days at the Kingspan Stadium. “The first thing that we did here three years ago was culturally to implement the idea of ‘fighting for every inch’. What did it look like? What is important? How are we going to train that? How are we going to measure that? If we could have that as a foundation, we knew we could look at lots of other things and try and work on those over a period of time. But that needed to be in place because I didn’t want to be worrying about that in a year and a half’s time. I didn’t want to be coming back to that and saying ‘we need to concentrate on this, concentrate on that’. Not in any big detail – we’re always looking at it – but we didn’t want it to be the main thing, we didn’t want to have to adjust that; it is what it is. That helps, that ability to have something within your structure that you can rely on so there are other areas you can look at.”

Over the past three years or so, McFarland and Ulster have also placed an emphasis on learning and growth, given the increasingly youthful profile of the playing group, as well as promotion the collective sense of belonging and togetherness.

The men’s Six Nations international rugby tournament, which takes place annually between February and March, often represents an ideal time to think about making the longer-term changes that complement the need to win today, as McFarland explains. “It’s about this time of the year, maybe later, that I’ll start to think about next year,” he says. “Where do we need to go? Where do we need to evolve? Where do we need to change? Then it will start with little conversations with the guys that are interested in that kind of thing. We’ll start putting together ideas of where we want to go next year. There’s quite a lot of planning and preparation that will go into that big shift and changes.”

McFarland also warns against being distracted by superfluous detail. “There is a lot of fluff around the edge of the feedback that we receive and it is just noise,” he says. “Once you’ve got your key things in place, your decision-making has to be based around bridging those gaps. It might be a gap in the competitive nature of training or the competitive nature of selection. If that was a cultural gap, you’ll need to focus on that. So you can’t focus around ideas such as lunch should be half an hour earlier – that’s just noise. Focus on the things that are really going to make a difference and find ways to mechanise them.”

The head coach as salesperson

“Once you’ve got your cultural map, you’ve got to be able to sell the changes you are bringing in,” says McFarland. “I’m certainly not the author of that change – the author is the process. That’s part of my job: selling the idea of the repurposing, or at least giving clarity around the purpose. Understanding the cultural things that they’ve brought to the surface and making them clear; and helping people to mechanise those things is very important. Often spotting the kinds of behaviours that are important to that change, that are going to bridge that gap, and then highlighting them. Those are all parts of selling it and mechanising it.”

He also has become more adept at creating thinking space and allowing people to do their jobs. “Growth is much richer if we’re all part of it and it’s a networking process. The interactions of people across departments, between coaches and players, between players and players, is much richer. I could stand in front of the room and say: ‘this is exactly what we’re going to do in this area, you’re going to do this, you’re going to do that’. That’s probably more efficient, but your growth over time is not as rich, you don’t get the benefits from guys who are on the ground and their information and their ability to adapt in the moment. There are times when you need to stand in front of people and say ‘this is what it’s about, guys. This is where we’re going, this is what we’re doing.’ But there’s also the necessity to create the space where people can grow into that. Potentially my job is to just pull all of that together and to give clarity so that we’re all on the same page.”

As the facilitator, McFarland also feels he must role model change. “Let’s say you want to create a learning environment,” he says. “You’ve got to model that. If that’s me, I’ve got to be seen to be willing to be wrong and adapt, I’ve also got to be seen to be doing things that are helping my own individual growth, I’ve got to be seen to be celebrating things where people are developing. Then once you’ve modelled those you’ve got to be able to mechanise those. There’s got to be room in the actual programme for doing that kind of stuff. It could be individual development programmes that are up and running and actually have things that you do, there’s got to be time in the schedule for development of certain things or skills, but there’s also got to be time in the programme for sports staff to be able to have personal development. Then finally, you’ve got to be able to measure that; you’ve got to be able to look at your programme and say ‘have we actually created development? Have we developed as a staff, as a group? Have we developed as players? Have we developed as individuals?’ Modelling, mechanising and measurement are pretty key to that.

Some of his colleagues and players naturally fall into the role of cultural architects. “Not everybody is interested in innovation, the idea, certainly on a cultural level, of really getting invested, but some people are. A lot of people are. They want to and they’re motivated to do that. That’s a huge thing. Finding the people within your organisation who are interested in that side of things. I’ve got a chunk of people here who are really interested in that kind of thing, developing us as a group and who we are. The organisation leans on them heavily; and the conversations that happen between myself and them and within themselves as a group are instrumental in what we do and how we grow ourselves. Ultimately, an organisation is effectively a group of people. There are buildings here but the buildings are pretty static, the thing that evolves is us as a group of people and the network of our brains and our thoughts.”

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

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An article brought to you by our Partners

By John Portch

When it comes to learning there is still a notable discrepancy between sport and the corporate world, where executive coaching has become the norm.

More than half of FSTE 100 CEOs are believed to use an executive coach. “The senior leaders of those organisations recognise the need to find time to step away, reflect and be coached,” says Dave Slemen, the Founder of Elite Performance Partners [EPP], a search, selection and advisory firm working across elite sport and specialising in performance.

“The number of CEOs, head coaches or performance directors in sport using coaches is not that high – we did our own research. It’s interesting that it’s a cultural shift that needs to be made within sport. I wonder how important it is in terms of that organisational purpose and culture that has an impact on learning.”

Slemen opens the floor to Scott Drawer, the Director of Sport at Millfield School in Somerset, and Simone Lewis, who currently works as a Technical Leadership Expert with Fifa.

The panel came together for this EPP Webinar, titled Creating Effective Learning Organisations, to discuss why organisations that prioritise learning are gaining a critical competitive edge.

Leaders Performance Institute members logged in from across the globe to hear the trio discuss the creation of learning cultures, tips to ensure your staff are continually engaged in self-development, and useful models of feedback to ensure that learning is captured and applied.

You need to make learning happen

Often sports organisations talk about learning but there needs to be a concerted effort to ensure your coaches and staff are continuously engaged. “It’s no different to training an athlete,” says Drawer, whose background includes time spent working for UK Sport, England Rugby and the Team Sky Innovation Hub.

“You’re fundamentally trying to change your memory state. There’s some underlying physiology and neuroscience that drives that. You’re trying to drive information and behaviours from short-term memory to long-term memory; and there’s some tools and techniques to do that based on really good pedagogy.

“The way I describe it: the best coaches we have are often the best teachers; and the best teachers can be the best coaches. We often forget some of this foundational knowledge that exists in pedagogy and andragogy.”

Drawer’s time away from sport has helped him to coalesce his thoughts. “If you’re really serious about this, you have to be deliberate and focused about it and create time to let it happen,” he continues. “You have to really think about how you’re going to structure those opportunities.”

The role of leaders in creating a culture of learning

“It’s very hard to have a learning culture if it’s not enforced by senior leaders,” says Lewis, who is an advocate of role modelling. “You can learn as an individual without [necessarily] being in a learning culture.” It is complex, although Drawer outlines some tips for teams looking to develop a culture of learning. “You have to feel safe and supported as an individual where you’re not going to be ridiculed for asking questions or questioning the norm. At lot of that starts with the leadership in any organisation,” he says.

“‘Psychological safety’ is used in lots of contexts, but you have to feel it. Equally, an individual has to feel vulnerable enough to want to expose themselves. All of that is around that principle of safety. Once you have that, it’s then around the support that you put around them. If I’m going to ask a question, I’m given freedom to explore it.”

Lewis has also found that leaders often need help when structuring difficult conversations. “Giving and receiving feedback is hard,” she says. “Using things like ‘greens and reds’ and neutral language, always starting with the positives, and then following up with the things that can be improved upon. ‘You and me agree’ is another one. ‘You go first, what do you think?’ then I offer my opinion and we discuss it rather than me as your boss diving in with feedback. BAR is another one: behaviour, affect, request. Using the ‘affect’ and ‘it makes me feel’ can be really powerful for giving and receiving feedback to bring about learning and change.”

Inevitably, as Slemen points out, some people will be resistant to change, either openly or secretly and he asks Drawer how he might overcome such reluctance. “I need to understand why they’re resistant,” says Drawer. “There could be some fundamental psycho-behavioural reasons why that’s the case because of their previous learning experiences.

“My experience is that the brilliant people, the brilliant leaders I’ve worked with in a number of domains, they make you feel safe to go and explore.”

Learning is not a case of cause-and-effect, so time and support are both requisites. “That means better resources, that means putting time aside, that means having a leadership that recognise your next competitive advantage is going to be in that space.”

Help people to self-reflect

Lewis explains that the key to supporting individuals in their learning is to raise their self-awareness and helping them to self-reflect. She says: “It’s about helping them reflect on what they know, how they learn.” There are a number of tools freely available and Lewis suggests the ‘so what? /now what?’ model as an example. “‘Everything’s gone on, so what have I learnt? And then the key question is what am I going to do about it? What am I going to do differently? What am I going to implement?’” she continues. “If you’ve had a whole season let alone a whole game it’s about distilling the key learning and what I’m going to take forward. Build a habit and a system of capturing that and sharing it, if that’s relevant, whether that’s sticky notes, voice mails or old-fashioned note-taking – find a way that works for you.”

Learning experiences need to be designed and tested. Says Drawer: “If I knew intervention X would definitely give me Y, I would be doing it all the time and that’s not the real world. You need to try lots of things and see how individuals respond.”

Teaching curiosity

Studies around andragogy – adult learning – demonstrate that adults need to see immediate value when learning. “You’ve got to find ways of making that happen,” says Drawer. “If you feel supported in doing that, that will just evolve over time. If you encourage the opportunity for people to question because they genuinely want to understand, and then create the space, we can test an idea and explore it.”

Lewis suggests that mentoring, including support for those who have never worked with mentors before, is important. As is peer to peer learning and communities of practice. “We’re social animals, we learn together, but in terms of adding a bit of structure around a project, say, with a group of people in your organisation, [it helps to use] action learning principles or just giving a little guidance around how to define the problem better, how to be creative in brainstorming solutions for how to move forward with a project.” That way people learn, solve a problem, and become better leaders in the process.

Maintaining a long-term learning lens

Performance is always the inevitable focus, so how can teams and individuals retain a lens on learning when the pressure to obtain results begins to tell? “I’d never polarise one or the other,” says Drawer, who puts himself in the position of a coach. “Of course, you’ve got to win, but there are still opportunities to learn, there are still coaching moments and it’s therefore probably the time and effort you spend on that versus the reality of trying to get an outcome. Whatever you do, even if you’re focusing on one thing, there’s still opportunities to do that. You just have to acknowledge that’s the reality of that environment that you’re then in.”

He believes that leaders need to be pragmatic when trying to exploit learning opportunities when everything is what he terms “full gas”. “There are ways that we can capture and sort this unstructured data so that you don’t miss the moments of long-term opportunity,” he says. “Every time you’re having a conversation, all that unstructured data, body behaviour, language – all of that is quality information that you can learn from. By the time you get to the end of the season, when you’re doing a full debrief, you can pull on it and extract themes; and that might help you move.”

Staff learning can also be periodised, just as training might be for athletes. Drawer discusses psychology theory about how leaders can structure learning opportunities, but preaches patience. “It can take you a year to understand the rhythms and culture of the organisation / ecosystem you’re going into,” he says. “Anyone coming in will need that and be able to recognise when those opportunities are and when you’re most likely to be in a position where your brain is free, you’re not cognitively loaded, and you’re ready to do those things.”

A video brought to you by our Partners

Written summary here.

Dr Scott Drawer, the Director of Sport, at Millfield School in Somerset, argues that humans are born to learn.

“It’s evolutionary – if you look at how everything started and how we survived – learning is what enabled you to progress and move on. We’re now in a hyper-connected world and there’s more information available than there has ever been,” he says.

“But sometimes the day job is a blocker to that and we need to recognise that to progress and move on, and evolve, it’s a fundamental part of survival.”

Drawer is joined by Simone Lewis, who currently works as a Technical Leadership Expert with Fifa, and Dave Slemen, the Founder of Elite Performance Partners [EPP] to discuss why learning organisations are gaining a critical competitive edge as part of EPP’s Creating Effective Learning Organisations Webinar.

Leaders Performance Institute members logged in from across the globe to hear the trio discuss the creation of learning cultures, tips to ensure your staff are continually engaged in self-development, and useful models of feedback to ensure that learning is captured and applied.

Man’s Search for Meaning: The classic tribute to hope from the Holocaust by Viktor Frankl

McFarland says: “This book really touched me emotionally and I read it at a time in my life where learning the importance of having a meaningful purpose and diving headlong into living that purpose was critical.”

Mindset: Changing the way you think to fulfil your potential by Carol Dweck

McFarland says: “Understanding the basis of growth and learning as the willingness to challenge yourself and that that is a great thing.”

More on Mindset here.

The Score Takes Care of Itself: My philosophy of leadership by Bill Walsh with Steve Jamison & Craig Walsh

McFarland says: “I am not sure that I am at all the kind of coach the great Bill Walsh was but I loved the detail and accountability he developed in the setting up of the 49ers machine.”

More on The Score Takes Care of Itself here.

Eleven Rings: The soul of success by Phil Jackson and Hugh Delehanty

McFarland says: “Phil Jackson totally understood how important context is to leadership. He demonstrates empathy in equal measure to strong decision making.”

More on Phil Jackson here.

Team of Teams: New rules of engagement for a complex world by General Stanley McChrystal

McFarland says: “McChrystal was able to see the need for change within the military operating systems in modern warfare. He implemented change from traditional military hierarchy to distributed leadership – this level of change in conceptual thinking is mind-blowing to me.”

More from the McChrystal Group here.

A Industry Insight brought to you by our partners Science in Sport.

“I always say: everyone is always excited for someone else to change,” says Jeremy Bettle, with a wry smile. “It’s always difficult when you have to deliver that to the person who has to change.”

The Performance Director at MLS champions New York City FC is the first guest on the Science in Sport Industry Insight podcast series, where he joins the Leaders Performance Institute Editor John Portch and Science in Sport’s Director of Performance Solutions James Morton to discuss his first season at the club, which culminated in the championship.

Bettle spoke to the pair about his arrival in the Big Apple, with Morton sharing from his own experiences of working with seven-time Tour de France winners Team Sky/INEOS Grenadiers and in English Premier League football.

Also on the conversational agenda were:

• Why Bettle feels he has not always handled change management well in the past [4:00];
• The difference between comfort and complacency in winning teams [14:00];
• The reasons why people management are often at the centre of innovation [20:00];
• Why enjoyment should be a practitioner’s personal priority [22:00];
• Reflective practice and how different questions can change mindsets [29:00].

James Morton: Twitter | LinkedIn

John Portch: Twitter | LinkedIn

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An episode of the Industry Insight Series brought to you by our Partners

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“Those first few years really did fast-track my development in management,” says Matt White, who was the Head Sport Director of cycling’s Team BikeExchange Jayco for 15 years, and now holds the position of Director of High Performance & Racing.

“Those first couple of years set me in a really good position to go through some pretty tricky times later in my career.”

White is speaking to the Leaders Performance Institute and Elite Performance Partners’ [EPP] Founding Partner Dave Slemen about his transition from professional rider to management over the course of a single winter in 2007 and 2008.

He also discussed how he has adapted as a leader in the intervening period, particularly in light of cycling’s pivot towards younger riders and an ever more cutthroat development environment.

By John Portch

“The whole idea of self-development, leadership and learning is such a passion of mine,” Jon Bartlett tells the Leaders Performance Institute.

Within a few minutes, the Elite Basketball Performance & Program Operations Advisor at the NBA explains just how interconnected people development, people management and process development is.

When each is done poorly, there tends to be common themes, such as a lack of investment in people, a lack of clarity, misalignment, and fear of challenging the status quo. These return time and again throughout our conversation and Bartlett cites the distinction between ‘discussion’ and ‘dialogue’ in making his case.

“In sport, we often skip the idea of engaging in dialogue – that is being open to and listening with intent to everyone’s viewpoint, willing to understand their perspectives, place value in their backgrounds and their experience – and instead we go straight to the discussion/debate narrative. Without recognising it, the situation quickly becomes a ‘me versus you’ with the actual problem not being addressed or solved.

In the first instalment of our two-part interview, we explore the steps teams can take to promote better people development, people management and process development.

Jon, what is the first step leaders can take towards creating shared understanding, language, meaning, vision and clarity within their teams?

JB: The obvious one, and it’s easier said than done, is making it visible. Does everyone know what the plan and strategy is? Is it evident within the environment you’re working in on a daily basis? Is there alignment between the owners, the board, the GM, coach, performance director and then all the different verticals underneath? Are there routine checkpoints along the way to determine progress or is it just an annual check-in to see how it’s going against the plan? Are there actual processes and opportunities to review the plan as it’s happening and emerging? Is the work of those who are non-athlete facing and those who are athlete facing aligned to the wider goals? Are the actions and words consistent? It’s easy to put words up on a wall, but are the actual actions and behaviours aligned with those?

How can goals and values be effectively communicated to staff members?

JB: It’s about taking people on a journey. In an ideal world they’re somewhat part of the conversation, or involved some way in developing the goals and values. This way you likely get to the point easily and quickly around how those values are embodied. For big staff groups though where this isn’t always possible there are opportunities through behavioural frameworks. If you’ve got a certain set of values and behaviours in which we’re going to operate, what are the actions that embody those values? And how can you live those on a daily basis? I think in having that shared language and that shared understanding, the co-creation and sharing of that responsibility, you’re then reaching all the different verticals. There are many ways to achieve this but, ultimately, I think the more people involved in the process the more buy-in and engagement there is early on.

What about the role of those below the leaders?

JB: To achieve alignment, the heads of department are critical in sharing the values, the language, and the processes. One thing I’ve thought about hard is giving flexibility to staff on how they do their work and how it contributes to the bigger picture. Empower and allow them to carry out how they do their job on a daily basis, but then collectively identify how that work contributes to the bigger picture. Now you’re meeting them in the middle. That is key to that alignment. If it’s just being told constantly, ‘this is what you need to do, this is how you need to do it’. I don’t want to work like that. Flip it around: the work you want to do and how you’re doing it; how is that contributing to the bigger picture? What  piece of the puzzle are you in contributing to the overall strategy? It’s both top-down and bottom-up.

How can organisations track both progress and the development of behaviours?

JB: You always want to be able to track if something is going in the right direction through constant touchpoints on where it’s at, what’s the progress, where’s it getting to, but it’s also a case of tracking what isn’t working as well, what needs to be dropped. So, I like the idea of asking how do we spend our time? And what are we spending our time on? Then you’re almost thinking what’s the problems we’re trying to deal with? Are we asking the right questions? Are we trying to solve the right problems? If you haven’t got the initial plan, vision and strategy, then what are you actually tracking? I think that’s key: you’ve got to have the first part first in order to then track your progress along that lifecycle.

What are some of the signs of poor process management?

JB: This is really talking now to how things are done, the methods in which we account for planning, ideation, creation, implementation, review and evaluation. I think, done poorly, there’s gaps at every stage. Done well, there might be one or two ‘getting there’ stages, which might need tweaking. Done great, there are processes and frameworks contributing to every step of that process, it’s a well-oiled machine and it effectively contributes to decision making. For example, if there’s no review or evaluation of a process, then there’s very little learning happening. And no learning means the same thing is being done over and over; when you want different results and you do the same thing it’s basically insanity. In sport, if you do the same thing over and over, recruit the same, go through the same cycle and expect different results, nothing changes. One of the themes that I think interchangeably gets regarded as poor staff incompetence is just poor process management. Sometimes, it just needs better oversight and better management of the process and then often this can lead to better action plans and development for staff.

Change often comes during losing streaks, periods of staff turnover and other turmoil. How can teams begin to find opportunities in those moments?

JB: You’ve got to ask: what’s the problem? What’s the question we’ve got to ask ourselves? Change is inevitable in sport, it’s a constant. That’s why I think context becomes so important. To get a group of people to work together towards a common goal you have to ask: was there even a common goal established at the start? If there wasn’t, then that’s the problem, not necessarily the people underneath, because they didn’t necessarily know what they were doing. The opportunity is there to ask the right questions and if you don’t know what the questions are then get people in to help ask those questions and find out what the problem is. Subsequent to that, all staff have the opportunity to be a part of something. What do you want your role to be in this and how are you going to contribute to it in terms of turning it around and changing it? Some people will be ‘I’m out of here, I’m done’. Some people don’t have the choice. But in a way, you’ve got to come back to: what is the problem? Poor results isn’t the problem, that’s the outcome. You’ve got to find out what’s leading to those poor results. Context is key and that’s the opportunity.

What is the right way to win over stubborn people within a team?

JB: We are talking here in the context of change, I guess, and with that how you go about convincing someone with a certain mindset and philosophy of practice tweaking how they do things, so they’re aligned to how an organisation or department wants to operate. The first thing is learning about what their perspectives are, what their background and experience is and what their modus operandi is. Gaining understanding of this means building a relationship and respecting that background. Equally it provides the opportunity of asking: ‘how can their background, practice, methodology, philosophy contribute to us trying to answer this problem?’ You want to get to a place where you get them to come up with a solution of how they contribute to the actual problem as opposed to saying, ‘this is where we’re going and this is where we need you to operate.’ Again, it comes down to that ‘dialogue versus discussion’ concept. They might not agree with the vision, strategy and pathway, which might mean a separation of ways, but if they are engaged then for me it’s about identifying with that individual how they align and operate the agreed vision and philosophy of the department.

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

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.”