{"id":738,"date":"2020-07-13T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-07-13T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/leadersinsport.com\/performance-institute\/reports\/winning-the-lockdown-part-i\/"},"modified":"2025-12-15T05:12:15","modified_gmt":"2025-12-15T05:12:15","slug":"winning-the-lockdown-part-i","status":"publish","type":"article","link":"https:\/\/leadersinsport.com\/performance-institute\/articles\/winning-the-lockdown-part-i\/","title":{"rendered":"Winning The Lockdown: Part I"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
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\n Jul 13, 2020 <\/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

Winning The Lockdown: Part I<\/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 Leadership & Culture<\/a> <\/div>\n
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Why striking a work-life balance could be your competitive advantage.<\/p>\n \n \n \n

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The At Home With Leader<\/i><\/em>s podcast series has proven to be one of the most popular Leaders Performance Institute staples during the pandemic.<\/h4>\n
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By John Portch<\/h6>\n

From Mark Shapiro in episode one, through luminaries such as Eddie Jones, Sir Dave Brailsford and Emma Hayes, the series has checked-in at home in with some of sports finest leaders on both sides of the Atlantic and beyond.<\/p>\n

Twice a week, our Senior Product Manager Matthew Stone is joined by alternating co-hosts Steve Gera of Gains Group and sports psychologist Michael Caulfield to chat to head coaches, general managers and other senior leaders about how they are adapting, attempting to thrive, and ultimately contributing to the eventual reboot of the sports performance landscape.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe big takeaway for me thus far,\u201d Gera tells the Leaders Performance Institute,\u00a0\u201cis that the circumstances and constraints of today are really forcing people to plan and be thoughtful about changes. This time period is really going to spur new thinking and ways of working across sport. From coaches who need to communicate clearer over a Zoom call, to players needing to wear microphones to enhance fan engagement, we’ve discussed the ways sport will and won’t change on the series, but the best thing is that we’ve been incredibly thoughtful in those discussions.\u201d<\/p>\n

Caulfield tells a similar story. \u201cEveryone I\u2019ve met – and I use the word \u2018met\u2019 – has just been so relaxed and at ease with opening up during this remarkable period. It\u2019s almost like they are reflecting on their careers rather than in the middle of a job.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis has been a lot of fun and something I know I’ve probably needed as well as our guests and listeners,\u201d adds Gera.\u00a0\u201cOne of the first things I noticed when Covid hit is that we were all separated from our teams. This has been a chance to form a new different team and one that is quite complementary to our core team at Gains Group.\u201d<\/p>\n

There is plenty more to come in the weeks ahead as sport continues to re-emerge and our guests continue to delve into the practicalities of returning to play, but first, the Leaders Performance Institute pauses to reflect on what some of sport\u2019s leaders are doing to emerge from the lockdown better placed than their rivals.<\/p>\n

In part I, we discuss the efforts of sport’s leaders to strike a better work-life balance.<\/p>\n

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Why striking a work-life balance could be your competitive advantage<\/h4>\n

\u201cWe have to do things differently,\u201d declares Thomas Dimitroff.<\/p>\n

The Atlanta Falcons General Manager\u00a0joined At Home With Leaders<\/i><\/em>\u00a0direct from his \u2018War Room\u2019 at the Dimitroff residence. From this very spot in April he led the Falcons\u2019 draft strategy at what became a videoconference, hosted by NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, when the physical event became a non-starter.<\/p>\n

The focus here is not draft picks but the precarious work-life balance of a football front office, which Dimitroff discusses at length with reference to his late father, the renowned football coach Tom Dimitroff Jr. He says: \u201cGrowing up with a father who was in football for 30 years, and through that hardcore guilt that we all grew up with in this business, we have to do things differently.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hardcore guilt? \u201cWe can take a lead from the Europeans quite honestly. We know that we need to work smarter; we\u2019ve been fighting it for years.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery new wave of young general managers and head coaches that come in thinks \u2018I\u2019ve finally got my gig, I\u2019m not letting it go. I never want to be perceived by the head of football operations or the team builder or the head coach as someone who\u2019s not putting in crazy hours and not burning the candle\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

Guilty or not, such an approach is unsustainable and counterproductive. \u201cI realise more and more that I\u2019m unbelievably focused when I eat well, exercise well, get the right sleep. If I don\u2019t do that, I could spend 10, 12, or 14 hours in the office and be nowhere near as productive as doing those other things and being much more eight hours of focus there.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s unbelievable and I fight it, which I get a little upset with myself thinking I should know better than this. This is my 13th<\/sup>\u00a0year as a general manager, almost 30 years in this business and the fact that I don\u2019t have a real strong grasp on this or haven\u2019t until now to me is something that really affects me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Could the pandemic usher in a sea-change? \u201cCovid-19 is the genesis of us starting to work smarter and it\u2019s allowing us to look at things in a different way. I\u2019ve had a number of GMs reach out to me and say if \u2018I could do this, if I could take a day a week\u2019; if they could take Wednesday – I know it sounds like an odd day – and take the entire day and work from home without the incessant knocks on the door that they would get so much done, and feel energised from having Monday and Tuesday, which are very busy days in the NFL, work from home on the Wednesday, come back Thursday and Friday, and then Saturday they travel for games, they would be so much more rejuvenated.\u201d<\/p>\n

As it stands, the NFL is due to return on schedule, although the Women\u2019s Super League [WSL] in England is just one of a series of competitions that have been wrapped up early. Chelsea FCW were declared WSL champions in June, a few weeks after the Blues\u2019 Head Coach Emma Hayes spoke to the podcast. She too felt a sense of guilt, albeit for different reasons.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhenever I\u2019m asked this in an interview and people ask how are you doing? I feel bad for saying I\u2019m doing really well,\u201d she admits. \u201cI\u2019m feeling happy, calm, and I\u2019ve got my hormones under control; for me as a woman that\u2019s been a real challenge after having a baby.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe also feel guilty because we\u2019ve been institutionalised into working in such a way and to such a level over a number of hours. I think in high performance environments the demands just grow; and I know from my position I have to think every year how am I going to top last year? To do that, and keep yourself fresh, to almost reinvent yourself; it takes an extraordinary amount of work to keep yourself topical with your players, your staff, too keep yourself hungry. That takes a lot of self-reflection to assess where you are and ultimately you don\u2019t have time to just sit.<\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone has regained themselves, which is enlightening, but it also means that\u2019s where the guilt comes. I think the guilt comes from a place of I feel terrible about the fact that I\u2019m happy looking after myself; because I\u2019m so used to looking after a team of people.\u201d<\/p>\n

Not that Hayes has lost sight of her players and staff. \u201cThe biggest concern with the development of football at least will be those footballers who struggle to return to play for fear of getting the virus; and I think that will alter an awful lot of what goes on inside team dynamics.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re not going to have typical dressing rooms any more; [there will be] withdrawn behaviour. We\u2019re going to have to learn as coaches how to observe and recognise mental health issues quicker because you\u2019re not going to be able to hear things per se from players and staff alike because interactions are going to differ. It\u2019s going to alter an awful lot what we do as facilitators.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mark Shapiro is thinking along similar lines in his role as CEO and President of MLB\u2019s Toronto Blue Jays, who are still without a return to play in sight.<\/p>\n

He says: \u201cThey have a thirst to get back to play, but while I think initially there might have been some minimising the impact of this, all of them see what\u2019s going on globally right now and no one is minimising the impact and everyone is focused on not pushing back until the time is right.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow how do I make sure that we and the loved ones around us are in a mentally healthy environment and we\u2019re taking care of ourselves? When that\u2019s taken care of then the next step is how do I prepare to ensure I\u2019m ready; and then finally the third step: are there opportunities to not only prepare but to get better? To utilise this unintended pause to find a way to grow, develop, learn in a way creatively that wouldn\u2019t normally exist.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Last Word<\/h4>\n

Sean Dyche: Young Footballers Are Not Having Fun<\/b><\/strong><\/p>\n

Sean Dyche, the Manager of English Premier League Burnley, who returned to action in June, told At Home With Leaders<\/i><\/em>\u00a0that he harbours significant concerns for the youngest generation of players looking to break into the professional game in England.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s no fact to this, this is just a feeling,\u201d he begins in explanation, \u201cI think you\u2019re finding some highly skilled players but underneath it all they\u2019re like \u2018I don\u2019t actually love it, I\u2019m just good\u2019. So there\u2019s been this shift; people used to love it to be good at it, now some players out there are really good by training but not actually through desire. They\u2019re not just playing in the street, they\u2019re being given training programmes. This emotional freedom to just desire is pulled away from some of these kids growing up.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe upside of that is that they\u2019ve got a much better football education by the time they get to 16-18 years old. The downside to it is that it can get like a job; they\u2019ve been doing a job since they were seven years old until they were 17; and then we wonder why they just look a bit apathetic and they don\u2019t have that edge or that desire; no wonder, it\u2019s been like a job. Whereas the kids who have just been playing; we see it now with kids who come into the academy at 14 or 15, they look different because they are different; they\u2019ve just been playing Sunday league or been playing with their mates, they\u2019ve got a different thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dyche makes an alarming prediction: \u201cThere will be players in the future of 27 or 28 years old saying, \u2018right, I\u2019ve made my money now, I enjoyed it, I was good at it, and now I\u2019m off\u2019. You\u2019re probably going to get a psychological shift from that, which is not going to be good news.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Looking for more performance insight?<\/strong><\/p>\n

This article first appeared in our Performance<\/em> journal, which\u00a0is available for download now and leads with a selection of insights lifted from our At Home With Leaders podcast series, which has featured the likes of England Rugby\u2019s Eddie Jones<\/strong>, the Toronto Blue Jays\u2019 Mark Shapiro<\/strong>, and Chelsea\u2019s Emma Hayes<\/strong> speaking directly from their home offices.<\/p>\n