{"id":19341,"date":"2023-08-01T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-08-01T09:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/leadersinsport.com\/performance-institute\/?post_type=article&p=19341"},"modified":"2025-12-15T05:11:11","modified_gmt":"2025-12-15T05:11:11","slug":"intelligence-debrief-july-2023","status":"publish","type":"article","link":"https:\/\/leadersinsport.com\/performance-institute\/articles\/intelligence-debrief-july-2023\/","title":{"rendered":"Intelligence Debrief – July 2023"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
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\n 1 Aug 2023 <\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/span>Articles<\/a>\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\t

Intelligence Debrief – July 2023<\/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
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Category<\/div>\n Coaching & Development<\/a> <\/div>\n
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A summary of key learnings from Leaders Performance Institute members across the month of July.<\/p>\n \n \n \n

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By Luke Whitworth<\/h6>\n
We are back with another Leaders Performance Intelligence Debrief, highlighting some of our favourite reflections from across the Institute in July.<\/h6>\n

The Intelligence Debrief is designed to keep you on the pulse of contemporary thinking across the high performance space and provide you with some inspiration to engage with the variety of opportunities on offer through your membership.<\/p>\n

Before we get stuck into some thinking points from the last few weeks, we really liked this idea from former Leaders speaker Adam Grant in his book Think Again: The Power of Knowing What you Don\u2019t Know<\/em>. It was cited by a member in one of our sessions:<\/p>\n

\u2018Thinking like a scientist involves more than just reading with an open mind. It means being actively open-minded. It requires searching for reasons why we might be wrong \u2013 not for reasons why we must be right \u2013 and revising our views based on what we learn\u2019 \u2013 Adam Grant<\/em><\/p>\n

Upon piecing this month\u2019s Intelligence Debrief, it serves as a gentle reminder on the importance of being intentionally open to and remaining humble around the process of learning.<\/p>\n

Virtual Roundtables<\/strong><\/p>\n

In July, we hosted three different formats as part of our Virtual Roundtable schedule: a topic-led conversation on \u2018mental skills in practice<\/a>\u2019, our first session of the latest Performance Support Series on \u2018talent development environments<\/a>\u2019 and, finally, another topic-led discussion around \u2018challenges & opportunities for performance analysis<\/a>\u2019.<\/p>\n

For this month\u2019s debrief, we have highlighted some thinking points from two of the sessions.<\/p>\n

The application of mental skills<\/strong><\/p>\n

Our first virtual roundtable of the month explored the theme of mental skills in practice, with a particular focus on the what, why and how that sits behind this field of excellence. A thank you to IMG Academy Director of Personal Development Duncan Simpson for sharing some thoughts up front with those on the call to spark discussions.<\/p>\n

At the start of the roundtable, Duncan shared with us some core questioning we should be considering when thinking about the programming of mental skills training. Some of the thoughts below are important to understand before we just jump into a mindset of delivery:<\/p>\n

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  1. What does the athlete or team want?<\/strong> What are we hearing from them around what they want? Do they want to become more resilient, confident or focused \u2013 what are the areas they want? This is a really important step, in particular having the connection with the athlete to collate that feedback. Where we have seen mental skills not work is when we put the programming to the athlete and try to make them receptive to it.<\/li>\n
  2. What does the athlete or team need?<\/strong> Conduct an audit or needs analysis by working with coaches and support staff to understand what they actually need. When we start to collate the information around what they want and need, we are much better informed around what the programming and training needs to look like.<\/li>\n
  3. When you think about the sport in the context in which you work, what\u2019s the greatest return on investment?<\/strong> If we want to improve the resilience of the team, is that going to have the biggest impact upon performance and wellbeing? Are we strictly focused on performance or is it a combination of both? We need to evaluate what is actually going on in order to make a difference.<\/li>\n
  4. It\u2019s also worth thinking about an opposing question such as \u2018what\u2019s the lowest hanging fruit?\u2019<\/strong> What\u2019s the easiest thing, not just the greatest thing? What are the things that are no brainers?<\/li>\n
  5. Where does addition and subtraction sit within the programming?<\/strong> When we think about organisations and teams, a lot of times coaches have this idea of needing to do more; and mental skills training is another one of those things we have to do, work and focus on \u2013 it\u2019s an addition. We can actually reframe this. Mental skills and psychological work can actually be about subtraction. Here\u2019s an example to bring this to life \u2013 if we are to focus on team building and culture working through the lens of subtraction, an element of this might be that when we make a mistake, we don\u2019t criticise each other. We\u2019re not doing anything extra, we\u2019re just stopping criticism.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    What has stood the test of time in talent development?<\/strong><\/p>\n

    Our latest Performance Support Series explores the past, present, and future of talent development. This series of learning is being delivered by Dr Edd Vahid, the Head of Academy Football Operations at the English Premier League.<\/p>\n

    As a way of setting the scene for this particular Performance Support Series, Vahid shared some of his reflections from working within elite football academy environments, in which there were a number of consistent themes based on those experiences and interactions with others operating within the field of talent development. Below are six of those reflections \u2013 do you see similarities in the contexts you are operating in?<\/p>\n

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    1. The best junior athletes are not always the best senior athletes. This reflects the non-linear development pathway many athletes can experience.<\/li>\n
    2. There is more than one way to achieve the same thing, which alludes to the debates around early vs late specialisation.<\/li>\n
    3. Each player or athlete will experience a unique journey.<\/li>\n
    4. There is a disproportionate number of early born individuals (relative age effect) in talent development pathways.<\/li>\n
    5. Success is not achieved alone. If we removed the support structure around an athlete, will they still succeed?<\/li>\n
    6. The \u2018end game\u2019 is always evolving.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      What about putting the above into a coherent model that you can use to evaluate how you go about your talent development processes? Vahid shared five concepts that embody how the best talent development environments operate:<\/p>\n

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      1. Individualised<\/strong>: the best talent development environments are individualised in nature.<\/li>\n
      2. Interdisciplinary<\/strong>: the most effective talent development demonstrates an interdisciplinary approach. Whilst the multiple disciplines will operate with an athlete, where it works most effectively is when there is an interdisciplinary approach to ensure the athlete is receiving the most critical and important piece of information and not an overload of information from the multiple disciplines.<\/li>\n
      3. Intervening upstream<\/strong>: the best talent development environments invest significant time in future proofing their activities and protect time for those conversations to understand what the future might look like. This is incredibly challenging with the dynamic and relentless nature of our environments, leaving a lack of time to think about these conversations.<\/li>\n
      4. Inclusive environments<\/strong>: the best environments for developing talent are inclusive, which also nods to the point on them being individualised.<\/li>\n
      5. Investment return<\/strong>: the best talent development environments are considering the range of stakeholders that they are servicing. What\u2019s the investment return of a young person who is dedicating so much time in that environment? What is the investment return for a parent who is probably offering a critical amount of support both emotionally and practically? What is the investment for the CEO, president or head coach?<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

        Future opportunities in the field of performance analysis<\/strong><\/p>\n

        The final roundtable of the month allowed some experts in the field of performance analysis to come together to discuss current challenges and opportunities. Within this discussion, we asked the group to outline some areas they feel present opportunities moving forward \u2013 it was clear that there was some commonalities in the responses.<\/p>\n

        We\u2019ve combined some of these into five key areas:<\/p>\n

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        1. Interdisciplinarity:<\/strong> to continue looking at ways to be innovative and creative in how to work in an interdisciplinary way.<\/li>\n
        2. Predictive:<\/strong> there was a theme around how to make our analysis more predictive as opposed to being overly objective.<\/li>\n
        3. Creating our own data:<\/strong> we are starting to see some shifts where we are creating our own data and not having to stick to the traditional ways of data collation.<\/li>\n
        4. In-game decision making:<\/strong> access to data in-game is becoming more readily available which has the ability to influence coaching and in-game decision making. How can we maximise these developments?<\/li>\n
        5. Non-technical skills:<\/strong> one of the most popular discussion points in this roundtable conversation was the importance of developing non-technical skills in staff to better communicate the data to athletes and staff.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/p>\n <\/div>\n \n \n \n <\/div>\n
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