By John Portch

Jarrad Butler, the flanker who captains United Championship Side Connacht Rugby in western Ireland, recalls the time when, as a young professional, his senior teammates left him “rattled”.

He was on the cusp of his 21^st birthday, in 2012, when he joined the Queensland Reds on a short-term contract to help cover for a recent spate of injuries.

Leadership was not on his mind at the time. “When I was at the Reds, early doors, it was kind of hard to say because when you’re just fresh out of school and you’re just kind of getting in there you don’t really see what’s going on behind-the-scenes as much,” Butler told an audience at Virtual Leaders Meet: Evolution of Leadership in June 2021. “You don’t really see the conversations that are being had, you just kind of see what’s happening on the field, and I’m just wondering around trying to do my job, do it really well.”

The Reds had won the Super Rugby title the previous season and the training sessions were an eye-opener for the young Butler. “I remember some guys that were maybe my age now getting into me about something that I might’ve done on the training field and just how much that rattled me a little bit as well,” he continued.

“It’s one of those things where I reflect on it and [tell myself]: ‘actually, I think I did the right thing there, but what could I have done better?’ and then maybe have a conversation after the training session and kind of tease out what happened and get a positive from it.

Butler tries to bring this dynamic to his interactions as Connacht captain, a role he has held since 2018. “It’s one of those things where you don’t really notice at the time until you’re reflecting on it,” he added.

The scenario is familiar to session moderator Dan Jackson, the Leadership Development Manager at the AFL’s Adelaide Football Club. Of Adelaide, he said: “We talk about this model of care and candour, if you criticise people all the time and you’re just ruthless, then, yeah, you’re driving standards but people eventually are just going to turn a shoulder on you because they know that there’s no love there, but [after] showing that care and making sure there’s a standard of love, then you can be as candid as you need, because then it’s a gift rather than a slap.”

Two years later, in 2014, Butler joined the Canberra-based Brumbies, where he briefly played alongside the team’s captain, Ben Mowen. Butler described Mowen as a mentor, someone who was able to drive standards, while also being able to put the proverbial arm around a player’s shoulder.

“He just kind of nailed it somewhere in the middle,” said Butler. “I think that first and foremost, is he was just a really good guy, as he was someone that would come down to Canberra and he would help you move into your place and he would want to have a coffee with you, and, you know, that’s crazy when you’re 21 years old, you’re the new guy there and you have this guy wanting to genuinely meet you and be a friend.

“But then when he got onto the field, he was an animal and he was ruthless on the field, performed at a consistently high level. So being able to find that balance there I think was the most interesting for me, and seeing that there’s not just one way to skin a cat.”

Relationships enable difficult conversations

Joining Butler and Jackson is Adelaide captain and midfielder Rory Sloane. At the time, Sloane was in his third season as captain (including one as joint-captain alongside Taylor Walker) as the Crows embarked on a rebuilding project to restore the club to AFL prominence.

Sloane had fewer concerns about his on-field captaincy than he did his off-field abilities. “Off-field stuff has always been my challenge absolutely – that’s something that I’ve always had to work on massively over the years,” he said. “I wasn’t someone that loved confrontation at all, and that’s where I worked really hard over the years just on my relationships with people to be able to then have those conversations.”

He cites the influence of renowned American leadership specialist Brené Brown. “There was something she said: ‘Sit next to someone when you’re having those conversations rather than across’; because I reckon I used to always come across very aggressively, so sitting next to someone was something that really helped me just have those conversations.”

It is an attitude that Jackson promotes around the Crows’ enviroment. “We’ve spent a lot of time talking about connection, and it’s a theme I keep seeing across elite sport, and also across corporate organisations – great cultures are built on connection,” he said.

Sloane readily admitted that results were not good enough at the time, and the Crows remain a work in progress (Sloane himself suffered an ACL injury in April), but he explained to the virtual audience that it was important to get things back on track through building those team bonds.

“We finished on the bottom of the ladder last year [2020], for the first time at the club and, in my first year as captain that stung massively,” he said. “And we got some feedback from guys in our football club, in our leadership, where we [felt we had] lost our way, our identity as a football club, where everyone used to know that we trained hard and we had this ruthless edge as a footy club.”

The players convened, in their own free time during the off-season – Covid restrictions at the time prevented interstate and overseas travel – and trained three or four times per week. It consisted of activities such as practice games, Pilates, and boxing sessions. “We look for opportunities to be together,” he continued. “It’s everything that comes into that connection whether it be [socialising] or something as simple as [listening to] music.”

Jackson sheepishly commended Sloane for his work on himself as a leader, for accepting that he did not automatically know how to manage difficult conversations with teammates. “You’re humble in this space, Rory, and I know you keep accounts of when you’ve chatted to your teammates – and you’re not running an Excel spreadsheet – but you’re checking in with guys you haven’t checked in with in a while, just calling or sending a text and making sure they know that you care so that you can have those hard conversations.”

Butler is of a similar mindset and drew parallels between his time at the Brumbies and his current tenure at Connacht, where he arrived in 2017. Both are clubs based in relatively remote parts of the country, with smaller populations, and founded by their respective federations as ‘development’ teams – a home for players who were not as highly sought after by other teams but who retained significant potential. Yet the Brumbies are Australia’s most successful team in Super Rugby and Connacht were a particularly tough proposition for most opponents long before their 2015-16 PRO12 title.

He said: “You’re usually a bit further away from your family, you get better connection with each other just off the bat because you’re all there for the same reason – you’re there because you’re trying to prove people wrong. Maybe you have a little chip on your shoulder; and I’ve found that being on the other side of that, when you actually know somebody you get a better connection with them. It makes it easier to have those hard conversations.”

Player power

Both Butler and Sloane speak of leadership groups drawn from their playing groups. In Connacht’s case, it consisted of eight players; in Adelaide’s, five. Beyond their responsibilities for driving standards and behaviours, theirs is a vital role in ensuring learning and development of understanding because there are times when a coach’s impact can be limited.

“It’s one of those things where you’re in a meeting and you’re getting – you know, the defence coach comes up, the head coach, and they’re showing clips and clips and clips – it’s easy for things to get watered down,” said Butler.

“For the main session, we [often] get one of the players, usually one of the leaders, early on they would do the review of the session, and they would come up with the clips. This year, it’s been a little harder to have these meetings with Covid, but still, coming up with clips and sending them out because we’ve found that when you’re getting told by your peers, when they’re highlighting something I think it holds more weight than when you’re getting it from a coach for whatever reason.”

The impact of your peers can be multifaceted, as Sloane illustrated when discussing the culture that was developing under Adelaide’s Senior Coach Matthew Nicks, who took the team’s reins in 2020. “His whole philosophy around football is: how can you help someone else there?” said Sloane. “And that’s not just around football, that’s around life as well, and I think that’s the biggest shift in mentality I’ve seen in our players.”

Jackson encouraged the team to celebrate those moments of selflessness, which quickly became part of the Adelaide routine. “It’s literally nothing special,” said Sloane. “We’ve had a couple of sessions this year and, at the end of the year, we might recognise a few guys for what they’ve done to prioritise someone else. It literally just became something that’s picked up by other players now, and we’ve noticed it, and I think it’s something that’s starting to become infectious.

“I’ve spoken to DJ [Jackson] about this, [and the important thing] is actually to just reward someone for something that you’ve seen and making sure you’re still instilling those habits, because, yeah, if it goes unnoticed then at times it may not become engrained, so that’s something that I think goes down incredibly well.”

He asked Jackson to elaborate and the Adelaide Leadership Development Manager provided an apt summary.

“Anyone involved in elite sport knows that you can’t get to the elite level without systems,” he said. “I mean building in routines that become habits and then those habits just become natural, and that’s something that you guys are leading impeccably as a team.”

By John Portch

Hope Powell, the First-Team Manager at Women’s Super League [WSL] side Brighton & Hove Albion, has been coaching for almost 25 years.

What makes her a better coach now than she was when she was first appointed England Women’s Head Coach in 1998 – the first full-time appointment to the position – or, say, when she led England to the final of the 2009 European Championships?

“I don’t know that I’m better,” is her candid response. “I’m not saying I’m any better. I think I’m different, I don’t always get it right.” There are times when she admits that she can be intolerant in her interactions with players. “I’m having to adapt myself,” she continues. “I am still learning the art of management and I think it’s important that you keep learning because the game evolves, people evolve, their experiences are different.”

When Powell took the England reins, women’s football in the country was still largely amateur. The players she led to consecutive World Cup quarter-finals in 2007 and 2011 all held other jobs. Now, thanks in no small part to the work Powell did during her 15 years at the Football Association [FA], she is in charge of a fully professional Brighton. She joined the club in 2017.

Here, Powell, who also serves as mentor working with the FA, Premier League, Uefa, and Fifa, reflects on her qualities as a leader and discusses the leadership traits she admires most.

Hope, what do you regard as your biggest strength as a manager?

I think being honest and supportive with staff. I’m sure if you were to ask any member of my staff if they feel supported I think they’d say ‘yes’. I’m fair, honest and supportive. I see being honest as a strength; ‘this is what I think, and I’m saying it how it is’.

What strength do you admire most in others?

Honesty. Being authentic.

What do you mean by ‘authentic’?

I know it has nothing to do with the delivery, but my experience has been interesting. A lot of coaches are copy-cat coaches. They’ll watch you deliver a session and write everything you do down and then just go out and copy what you’ve done without perhaps understanding, without putting some context to it. I’ll ask them ‘if it doesn’t work how are you going to change it? How are you going to be creative?’ I’ve had a lot of that in my career. ‘Hope, have you got any sessions that you can give me?’ No, I can’t give you anything. That’s not coaching. Put yourself out there, design your sessions, have a go, if it doesn’t work, tweak it and do something else. I think authenticity is a big one for me. The coaches of the future, in any sport, will need to be creative, authentic, and be students of their sport; understanding the nuances of their game.

What is the key to strong teamwork?

Strong teamwork is all believing in the vision. All on the same page. I think if everyone buys into that and the team buys into that, it brings that togetherness and that togetherness means that you want to work for your team, your teammates. It’s having that. ‘This is where we want to be, do we all believe in it? Yes we do. Let’s all work in one direction and if we all believe in it collectively then we’re more likely to support each other and work harder for each other and do anything for each other.’ That for me is what teamwork is. Everyone believes in what you’re trying to achieve and everyone wants it because everyone is prepared to work together.

You’re Brighton’s First-Team Manager but you’re not the keeper of the club’s vision.

No, the owner [Tony Bloom] sets the vision for both teams: the men top ten, the women top four; and our job is to try and deliver that with the resources he puts at our disposal. It’s a collective. He set the vision but we’ve all gone ‘great, let’s go for it. Why not?’ And I go: ‘top four? Why not top one?’ That’s good because it gives you some direction. Is it just about staying in the league? The first year I was there, of course it was, because we were new to the WSL. The owner is a fan of the club and as soon as he decided he wanted to make progress in the women’s game he said ‘this is where I want this club to go’ and we said ‘great’ and, for me, it was telling him ‘this is what I think it will take’. We have ownership of that and he’s been very supportive.

Do you enjoy regular conversations with the Brighton board?

We have a men’s board and a women’s board, which is great. I have to present to the board annually. We have a Technical Director [David Weir] who has that direct link with the board. It’s kind of a one-club concept, one-club vision for the men and the women, so you feel heavily involved. And my job as the First-Team Manager is to ensure the team delivers that on and off the pitch, which is a great responsibility and a huge one. It’s what I’m used to. It’s what I like doing.

How will you look to get stronger in your role?

It’s a challenge to bring in the right players and the right staff at a club like ours; and there is always some turnover at the end of the season. But the right players and the right staff make your job so much easier. We’re in a recruitment phase at the moment and we just want to get better and perform better. That’s the idea.

By Sarah Evans

• Pushing the players hard every day is not sustainable

• Open, honest and respectful conversations are crucial for successful culture

• Player empowerment is important but the coach must take ultimate responsibility

High performance environments are all about balance

Clubs and people are often judged heavily on whether they win or lose, and of course winning is every team’s goal, but the context for each team, and opportunities they might have are so different, explained Chris Scott, Senior Coach of the Geelong Cats in the Australian Football League, at our Sport Performance Summit in Charlotte back in 2020. “We focus in too much on standards, it’s important, but only one part of the high performance environment” stated Scott when delving deeper into what makes a successful team environment. He emphasised that if you only look to drive standards in training, then you miss out on some other crucial aspects which make up a winning team such as psychological safety, wellbeing and most importantly enjoying playing the sport. “You need to be really clear on when to push, but it needs to be balanced off with the work outside of those hard periods,” he added. If the players are dreading turning up to training every day, you’re not going to get the best out of them, and pushing them hard constantly, is an unsustainable model.

When to prioritise the future over short-term success

One of Scott’s biggest strengths is his ability to collaborate with a large group of staff and players. This skill is crucial when dealing with a wide range of players, with many being only 17 years old, to those in their mid-30s approaching the end of their careers. Being able to provide messaging and alignment for that broad spectrum of players is a key attribute for a successful coach. One of Scott’s first priorities was to “embrace change, and transition young players into the team.” However, when bringing in youth, you need to have older players move on, and managing those transitions can be very challenging. Scott emphasised that it is crucial to articulate that plan to the wider squad and make it very clear to the older players “they weren’t just going to be thrown on the scrap heap.” It is so important to give the older players the respect they deserve and manage the transition effectively, so the team can be successful both in the short and long term. How this transition is managed also has a huge effect on the mid-range players, and their perception of how they will be treated when they come towards the end of their careers. So having these conversations in a really open, honest and respectful way is key.

When to empower the players and when to use your expertise as a coach

Player empowerment as a concept has grown more and more popular as a coaching method, and numerous teams see great success when it is adopted. However, Scott explains that how and when you empower your players can be crucial, and also how the context of your own environments play a big role in this. “Fundamentally I work for the players as a coach, so what they believe is best for their performance is of paramount importance,” said Scott. But, he caveated this with saying that ultimately the coach needs to take the final responsibility and had to set the overall principles by which the team is aligned. It also depends on the make up of the team. If you have a squad who are very individual and you give too much responsibility to the whole squad, the result will be people pulling in different directions and no cohesion. Scott explained that the most effective way to marry player empowerment with cohesion was to “make sure the views of the most influential players are congruent to the ways the senior leadership want to lead the club”. Finally, understanding when to empower the players and ask for their feedback and when to take the lead and use your own expertise as a coach is critical to success.

By John Portch

The Leicester Tigers’ turnaround under Head Coach Steve Borthwick has been remarkable.

The team claimed a record ninth Gallagher Premiership title, defeating Saracens 15-12 at Twickenham Stadium in last weekend’s final, just two seasons after finishing eleventh.

Borthwick, who took the Tigers’ reins in 2020, led them to sixth in his first campaign and is a champion at the end of his second. It is an outcome he would have dreamed of when he spoke at Virtual Leaders Meet: Coach Development in April 2020, just weeks after confirming his new post.

“This is a great club that has lost its way and this is a fantastic challenge – and I love a challenge,” he told an audience of Leaders Performance Institute members drawn from across the globe. “I need to go in with a real, clear plan, what are we going to do? How are we going to go about it? But I’m also really clear that whilst I have my ideas – I’m going to give a clear direction of what we’re going to try and do, then you’re going to harness the skills of every one of the coaches, every one of the players – to make sure we find the best way of doing it.”

Those sentiments ring true two summers later. Borthwick’s humility has been a mainstay at Leicester and was evident during his appearance on the virtual Leaders stage, where he spoke of developing his craft as a coach, as well as creating experiential environments to support the development of his players through feedback and communication.

Here, we outline some of his reflections from that session supplemented by some insights from Leaders Performance Advisor Edd Vahid, who serves as Assistant Academy Director at English Premier League club Southampton FC.

Find ways to challenge and support players

“The title of this session is ‘mastering the craft’ but I’m a million miles away from that.” Borthwick, who retired from playing in 2014 while already working as an assistant coach to Eddie Jones with the Japan men’s national team, learnt quickly that simply coaching from his experience as a player would leave him redundant. He said: “My coaching developed into one of trying to always understand the game; and the best coaches are the best players. I want to learn from them, observe them, see how they go about things; posing challenges to them and then observing how they deal with those challenges. How can I make some suggestions that help? How can I get players to learn from other players and what other coaches are around that I can learn from? The more you coach, the more you learn, the more you realise what you don’t know.”

Devise game-relevant practice sessions

A practice session has limited value if you haven’t made clear the principle that you’re working on or the context in which you’re trying to do it. “With England, in practice, we work off a checklist of things that ensure the context is clear,” said Borthwick, who coached England’s men’s forwards under Eddie Jones between 2015 and 2020. “Am I making that clear to the players? Am I putting them in situations that are game-relevant and am I asking them to adapt to situations that develop their skill and enables them to coach each other? Be very clear about the endpoint that you’re working towards.”

Be more interested in what you don’t know

A coach must be able to spot the gaps in their knowledge and skillsets and work to bridge those gaps. “I think there’s a big gap in my coaching background around teaching. When you’re a teacher trying to engage people who don’t want to be engaged, by comparison, I’ve got it easy, working with elite rugby players; I see that gap and I’m trying to educate myself,” said Borthwick.

How do you get the best out of your players in any given moment?

“How do you get a message to a player and get the best out of them? Everyone is different,” said Borthwick. “There is a time and place for absolutely everything; the skill of the coach is knowing when you recognise the right approach at any point in time. You’ve got to be absolutely clear what standards are expected, what your key objective is within any one session, and then understanding how you get the best out of each of the players.”

The power of self-reflection

Self-reflection is key. “How do you reflect at the end of each day or each session? Do you write it down? Do you have it on your computer? Do you have a journal or a diary?” asked Borthwick. “We all make mistakes but it’s how do we learn from them? You’ve got to continue to learn, understand the context of the day, that period in the season, that player and their life, and get the best out of them.”

The view from Leaders Performance Advisor Edd Vahid:

Steve offers a number of clues as to why he and his Leicester Tigers team have enjoyed their recent successes. He appears invested in developing strong processes that apply to both his personal development and the team’s progression. The term ‘clear’ features multiple times in the transcript and is perhaps evidence of a desire to provide coaching and playing staff with the clarity required to perform. Providing a clear direction and detailed expectations, whilst at the same time embracing uncertainty and responding to individual needs, requires significant skill.

The humility and curiosity that underpins a commitment to personal development is also evident. Phil Jackson famously championed the value of a ‘beginner’s mind’ and this appears evident in Steve’s approach. Jackson reportedly said ‘in the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities; in the expert’s mind there are few’. We often talk about learning representing a competitive advantage, and the article offers every indication that Steve role models this in an exemplary manner.

Whilst operating in a team environment, an emphasis on understanding and supporting individuals (players and staff) will remain a critical feature in the future of coaching. Reflecting on the opportunities to further understand individuals will likely present endless possibilities.

By Lorena Torres Ronda

At the top level of high performance, there is constant pressure to achieve success.

In the pursuit of success, there is likely to be more than one ‘good’ performance plan. Success can be viewed through a number of different prisms, can be defined in very different ways, and can be achieved through a range of approaches.

Leadership styles can be formal (bestowed through job title or position) or more informal (such as the role of influencers) but it is the leader who sets the values and principles of work that will fundamentally mark the direction of the project. The vision for a project – and the path to success – will be determined by the leader.

The identity of that leader, or leaders, is significant. There are, for example, world-renowned teams whose organizational values outweigh the aura of the individual. These include the New Zealand All Blacks, the NBA’s San Antonio Spurs or, more recently, English Premier League champions Manchester City. They are known for being winners and have what is widely regarded as a ‘great culture’. Yes, they have or have had charismatic leaders, whether it’s players, coaches or managers, but there is no single individual on these teams who is bigger than the team and their pursuit of success.

Of late, however, there are certain organizations where leadership appears to be driven by an individual (often a star player). Are there serious repercussions to this approach in the present and future of these organizations?

Organizational leadership

Who sets the overall vision of an organization? That person should know today’s vision and understand where is it going. That sounds good in theory but, as noted above, this is an era where players have a lot of power – in some cases even more than the coach or the manager. In fact, there are some organizations who deliver the present and the destiny of the organization to the star, or franchise player, of the current moment. This can involve enlisting them to shape the vision and it can also include eliciting the ideas and opinions of the superstar in the construction and direction of the team, which remains paramount. Any team adopting this approach must do so with caution since it may negatively impact the direction of the organization and the individuals that collectively form the team. These people (from managers to interns) will be the ones that, at the end of the day, should promote and act according to the values on which the organization is based.

The leaders who hold the vision, present and future, are the ones responsible for creating and communicating this vision, conveying direction and meaning. Moreover, they also have the responsibility for building the structure of the team, creating the roles, responsibilities or points of interdependence. And, finally, motivating individuals so that they follow the vision (with shared vision, goals and objectives) and support the development of its staff members with a view to retaining talent within the organization (especially in a moment where staff members are willing to leave when working under conditions that do not allow for personal development, professional growth; where there can be a frustrating environment, egos, unnecessary pressure, inadequate remuneration for responsibilities and role, and the like).

Individual leadership

Leadership can derive from formal leadership – the leader’s title or position in the organization – but also from a charismatic personality. As a leader, one has to ask: what kind of leader do you want and hope to be? In management or director positions, dedicating time to others, planning and guiding will be a fundamental part of those roles; a work oriented to the development of others is also part of the mission. Therefore, in thinking about what characteristics are going to define you as a leader, it will be essential to have a base of coherence, that your thoughts, words and actions are on the line.

However, when a leader is at the service of others, a facilitator to accompany, direct, guide, etc., there must be a safe environment. Knowing who is ‘the boss’, meaning who will make the final decision (leadership or players) will be important in the process of building the entity’s vision and mission, for the short or long run.

Charismatic leaders can present themselves as true towers of strength, but it is difficult to succeed alone. Create a work team that makes you a better leader, a work team that helps you, advises you, provides perspective and supports and celebrates the moments of success with you. It is also important to let others lead. Natural-informal (non-formal) leaders can have a lot of influence on certain projects, and on people, as they can be very powerful. Detecting natural leaders, guiding them and at the same time giving them autonomy can be a formidable tool for a high performance program.

Strategic leadership

The mission, the vision and the core values should be above those of the individual, although they emanate from a visionary leader, and the management must ensure that the behaviors are in line with these. Defining who in the organization manages and leads the vision of where you are and where you are going should not be dependent on individuals, even if these individuals are strong promoters of the vision.

Now: where does the balance need to sit between meeting long-term goals (such as player development, injury prevention or the future of the organization) and the need to win ‘today’?

There is a trend across pro sports that organizations with less competitive pressure are capable of building projects with medium and long-term visions, working in safer areas, building from collaboration, guidance and delegation, managing egos, innovation, creativity and job security. Stability, trust, protection or support seems to allow talent to develop their tasks in a safer environment, with innovation and creativity and at the same time with room for improvement when things are not going in the right direction or aren’t working well. However, the moment the team begins to have ‘winning’ goals and pressure, or when it builds around a certain core of players, does something then happen? Are those environments more pressured by the umbrella of fear? Does this happen specifically in big markets? Is there a different culture depending on the market (small vs big) in the long term goals? Who is responsible for ensuring the environment that protects the identity of the organization?

In conclusion, it is worth reflecting on the words of renowned American investor Ray Dalio, who said: “An organization is a machine consisting in two major parts: culture and people.” He explained that you need to get the right culture and the right people, and for any organization to function well, “its work principles must be aligned with its members’ life principles”, so that the vision is clear, and the mission is shared.

By John Portch

Ulster Rugby have enjoyed a memorable 2021-21 campaign that could yet end their wait for a first major title since 2006.

The Irish side are due to travel to Cape Town to face the Stormers in the semi-finals of the United Rugby Championship this Saturday [11 June].

Whether the match, or indeed the competition, ends in a victory or a defeat, the Ulster Head Coach is ready to meet those two impostors just the same. He does, however, issue one caveat.

“I get more upset when we’re not as good as I think we can be than if we lose,” he tells the Leaders Performance Institute.

How long does it take him to calm down when his team have lost a match they should have won?

“It takes however long it takes us to analyse, frame in my own head what the reasons and the adaptations are, and then being able to pull those together with the people that are doing the same process in whatever area of the organisation they’re in,” McFarland continues.

“Once I’ve done all of that and had those conversations I’m normally back on track. Sometimes it takes longer because the answers are not as easy, but once we’ve pulled everyone together and we’re all single-minded in what we’re going to do – ‘done’. Move on. That’s why ‘every inch’ is the foundation of what we do. You can’t start coaching until you’ve got that sorted. If someone doesn’t try then there’s no point in me doing any coaching because I don’t know how they normally do it or how they would do it in a game. It’s pointless. Give me full effort then I can coach. Until we’ve done that you can’t do that. We’ll deal with effort first.”

McFarland delves into the art behind his coaching and his approaches to cultural mapping in the first part of our interview. In the second, he explores his strengths as a leader and comes to some candid conclusions.

What do you regard as your biggest strength?

I think my determination to win. I’m going to say that. It’s not fancy but I hate losing. In terms of big picture stuff, that motivates me to do what I do. And I’m certainly not great at a few things as well. I think the competitive nature of who I am really helps in terms of being the best that we can be. As I said, I am more upset when we’re not as good as I think we can be than if we lose. That’s a big driver for me. When the processes or standards become more important to you than the result, you’re going to get good results. I want to be the best at everything we do. Maybe that sounds wishy-washy. Or maybe it doesn’t.

What I’m going to add to one of my biggest strengths is understanding context. I have a background in psychology so I think that goes along with relating to people, so I’m able to put myself in other people’s shoes. I think that’s a really big strength in terms of interpersonal skills, to be able to have empathy and understand what people are going through. But I also feel I’m pretty good at understanding the context of organisations and where they stand emotionally, in terms of outside influences, in terms of their history, in terms of where they want to go. I would think that’s critical in terms of decision making because if you don’t understand the context of where Ulster were when I arrived or where we are at the end of this season, how on earth are we going to make any decisions on what to do next? It’s the same in your interpersonal skills. If I’m sat in the office here and chatting with one of the players and I don’t understand the context of where they are, how can I give them any advice or help them to answer questions that they have personally? That would be a strength of mine: understanding context on an organisational level but also being able to take the perspective of other people.

What strength do you admire most in others?

I reckon relating to people. The people that have really good interpersonal skills. It’s very admirable. I’m not an impersonal person, but I wouldn’t necessarily say I would be in the top ranks of interpersonal skills. It’s certainly something that I place at the very top of what I’m trying to do, of what I’m doing on a day to day basis. The people that can relate, we know the ones, there are not many of them. There are not many people that are ready to do that.

What is the key to strong teamwork?

Communication and clarity. You’ve got to have the individuals within it who are competent but clarity on what you’re doing and why you’re doing it, what you’re trying to achieve, and then being able to communicate within those teams. Stanley McChrystal’s team of teams is a brilliant book. That dispersed leadership model opened my eyes to how really important jobs can be done without somebody having to pass down a message from Washington via so-and-so.

How will you look to get stronger in your role?

I reckon relying on the feedback of the people that I work with. I’ve got really good people that I work with here and relying on them to provide me with the feedback from what they need from me, I think that’s pretty important.

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:

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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.