By John Portch

Sonal Arora’s description of an operating theatre during surgery is, frankly, alarming.

“You would think that the environment in which we do this is very contained, very prescriptive, nice and quiet; that you’re allowed to get on with it and everything works,” she said. “Unfortunately, that’s not the case.”

Arora is a Consultant Emergency Surgeon with the Chelsea & Westminster NHS Trust in London. She told an audience at last November’s Leaders Sport Performance Summit at the Kia Oval that the picture can be particularly bad during emergency procedures.

“Lots of research looking into stress in surgery has shown that things break down in almost all cases,” she continued. “We have the door to the operating theatre opening and closing every other minute. You are trying to do this difficult procedure. The patient is bleeding. The anaesthetic machine is beeping and somebody is just coming in and out talking about whatever it is that they want to talk about. The noise can be so loud it’s almost as much as a motorway. So it’s not that sterile setting that you would think.”

Inevitably, as Arora explained, this has consequences. “One in ten patients who come into our hospital will suffer from iatrogenic harm – that means harm due to the healthcare that they are receiving, not the pathology.” In some cases, iatrogenic harm can be fatal.

Despite improved simulation tools, the situation persists. “We thought: how can we accelerate this learning? How can we get people to perform better, faster, safer in a way that would take little resource and maximise what we were already doing?”

Over the course of 30 minutes, Arora laid out how, in a joint research project, Imperial College and its peers working in operating theatres across the United States and Australia alighted on better feedback and debriefing as the solution to improved learning and performance.

Here, the Leaders Performance Institute returns to her presentation in a two-part feature. In part one, we set out how Imperial’s OSAD [Objective Structured Assessment Tool for Debriefing] can assist those individuals responsible for facilitating post-performance reviews.

In part two, we will shift the focus to Imperial’s SHARP [Structured, Healthcare, Assessment, Review, and Performance] tool, which is more geared towards the learners themselves.

‘Why not optimise learning that’s already happened?’

As mentioned above, Imperial settled upon revamping its approach to feedback and debriefing. “Why not optimise the learning that has already happened?” said Arora. “We had the perfect setup; we had all the recordings, we used to video everybody’s performance and simulation, but we were doing nothing with these videos. People would just turn up, have their simulation, a quick chat. ‘How was it?’ ‘Alright.’ ‘Great. See you next time.’ Ad infinitum.

“So we all know that debriefing is crucial; we know it’s part of the learning process; we know that it’s a way of reflecting upon performance.”

Yet it is too readily dismissed as a soft skill. “We look so carefully at our performance in so many different domains, but nobody’s looking at how well we are performing in giving effective feedback; and the idea was that if we can improve the quality of our feedback, we could improve performance.”

The process also needs to be embedded. “People need ring-fenced time for this. It can’t just be an add-on that somebody is doing well, other people are doing it off the cuff at the end of the game, at the end of an operation, at the end of the week. It needs to be given the time and the importance, and that comes from the top down.”

OSAD: the Objective Structured Assessment Tool for Debriefing

In 2012, Arora was part of a team that developed the OSAD tool. It was designed to improve debriefing practices in surgery and other areas of healthcare by providing a structured, evidence-based approach to evaluating the quality of debriefings.

To this day, it remains a useful tool. “The real secret is to try and get [the learner] to identify what their performance gaps are and how they feel, or how the team feel, they can work better to improve it for next time,” said Arora. “Your role as a facilitator is to wrap all of this up at the end and determine how they are going to take what they’ve learned from this session and apply it to their future practice.”

OSAD, which is based on eight elements enables people to reflect on their own debriefing practice and train others to more effectively deliver feedback. Those elements are:

1. Approach: The method and style used to conduct the debriefing.
2. Learning environment: The setting and atmosphere that facilitates learning.
3. Learner engagement: The involvement and participation of learners in the debriefing process.
4. Reaction: The immediate responses and feedback from learners.
5. Reflection: Encouraging learners to think critically about their performance.
6. Analysis: Breaking down the events and actions to understand what happened and why.
7. Diagnosis: Identifying the strengths and areas for improvement.
8. Application: Applying the lessons learned to future practice.

Facilitators are invited to score themselves on a scale of one (poor) to five (very good) on each of those elements.

Using OSAD, Arora explored each element in setting out the characteristics of an effective debrief:

OSAD can be used and adapted as required, whether you are new to the space or a seasoned debriefer. It has proven to be a game-changer, but it is not perfect. Not if you’re a learner anyway.

“If we tried to give that eight-thing item with lots of small writing to our surgeons who are in the middle of life-saving surgery, they’re going to tell you to get lost,” said Arora.

“How can we take those lessons and translate it into something really short, really simple that anybody can understand?”

In part two, we explore how Imperial answered that question through the development of its SHARP tool.

By John Portch

The most influential disruptor of sport in recent times remains the pandemic, but Kate Warne-Holland reflects on that period with pride.

“I think we did even better during the pandemic because it was an opportunity,” says the Under-14s Girls’ Captain at the Lawn Tennis Association [LTA].

“I think we all saw it as an opportunity to talk more because what happens in tennis is the day to day gets so unbelievably busy. I’m sure it’s the same in every sport. The coaches are coaching and we’re trying to organise and make things better but we can’t find the time to really reflect and do that together”.

One area of improvement was the online provision of coach education – a special project of Warne-Holland’s – and there was also the establishment of 15 regional player development centres (RPDCs). She estimates that 75% of all young British players are based at one of these centres. Each RPDC has an LTA-funded head coach that has been employed from tennis’ wider coaching pool.

“We have a very strong link to the head coaches and their development plans; where they want to go, what they want to enhance in their programmes,” she adds.

“Covid was a terrible thing in numerous ways, but here was an opportunity. Player development is much more connected and it also gave us a chance within the LTA for more fluid cross-department communication”.

Warne-Holland, who has been in her current role for three years, was a contributor to our March Special Report Navigating your Way Through Major Competitions. The LTA will take young British players away from the natural habitats of their home programmes to tournaments across the globe. Youngsters can be away for up to 15 weeks per year, as she told the Leaders Performance Institute.

The LTA’s approach to youth development is continually tweaked and, as Warne-Holland explains, the travel and budget constraints enforced on the organisation during the height of the pandemic led her and her colleagues to adopt a “hybrid” approach between UK-based camp and both home and overseas competition programmes as lockdown restrictions eased.

“That meant we could get the kids together, sparring, peer group training, and get the competition box ticked by allowing them to compete more often, which they weren’t getting because they weren’t able to travel.

“We sought out cheaper court time, good venues in the middle of the country, outdoors as much as possible. We came up with what we called ‘NAGP [National Age Group Programmes] weekends’. They’re now called National Matchplay Weekends because they’re not solely for NAGP.

“It’s a fluid group of 16 players. For each weekend, eight automatically get their place based on success before but then another eight go into a selection process”.

As Covid restrictions eased in Britain, the LTA also devised a junior team competition between players from England and Scotland that helped to replace the summer and winter cups that were cancelled as the globe got to grips with the pandemic.

Crucially, as Covid policies receded, these competitions have remained. “They haven’t disappeared now we are back to ‘normality’,” says Warne-Holland. “They were so valuable and they were encouraging the private coaches to be there and coach on court. It provided an opportunity for the coaches to develop the players right in front of them. So they weren’t on a balcony, watching four matches, and then going home and working on it. We allowed and encouraged them to sit on court so they were able to impact on the player immediately.

“Ideas like that we’ve kept. It’s a very effective way of actually providing an environment that will help these kids when they travel, because it’s peer v peer, so it’s both pressured and very high support”.

Warne-Holland is not entirely fazed by the notion of future challenges, including budget cuts. “You’d find other ways to make things happen and find that high challenge,” she says. “Take them to the strongest tournaments, don’t take them to the easier, more expensive tournaments in places such as Scandinavia. Take them across the pond to France, get in the minibus, and off you go! I think it’s a more realistic journey for them. As I tell the girls, smooth seas don’t create great sailors. Make it choppy, make it high challenge, but if we’ve done the right things they’ll be able to go towards the challenge rather than running away”.

By Luke Whitworth with additional reporting by John Portch

Over the last two years in particular, it has become more and more apparent that there are a number of challenges practitioners are facing around the utilisation of their respective athlete management systems. Data collation has increased, performance teams have grown or introduced more expertise, and there is the continued conversation as to whether vendors and service providers are able to create platforms that cater for the needs and address the challenges that teams are facing as part of this process.

From the conversations on the call, it has become abundantly clear that multiple challenges remain, there is still a gap around how to actually maximise the systems to their fullest potential, but on the flip side, there are some effective solutions taking place across the industry to shift the dial. For the first segment of the call, we laid out on the table the key challenges everyone is facing.

Barriers to effective utilisation

1. General data and system challenges

The speed and functionality of the system continues to provide nagging daily challenges that can slow down work streams – ‘we are reverting back to pencil and paper pretty quickly’.

2. Data literacy

Within organisations there are different levels of knowledge and competency around data processes and the utilisation of the AMS. The lack of knowledge alignment is creating challenges to the efficiency of processes and communication across departments. This will feed into the solutions section as well, but there isn’t often orientation around what actually needs be collated and why – there are many different viewpoints so too much data is being collated which is making it hard to connect effectively with the athletes.

3. Data hygiene & discipline

This point links closely to the one prior. There is a lot of inputting of inaccurate data or missing data. As one of the participants on the call summed up ‘if you are putting garbage in you will get garbage out’.

4. Poor integration

One of the most popular challenges shared in the groups was the lack of integration between different platforms which are utilised by different performance departments. It is creating more work, data overload and not a clear picture for athlete development. Many environments are also finding that certain systems are very rigid and are instead looking to develop their own internal systems which are tailored to their specific needs – one member of the group shared that service providers and vendors are trying to provide solutions we don’t need.

5. Player buy-in

As we know, one of the main reasons for data collation and analysis is to improve performance outcomes for athletes. Some of the organisations on the call shared that there still remains a gap in the athlete’s literacy and general buy-in about the systems. If we are unable to get the athletes onboard, it makes it incredibly challenging to initiate any kind of changes in behaviour.

Solutions and considerations to elevate effectiveness

1. Do the basics well

Considering the complexity and ‘rabbit holes’ we can find ourselves heading down with athlete management systems, the conversation was a gentle reminder to ensure you continue to do the basics right. Capture the data effectively, consistently and accurately. There are important questions to regroup on around what’s important to capture, how is the information shared, how is it visualised and what does it mean? Start at a place of simplicity and importance.

2. Work on understanding users’ needs

We are witnessing an increase in different stakeholder involvement around performance: players, parents, other departments, executives etc. Be intentional in figuring out how to connect with them around the data. Ensure it is user-friendly, digestible, colourful if it needs to be – we should be striving to tell stories and create emotion around this so it elevates the engagement with the information.

3. Education

Education is perhaps one of the most crucial elements in elevating the effectiveness of your systems. We need to strive to get everyone on the same page and focus time and effort on the ‘human elements’ of working with data to elevate understanding.

From an athlete perspective, educate them on ‘the why’ and work on engaging them so there is no secrecy, no fear, but complete transparency. Recruitment: one organisation on the call who have recently transitioned AMS provider shared the success they had around being intent on hiring people who were incredibly proficient with the new system and who could help the team build it out to maximise its effectiveness, as opposed to trying to uptrain existing staff which would prove to be incredibly time consuming. When athletes believe that something will support their performance, they start to take ownership of the conversation and it leads to those casual collisions we desire.

4. Organisational alignment

Another simple solution that has witnessed some impactful results has been a shared message from senior leadership to outline expectations when it comes to the utilisation of the AMS – ‘we are doing this. We’re investing a lot of money and everybody will be using it, it’s not an option’. A top-down message to bring everyone to a level playing field of understanding is a simple step to creating clarity and alignment.

5. Avoid a one-size-fits-all approach

It’s fair to say that everyone on the call is craving a one-size-fits-all system that integrates everything that all departments and stakeholders want – the reality is that it is going to be incredibly challenging to do this. Not trying to have a one-size-fits-all will take away a lot of stress. Instead, try focusing on building a database that can house what’s critical and then having your individual platforms that are specific to the day-to-day tasks.

6. Be disciplined

Linking to point four above, a clear expectation from everyone to maintain high standards around data hygiene. It’s a simple solution but how many organisations can safely say their data hygiene is perfect?

Group reflections and insights

• Exploring how to use the AMS to drive buy-in from athletes.
• AMS should function to serve the communication and support of the players and staff as opposed to being the communication to players and staff. Staff should be supported with the proper information in the optimal format to maximise their connection with the players and staff they serve.
• Is an AMS a tool to manage data or a tool to manage athletes?
• Data literacy: it’s important to bring everyone up to speed but you must meet staff where they’re at. Training whilst also listening to their wants and needs is vital.
• Educating players on the idea that the AMS is simply another tool to help them optimise their on-field performance.
• Be clear on what data you want to collect and why before you start, so that you have the appropriate system.
• Education is key for athlete engagement.
• Use a sandbox model to test graphs and insights using your desired platform before implementing into an AMS.
• The AMS can have different functions: player-facing format or being used by coaches, analysts and scientists. Does an AMS need to be a one-size-fits-all?
• Spend more time looking backwards from the athlete to the distribution of data to how it’s collected and finally why it’s collected.

By Sarah Evans & Luke Whitworth

Recommended reading:

Leaders Performance Journal Building For Success

What Defines a Good Practice Facility?

‘”Training Facilities Are a Feeling” – you Can’t Say that to an Architect!’

Framing the topic

We often talk about environments within the Leaders Performance Institute, however within this topic-led virtual roundtable, we looked to extend these conversations into the physical space. We asked our members how their facilities were shaped and how they have evolved in order to contribute to the culture and environment they are trying to create.

We picked out four key points from our discussions:

1. Future-proofing the facility

• • Many sporting organisations have evolved and grown to include a women’s team, academy, first team and the corporate team. One of our members spoke about asking the question ‘how do we prepare for the building of the future’ and have thought about what the next 10 years could look like, thinking about what they can do now to support that future.
  • “We want to be the trend setters” – for many of our member teams, this is very important and so teams are spending lots of time in different spaces to get as many ideas as possible. The designs are often drawn, it takes a few years before the building is actually completed and so, by the time you move in, the building could be 3-4 years old and if you spend a decade in it, then the building is 10-15 years old and so that means they have to stay ahead of the curve.
  • Two of the key questions our members have been asking themselves is: ‘what’s true now that won’t change in 10 years? What needs to be consistent?’
  • Another way of future-proofing the facility, is thinking about what outcomes the team are seeking from the environment. Is it to enhance athletic performance? Is it to encourage more collaboration between staff? Are they hoping staff stay later at work? Identifying these outcomes can help the facility be more intentional and serve its purpose long term.

2. Make the space inclusive

• • Equity, Diversity and Inclusion work is becoming more engrained into high performance organisations, and making sure the facility is inclusive to everyone is something many of our teams are prioritising.
  • One of our members explained: “I’ve been working with the team for nine years. Back then, I was one of two women; now I’m one of 10 or 12 in the organisation.” Modifying the facilities in order to accommodate more female staff has been something many of our teams have had to adapt to.
  • Are the facilities inclusive for visually impaired athletes? Transgender athletes? Are they fully accessible for para-sports, as well as staff and visitors with accessibility needs? Some of these considerations are much easier to integrate into new builds, but how can they adapt current spaces to become more inclusive?
  • Are there places for new mothers to nurse? Is there childcare for parents?
  • For teams which have academies, the younger age groups are heavily influenced by parents, so how can the facilities be designed so that they’re more family-friendly, as parents are spending time around the space?

3. How does it make people feel?

• • Many people will forget things about a place or an environment, but people don’t forget how something makes them feel.
  • Everything in the facility has to have an intention, and the physical space has an opportunity to be a reflection of the club culture.
  • What’s the experience of being within that environment? How often are the questions asked to the athletes and how are they being asked? For the newest, youngest recruits versus the experience of the more veteran athlete who is perhaps at a different stage in their career; how are those questions integrated into the design of the physical space?
  • Are there any spaces where the athletes aren’t being watched? It becomes normalised as part of their workplace dynamic, but if they’re always being watched then they can never let their guard down to be themselves. So is there a possibility to create spaces in high performance environments where they have freedom to be themselves, or do they have to leave the facility to let go?
  • What are the performance outcomes of certain areas, and how can you impact this through the feel? For example within the dining area, if the outcome is to keep athletes there longer and increase engagement with nutrition, how can you create a relaxing space where they want to stay, rather than it feeling like a school canteen? The impact of plants and lighting, and making it feel more like a restaurant can have a big difference.

4. The flow of the facility

• • Understand the flow of the facility from a physical and psychological perspective. What’s the first thing you want them to do? Is a trophy cabinet the first thing you want to see every day? Actually, making a training ground feel like home and not have increased pressure all the time can have performance benefit.
  • Have the stadium be somewhere you intimidate the opposition, make them feel in awe, and provide as many home advantages for your team as possible. What is the entrance route for away teams at the stadium? Is it through a walkway filled with trophies and success or a bland hallway that doesn’t have an impact?

By John Portch

What makes for a great training facility? It is a question the Leaders Performance Institute posed to a series of athletes, coaches and practitioners, including Kate Warne-Holland, the Under-14s Girls Captain at the Lawn Tennis Association [LTA].

“You have to bring the energy. Don’t come in if you’re not ready to come in,” she says.

“The players need to know exactly what the expectation level is of them and we have to challenge each other to bring the energy and the right attitude. When I ran my own environment as a coach, everybody in the team would have clear roles about where they would be that day; leading the session, assisting the session, hitting in the session. If, as a coach, you’re hitting in the session then you’re a player so you’d better behave like a player. You’re a real role model. Communication with the players in the session has to be pitched to what is in front of you that day.”

We spoke to individuals in American football, bobsleigh, rugby union, swimming, tennis, field hockey and athletics to glean their views on what makes a training or practice facility great. Here is what they told us.

Jack Easterby, NFL performance coach:

The flow is the number one thing. How does it flow and does that flow match the work flow of the operation? For example, I’ve had people walk into a locker room and it’s the first thing you see, which is great, but you’re spending more time in a meeting hall or in a study area than you are in the locker room. The second thing is unified technology. I think that technology creates behaviour. And so I think if you have a flow that’s really well done and you have unified technology around the building, it’s going to create the behaviours that are needed for the people inside.

Montell Douglas, British Olympic bobsledder and former Olympic sprinter:

The ideal is to have everything you need in one place. If you wanted to make the best athlete, you would give them everything you need in that realm to perform, but that’s rare. In transitioning into my newer sport, I realised that things aren’t always ideal and the best training facilities came from the times where I thought outside the box. A lot of times in my sport, I was training out of a garage with free weights. I would never imagine in sprinting that you could do that and still perform, but when you think about facilities, it’s not about the quality, although that’s hugely important. It’s always about: what is required and am I able to get the same desired outcome with what I have?

Ioan Cunningham, Head Coach, Wales senior women’s rugby union team:

The biggest thing for me is: how much does an environment help a player to learn? When you set up the environment, when they walk in, what triggers are there for them to learn? Is there signposting? And then out on the field it’s very similar. Is there an opportunity with us to get live feedback on a TV on the side of the field; ‘we’re just going to play this and then go and look at it’, ‘that was really good’ or ‘you didn’t run your line there properly’. We’re lucky we can do that at our level, but it’s also creating an environment where we will stop the session, give them 30 seconds to discuss it as a group, and then come back with two points. No more than two points. ‘How are you going to win the next minute?’ Those are the type of environments and learning environments – because learning leads to motivation, in my view. If you’re learning, you’re motivated. If you stop learning you become stale.

Rohan Taylor, Head Coach, Swimming Australia:

For me, there’s three really critical components that you look at across any high performance environment. These are almost non-negotiables. The facility needs to be accessible. Sometimes [swimmers] get kicked out of the pools or lane space, so we’ll secure access to facilities to be able to do the basics, the training. The second one is the coaching and the level of coaching expertise, not just elite coaches but the coaching group; I’m talking about the sports science. You need to have that and if it’s just one person they need to be really good, if it’s two people they need to work collaboratively together. And the third part is that you need that administrative support, that dry side support, to ensure those coaches are coaching, those athletes are training, and somebody’s supporting the structure around it. Whether it’s a large, professional football club or it’s a small swimming club, it needs those three components to be operating and working together. And if you take one away, it becomes a problem.

Kate Warne-Holland, Under-14s Girls Captain, LTA:

Hard work also has to be fun. I work with under-14s and there has to be enjoyment throughout the session, with the amount of volume and intensity the kids are undertaking. I think there also needs to be respect for the effort the players are putting in, respect for the parents, and the coaching staff. And walking in each morning to a nice, clean space. No litter, no balls everywhere, everything is nicely tidy and the baskets of balls are ready to go. Often the session will start at 6:30 or 7 o’clock in the morning. You don’t want to be walking in to a messy chaotic environment. After every single session we would quickly reflect at the end; assistant into lead, player into assistant, and then lead into player. I might say: ‘I thought you were really good at bringing the energy, you behave like a player, you had high expectations of the other person’. Each person says a couple of things and it just keeps everyone on their toes around the idea that ‘this is important and we care about the quality of the sessions’.

Lisa Jacob, High Performance Director, Hockey Ireland:

It’s a feeling of ‘home’ and I think it’s somewhere you walk into and it makes you elevate your thinking. It’s very hard to describe what that looks like and, at the moment, we’re in conversations with Sport Ireland around what we want the hockey facility to look like going forward. I’m pretty sure if we started off with ‘it’s a feeling’ – Jesus, the architects can’t work with that! It has to have the basics [such as pitches and gym facilities onsite or nearby], but the one critical thing that would differentiate it for me is what the team room is like. In some places you won’t have couches and bean bags or graduated steps where you can watch videos or movies, but a place where a team can actually make it their own and create what empowers them most [is important]. There are a couple of facilities that have got it right.

Victoria Moore, Head of Performance Support and Solutions, Athletics Australia:

I see resources of people as far more beneficial than resources such as equipment and or a building. I’ve seen athletes absolutely flourish when they’ve got people to help them make informed decisions. I think you can make a lot with the right people. That’s why I’ve put resources and dollars into investing into building people’s capacity. A nice building might look great, but you should invest in people and make them feel valued and that they belong; and that’s when you’re going to get the better outcomes.

By John Portch

What are the fundamentals of a good practice facility? For the Toronto Blue Jays, who opened their Player Development Complex in Dunedin, Florida, in 2021, those fundamentals were summed up in an acronym that pulls together their values: CLEAR. It stands for collaboration, learning, empowerment, achieve and respect.

Each was explained by Angus Mugford, who served as the Jays’ Vice President of high Performance at the time. “We want to have a highly collaborative environment where different departments and people are close to each other,” he told the Leaders Performance Institute in 2019. “The open spaces are more attractive for people who want to come together. It’s the same thing with the high performance offices and space. It’s together and unified and it’s also physically and metaphorically in the centre, so that the ease of communication and collaboration is right there, but it’s also a space for players and coaches and other staff can be together easily.

“‘Learning.’ You don’t have to be in a specific room to learn but we want to create some specific environments where learning is enhanced. One of the critiques other teams were telling us about were in auditoriums, how easy it was for guys on the back row to close their eyes and switch off like a movie theatre, so we’ve leaned towards more a business school lecture theatre, which is less about lecturing and more about having a pulpit in the middle and more of an inclusive, collaborative environment between whoever is leading the discussion and everybody who is in that audience.

“The E is ‘empowerment’ and that goes for staff and players. That people can take the initiative, that we want players to be at the centre of that ultimately. So creating spaces where people have the autonomy and ability to create discussions; open meeting rooms. When we toured Google, that was a really good takeaway, they have this idea of ‘collision spaces’; so creating spaces where people can organically meet.

“Then the A is for ‘achieve’. Not just winning but really just more about a process of excellence and really trying to be consistent and thoughtful about the details. I think with the details that we’re trying to get into with the design and setting up, we also realised that in this process of moving in we’re going to screw some things up. Or people are going to have even more ideas that we can think about until they’re actually in the space so I think that whole process of moving in, taking feedback, and saying what people need and want to make that space even more functional is going to be a priority once we do actually move into the space too.

“Finally, ‘respect’ is the R. Not just for each other and the team but our environment and our physical space is an element that can be a thread throughout our team.”

Here, we explore six more themes that define a good training environment.

1. Flow and efficiency

Efficiency is essential and that comes from frictionless circulation of athletes and staff. “You have everything on one level when it comes to training, preparation and recovery,” said Martin Buchheit of Paris St-Germain’s Ooredoo Training Center in 2019. Buchheit served as PSG’s Head of Performance between 2014 and 2020. He now serves as a high performance consultant with LOSC Lille in France’s Ligue 1. “Everything is central and everything is connected. From the locker room you enter straight into the mobility, stretching and warmup area, which is chronological as well. You get ready, you get changed, then you go for functional work. Afterwards, their recovery, the stretching and mobility area is connected to the locker room, the hydrotherapy area is connected to the locker room; it makes it very efficient to get those recovery routines straight after training.

Flow is also crucial to an aligned, interdisciplinary approach. “One of the things I’ve found historically is that people gravitate towards their own space,” said Mugford, who now serves as the Senior Vice President of Player Development & Performance at the New Jersey Devils. “The strength coaches may want to sit together and the trainers may want to sit together. People gravitate towards their own discipline and what we really want to make a commitment to doing is sharing that space so that we’re really maximising the collaboration. We’ve already made that shift over the past few years, but something as basic as that is really fundamental when we have affiliate staff and groups sitting together so that natural exchange happens as we’d like it to.”

2. Touchpoints for collaboration and creativity

The Jays’ upgrade made Mugford the ideal man to talk with Phil Cullen, the Senior Director of Basketball Operations & Organizational Development at the San Antonio Spurs, ahead of the team’s move to its $510m Human Performance Campus at The Rock at La Cantera, Texas. Cullen told an audience at the 2019 Leaders Sport Performance Summit in London that the facility will boast human-centred design characteristics that promote collaboration and creativity. “A lot of times it’s focused on the coaching element, which is extremely important, and player amenities, but how do you facilitate those casual collisions?” said Cullen. “The people that would be in your facility the most and have the most touchpoints are probably not who you think they are. For us, it was our equipment guy. Very often you’ll go back and the players are hanging out with the equipment guy. Why? Because they can just hang out. It’ll be the athletic trainer, it’ll be the guy who’s taping his ankles and helping the guy rehab.” This has been uppermost in the Spurs’ thinking, who have even installed TVs close to the ceiling of their current facility to help take players eyes away from their phones.

Cullen added: “How can we make sure we have the best possible experience so that we’re actually giving them opportunities in their career development; giving them all the resources they want to advance? So that when we go into the marketplace to recruit these guys to have elite talent in our building, we’re not only attracting elite basketball players and elite coaches, but also the staff around them. That’s where collaboration is key. For us, the human-centred design piece is really trying to break down those interactions and it starts when the players pull up into the facility; what’s that experience when they enter in, get out, walk into the parking lot? Who are they walking past when they go to the locker room?”

3. Create a pleasant work environment

Beyond upgraded modalities, modern practice facilities need to be appealing destinations and Art Horne, the Director of Organizational Growth & Team Development at the Boston Celtics, speaks with a sense of awe about the 40-foot glass windows that overlook the city of Boston at the Auerbach Center, which opened in 2018. “Natural light is a huge plus in Boston when it’s cold and dark,” he told the Leaders Performance Institute the following year. “It’s an inviting place,” added Jay Wessland, the Celtics’ Vice President and Chief Technology Officer, who sat next to Horne. “All that natural light and the city skyline; we needed a place that people are encouraged to go and work out in; that they didn’t think it was a chore.” Such considerations were uppermost in the minds of PSG, who plan to move into their Paris Saint-Germain Training Center later this year. The complex is to include the Club House, which the club’s official website says is: “Entirely glassed at ground-floor level to provide views out into the surrounding landscape and create an illusion of levitation. Inside, a shape entitled ‘The Blue Flight’ rises skywards, symbolising the ultimate goal of all of the Club’s athletes.”

4. If you’re building a new facility, be sure your architect listens

Cullen explained that San Antonio had an issue with the sports-focused architects whom they consulted. “They try to give you the best rendition of what they’ve just completed,” he said. “They’ll kind of tell you what you want rather than really listening to what you need.” The solution was to partner with an architect that had experience of other sectors. “All of us now are becoming small tech companies; the technology’s integrated in everything we do. Why aren’t we looking at technology companies and how they work to see how it can impact how we’ll work in the future?” The Spurs were left pondering aspects and thinking points they may not have otherwise considered.

5. Does your building have agility?

Training facilities need to allow for the preferences of head coaches and PSG’s Ooredoo Training Centre, even as it comes to the end of its life cycle, has that covered – quite literally. In line with numerous clubs in European football, PSG have a 45x14m tent, which covers a pitch of synthetic turf right next to one of their main training pitches. It is a useful tool for group work. “A lot of work can be done outside,” Buchheit explained. “A portion of the group can be training outside on the pitch and the other half can be doing some strength work or some other exercises in this area – they don’t need to go back inside to take their boots off and a coach can do rotations. It offers efficiency and it also offers flexibility; depending on the coach, we’ll be using the tent a lot or not. It’s about being able to allow all staff and coaches to run their programmes as they wish. The agility of the building today is a legacy of the different coaches who worked with us in the past and so these adaptations are the fruit of a collective process involving the current and past backroom staff.”

6. Future-proof your facility – leave some space free

It can be tempting to throw the kitchen sink at a new facility but the Spurs and Cullen are wary of doing so or being locked into one type of technology. “We’re trying to be intentional about not designing a space for one specific use because it can very quickly become a closet if it can’t be used for more than one thing,” he said. “By far the No 1 thing people tell us is make sure you have enough space. You may not have all the nice designs and be able to finish it all out, be able to brand it, be able to story-tell the way you want, but make sure you get the space because you want to future-proof and you can’t move around in it.”

A podcast brought to you by our Partners Elite Performance Partners

“Folks coming into the organisation, whatever their career aspirations may be or their vision of leadership, we want to help them find that, whatever is genuine and authentic to them.”

Ben Baroody, the Director of Leadership Development & Mental Performance at the Texas Rangers of Major League baseball, is discussing career and leadership development opportunities at the club in this latest edition of the Elite Performance Partners Industry [EPP] Insight Series.

EPP are a performance consultancy and search firm highly regarded across sport and, for this episode, EPP’s Founding Partner Dave Slemen and Managing Partner Anna Edwards posed the questions to Ben, who spoke of the Rangers’ processes and practices that enable the advancement of players and staff alike.

Also on the agenda were:

• How Ben and the Rangers make time for those leadership and career development opportunities [8:30];
• The club’s efforts to set people up to succeed by creating a development space [10:30];
• ‘Soft’ skills and the Rangers’ ability to track the development of players and staff [23:00];
• The renewed emphasis on the mental side of performance in the training environment [29:20].

Dave Slemen Twitter | LinkedIn

Anna Edwards LinkedIn