{"id":33306,"date":"2026-02-02T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-02-02T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/leadersinsport.com\/performance-institute\/?post_type=article&p=33306"},"modified":"2026-01-30T10:44:14","modified_gmt":"2026-01-30T10:44:14","slug":"the-debrief-a-snapshot-of-powerful-discussions-happening-right-now-across-the-leaders-performance-institute-22","status":"publish","type":"article","link":"https:\/\/leadersinsport.com\/performance-institute\/articles\/the-debrief-a-snapshot-of-powerful-discussions-happening-right-now-across-the-leaders-performance-institute-22\/","title":{"rendered":"The Debrief \u2013 a Snapshot of Powerful Discussions Happening Right Now Across the Leaders Performance Institute"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
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\n 2 Feb 2026 <\/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

The Debrief \u2013 a Snapshot of Powerful Discussions Happening Right Now Across the Leaders Performance Institute<\/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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In the first month of 2026 Leaders Performance Institute members discussed at length strategies for effective learning, the value in evidence-informed practice, and why your values should be the carrot, not the stick.<\/p>\n \n \n \n

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By John Portch<\/h6>\n
In January, Indiana became college football\u2019s first first-time national champion in 29 years.<\/h6>\n

It was a lesson to all sleeping giants. Here was a team with the most losses in the sport\u2019s history and, over the course of their 16-0 season, had compiled more wins than between 2020 and 2023 in total.<\/p>\n

Indiana Head Coach Curt Cignetti spoke of a \u201cparadigm shift\u201d in the aftermath of the Hoosiers\u2019 27-21 defeat of Miami.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople can cling to an old way of thinking, categorising teams as this or that or conferences as this or that or they can adjust to the new world, the shift in the power dynamic in college football today,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Cignetti was brought in ahead of the 2024 season and transformed the mindset of a team that had been treading water for decades.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s got to be a lot of like-minded individuals who come together for a common purpose, and sometimes that belief has to be a little bit irrational,\u201d said Indiana centre Pat Coogan.<\/p>\n

\u201cEspecially in a place that hasn\u2019t had success like Indiana. I\u2019ve seen it, and I\u2019ve seen the way this place has been characterised, and when Coach Cig got here, he believed, and he got people to believe. Sometimes people laughed at him and thought he was crazy, but that\u2019s irrational belief. You\u2019ve got to get people to buy-in and believe in the mission.\u201d<\/p>\n

With a host of senior players set to graduate, success may not be replicable in the short term, but Cignetti is ready for whatever comes next.<\/p>\n

\u201cPerfection is impossible to attain on a consistent basis,\u201d he said. \u201cBut we\u2019ll continue to take it one day at a time, one meeting at a time, one practice at a time, and just keep improving and committing to the process and showing up prepared, trying to put it on the field, and see where it takes us.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was a powerful message to kick off the year in sports performance and one that underlined the importance of the fundamentals while refusing to stand still.<\/p>\n

Which brings us nicely to the happenings at the Leaders Performance Institute these past four weeks.<\/p>\n

Insight of the month<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u2018What underpins successful teams across formats is not uniformity, but clarity of individual responsibility within a collective framework. Team performance does not replace individual accountability; it depends on it.\u2019<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

In a guest column, James Thomas<\/strong>, the Performance Director at Warwickshire CCC<\/strong>, spoke about facilities being a secondary concern until the leaders had created the right environment to enable athletes, whether they\u2019re the Olympic champions with whom he has worked or Premier League and Champions League-winning footballers, being paramount.<\/p>\n

Read more<\/a> about why high performance is not something leaders should demand. It is something they should enable.<\/p>\n

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Britain’s Anthony Joshua on his way to winning gold at the 2012 London Olympics. (Scott Heavey\/Getty Images)<\/p><\/div>\n

Surprising insight of the month<\/strong><\/p>\n

Did you know that Team GB<\/strong> built its own hub within the London Olympic Village in 2012. This was very much a \u201chost nation benefit\u201d as Paul Ford MBE<\/strong> called it in another popular guest column last month.<\/p>\n

The Head of Sport at the British Olympic Association<\/strong> wrote:<\/p>\n

When we finished in London we looked and thought: \u2018it\u2019s not home advantage necessarily, we just need to be more creative\u2019.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

It provoked a question: how do we create an optimal physical way of uniting the team within the Games environment? Part of it was using our Olympic Village residential space smarter. But you can\u2019t expect this of the local organising committee to do on our behalf, since their brief is so vast. Instead, we decided to take it out of their hands. And for each of the subsequent Summer Olympics we have found an out-of-village space exclusively for our use.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Read more about their approach here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Team GB flag bearers Helen Glover and Tom Daley pose for a selfie outside the residence of the British Ambassador to France ahead of the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris. (Alex Pantling\/Getty Images)<\/p><\/div>\n

Best advice<\/strong><\/p>\n

Leaders Performance Institute members across the globe strive to encourage learning throughout their teams and while it will always be an important feature of any successful team, you should not waste your time on the wrong people.<\/p>\n

As performance specialist Iain Brunnschweiler<\/strong> explained at a Leaders Virtual Roundtable:<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s definitely some people who, you can try as hard as you like to get them to learn and I think we have to be cognisant of our own energy as someone who\u2019s seeking to help. It\u2019s a bit like athletes, isn\u2019t it? If you\u2019re up for it, I\u2019ll give you 150% of my energy. If you\u2019re not, after a period of time, I\u2019ll just go, \u2018look, you crack on\u2019. So I think we have to be accepting of that.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Over the course of an hour, Brunnschweiler and a band of LPI members noted ten strategies<\/a> for more effective learning.<\/p>\n

One you might have missed<\/strong><\/p>\n

Jamie Taylor<\/strong> of Dublin City University<\/strong> and the CoEx|Lab <\/strong>made the case for evidence-informed<\/em> as opposed to evidence-based practice.<\/p>\n

He enlisted the help of students from DCU\u2019s online doctorate and MSc programmes, which are aimed specifically at coaches and practitioners in high performance sport.<\/p>\n

One such student is Eilish Ward<\/strong>, the Head of Player Development at the Ladies Gaelic Football Association<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

As she told Taylor, you can\u2019t simply drop research on top of a sports programme. It must be used critically, in conjunction with a coach\u2019s own research, and applied in an informed manner.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s not necessarily one solution,\u201d she said. \u201cThere\u2019s no one way to learn anything or to gain experience or expertise.\u201d<\/p>\n

The key for Ward in her work is to ensure she and her colleagues are \u201cmaking as informed decisions as possible when we\u2019re designing learning activities\u201d because \u201cnot everything from research may be transferable into a practical environment and, equally, every practical environment is going to be hugely different.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more about DCU\u2019s programmes here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Quote of the month <\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cWe have to become diplomats, high\u2011level development people who can manage such diverse groups. Somewhere along the line, we need to start creating those development opportunities for everybody who\u2019s on this call.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

These are the attention-grabbing words of a performance director working in India who spelled out the challenges in talent identification and development.<\/p>\n

He and a host of LPI members listed five<\/a> of the most common trends (and five opportunities) in that space.<\/p>\n

Good to know<\/strong><\/p>\n

Organisational values should be your carrot, not your stick.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s according to Emma Keith<\/strong>, a Royal Air Force<\/strong> Group Captain, is the Commandant of the Tedder Academy of Leadership<\/strong> at the RAF. In 2015 she became the first woman to run RAF Officer Training.<\/p>\n

In her appearance at the 2025 Leaders Sport Performance Summit in London, she spoke about how the RAF\u2019s values, all contained within the prosaically titled Air Publication One document, had been used to browbeat good people.<\/p>\n

\u201cActually 99% of my organisation are amazing, they really are, and I wanted a document that was aspirational for them, that they could believe in, that it was the organisation they wanted to be a part of. And we know from all the different behavioural models of change that it only happens when people want to change, not because it\u2019s been forced on them.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Again, the focus was learning strategies<\/a> in an inspiring presentation.<\/p>\n

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The RAF’s Emma Keith onstage at the 2025 Leaders Sport Performance Summit in London. (Leaders)<\/p><\/div>\n

What\u2019s coming up for members<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Virtual Learning<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n