{"id":1400,"date":"2018-05-04T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2018-05-04T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/leadersinsport.com\/performance-institute\/reports\/leaders-virtual-roundtables-the-importance-of-the-environment-around-the-athlete\/"},"modified":"2025-12-15T05:12:42","modified_gmt":"2025-12-15T05:12:42","slug":"leaders-virtual-roundtables-importance-environment-around-athlete","status":"publish","type":"article","link":"https:\/\/leadersinsport.com\/performance-institute\/articles\/leaders-virtual-roundtables-importance-environment-around-athlete\/","title":{"rendered":"Leaders Virtual Roundtables: The Importance of the Environment Around the Athlete"},"content":{"rendered":"<!-- blocks\/hero-editorial -->\n<!-- inc\/hero-editorial -->\n<div class=\"hero es-hero__editorial hero--var-1\" role=\"banner\">\n\t<div class=\"hero__image\" style=\"background-image: url(https:\/\/leadersinsport.com\/app\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2021\/08\/Insight-Environment-Around-the-Athlete-Takeaways-Featured-Image.jpg);\">\n\n\t\t<div class=\"hero__overlay grad-overlay content-bottom\">\n\t\t\t<div class=\"container\">\n\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"hero__content\">\n                    \n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"hero__content__inner\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t                            <p class=\"es-label es-label--md\">\n                                May 04, 2018                            <\/p>\n                        \t\t\t\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/leadersinsport.com\/performance-institute\/articles\" class=\"theme-dark hero__back-link back-link es-label es-label--sm\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<span class=\"icon icon--md icon--arrow-left\"><\/span>Articles<\/a>\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<h1 class=\"hero__title\">Leaders Virtual Roundtables: The Importance of the Environment Around the Athlete<\/h1>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n        \n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t<\/div>\n<\/div>\n    <section class=\"es-section theme-light hero__sidebar-wrapper container\">\n        <div class=\"hero__sidebar\">\n                            <div class=\"category-list\">\n                  <div class=\"es-label es-label--sm\">Category<\/div>\n                  <a href=\"https:\/\/leadersinsport.com\/performance-institute\/category\/coaching-development-performance\/\" rel=\"tag\">Coaching &amp; Development<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/leadersinsport.com\/performance-institute\/category\/leadership-culture-performance\/\" rel=\"tag\">Leadership &amp; Culture<\/a>                <\/div>\n                            <div class=\"share-list\">\n                  <div class=\"es-label es-label--sm\">Share<\/div>\n                  <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer\/sharer.php?u=https:\/\/leadersinsport.com\/performance-institute\/articles\/leaders-virtual-roundtables-importance-environment-around-athlete\/\">Facebook<\/a>\n                  <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?url=https:\/\/leadersinsport.com\/performance-institute\/articles\/leaders-virtual-roundtables-importance-environment-around-athlete\/&#038;text=Leaders Virtual Roundtables: The Importance of the Environment Around the Athlete\">Twitter<\/a>\n                  <a href=\"mailto:?subject=Here's a Leaders In Sport article for you &amp;body=Check out this article: Leaders Virtual Roundtables: The Importance of the Environment Around the Athlete. https:\/\/leadersinsport.com\/performance-institute\/articles\/leaders-virtual-roundtables-importance-environment-around-athlete\/\">Email<\/a>\n                  <a href=\"#copyLink\" id=\"copyButton\" class=\"copy-link-clipboard\">Copy Link<\/a>\n                  <div id=\"textToCopy\" class=\"font-hidden\">https:\/\/leadersinsport.com\/performance-institute\/articles\/leaders-virtual-roundtables-importance-environment-around-athlete\/<\/div>\n                <\/div>\n                    <\/div>\n    <\/section>\n\n\n<!-- blocks\/section -->\n<section\n  class=\"es-section flexible-section  text-only theme-light\"\n    >\n                <div class=\"container\">\n                                    <div class=\"bg-striped-pattern__inner section-padding-top section-padding-bottom\">\n                <div class=\"es-section__inner col-parent col-parent--stack-sm\">\n                                            <div class=\"es-section__sidebar es-section__sidebar--sticky col col--12 \">\n                                                            <p class=\"es-section__label es-label es-label--md\">An online meeting of Leaders Performance Institute members on 27 April 2018.<\/p>\n                            \n                            \n                            \n                                                            <div class=\"es-section__text content-area\">\n                                    <p><h4>On 27 April we sought to explore the importance and challenges associated with creating world class environments around our athletes. Within this topic the discussion evolved around challenges such as how to adapt to changing environments, on-boarding athletes and creating a linear framework within your high performance unit.<\/h4>\n<p>Fancy joining the discussion? Contact your Account Manager today to find out more and to book a spot at one of our upcoming roundtables.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>The group discussed:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>What does a high performance environment mean to you?<\/li>\n<li>Making athlete\u2019s part of the process.<\/li>\n<li>Where does culture fit into the environment equation?<\/li>\n<li>What are some of the obstacles to achieving high performing environments?<\/li>\n<li>What are some of the next practices? What could we do tomorrow to make an impact?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>The participants:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Bryan Burnstein, Head of Performance Science, Cirque du Soleil<\/p>\n<p>Jesse Ellis, Director of Player Health and Performance, Portland Trail Blazers<\/p>\n<p>Kyle Moore, Associate Head Athletic Trainer, Vegas Golden Knights<\/p>\n<p>Larry Lauer, Mental Skills Coach, USTA<\/p>\n<p>Jimmy Adams, Director of Cricket, Cricket West Indies<\/p>\n<p>Finn Gundersen, Director of Sport Education, Philadelphia Union<\/p>\n<p>Malachi Thompson III, President, TACAMO<\/p>\n<p>Jessica Calvi, Senior Research Associate: Nebraska Athletic Performance Laboratory, University of Nebraska<\/p>\n<p>Maximilian Lankheit, Strength &amp; Conditioning Coach, FC N\u00fcrnberg<\/p>\n<p>Kathleen Davenport, Physician \/ Executive Committee Dance\/ USA Task Force<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>Introduction<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>BB<\/strong>: Today we\u2019re going talk about the challenges associated with the high performance environment. How do we cultivate the environment, what does it mean to you and how are we going to sustain that. I wanted to start by going round the group and finding out what a high performance environment means to you.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Defining what a high performing environment is<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>BB<\/strong>: The way I believe high performance is situated, is a mind-set or attitude towards a common goal.\u00a0 The notion of high performance doesn\u2019t necessarily exist in only the sporting community but can be transferrable to almost any domain. It\u2019s the integration of many minds who are specialists in their respective fields that separates a high performance group from all other elite groups. When you have a group of specialists who constantly challenge the current standards and norms, you tend to become a leader in this space. At Cirque, we represent this by having people who deliver beyond their job descriptions. We hold each other\u2019s feet to the fire and expect to be challenged at any time. A high performance organisation requires a leader, a strategic vision, and the vision much be clear so that each stakeholder can find a personal connection. He or she must lead from the front and simultaneously be able to take ideas and move them from the bottom up. Your organisation needs to be agile and able to embrace change as an opportunity rather than a negative consequence.<\/p>\n<p><strong>MT<\/strong>: For me it is very similar in that it is a mind-set, attitude towards the mission day to day. Attitude is a big deal, and preparation for getting the mission done. Definitely having a shared vision, we operate off of mission statements and having strategic alignment towards that statement to make sure the mission is accomplished. It\u2019s the mind-set of \u2018that failure isn\u2019t an option\u2019, even though all of the missions are not perfect, but still having the ability to have that ethos and remember that lives depend on it.<\/p>\n<p><strong>FG<\/strong>: I work with the Philadelphia Union and in particular the development academy underneath it. Each MLS team has to have a development academy under 19 and below, and we go all the way down to age 8. And whilst the mission is very clear and our goals are very clear, what I would add to the previous comments in that we are an open and learning environment, so we have an arm of our organisation that basically travels around the world seeking best practices in youth development. So for example I have been to Germany, Holland and Spain and spent months in those organisations and trying to gather the latest research on youth development. So we are a learning environment along with our critical mission, and of course now in America, we are trying to catch up with soccer to the rest of the world. As an MLS club, we are only eight years old so we are still in the early stages of trying to refine it, so that\u2019s why we are such an open and learning environment, and continually need to evaluate where we are.<\/p>\n<p><strong>KD<\/strong>: What I will add that everyone has touched on is that we are a multi-disciplinary group, so we work very closely from the physician side, the physical therapist side, the trainer side as well as artistic and the business side. I think the open lines of communication so that they are moving towards one common goal and so everyone is on the same page, and constantly re-evaluating where we are with regards to this goal. This has allowed the environment to become very open and it is something we have worked hard on in our culture which has been very successful for us.<\/p>\n<p><strong>KM<\/strong>: I agree with Kathleen\u2019s points 100%, I think the only thing I\u2019d add to that is that we have that multi-disciplinary approach that keeps all egos out of it and we don\u2019t think that any of us is the best at anything, we keep everything on an even keel. We are looking at the best care for the athlete.<\/p>\n<p><strong>ML<\/strong>: We are trying to keep all of the aspects of a learning organisation and keep an on-going feedback loop which is not necessarily on a monthly basis, it is on a daily basis so we can always give direct feedback. When we see mistakes happening or something not working properly the way we want it to be, we can directly talk to everybody else and not let it manifest itself. It is important that the whole feedback loop is accomplished, that it\u2019s not only input but output must be considered.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Adapting to changing environments<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>BB<\/strong>: I\u2019d imagine that a lot of you have been in environments that have changed over time, so\u00a0 let\u2019s look at how you\u2019ve had a chance to change that environment, how did you inspire that change, how did you prioritise the steps you took to implement those changes?<\/p>\n<p><strong>JE: <\/strong>This is my first year as Director of Health &amp; Performance so there is a lot of change on our end. With the previous director, there was a lot of micro-management, so I accepted a lot of autonomy and expectation to do a good job and have a focused work ethic. Another thing is the critical thinking aspect. Knowing that nothing is going to be perfect, I call it the 80% rule and trying to strive for optimal levels for our team, but knowing that nothing is always going to be perfect and that we need to adapt, so always look at the barriers beforehand and address that in a proactive manner.<\/p>\n<p><strong>BB: <\/strong>If I was to put this in content for Cirque du Soleil, our performance environment is changing constantly. Our touring shows are changing cities, sometimes weekly, so the performers are sleeping in different beds every single week. We try and provide a level of consistency, we travel with as most of our gear as possible, but there are always different factors to consider, similar to you Jesse, whenever you guys go to different venues and areas with different lighting, there is always something different. Another example is how we are growing into new types of shows, going into new cities, countries and places we have never been. We are having to go through a process of what that experience looks like for our performers and how do we ensure that there is going to be a consistent experience, what are the minimal standards we are going to provide in each of those places and what are the systems, processes and tools that our teams are going to have access to no matter where they are in the world.<\/p>\n<p><strong>FG<\/strong>: I\u2019d also add to that in that I also work with the US Ski team, 98% of our competitions are an away game, and what we try to do in those circumstances was to create a base for them, a kind of retreat. The Europeans after Sunday race can go home and then meet up at the next site, whereas we are stuck out of our suit cases. So what we tried to do was build bases around Innsbruck and most of the athletes, the high end ones would actually rent apartments and learn languages. We\u2019ve had to make some major adjustments to try and give the athletes a home base in Europe.<\/p>\n<p><strong>BB<\/strong>: Was there anything that inspired this decision?<\/p>\n<p><strong>FG<\/strong>: We\u2019ve always been lucky to produce superstars but have always lacked depth. Part of it was to get Americans to be more comfortable in Europe, competing and understanding not only the language, but more the host spirit, the sense of trying to compete in similar environments. Similar with soccer now, we\u2019ve spent a lot of time in and travelling to Europe and South America to try to adapt to the system and get it into our DNA. The reason for staying in Europe was to almost become<\/p>\n<p>European and to understand the sport at another level, so we\u2019ve had to literally move out of the country.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Making athlete\u2019s part of the process<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>B<\/strong>B: To what extent are your athlete\u2019s part of the process? Do you use them to develop that and build it, are they mostly an autonomous group or are they dependent on a system or structure to perform their best?<\/p>\n<p><strong>KD<\/strong>: I can speak from a professional ballet company, I would say the dancers would never become completely autonomous within the environment, so you will always have a choreographer or someone putting a rep on them, but our particular company also encourages reps outside of that company environment. There is self-expression and autonomy within a framework, so I think it is a balance of providing perhaps a rigid framework but also within that framework, encouraging individual, artistic expression. From a rep standpoint it\u2019s traditionally a little bit more standardised from the artistic side.<\/p>\n<p><strong>BB<\/strong>: Is there something like in sport, a professional development plan or an individualised approach that you take with each person and build a framework around that or is it a case of them buying into the company values and process when they join?<\/p>\n<p><strong>KD<\/strong>: Yes and no. When we look at ballet as a whole, how people do dance is very regional in terms of country. So if you look at Russia, there is a tradition there around having a private coach training them individually, that\u2019s not part of our American tradition. In American its tradition to bring your dancers up through the ranks and then they buy into a culture. We switched our culture about five years ago, some dancers have welcomed that, but some haven\u2019t. We are a little different that we will work on an individualised approach should the dancer not feel they are performing to their best, but we don\u2019t have from the artistic side a dance teacher doing private coaching.<\/p>\n<p><strong>MT: <\/strong>I would say that it is not specifically driven by the athletes, it\u2019s more driven by the front office, then we get feedback from the athletes on how they see the training. So they develop a list of core competencies that each person must be able to accomplish. Then we take them through those different sessions and we create the environment that simulates the competition that they go up against or put the stressors in there, we artificially create those for them and then we get feedback on how realistic it was or how we can make adjustments because the nature of the business is that it is more of a holistic approach.<\/p>\n<p><strong>FG<\/strong>: The interesting thing with the US Ski team right now, is that because we have a superstar in Mikaela Shiffrin, we\u2019re struggling how to handle these kind of people, and what\u2019s happened in the las four or five years is that the superstars create their own entourage and it gets to the point sometimes where that athlete will not train with the rest of team. It\u2019s tough to integrate someone who is so good and sets the standard but struggles with integration into the team. Our women\u2019s downhill team were the best in the world this year, and they travel together, live together, just like the Norwegian men do.<\/p>\n<p><strong>BB<\/strong>: For us, we do a lot of focus groups and a lot of work groups that are multi-disciplinary, multi-departmental and now especially trying to listen to our performers. We have 1300 performers and by 2020 we are going to have 2,000. The thing that keeps coming back is that they want to be heard and want to be part of the process. Our coach to athlete ratio is about 35:1, our therapist to athlete ratio is about 26:1, so I\u2019m curious to see if you ask your athletes what factors they consider critical for performance when you are building that environment?<\/p>\n<p><strong>LL: <\/strong>We create teams around each player and they have a coach who assigned to the player, they also have a strength coach, a mental coach, so almost a team within a team, so they feel like they have a team which is connected to the culture. But what we do is quarterly the athlete will come in and speak to their team, we prepare them for this meeting, but they will come in and talk about their progress, what they need from other members of the team. With tennis being an individual sport, this drives this process and the players as they become pros have control, but it creates a sense of collaboration on what they need to work on. The coach is the final decision maker and will decide on next steps, but the players know we are going to listen to them. We\u2019ve had times where players have wanted to do something different and we\u2019ve said, \u2018yes we will support you but we aren\u2019t going to be in charge of you\u2019. So it\u2019s a fine balance between involving them but that we are in this together.<\/p>\n<p><strong>BB<\/strong>: Is it safe to say you could define it as an athlete-centred, coach-led, team-supported approach?<\/p>\n<p><strong>LL<\/strong>: That is what we are striving for on a daily basis, and as you can imagine, most of the teams are similar but some work better than others, but that\u2019s definitely the approach I\u2019d love for us to have and one that we are striving for. From that standpoint I think the athlete\u2019s should be empowered to speak their mind, but they also learn the independence that they need to perform on the world stage. Tennis is unique, a lot of players have never been on a team, so what is it like to be part of a team and to check your ego and ideas, and that there might actually be a better idea that makes more sense for you right now, and that is an interesting learning process for them. So what we try to do is start early, around the age of 14. We slowly engage them in this process, so by the time they are fully a pro, they\u2019ve had 3 or 4 years where they have been meeting with their team and learn how to collaborate with a group of professionals.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Where does culture fit into the environment equation?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>BB:<\/strong> I heard a couple of people bring up the word \u2018culture\u2019; and that culture we\u2019re talking about, that intangible, how do we build a culture around people with different backgrounds. At Cirque, we have people from 55 different countries and seven languages. In your environments are you faced often with the culture challenge?<\/p>\n<p><strong>KM<\/strong>: One thing that we went through here being an expansion team is that we had players exposed to another culture for every other team in the whole league. We\u2019re trying to develop our own culture when every single player has already seen one culture at another organisation. So it was challenging and we worked through the process through the year to get to the point where we want to be; we\u2019re still on the way, it\u2019s only year one, but that was an interesting challenge that we knew we were going to face and certain other things, the quality of medical treatment; does this person go and see their own physician; things like that. But the culture side was eye-opening to the fact that it\u2019s so different throughout the entire league and all we did was build trust as best we could, as fast as we could, and it\u2019s moved in the right direction; but it was very interesting looking at it from the perspective of the rest of the entire league and taking one player from each of them.<\/p>\n<p><strong>BB<\/strong>: I\u2019ve been around some teams where a player comes in and a new worker comes in; there\u2019s an on-boarding process; here\u2019s who we are, the way we live, the way we act, and what we expect of anybody who comes into our house. You guys are new so did you start the season with something to try and say this is the culture we\u2019re building and we\u2019re happy you\u2019re going to be a part of it or is that still to be defined about what it means to be a Vegas Golden Knight going forward?<\/p>\n<p><strong>KM<\/strong>: We didn\u2019t address culture specifically but we did have a meeting with the team at the start of the year once the team was settled in training camp and all that to basically just explain what our approach is; what our relationship is between strength &amp; conditioning, athletic training positions how we\u2019re going to do things because we\u2019ve learned that it\u2019s different from how other people do it. That\u2019s not saying that anything is wrong but it\u2019s different from what some other players have been exposed to; they\u2019ve been exposed to one way they\u2019re entire career if they spent eight seasons with one team; they\u2019re a veteran player but they\u2019re experiencing something new. So we laid things out at the start with some core values and how we\u2019re going to handle things but other than that in the beginning we were just focused on gaining the trust of the players and letting the culture develop in the direction that we wanted it to develop, rather than specifically addressing culture.<\/p>\n<p><strong>On-boarding<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>BB:<\/strong> We\u2019re actually building an on-boarding process because we used to have this great system where the artist that would come to join our company would always go and spend a little bit of time in Montreal at our headquarters, even if it was just a day or two; and during that process they\u2019d get exposed to what it really meant to go through each of the different steps of becoming an artist. Now we don\u2019t have that same process in place so we had to find a way to create a method where when a performer comes in we can give them a little bit of an understanding of what the fabric of our company is and we use the concept of \u2018athlete to artist\u2019 and we\u2019ve highlighted some people that really exemplify what it means to be a Cirque du Soleil performer, that have had durable careers, that are still doing their thing; and we\u2019ve used that and we\u2019ve packaged it and we talk about artist experience; everywhere they go this is going to be the experience they\u2019ll have and what we\u2019re going to create; and how we expect them to play in the process and that\u2019s the piece that we\u2019re going to make a pillar of what we\u2019re going to do going forwards so that when we think about the growth; all these new shows coming in the next two years; 2000 performers, many of them new; we\u2019re hiring over 400 performers a year \u2013 how do we keep our identity and continue to be a world leader in what we do but we need to make sure that people understand where we came from.<\/p>\n<p><strong>KM<\/strong>: That\u2019s what we\u2019re trying to do as well but we go about it a different way, but in hockey we have a development camp in the summer and that\u2019s at our main headquarters here; that\u2019ll be held in our actual facility this year. The draft picks, the guys who can\u2019t play pro for two or three years, with them we\u2019ll establish that this is what the Las Vegas Golden Knights is about, this is how we run things; and then there\u2019s training camp and then whoever makes the team makes the team and whoever doesn\u2019t goes back to their respective team or they go back into our minor league system and throughout the development camp and training camp, our entire NHL staff and AHL staff are at training camp so that they can build relationships with the players that may eventually end up going down to them; we can build relationships with players that are going to be with us and players are going to go back and forth. So it\u2019s a different way of going about it.<\/p>\n<p><strong>MT:<\/strong> I\u2019ve got a quick question. Have you guys ever experienced where you have many cultures inside an organisation? With my culture, you\u2019ll see the pilots\u2019 culture versus the special operations culture versus the recon culture and we have the overall culture of the organisation but then you have those different mini cultures with the organisation.<\/p>\n<p><strong>BB:<\/strong> I can speak to that in the sense that, and Kathleen touched upon it too with your background and where you came from as a dancer, but for us if you were a traditional circus family and going around from small circus to small circus, if you\u2019re a family living in a pop-up somewhere, you came with one approach to performance; if you were a college athlete, you came with another; if you were a street dancer compared to someone who came through a formal dance school; clowns, musicians, you could have several cultures or backgrounds in one show. In that example I\u2019m actually talking about one show here in Vegas has all that makeup in one; how do you bring them together and make it something where we\u2019re all committed to putting on the best performance possible every night, selling 100,000 tickets a week.<\/p>\n<p><strong>KD:<\/strong> I agree completely. In dance culture, we tend to be very hierarchical and I think you have that also in military; so you have your student, then your apprentice, and then your core, and then your soloists and then your principal soloists and it\u2019s \u2018thou shalt not jump\u2019 and then you can have someone really working through the ranks and do something entirely different; finding that blend of people who are coming from different countries , we have several countries and languages represented just in our company and then taking people who came to identify, not only with their country but with their style; they have styles even within ballet; and then in addition to that you then have people identifying by rank. I think there\u2019s a lot of parallels and then trying to create a cohesive look and really work together to build each other up can be a challenge; I think we actually do a great job of that, really trying to work on that and it\u2019s something that all of us here are continuing to build and think about it. We work to break down barriers while allowing people to keep their core identity because that\u2019s important to who they are as an individual, which helps with artistic expression. We want them to hold on to who they are and who they identify with while recognising that they\u2019re part of a whole.<\/p>\n<p><strong>LL:<\/strong> I think it\u2019s so important to value the individual and their expertise and I don\u2019t know how well we do it but what we try to do is that we have a set of core values that we\u2019ve established and a coaching philosophy and a mission and we kind of think of them as parameters; we don\u2019t expect you to be exactly like the person beside you but there\u2019s a range which you need to fall within that would make someone professional and successful; so while one person might do something slightly different with their style or way in their background or culture, then as long as it falls within the parameters of what makes sense for a professional, that\u2019s the way that we\u2019ve tried to balance the individual and respecting the individual and how they do things, with our culture and our values and what we feel is most important. Sometimes there are conflicts but I find that a lot of times when we\u2019re flexible and we\u2019re understanding of the individual, they\u2019re very understanding also of the values that we feel are important as well.<\/p>\n<p><strong>BB<\/strong>: Malachi, one thing I\u2019ve heard specifically to the rank part \u2013 I think it came from special ops, if I remember correctly, it\u2019s the use of the murder board and the idea that when the mission is presented the team gets a certain amount of time to go and come up with a plan and when the murder board is called they call come in and you check rank at the door and everybody\u2019s job is to punch holes in everybody\u2019s plans and missions until they figure out\u00a0 the best approach. The idea is to try and get away from the idea of someone from a lower rank not speaking up. The other side to that is that in general, the people that we work with got to be the best without us. Somehow they already got to where we are and we\u2019re better off to listen and try to learn and meet them along the way and guide them rather than try to put them back in a box based on what we believe to be best for them.<\/p>\n<p><strong>BB:<\/strong> What common obstacles keep coming up when you guys are thinking about how to evolve your performance environment?<\/p>\n<p><strong>ML:<\/strong> So we, working in European soccer, which is a whole beast by itself, we are \u2013 at least around here \u2013 very coach-driven; so regardless of whether your coach or your team is successful, the turnover of a coach; in the Premier League it\u2019s about 1.4 years, because if you\u2019re successful you move onto to the next team, which pays you more, or if you\u2019re unsuccessful you just get fired. The problem is that your whole performance staff is either going with or is fired with you. Unfortunately, most of the soccer clubs in Europe, are not run like businesses where you think of sustained success and trying to build something with less turnover. We have been facing these kind of issues more or less forever and it\u2019s only rare when you can find a club and responsible people where you can build something and keep it going. I wish it were run more like a business as in US sport with the ownership, CEO, and so on and so forth. This is not how it works here but maybe you have an idea of how we can change it.<\/p>\n<p><strong>LL:<\/strong> I don\u2019t know if this will help but we went through a situation where our general manager from player development was leading Patrick McEnroe and we felt very strongly about our culture of inclusion, of the stakeholders across the country, and everything we stood for. So when the CEO and the board where looking for a new GM, one of the things is that we were looking for someone to carry forward the culture that we have and we\u2019re not looking for a do-over. I know this doesn\u2019t typically fit, and when the coach goes then the staff go too but we were fortunate that the CEO, Gordon, felt strongly about the culture we had in place and whoever was going to get that GM job was going to carry forward that culture and bring their own ideas to add to that. That would be Martin Blackman, who is doing an amazing job, but I don\u2019t know if that could work in other situations.<\/p>\n<p><strong>ML:<\/strong> If the club doesn\u2019t have a philosophy, then regardless of the culture whole thing changes again, as he might want other players, which fits in with his philosophy and the club should have a certain philosophy but most of the time the coach or manager is the strongest, most dominant. That makes it even more complex. In the academy system it works quite well but then as soon as you start working with pro teams, it\u2019s challenging.<\/p>\n<p><strong>BB:<\/strong> For many years, our coach was a constant on the show; coaches rarely change shows across Cirque; artists would move, athletic directors and physical trainers would move, and company managers would move, but coaches would tend to be the constant; but it also helps when your best player is also your best person and sometimes it just takes time to figure out who that next person is going to be; you invest in them when they\u2019re young and new and you allow them to grow and they become captains or they\u2019re artist-coaches then eventually they may move into a coach role. I can\u2019t put full-time strength &amp; conditioning people on our touring shows because there\u2019s not enough work to do that; but if a parachuted one of my team in there and said this is what we\u2019re going to do in terms of physical training and preparation the cast are going to look at us and they\u2019re going to walk away; they\u2019re not going to buy into that. But if I can go and find a performer on that show and embodies what they want and how they take care of themselves and how they manage themselves, then at least they\u2019ve got a foundation of understanding and the concepts of training and conditioning, then we can empower them as captain or artist-coach of conditioning and provide them mentorship and guidance from a distance. That whole cast is going to rally around that person and they\u2019re going to suddenly grow and develop the culture and environment that we want a lot faster than if we go in there and I do it myself.<\/p>\n<p><strong>FG:<\/strong> Max, there\u2019s a book out called <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.co.uk\/Captain-Class-New-Theory-Leadership\/dp\/0812987071\/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1525179860&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=the+captain+class&amp;dpID=51SsoEB32RL&amp;preST=_SY291_BO1,204,203,200_QL40_&amp;dpSrc=srch\"><em>The Captain Class<\/em><\/a>. There\u2019s a reason why dynasties come around. The Philadelphia Union is only nine years old, so we had to start from scratch as an MLS team and we looked around at our community; Philadelphia is not New York or Boston or Washington, it\u2019s a blue-collar town so we adopted the philosophy of a blue-collar, hard work, ethnic groups \u2013 almost every ethnic group in the country is represented in Philadelphia. We try to build our philosophy and our culture around that. Right now our team is not doing very well but our management and our owner is willing to stick with our young coach and young athletes and we\u2019ve made a commitment to do that, even though it\u2019s early in our season and we\u2019re near the bottom of the table. But still we\u2019re playing lots of young players and we have one of the youngest coaches in the league and our management and ownership is willing to stay with us. I think they believe in consistency and trying to refine and improve on it.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Next practices<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>BB<\/strong>: What is everybody\u2019s next practice? What are you inspired to bring to your group that\u2019s actionable? For us it\u2019s going to be rethinking our learning, development and awareness. We need to be better at how we are sharing information and including all of our stakeholders in the process so that there\u2019s a real personal investment and commitment in where we want to be. We\u2019re going to continue to change and evolve and we need to make sure that those lines are clear across our artists, our therapists, our artistic directors and our company managers.<\/p>\n<p><strong>ML:<\/strong> I\u2019m trying to increase communication between our different departments and different people; maybe medical department and S&amp;C, maybe technical staff and so on and so forth. They actually talk to one another because what I\u2019ve found here when I arrived is that I\u2019d talk to the head of medical, who is our head physio, and I ask him why didn\u2019t you talk to the S&amp;C coach, and he says to be honest he never came into our physio room. That\u2019s where we needed to start, not by email but really by trying to have face to face conversations; I have to make them do it. It\u2019s not that I want many of those meetings but what I\u2019m trying to do is get more face to face meetings and get people to talk to one another. Then at some point I can start to fade it out when I see it\u2019s actually working; at least I hope it\u2019s going to work.<\/p>\n<p><strong>FG<\/strong>: We\u2019re bringing in Dan Coyle with his new book <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.co.uk\/Culture-Code-Secrets-Highly-Successful\/dp\/1847941265\"><em>The Culture Code<\/em><\/a>, we brought him in years ago when he wrote The Talent Code. It\u2019s that continuing effort to bring in outside resources to make sure the coaches and the planners and the administration have the chance to sit in a room and look at each other. I like the concept of ranks being checked at the door. We\u2019ve made progress and signed young athletes to contracts; none have gone to Europe yet, but still we need to look at ourselves again very carefully. So we\u2019re bringing in outside resources.<\/p>\n<p><strong>MT<\/strong>: We\u2019re bringing in Brent Gleeson a great professional and his book is <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.co.uk\/Takingpoint-Principles-Leading-Through-Change\/dp\/1501176781\"><em>Takingpoint<\/em><\/a> and his perspective as a Navy SEAL is really unique and the premise of his book is actually taking charge of change; leading change versus managing it; a proactive rather than reactive approach. It\u2019s kind of a different mindset to what we\u2019ve had in the past. The battlefield has changed significantly so we\u2019ve to adapt to that rather than taking a proactive approach. Changing that is what we\u2019re trying to do right now.<\/p>\n<p><strong>LL: <\/strong>I think you have to keep culture in the conversation as leaders in our organisations. So it\u2019s the conversation about what our culture is, understanding it, and then redefining it and having the difficult conversations when we\u2019re not upholding it and making sure we\u2019re checking ourselves and each other; living by the norms of our culture and the values. We do bring in outside people as well but it\u2019s leaning on the expertise of our staff and really valuing and adding to our staff and giving them developmental experiences as well; letting them do what they do really well and letting them showcase and appreciating what they do. Finally, it\u2019s ongoing communication with our players because when they come into our camp for a week or two of training, they\u2019ll experience things at our campuses that are different what they do on the road or at home. So it\u2019s ongoing communication and following through with our athletes, especially our young athletes as we develop the mindset of a professional and high performer.<\/p>\n<p><strong>KD:<\/strong> I\u2019ve been working on changing how we do our emergency action plans, which is fortunately not something that we need to utilise a lot in dance medicine but I think it can be good way to include artistic dancers and medical as well as staff in each theatre environment and really have a team building experience rather than just a functional thing. It\u2019s taking that functional thing to take communication to the next level in terms of performance and team building.<\/p>\n<p><strong>JE: <\/strong>At our end, there\u2019s no delineation between coach and performance staff; there\u2019s pre-conceived thoughts where we\u2019re the health and performance side is the restrictor; we\u2019re the ones that want to rest our players and there are some issues when it comes to the coaching staff. My goal is to be involved in a lot more meetings with the coaches and they become more educated on why we make those decisions. There\u2019s a quote on the board in my office from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.co.uk\/Extreme-Ownership-Jocko-Willink\/dp\/1250183863\/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1525180106&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=extreme+ownership+jocko+willink\"><em>Extreme Ownership<\/em><\/a><em>:<\/em> \u2018It\u2019s not what you preach it\u2019s what you tolerate\u2019 and that comes with a lot of the coaches and a lot of health &amp; performance staff; and how do we look in the eyes of the players; are our actions showing what our true message is? We what to make sure the players are doing the right things to enhance their performance.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>Previous Virtual Roundtable Takeaways<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/leadersinsport.com\/performance\/leaders-virtual-roundtables-people-development-sport\/\">People Development in Sport<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/leadersinsport.com\/performance\/leaders-virtual-roundtables-driven-benevolence-coaching\/\">Driven Benevolence in Coaching<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/leadersinsport.com\/performance\/leaders-virtual-roundtables-finding-1\/\">Finding the 1%<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/leadersinsport.com\/performance\/leaders-virtual-roundtables-turning-vision-reality\/\">Turning a Vision into a Reality<\/a><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<\/p>\n                                <\/div>\n                            \n                            \n                            \n                                                    <\/div>\n                                        <div class=\"col visibly-hidden col--flex-align-right\">\n                                            <\/div>\n                <\/div>\n            <\/div>\n        <\/div>\n        <\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>An online meeting of Leaders Performance Institute members on 27 April 2018.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":1401,"menu_order":0,"template":"","categories":[22,20],"pathway":[],"topic":[],"sport":[],"class_list":["post-1400","article","type-article","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-coaching-development-performance","category-leadership-culture-performance"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.6 - 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