{"id":21672,"date":"2023-12-06T09:52:44","date_gmt":"2023-12-06T09:52:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/leadersinsport.com\/performance-institute\/?post_type=article&p=21672"},"modified":"2025-12-15T05:11:05","modified_gmt":"2025-12-15T05:11:05","slug":"intelligence-debrief-november-2023","status":"publish","type":"article","link":"https:\/\/leadersinsport.com\/performance-institute\/articles\/intelligence-debrief-november-2023\/","title":{"rendered":"Intelligence Debrief – November 2023"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
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\n 6 Dec 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 – November 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\n\n\n\n
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A summary of key learnings from Leaders Performance Institute members across the month of November.<\/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 November.<\/h6>\n

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

Thank you to all of our members who joined us for the Leaders Sport Performance Summit at the Oval in London. We hope you enjoyed connecting with fellow members and stretching your thinking with the array of content on offer across the two days.<\/p>\n

With Christmas quickly approaching, we have highlighted some of the key takeaways across some of the sessions and conversations over the past few weeks.<\/p>\n

The Leaders Sport Performance Summit<\/strong><\/p>\n

November brings about our London Sport Performance Summit. Something a little bit different this year in terms of the takeaways, which you can find here<\/a>. For those of you who weren\u2019t able to join us, keep an eye on the Intelligence Hub in the coming weeks with some specific articles based on some of the sessions that took place across the two days. For the purpose of this Intelligence Debrief, we have taken time to sieve through some of our top insights from across the two days. Here\u2019s what resonated most strongly with us and the speaker guests that shared them:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Promote playfulness:<\/strong> in the words of Lucy Pearson, the Football Association’s Director of Education: \u201cI think play and playfulness is really important if we\u2019re going to achieve high performance in any area. How do you foster playfulness in your workplaces and challenge the seriousness that comes with the serious thing of high performance? Because we take ourselves too seriously at times. That doesn\u2019t mean that everything\u2019s hilarious \u2013 maybe it is \u2013 but it does mean that we adopted a slightly different approach.\u201d<\/li>\n
  2. Empower your people:<\/strong> in the words of British Cycling\u2019s Head Coach Jon Norfolk: \u201cthe clearest plan wins\u2026 the clearer your plan is the more people can access it, the more people understand it, and the more people you\u2019ll have to back your plan. I\u2019ve seen situations where the plan is the product of the coach and it\u2019s only the coach that\u2019s inputted into it\u2026 if you have one person inputting into a plan you\u2019ve got their biases baked into that plan. The more people that input the more that bias is neutralised. The clearer your plan is the more people can input into it and the better plan you get. The clearer the plan, the more impactful the plan.\u201d<\/li>\n
  3. Create safe spaces for failure:<\/strong> in the words of the Brisbane Lions’ Senior Coach Chris Fagan: \u201cI told the players at the very start when we got together that we\u2019re going to fail our way to the top and not to worry about that because it\u2019s through your failures that you learn. These blokes were really frightened about failing and I had to take that fear out of it for them\u2026 [as for the concept of having a growth mindset] we\u2019ve pretty much been doing that stuff for the last seven years.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

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

    In November, we hosted three different formats as part of our Virtual Roundtable schedule: a case study session focusing on change management, our final leadership skills session on the skill of managing up and the second session of a three-part series breaking down the importance of performance planning. A busy month across the roundtables, but some excellent discussions and stimulus shared throughout.<\/p>\n

    Goal harmony vs team harmony<\/strong><\/p>\n

    As part of our ongoing series looking at the topic of performance planning, session two focused on how can you create team alignment to galvanise and focus your team\u2019s performance, debating the influence of an approach to goal harmony or team harmony. The session highlighted some interesting perspectives and challenge for what is often traditionally seen in many high performance environments.<\/p>\n

    Why is goal harmony more impactful than team harmony?<\/strong><\/p>\n

      \n
    1. With a team harmony approach, we often witness a vague strategy, mission and vision. The consequence of this vagueness can lead to operating in silos and overall inconsistency in messaging and the operation of the team. Another side-effect of this vagueness is that resources aren\u2019t applied efficiently and there can often be a climate of uncertainty due to a lack of trust.<\/li>\n
    2. It is vitally important to set a unifying, ultimate performance target that drives everything that you do. Does your team have this ultimate target? This target isn\u2019t a vision, it is measurable and performance-based. When reflecting on this in the group conversations and, leaning on prior experiences, we often find that many efforts to create alignment to galvanise and focus team performance lack this clarity.<\/li>\n
    3. Steve Jobs famously spoke of the friction that is required in teams to generate high performance. It is the friction, discussions and disagreements around performance matters that keep you at the cutting edge and challenging the nature of the ultimate performance target.<\/li>\n
    4. If we generate harmony and clarity around the goal, the friction that takes place sits around the requirements of the target and not the individuals involved as we have already established collective harmony and clarity.<\/li>\n
    5. Enhance team effectiveness with \u2018What it Takes to Win\u2019 planning. The success of this approach lies in the practice of setting the target. The performance target should be a bridge to your vision, purpose, dream and goal. The target has to be in your control and engages all resources and team members. It also requires a clear deadline and ability to be measurable.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      How to effectively manage upwards?<\/strong><\/p>\n

      For our final Leadership Skills Series session of the year, we focused on the skill of managing up. A popular topic of conversation within the Leaders Performance Institute for those overseeing departments or have direct lines into executive leadership or board level personnel.<\/p>\n

      Below are some considerations on how to better understand who you are \u2018managing up\u2019, how you can best prepare yourself through being self-aware of your trigger areas and simple ways to proactively develop the relationship.<\/p>\n

      Putting yourself in the shoes of those to whom you are \u2018managing up<\/strong>\u2019<\/p>\n

      Understand their drivers and pressures so you can both support them and understand their point of view will boost you ability to be collaborative in the conversations. Establish their:<\/p>\n

        \n
      • Goals and pressures.<\/li>\n
      • Strengths and weaknesses.<\/li>\n
      • Preferred way of working.<\/li>\n
      • Preferred communication style.<\/li>\n
      • What information do they trust.<\/li>\n
      • Decision-making style.<\/li>\n
      • The relationships with their boss and peers.<\/li>\n
      • Their values.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

        Now consider for yourself: what are your trigger areas? Do you have a clear understanding of your own thoughts and feeling to the below?<\/p>\n

          \n
        • Predisposition towards hierarchy and authority.<\/li>\n
        • Preferred way of working.<\/li>\n
        • Preferred communication style.<\/li>\n
        • Strengths and areas for development.<\/li>\n
        • Emotional resilience.<\/li>\n
        • Your values.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

          How can you proactively develop the relationship?<\/p>\n

          Below are nine considerations for you to reflect on.<\/p>\n

            \n
          1. See it as a partnership.<\/li>\n
          2. Clarify mutual expectations.<\/li>\n
          3. Understand what motivates them.<\/li>\n
          4. Don\u2019t make assumptions.<\/li>\n
          5. Use their time well.<\/li>\n
          6. Keep communicating: ensure your boss is informed and updated.<\/li>\n
          7. Schedule regular 1-1 meetings.<\/li>\n
          8. Reach out when you need help.<\/li>\n
          9. Give and receive feedback.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

            How to effectively manage change?<\/strong><\/p>\n

            As part of our final case study virtual roundtable of 2023, we focused our attention on the theme of change management and, in particular, exploring experiences and approaches for doing this effectively from a position of leadership.<\/p>\n

            In this particular virtual roundtable, there were a number of considerations when leading a team through a period of change, using the first 90 days principle as a guide.<\/p>\n

              \n
            1. From the outset:<\/strong> it\u2019s important to \u2018win the people\u2019. Show strong emotional intelligence through understanding contractual situations, team structure and roles. There is a need to be authentic. There must be clear intent around communication and decision-making. Finally, acting with integrity and communicating effectively are important elements to set the stall out successfully.<\/li>\n
            2. The first 30 days:<\/strong> how did we get here? Reflect on the circumstances surrounding why you as a leader or team are there. Reflective questions you can explore include: what is broken? Are these challenges technical, tactical, cultural? What is needed to resolve what is broken? Is it a case of filling the cracks, re-modelling or tearing it down and starting afresh? Finally, what role do you as the leader play in fixing this?<\/li>\n
            3. The first 60 days:<\/strong> strategy formation. Involve the stakeholders in the process as this gives you the insight and data to find out more about your people\u2019s ideas, abilities, strengths and weaknesses. By this stage we should have clarity on what needs fixing, so development of the technical and tactical items that you are going to feed into the strategy formation. Develop and clearly outlining the roadmap of an action plan that is different to the previous regime that can generate collective buy-in and clear direction. Clear and effective communication of the process, procedure and expectations are crucial; as are the formulation of key performance indicators that reflect the new direction to allow for measurement in defining and measuring the success of the process.<\/li>\n
            4. The first 90 days:<\/strong> strategy implementation. The most difficult stage of the process. What is important to look out for? It is natural for people to revert to what is comfortable. As the leader, you need to be aware of this to not stifle the action plan. To support this, ensure there are active reviews along the journey to provide opportunities to reflect and adjust if needs be. This stage is also going to be a key insight around personnel, and specifically if you have the correct people on the bus and if they are in the correct seats. Your active reviews will help provide key information around this \u2013 here is where you may have to make difficult decisions if certain individuals aren\u2019t on the bus with you or if adjustments around roles need to take place.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/p>\n <\/div>\n \n \n \n <\/div>\n
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