As behavioural finance specialist Dr Benjamin Kelly explains, these four common biases can derail even the best players.
While technical skill and conditioning are paramount, behavioural biases frequently derail even the most talented players. For leaders in sports, understanding these cognitive shortcuts and emotional responses is crucial for optimising athlete performance, coaching strategies, and mental resilience.
I believe that golf, much like financial markets, is fertile ground for behavioural finance – a field integrating psychology and economics to explain irrational decisions. While behavioural finance has profoundly reshaped our understanding of investment behaviour, its application to sports decision-making, particularly in golf, remains remarkably underexplored. This is a significant oversight, as the very same biases impacting trading decisions equally affect decision-making on the golf course.
By examining cognitive shortcuts and emotional responses that derail golfers, we uncover profound lessons applicable to high-pressure environments across sports and business.
My work with investors has consistently demonstrated that reducing ‘bad decisions’ incrementally improves investment returns. This same principle applies directly to golf: eliminating poor choices on the course directly translates to saving shots and enhancing performance.
Overcoming behavioural biases is notoriously difficult; our innate cognitive architecture makes us highly susceptible. Therefore, the optimal path to mitigation is not to fight the bias directly, but to create a step in the process that prevents us from succumbing to it. In trading, a simple yet powerful example is the stop-loss order – a pre-defined instruction to exit a position if it falls to a certain price, removing emotional discretion from a critical decision.
This methodology, involving structured interventions, is evolving for golfers of all abilities.
Below, I illustrate these points with compelling examples, including Robert MacIntyre’s dramatic final round at the 2025 BMW Championship, and propose actionable strategies for correction.
Loss aversion describes our innate tendency to prefer avoiding losses over acquiring equivalent gains; the psychological pain of a loss is often twice as powerful as the pleasure of a gain. In golf, this bias is a primary contributor to the dreaded ‘choke’ phenomenon, particularly when a player holds a significant lead. The shift from playing to win to playing not to lose is a classic manifestation. It leads to tentative play and costly errors.
Consider the ‘final day phenomenon’ in golf, where approximately two-thirds of leading players fail to convert their lead into a win on the final day of a tournament. This represents a conversion rate of roughly 33%. My work with investors has consistently shown that even a modest improvement in decision-making, leading to an increase in success rates from 33% to 45%, can yield material benefits. For a professional golfer, this translates directly into more career victories and significant financial gains. For investors, it means incrementally improved returns and enhanced portfolio performance. This isn’t a sudden decline in skill; it’s a psychological battle. A player leading a tournament, especially on the back nine, often shifts from an aggressive, winning mindset to a conservative, loss-averse one. Instead of continuing the attacking golf that built their lead, they focus on not making mistakes, which leads to tentative swings, reduced pace, and increased unforced errors. The fear of losing the lead becomes more potent than the desire to win. It paralyses their natural game.
Robert MacIntyre at the 2025 BMW Championship provides a vivid illustration. MacIntyre entered the final round with a commanding four-shot lead, having played exceptional golf through the first three rounds (carding 62, 64 and 68 for an average of 64.67 shots). However, in the final round, under immense pressure and with a significant lead to protect, he shot a 73 – eight shots worse than his average for the preceding rounds. This stark difference, which ultimately saw him lose the tournament to Scottie Scheffler, is a textbook example of loss aversion in action. The desire to protect the lead likely led to a more cautious, less assertive approach, resulting in a performance significantly below his demonstrated capability. His post-round comments when he expressed a desire to “smash up my golf clubs,” underscored the emotional toll of such a collapse, which was rooted in the psychological pain of losing what felt like an assured victory.
Correction strategy: process-oriented thinking and positive aggression
Mitigating loss aversion requires a conscious shift from outcome-oriented to process-oriented thinking. Golfers should:
My methodology, applied to investment, focuses on establishing clear, unemotional exit strategies to prevent such value traps, which directly improves returns by eliminating these ‘bad decisions’.
A victorious Scottie Scheffler shakes hands with Robert MacIntyre at the BMW Championship 2025 at Caves Valley Golf Club. (Photo: Kevin C Cox/Getty Images)
This translates to a pre-shot checklist that includes a deliberate assessment of risk vs reward. This ensures the chosen shot aligns with a pre-determined strategy rather than emotional impulse.
Overconfidence bias is the tendency to overestimate one’s abilities, knowledge, and the accuracy of one’s predictions. In golf, this often manifests as the infamous “hero shot” syndrome. Picture a golfer, slightly out of position after a wayward drive, facing a daunting carry over water or a dense thicket of trees to reach the green. A more prudent strategy might involve laying up, accepting a bogey or par. However, the overconfident golfer, convinced of their exceptional skill or believing this is their moment of glory, attempts the low-percentage, high-risk shot. The result is often disastrous: a ball splashed into the water, lost in the woods, or a double bogey that unravels a promising round.
Three-time major champion Pádraig Harrington has openly confessed that overconfidence cost him dearly at the 2025 Senior PGA Championship, particularly on a crucial 15th hole. Despite his vast experience, he felt his confidence and arrogance led him to an ill-advised approach shot, costing him a crucial hole. This mirrors countless amateur golfers who, after a few good shots, attempt to carry a 200-yard water hazard with a 3-wood, only to find their ball sinking to the bottom, convinced their recent success grants them an infallible touch. The allure of the ‘hero shot’ often blinds players to the higher probability of failure, driven by an inflated sense of their current capability.
Correction strategy: objective risk assessment and pre-shot routines
To counteract overconfidence, golfers must:
My investor checklists include a mandatory step for a ‘devil’s advocate’ review of high-conviction trades, forcing a re-evaluation of assumptions. This translates to a ‘reality check’ step in their pre-shot routine, where they explicitly consider the worst-case scenario and whether the reward truly justifies the risk. This step prevents the overconfident ‘hero shot’.
Pádraig Harrington at the 2025 BMW PGA Championship. (Photo: Andrew Redington/Getty Images)
Confirmation bias is the tendency to seek out, interpret, and remember information in a way that confirms one’s pre-existing beliefs or hypotheses. On the golf course, this can lead to flawed self-assessment and persistent errors.
A golfer might believe their slice is due to an ‘outside-in’ swing path, and subsequently only notice instances where their swing appears to confirm this, ignoring other potential causes like an open clubface. This selective attention prevents them from accurately diagnosing and correcting the root cause of their swing fault. Similarly, a player might attribute a good shot to their skill and a bad shot to external factors (a bad bounce, a gust of wind), reinforcing a biased self-perception that hinders genuine improvement.
Correction strategy: objective data and external feedback
To address confirmation bias, golfers should:
My investor checklists mandate seeking out and documenting opposing viewpoints before making a significant investment.
This means a ‘feedback loop’ step where they actively solicit input from their caddy or playing partners on their swing or strategy, or review objective data from launch monitors, rather than relying solely on their internal, potentially biased, assessment.
Anchoring bias occurs when individuals rely too heavily on an initial piece of information (the “anchor”) when making decisions, even if that information is irrelevant. In golf, this can lead to rigid decision-making that fails to adapt to changing conditions.
A common scenario involves a golfer fixating on the yardage provided by a sprinkler head or a course guide at the start of a hole. This initial yardage becomes an anchor, making it difficult to adjust for dynamic factors like wind changes, elevation shifts, or a different pin position that emerges during the round. A player might stubbornly stick to a club choice based on the initial anchor, even when conditions clearly dictate a different approach, leading to shots that are consistently long or short.
Correction strategy: dynamic assessment and multiple data points
Counteracting anchoring requires:
My investor checklists include a mandatory ‘re-anchor’ step, where all previous price points are deliberately ignored, and decisions are made solely on current fundamentals and future projections.
For golfers, this translates to a ‘situational awareness’ step in their routine, where they consciously disregard previous hole outcomes or initial yardage markers, and instead focus on a fresh, comprehensive assessment of all current variables before committing to a shot.
Robert MacIntyre at the 2025 BMW PGA Championship. (Photo: Jasper Wax/Getty Images)
Conclusion: cultivating mental discipline for peak performance
Behavioural biases are an inherent part of human cognition, but their impact on the golf course need not be detrimental.
By understanding how overconfidence, loss aversion, confirmation bias, and anchoring manifest, and by implementing structured strategies to counteract them, golfers can significantly enhance their decision-making capabilities. The journey to mastering the mental game of golf is one of continuous self-awareness, discipline, and a commitment to process over outcome.
Just as my work helps investors reduce the incidence of “bad decisions” to incrementally improve returns, applying these behavioural finance principles to golf can directly lead to saving shots and elevating performance. The critical insight is that overcoming biases is extremely difficult; our innate cognitive architecture makes us highly susceptible.
Therefore, the optimal path to mitigation is not to fight the bias directly, but to create a step in the process that prevents us from succumbing to it. This methodology, evolving from investment to the golf course, empowers athletes of all abilities to make optimal choices when it matters most.
For sports leaders, fostering an environment that encourages objective self-assessment, embraces data-driven insights, and champions structured routines will be key to developing athletes who not only possess exceptional physical talent but also the mental fortitude to make optimal decisions when it matters most.
This approach not only leads to more consistent performance but also a deeper, more rational engagement with the beautiful, challenging game of golf.
Dr Benjamin Kelly advises investors and professional athletes on decision making strategies in high stakes environments. If you would like to speak to Benjamin about his work, please contact a member of the Leaders Performance Institute team.
The Nxt Level Group’s David Clancy explores how the Dublin-based League of Ireland club seeks to build long-term success through reasserting its culture, defining a clear purpose, and engendering a sense of belonging in its players and supporters alike.
Main Image: courtesy of David Clancy
The murals around their home ground Dalymount Park (which is to be renovated in the coming years), the ‘home of Irish football’, speak of solidarity, diversity and inclusion; the terraces hum with the sound of supporters who are not just fans. They are owners of this proud club. The Gypsies. Bohs. The home where Bob Marley and Thin Lizzy played concerts years ago. A team rich in history, rich in story.
Different, rather than better
In a football economy dominated by multi-club groups, billionaires, private equity firms, and global TV rights, Bohs are a club who stand apart. They’ve become a story about what sport can be when it roots itself not just in performance, but in people that care about the team. Their budget isn’t as large as some other clubs’, so they are creative and intentional with what they do in the football market and community.
They offer something different and offer a surprising strategic case study. They show how sustainability and a long-term engagement advantage can emerge from fan ownership, cultural clarity, and humble leadership. They play differently off the pitch. They are a fan-owned club that has survived 135 years, not through scale or capital, but rather through culture, purpose, and belonging.
They recently commissioned and sold jerseys with ‘Oasis’ emblazoned on the front (building on the hype around the band’s August gigs at the Croke Park stadium). Half of the proceeds from sales supported Bohemian FC’s football and community projects, while the other half was split between Music Generation Ireland, which helps young people across Ireland access music, and Irish Community Care Manchester, who work with the Irish community (from which brothers Liam and Noel Gallagher hail) in that city.
This club truly embodies what category design means. They have effectively practised category design and owning a niche by positioning themselves not just as a football club, but as a cultural and social movement, blending sport with music, art, and activism. By creating and owning this unique space of ‘community-powered club’, they’ve differentiated themselves in the growing League of Ireland, attracting fans from Ireland and abroad, plus partners who share those values – rather than competing solely on wins and losses in the league table.
For leaders in leagues like the NBA, NFL, AFL, and Premier League, ‘Dublin’s Originals’ could be more than just a curiosity. A relative outlier, they offer an example of a model of sustainability for a team, one that challenges the dominant logic of growth in more unorthodox ways. Their underlying structure of fan ownership is worth studying. They are a collective of supporters who refuse to separate themselves from the team. Here, sustainability isn’t a corporate ESG initiative, it’s survival, identity, and continuity.
Alignment over expansion
Bohemians filter every strategic decision through a simple lens. They ask: ‘does this strengthen our bond with the community?’ This clarity allows them to stay relevant without necessarily chasing expansion, although supporter clubs are sprouting up across other continents. These fans want the team’s special edition away jersey featuring Dublin band Fontaines DC, which was released in support of the homeless charity Focus Ireland, or their Guinness-sponsored range of merch, the proceeds of which support Refugee and Migrant Solidarity Ireland.
Purpose alignment can be a sharper competitive edge than market dominance. Bohs remind us that sustainability doesn’t come from infinite growth, but from a cycle of reinvestment. Money goes back into facilities, players, and fan experiences, not siphoned off to distant investors. Fan-owned. Fan-run. Fan-driven.
Bohs pioneered blind football, amputee football and walking football in Ireland, and, in 2021, launched their Disability Supporters Association. They were the first League of Ireland team to take part in the Dublin Pride festival. They have teams and run events for young adults with intellectual impairments. They give back because it’s important for them.
For a team still seeking its identity in some shape and form, here are some inflection points from this club study. Replace relative transactional sponsorships with partnerships tied to a community identity (e.g., environmental groups protecting a part of a region). Give players structured time each season for community immersion, not as ‘charity golf appearances’ but as integral to the team’s ethos.
One could measure impact not just in brand impressions but in school programmes launched, parks built, and neighbourhoods revitalised, for instance. This piece of nurturing culture is not for decoration; it could be for leverage. Fans want their teams to win, but also to stand for something. To build something.
NBA franchises could issue community bonds or micro-shares, giving fans a symbolic stake and reinvesting proceeds into grassroots basketball. The result? Loyalty that outlasts market cycles. Premier League clubs could implement ‘golden share’ protections, ensuring fans safeguard cultural assets such as club colours, logos or stadium names. Food for thought.
Culture and ethos
Since the 2010s, Bohs, bohemian by nature, have adopted a left-wing political identity, which one can see in their club branding, language, public messaging and community initiatives. This resembles the philosophy and ideology of the Hamburg-based Bundesliga side St Pauli.
Daniel Lambert, their Chief Operating Officer, has positioned Bohs in support of causes such as Palestinian nationalism, anti-racism, anti-fascism, LGBTQ rights, refugee and homelessness advocacy. Jerseys carry messages from Amnesty International and the Movement of Asylum Seekers in Ireland. This alignment further builds loyalty and that sense of belonging to something, a movement. When fans and supporters are engaged, they likely will spend more on team merchandise too.
The club doesn’t shy away from social concerns and makes a stance. Volunteers run matchdays. Players show up at community events because it’s expected, not mandated and instructed. This is the culture, and these are not just PR moves but deliberate signals. These micro-behaviours strengthen loyalty and differentiate Bohs in a crowded and competitive sports market.
AFL clubs, many still member-owned, could guard against creeping commercialisation by doubling down on symbolic choices that reflect local identity. Of course, one must look at a P&L and the revenue statements, but this is worth contemplating. NFL franchises could reposition sponsorships not merely as transactions but as cultural alignments (health, education, inclusion, etc.).
A team could link sponsorships to civic identity – environmental causes, education initiatives, small business partnerships. Instead of buying attention, they earn trust. In an attention economy, values may outperform advertising in some peoples’ marks.
Imagine if a big franchise used its platform not just for commercial sponsorship, but as a megaphone for the causes their community cares about most. The return on emotional equity might dwarf the return on traditional marketing.
Fans as stakeholders
Bohemians’ ownership model turns belonging into structure. According to the club’s Social Impact report, as of 2023 they had over 3,100 members, up from just over 900 in 2018. There is a ‘one member, one vote’ rule. Membership is open to anyone and everyone, although there are limited season ticket and membership numbers; between seasons if a member does not renew their membership, it is sold on a first-come, first-serve basis. As well as match access, a member can attend and vote at the club’s AGMs and EGMs.
Once a member has hit three years of consecutive service, they are permitted to run for a board position. Thus, there is no outside control. Clear, values-driven, long-term thinking is encouraged over short-term profits; and growing the club and the community always remains the priority. Fans are shareholders; players feel the weight of representing not a brand, but a people. The ethos at the club is that belonging is the bottom line.
Could a Premier League club, say, recapture that intimacy? Could the NBA, with its superstar ‘big player’ economy rediscover the power of collective belonging? Bohs show us it’s possible, although the scale of operation is, of course, different. A team could give fans voting rights on heritage roundel designs or community projects. When supporters are allowed to co-create, membership renewal becomes almost automatic.
Stewardship, not ego
At Bohemians, leadership is custodianship. Senior management, coaches, and volunteers alike work with humility. The aim is not public visibility but leaving the club better than they found it.
Picture a club, now acquired by a new ownership group, flush with new wealth. They could embed ‘custodianship leadership’ programmes for academy coaches and staff, thereby reinforcing the idea that the club belongs to the city, not just its new owners.
Reframing success: The Bohs Scorecard
Bohs prove that success can be measured differently, and how one can rethink what success is. Yes, they want to win games. Qualify for Europe. Fill the stands. But they care about community impact, inclusivity, and the stories they leave behind.
In the NBA or NFL, where victory is often measured in ring counts, marquee signings or franchise valuations, this can sound quaint. But consider the long arc – which clubs will still matter when television deals shrink, when fans demand authenticity, when climate and social pressures force a rejig of what ‘sport’ contributes to society? Bohemians have already answered that question. They matter because they belong to their people.
This scorecard which, for the record, is not affiliated with Bohemian FC in any way, could unpack:
Potential examples of cases in point: cross-league applications
The 4-step Sustainability Playbook for leaders in sport
Why this matters
Front offices, director boards and ownership groups are under scrutiny and pressure: escalating player salaries, volatile media rights, and restless fan bases.
Bohs offer a reminder. Sustainability in sport is not just financial. It can also be cultural. The clubs that flourish in the next era will be those that treat belonging as an asset, culture as leverage, and leadership as stewardship.
David Clancy is the CEO of The Nxt Level Group and host of Essential Skills 2.
One for your diaries
Seán McCabe, the Head of Performance & Sustainability at Bohemian FC, will speak at Essential Skills II at the Irish Museum of Modern Art in Dublin on 28 October as part of a lineup of speakers across high performance sport, business and healthcare.
Tickets are available here.
As Harlequins’ lock Stephan Lewies explains, the key lies in collaboration – bring your athletes into the fold.
Quins’ 17-10 victory at the Twickenham Stoop ended five years of frustration and marked a complete turnaround from the 2023-24 Premiership Rugby season when they conceded 90 points in losing both home and away to Saracens.
Stephan Lewies, the lock who captained Quins to their long-awaited victory, had also endured every one of those losses. The run was particularly galling given the relative parity between the teams during that period. Quins were themselves Premiership champions in 2021.
So what was different this time? “Coming off a record like that in your derby game, in a way you go looking for answers in the wrong places,” Lewies told an audience several weeks later at the Leaders Sport Performance Summit in London.
“In the past, we’d review what’d gone wrong, and the coaches – who often feel pressure in a different way to the players – would go ‘let’s change this and let’s add that’ because Saracens are brilliant.”
It took eight reverses for Lewies and his team to work out why. “We’d always changed our tactics for Saracens,” he continued. “We would change how we structured our week.”
Quins, he explained, usually worked off an 80:20 game model where it is “80 per cent us and 20 per cent we change for the other team”. However, “we often went 50:50 against Saracens; training 50 per cent on us and 50 per cent on them.”
They did things differently ahead of the October 2024 match. Firstly, the players and coaches met independently before convening to discuss what was needed. The club had adopted a similar approach in their successful quest for the Premiership title in 2021. Their director of rugby [the de facto head coach] departed mid-season and the players worked with the remaining coaches to devise a winning formula after the club decided to wait until the off-season to appoint a replacement.
Once again it gave the team clarity in their convictions. “We said we’ve been constantly changing for this opposition because of the pressure that’s mounting on us,” said Lewies, “and we agreed that we should go back to what we do and just try to do that better.” That meant “doubling down” and going almost “90:10” in the week building up to the match. “That created clarity and alignment from the coaches to the players. And when the pressure came in this game, we could turn to something we’d done for the whole season, and basically for years, versus something new in a pressured moment.
“It’s much easier to stuff up something new under pressure versus something you’ve done for a long time because it’s already second nature.”
Stephan Lewies in conversation with Rachel Vickery onstage at the 2024 Leaders Sport Performance Summit at the Kia Oval.
Lewies’ reflections chimed with session moderator Rachel Vickery, a high-performance specialist helping teams in the worlds of sport, business and the military perform under pressure.
“So much of pressure is what happens off the pitch. When you’re on the pitch that’s actually your comfort zone in many ways and so you’re more prepared for that,” she said.
“Many teams have a monkey on their back around a particular opponent and that can change how the game is approached, which adds a lot of pressure.”
Lewies agreed and felt that being process rather than results-driven was ultimately what led to the result that day.
“It gives you freedom on the pitch to just go out and play,” he said. “You know your prep is done. Go out and express yourself. When you have clarity and alignment with the coaches you’re not asking yourself on the pitch ‘what’s the coach thinking?’ whenever there’s a tough decision. You almost know the answer to the question before it happens because you’re totally aligned in what you want to achieve in the game and at different stages of the game.”
It is an attitude Lewies takes into difficult conversations, which he faced often during his four years as Quins captain. The key was to be well prepared and, more often than not, those conversations would not be as tough as anticipated.
“If you kick the can down the road it can become a bigger problem. It can be scary to have that tough conversation in the moment, but that’s where growth happens, in that adversity. You grow closer as people and as teams.”
He recounted the story of a teammate who once skipped training and was suspended. Lewies endorsed the punishment but was labelled a ‘Judas’ by the player in question. The pair eventually made up after a frank exchange of views when it was clear that Lewies would listen to what his teammate had to say. It stopped matters escalating further and, as Lewies happily explained, made their relationship stronger.
“Getting him back on board and understanding him was critical for us.”
It was in such moments that the bonds, self-belief and confidence were forged that would eventually see off Saracens.
“There is so much value in creating opportunities to collaborate.”
What to read next
How Do you Develop the Most Expert Coaching Workforce in World Football?
When it comes to topics such as developing a performance culture, engendering trust and adroitly using tech, the former defender’s instincts as an athlete stand her in good stead.
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“You feel it,” says the Director of Bayern’s women’s programme. “You already know when you look at their faces. You’re like ‘I think she doesn’t like it’, ‘yeah, she likes it’ and ‘she needs a bit of proof’. It’s like sometimes I see myself sitting on the other side.”
The ‘other side’, as Bianca tells Teamworks’ Andrew Trimble and Leaders’ John Portch, refers to her transition from a Germany international and Frauen-Bundesliga regular to a senior leader of the German champions, whom she represented on the pitch for four years.
“It’s so much harder now when you sit on that side now,” she adds, reflecting on how she used to feel as a player. “I see myself sitting on the other side, like, ‘oh, maybe I have to talk to them again’.”
In this third and final episode of our special series with Teamworks, Bianca touched upon several of the major themes that emerged from our recent Special Report High Performance Unpacked: interconnected performance teams.
She spoke of her role in helping to transform the Bayern culture on and off the pitch [37:00]; keeping the athlete at the centre of the performance jigsaw [14:30]; the importance of sports psychology [31:00]; and the thoughtful integration of technology [21:00].
Listen above and subscribe today on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher and Overcast, or your chosen podcast platform.
Episode One: Simon Rice, the Philadelphia 76ers
Episode Two: Miranda Menaspà, the Australian Institute of Sport
Performance Coach Ronan Conway believes that coaches can bring a fresh dimension to team gatherings and help teams tap into their inherent power by adding some facilitation principles and techniques to their skillset.
In recent years I worked with a coach of a football team. He’d regularly vent to me about players not speaking up in meetings, and how the group lacked leaders and energy. So I decided to sit at the back of some player meetings to observe the dynamic.
A clear pattern emerged. Standing at the top of the room, the coach would send waves of golden information and inspiration toward the players in the shape of tactics, opponent analysis, and game plans. His style was to direct, to instruct, and to hand players the answers – because that’s how he was coached, that’s what he excelled at; plus time was of the essence. The players’ role was simple: to listen and absorb.
My feedback was as follows:
“The coach needed to maintain his directive style as a solid foundation, and layer in skills to stimulate group discussion”
My suggestion was to maintain his directive style as a solid foundation, and layer in skills to stimulate group discussion – not to replace his approach, but to complement it.
In the following weeks after delivering his game plan, he practised popping the ball into the players’ court; inviting their thoughts and insight. Within weeks he facilitated a post-game review, opponent analysis, and culture session with the squad. To different degrees, the players played a key part in both sessions. These small shifts had profound results:
To get to this point, it required a big shift in attitude towards his group and his role. It called for him to swap his teacher cap for his facilitator cap.
“The change called for the coach to swap his teacher cap for his facilitator cap.”
Photo: Ezra Shaw/Getty Images
Before facilitating any meeting, it helps to adopt a group-centred lens. To have a strong belief in the group’s inherent wisdom. When you look at your squad in front of you, you see an ocean of insight, inspiration and breakthroughs. You see teachers rather than students. You see answers in the room.
The transition from a teacher to a facilitator mindset can be tricky. Most coaches are experts in their field, and at times it can suit to simply tell players what they need to know. But as a facilitator it’s not about telling, rather it’s about being curious. It’s about fostering the right conditions for the group to unearth their own answers.
“The transition from teaching to facilitating is about fostering the right conditions for the group to unearth their own answers.”
For some this may require a loosening of the reins, but it doesn’t mean letting go of them. Your direction and leadership is still central, but you’re inviting your squad to step up with you from time to time. It’s important to say that certain players and squads certainly won’t have all the answers. In this case, at least they get to practise critical thinking and to put their own fingerprints on a discussion.
Steve Kerr, the Head Coach of the Golden State Warriors NBA-winning team, is a proponent of player-driven meetings. For Kerr, it’s not about “control”, rather “guiding” or “nudging players in the right direction”. That ‘nudging and guiding’ is the essence of facilitation.
Stimulating any form of response from a group is about moving energy. Moving energy can look like a smile, a nod, a raised hand. Maybe a word. Or a sentence. In time perhaps a rich, flowing discussion. We call this process, ‘getting the water flowing’.
Here are some facilitation tips to get your meetings flowing:
Show of hands: When faced with 30 blank faces, and the energy feels stuck, you can get the water trickling with a show of hands. ‘Hands up if you know’; ‘if you agree’; ‘who relates’; ‘if you’ve experienced this’. Each hand raised or not is a micro-investment in the meeting.
Open-ended questions: Clear open-ended questions are the keys for unlocking the treasure. They typically begin with ‘how’, ‘why’, or ‘what’, and generally elicit deeper insights than closed questions which give yes/no answers. The quality of the question will determine the quality of the response.
Intentional language: ‘The answers are in the room’: use language that reflects this mindset. You are not wondering if they have an answer, you know they do. Instead of ‘does anyone have an answer?’, try ‘who wants to go first/next?’.
Non-verbal communication: Facilitation isn’t just verbal. A nod or some steady eye contact can subtlety signal, ‘I want to hear from you’. You can lightly scan the room, naturally clocking different individuals throughout the meeting. At the very least, these ‘I see you’ moments will keep people checked-in and engaged.
Pair up: Speaking in front of an entire group is a big interpersonal risk to take. Pairing up to speak is a more manageable one. It gets all voices flowing; it builds safety; it serves as a stepping stone to a wider group conversation.
If your questions are met with silence, don’t sweat.
That liminal space between question and answer can be an intense time. When I started out facilitating in schools, most of my questions would hang in the air for what felt like minutes. Time sped up, as did my heart rate. I’d hold my breath. My brow got sweaty. ‘Someone. Please. Say. Something,’ my inner world yelled. The group shuffled awkwardly longing for the same. Until, finally, I’d move things along with a joke, or by answering my own question. Phew.
After enough moments like this, my relationship with silence changed. I found these moments to be a necessary and natural punctuation point; a chance for the room to slow down and to breathe. In the moments when I filled the silence, I wasn’t saving the group from the discomfort, I was in fact saving myself from my own discomfort. Rather than seeing silence as a void to be filled or feared, I started seeing it as a space for gold to be found. Granted not all silences lead to answers, but at least give the group time to gather their thoughts and muster up some courage.
‘Sitting in the silence’ is a useful practice in these moments. Meaning, allowing silence space – trusting it – and remaining as relaxed as possible.
“The more I trust myself to sit in the silence, the more the group trusts themselves to speak up.”
Here are two nuggets which help the process of sitting in the silence:
1. Trust the silence
When a group isn’t responding, a myriad of things can be happening for them. Quite often, they’re just not used to being asked. The silence is almost like a test to gauge ‘is this a token question or a genuine ask?’ In filling the silence, a lack of belief in oneself and the group is communicated. Being willing to ‘sit in the silence’, we signal a strong confidence in the group. You’re saying, ‘I know you know and I’m willing to wait’. It amazes me: the more I trust myself to ‘sit in the silence’, the more the group trusts themselves to speak up.
A connection-building workshop facilitated by Ronan Conway.
“The group needs to feel like you can hold yourself before they feel that you can hold them.”
2. Stay grounded
Sitting in the silence isn’t just about waiting it out, it’s about being as relaxed as you can. When we are on edge, stressed, or overly desperate for answers, groups are less willing to engage. The group needs to feel like you can hold yourself (stay calm, regulated, at ease) before they feel that you can hold them.
So before team meetings, or indeed when a wall of silence rises up, I’ll do the following to stay rooted and grounded:
Like a skill, facilitation takes time and deliberate practice. It may take time for everyone to adjust to the new rules of engagement, but once it starts flowing, the impacts can be transformative.
If you try this, I’d love to hear your experience of it.
Hopefully this article serves you and your team’s journey ⛰️
Ronan Conway is a performance coach who specialises in building cohesion and motivation in elite sports teams. He has worked with some of Ireland’s most successful teams, including the Ireland men’s rugby team, Dublin GAA’s five-in-a-row-winning men’s Gaelic football team and, currently, Leinster Rugby.
Ronan has honed his craft as a facilitator since 2012. He believes skilled facilitation can play a key role in empowering players and generating greater buy-in and belonging.
You can read more about Ronan’s work with elite teams here and here . Or you can visit his website at ronanconway.ie and find him on LinkedIn .
