Researcher Sam Robertson hopes you mention your decision making in your answer and explains how humans and machines can work together to find better insights and make better decisions.
Understanding ‘bounded rationality’
Sports practitioners are measuring more than ever but it is still not a complete picture. “There’s a number of different reasons we don’t measure something we know is important,” Sam Robertson, a sports researcher, told the 2018 Leaders Sport Performance Summit in London. It could be a question of finance, access or time. Whatever the reason, he continued, “this is a problem in sport because we start to see a disproportionate focus on information that’s available.” This leads to what political scientist Herbert A Simon termed ‘bounded rationality’. Robertson, who has worked with organisations including the NBA’s San Antonio Spurs, Fifa and the AFL’s Western Bulldogs, produced a slide containing a quote from Christian Lebiere and John R. Anderson that built on Simon’s point. It read: ‘The rationality of a decision should be considered in the context of the environmental and cognitive constraints acting upon the decision-maker’. Therefore, as Robertson said: “having a basic understanding of how bounded rationality is applied in this environment allows us to transform the way we display empathy and communicate with our staff and athletes”.
The perfect model is not out there
When evaluating information, Robertson argued that the law of diminishing returns, so visible in economic theory, applies to both humans and machines in performance settings. “Humans and machines do this in very similar ways, which is sometimes lost in the ‘humans versus machines’ debate,” he said. He made the point that humans cannot process large amounts of information concurrently, whether as a consequence of ecological adaptation or cognitive limitation (the jury is still out). Similarly, he explained that machine models are designed to be generalisable to new situations, that they are designed to express concepts as accurately and with as few variables as possible. As mentioned above, there are things we can and cannot measure. Robertson introduced a third layer. “There is information that we were never going to consider – we don’t know what we don’t know,” he added. “What information matters right now to the evaluation of a player that we’ve not even thought about?” It is important to be able to call on different machine learning algorithms in an applied environment. “We want [the model] that works well, but uptake can be based on a number of factors.”
Choosing the right model
What are some of those factors? “When we evaluate something like this, the decision of the human or the machine or the recommendation, it’s really important [to consider] how that recommendation performs,” said Robertson. He cited accuracy, how the model improves existing practice and by how much. Human factors are important too. It needs to be feasible in your environment, be cheap to run and be understood quickly if it is to generate usable insight. “The term I use to describe this area is ‘operational compatibility’. Is the way we’ve developed the recommendation or the visual report compatible with the way that we make decisions in our particular organisation?” It must also be able to highlight uncertainty and facilitate feedback that enables a choice to be made. “Can we look at the same problem in four different ways? Having that basic understanding of machine learning, even without being an expert in it, can help us look at the problem differently.”
Former England rugby international George Kruis discusses how he prepared for his post-playing career with a lot of help from his clubs.
Those 14 years spent at the thick end of the game have imbued him with a number of skills as he now turns his attention full-time to his CBD and wellness venture, Fourfive, which he co-founded with former Saracens teammate Dom Day in 2018.
Fourfive is the official wellness provider to a number of sports organisations and is going from strength to strength, yet Kruis saw himself at a disadvantage for all his talents away from the pitch.
“Most people who start a company, their background will be in finance, it will be marketing, it might be in product development, it won’t necessarily be in your ability to catch a ball in the lineout,” he tells the Leaders Performance podcast.
Kruis hung up his boots in June having ended his playing career with the Saitama Wild Knights in Japan and came into the Leaders studio to discuss how he prepared for his post-playing career while still at the top of his game.
During the course of our chat we discuss:
John Portch: Twitter | LinkedIn
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Phil Church of the Football Association discusses his greatest strengths as a leader.
It was a role the Leaders Performance Institute asked him about in a recent edition of the Leaders Performance Podcast.
“Our mission statement is probably a good place to start,” said Church, “and it’s to increase the number of English-qualified leaders, which is managers, coaches and technical directors, working at the highest levels of the game.”
We spoke at length about the FA’s suite of programmes and courses as it works towards fulfilling England Football Learning’s mission statement.
Attention then turns to Church’s strengths as a leader.
“Have you read the book Range?” he asks. The Leaders Performance Institute responds in affirmation having read David Epstein’s book in preparation for his presentation at the 2019 Leaders Sport Performance Summit in Atlanta.
Epstein makes the case for an extensive sampling period for all youngsters who play sport. To make his case he cites 18-time tennis grand slam champion Roger Federer, who played a range of sports in his youth and brought those skillsets from other sports to his game as a tennis player when he settled on a career in tennis.
“I think I’m the expert generalist,” says Church, who goes on to explain himself in greater detail.
What do you regard as your greatest strength?
PC: I think my greatest strength comes in two parts. It’s my experience throughout the last 25 years because it’s varied, and lots of people have varied experiences, so I think I know a lot of things about a lot of things. I started working in community football and I loved it; I had to work with key stakeholders, the youth offending teams. I ran an inclusion, employment and training programme for West Ham United. And that exposed me to some fantastic people, some brilliant work, and it wasn’t about football, it was about trying to help some young people get through some stuff. There was some brilliant stuff around that. I was at the PFA [Professional Footballers’ Association] as a coach developer, working for the players’ union, I’ve worked in clubs as the head of coaching and had work around the youth team and the senior game areas and now I’m leading a team at the FA. So my experience is a part of it. And then I think I have a good level of communication, so I think I can impart information and reason. I suppose communication and influence would probably be the part I’d link into that, where I think I can add impact.
What strength do you admire most in others?
PC: Resilience, I think. I use a quote quite often and I said it to my daughter a few weeks ago: ‘You’re only limited by courage, tenacity and vision’. And I believe that. There’s some brilliant people doing some amazing things and life throws lots of challenges at you and sometimes it’s hard and sometimes it’s good; and that tenacity is linked to the pitfalls you have and successes you have too – sometimes they are hard to deal with – so I think the level of resilience; some of the things that people go through, some of the stories of people who were in the Commonwealth Games or the Women’s Euros. Some of the journeys they’ve had and the way they’ve moved through those is fantastic.
What is the key to strong teamwork?
PC: Trust is at the heart of it. And ‘trust’ is just one word. But underneath the trust comes a whole layer of time, relationship-building, competence. And you get trust in different ways. You get trust from being good at something, you get trust from being consistent, behaving in certain ways all the time, you get trust from modelling good behaviour, you get trust from doing what you say you’ll do, which isn’t always as common as you might hope it would be in the world. So underneath trust, there’s so many facets that if you’ve got it, it’s strong. It’s easy to lose, and you can lose it really quickly. It takes a long time to get but it’s easy to lose quickly. But if you’ve got trust you can achieve lots of things with lots of people.
How will you look to get stronger in your role?
PC: I’m always looking to learn from other people. I am very fortunate to be able to work with and alongside lots of fantastic people from diverse backgrounds, from different lenses, with different skillsets. Partly for me it’s intentional. So I’m driven by developing high performance, developing strong cultures, by helping to develop people, and within that space it allows me to get access to some unbelievable people who are doing some fantastic things. I’ve got that passion for developing and improving and I’ve got loads of people around me who I think are magnificent. Part of it is probably the self-reflection bit. So I’m around it a lot, I see it a lot, and I’m working out how I can apply part of that to myself is probably key.
Listen to the full interview with Phil Church below:
John Portch: Twitter | LinkedIn
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Jimmy Wright, Team Biokineticist at the Natal Sharks, reflects on why sport often teaches us the wrong values.
“It’s a simple African way of saying my existence is dependent on your success – me being well is dependent on you being well,” he told the Keiser Series Podcast in August.
“I think team sports should embrace that idea because there cannot be a single standout star in a team. You’ll never see a team succeed because of a single individual. In fact, individuals will rise to the top because of great teams.”
Wright spoke at length about his 23 years working with the Sharks – he was the first biokineticist to work full-time at a South African franchise – and how his role has evolved during that time.
“There’s more evidence to support what we do but, at the same time, there’s more perspective, but certain things don’t change,” he continued. “If you chase the science, if you purely chase the literature, and you forget about experience and what has traditionally delivered the results you might just miss the diamonds.”
Here, Wright reflects on his strengths and areas for future improvement.
Jimmy, what do you consider to be your greatest strength?
JW: It’s my ability to take perspective. Perspective helps cut through the stuff that can potentially distract and perspective is what is creating the future for us. If we can see things for how they can be and we can look back from that point to the present, and if we can tell the story of what created that reality, we will have the formula for success. But you need to be able to do a bit of future travel. Perspective is important, understanding that winning is not everything, losing is not final, but to focus on getting better – growth – and take whatever the business is going to give you year on year. Perspective for me is a good thing; I think it’s more beneficial than benching one and a half times my body weight.
What strength do you admire in others?
JW: I would say it’s putting up with me! On a good day, I can be very draining – you can ask my wife – but I think it’s not in a bad way. It’s passion. Our CEO once upon a time was a player here [Eduard Coetzee], he then went away, played in France, came back, and now happens to be the CEO of the Sharks. His go-to line is that he came back to fire me! The nice thing is that we’ve always been very good friends and we still our very good friends. It’s a respectful relationship. But I think I can be challenging. I follow the advice I would have given myself when I was younger, I push hard. If I want money, so to speak, I won’t go away until I can have what I want, and if I can’t have the money, I’ll find another way. But on a good day I’m a high performance manager’s worst nightmare.
What is the key to strong teamwork?
JW: It’s ubuntu. It’s very simply an unselfish mindset. It’s counter-cultural. Sport does teach us all the wrong values, it teaches us winning at all costs. You can’t take that idea into a marriage. If you take the idea into a marriage that it’s winning at all costs, you’re going to be single very quickly. To a lesser extent teamwork has to focus on that which I will benefit from only when the team wins. Therefore, my efforts have to be solely focused on what makes the team better because if the team doesn’t win then I’m not going to win. What makes a team better? Winning fixes a lot of problems, so I will do whatever I can to make this team win but it starts with me. It cannot start with anybody else.
How will you look to get stronger in your role?
JW: To keep that perspective I mentioned, to keep myself sharp mentally and physically. Obviously, we deliver a health service and I like to practise what I preach and I like to be respected. I’ll keep pushing myself physically and mentally, I will keep on valuing good relationships. If I can keep on doing that then when I eventually depart I will have made a difference. That’s the important thing: to say that when we leave we’ve done our best, the place is better than when I arrived, then I’ll be happy.
To hear more from Jimmy Wright, listen below:
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27 Jul 2022
ArticlesJarrad Butler of Connacht Rugby and Rory Sloane of the Adelaide Crows provide an insight as captains of their respective teams.
He was on the cusp of his 21st 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.”
Brighton Manager Hope Powell reflects on her qualities as a leader and discusses the leadership traits she admires most.
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.
Chris Scott, Senior Coach of the Geelong Cats, discusses the balance of challenge and support, as well as the blend of long and short-term goals, in high performance environments.
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.
23 Jun 2022
ArticlesHumility and curiosity underpinned the approach of a coach more concerned with developing his craft and helping his players than collecting any individual accolades.
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.
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.
| Quick leadership checklist | Examples |
| Determine a leadership objective based on specific and strong values. | Personal: Authenticity, empathy, vulnerability
Professional: Collaboration, Curiosity, Creativity, Courage, Communication, Trust |
| Determine what kind of presence you want to project. | Charisma |
| How will you manage your emotions in times of change, stress or difficulties. | Stable, firm and presence realistic attitude; keep calm in the chaos |
| Think about what you say, when and how. | Know the context, be visionary, be strategic |
| Firmness and kindness at the right times. | Radical candor |
| Body language for the different contexts. | |
| Determine key points in conversations. | Asking questions, listening, giving feedback, negotiating authority, linguistic style |
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.
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.
