There is a tribe in the highlands of Papua New Guinea who have never seen modern technology, who could not even imagine using the latest electronic tools, who can not comprehend western society concepts of computing, social media, high speed Internet links, laser technology or satellite navigation.

This tribe, believes that the best way – the only way - the way everyone must adopt  to cut down a tree is to make an axe by lashing a sharp rock to a piece of wood. This knowledge has been passed down from generation to generation for centuries….this tribe knows for certain that the only way to cut down a tree is to use a hand made stone ax.

And then, one day, through the forest, comes a man from the USA carrying a chain saw……. 

And it is the same with all sports!

You want to be a football coach. So what do you do?

You enrol in a football coaching course. You attend a weekend football coaching course. You listen to the football coaching presentations, you read the football coaching books and you do the football coaching practical sessions.

And all of these sessions are presented by football coaches who like you, learnt from other football coaches who learnt from other football coaches who learnt from other football coaches.

There is no doubt a level of sports specific knowledge and information is critical to learn in all sports: you need a certain level of core level or basic knowledge in the sport you are planning to coach.

However, believing that all the solutions to football (or tennis or swimming or hockey etc) problems lie within football limits the potential for progress and is a coaching dead end. Now more than ever, coaching is creativity.

In truth, like the tribe in Papua New Guinea, believing that what your sport knows and what your sport does is the only way of doing things is one step short of insanity and a recipe for coaching mediocrity.

The reason you believe that your sport “sees all and knows all” is that in all likelihood you don’t really know what else is out there – and unless someone comes crashing into your sport with a “chainsaw” of new ideas, information and innovations - it is likely you never will know what else is out there.

Particularly in high performance coaching, where winning means being unique, being different, being the first, being more innovative and more creative than your opposition, copying the ideas of others within your own sport means failure: copying equals losing - the best ideas win!

To think outside the box, you have to first step outside the box: you have to move outside of your sport and look at:

1. Coaching in other sports;
2. Coaching in other industries which involve teaching, learning, coaching, communication and developing skills;
3. Coaching in other fields of endeavour which prize innovation, creativity, uniqueness, achievement and success.

Now, more than ever, Creativity is King! The Internet has made information about your sport available anywhere, anytime, to anyone and for free – everyone is an expert.

You have to assume that now everyone within your sport knows what you know – and that knowledge about your own sport is freely available to other coaches, athletes, parents, administrators, the media and the general public - everyone is an expert.

So, if all your competitors know what you know and have learnt it the same way you learnt it, how will you gain an advantage over them??????

The most important part of thinking outside the box is accepting that other people, other sports, other coaches might know more than you (and your sport) know. It is critical to look outside of the box with an open mind, an inquisitive spirit and a humble soul and to not judge what you see out there from a “that’s not the way we do it” perspective.

I have seen more than one “benchmarking” group from a sport visit other sports but do so with their eyes, ears, hearts and minds closed – wishing only to confirm how much better they are than everyone else. You have to walk away from your “box” and look at new ideas, information and innovations objectively, intelligently and inquisitively.

The secret to coaching success in the future lies in knowing three things:

1. “I know as much as I can know about my sport“;
2. “I know as much as I can know about other sports and other fields of endeavour“;
3. “I know that I must continue to strive to learn as much as I can learn about my sport, other sports and other fields of endeavour if I am to succeed as a coach”.

 So, what do you know?

Wayne Goldsmith

© 2010, Sports Coaching Brain. All rights reserved. This post can not be reproduced in full or in part without the expressed consent of the author Wayne Goldsmith.

Yes you can!

Without doubt, the biggest impediment to success in all sporting teams involve leadership, personalities and politics.

When clients ask me to come in and undertake a review of their high performance programs, they usually begin with a “brief”.

The brief gives me an idea of the scope of the review, what the outcomes will be, what specific areas they would like me to look at and time-frames for completion. And time and time again, in spite of the brief outlining that the clients perceive that the problems with the team revolve around money, recruitment, player depth, coaching, sports science and injury management, the solutions to their high performance problems very often reside in leadership (or a lack of it), personality issues and political conflicts.

Here are the five assumptions I have developed to underpin the process of reviewing and then enhancing high performance programs in sport:

1. Money is unlikely to be the real problem;
2. Most people don’t really understand the two core concepts in high performance sport – a. how to create and sustain a high performance environment and b. how to create and sustain a winning culture;
3. People are unlikely to reveal the real truth – mainly because most of the time they don’t know what it is;
4. People will blame things and other people for a lack of performance before they are prepared to look honestly at their own performance – ego extinguishes excellence;
5. A fish rots from the head - most of the problems in sporting organisations are due to poor leadership, a lack of vision and the inability of the leaders (be that the Board, the Executive Management team or the Head Coach) to see beyond leadership, personality and political issues.

It never ceases to amaze me. People will claim they are all about high performance, that they understand how to create and sustain a high performance environment, spend lots of money on recruitment, facilities, equipment, sports science, sports medicine and all the “tricks of the trade” but fail to look honestly, clearly, sincerely and professionally at the most influential high performance “tricks” of all - leadership, personalities and politics.

And why? Human nature! Buying an instant, quick fix solution is always easier than creating and growing a more difficult, long term solution from within.

It is easy to think “if we were fitter we would win more games” and then go buy better training equipment.

It is easy to think “if we had some better players we would win more games” then go on a recruitment spending spree.

It is easy to think “if we had a better recovery program, we would win more games”, then build a recovery centre.

It is not easy to think,”the best way for us to win more games is to consistently embrace excellence in everything we do, to work hard and to our full potential every day, to manage relationships with honesty and openess and to lead with integrity, humility, courage, vision and passion without succumbing to the limitations of personality conflicts and political squabbles”.

Here’s a common scenario.

The team has great facilities. They have excellent players. They have professional, well trained, experienced staff. They have a strong coaching team. But they are not winning – why?

They will tell the press and the fans,“we are in a rebuilding phase” or “we are focusing on the future” or some other such rubbish.

In reality the only thing they are “re-building” is a bull%&@ story that they think will keep the media, the fans and their sponsors happy while they hope things improve.

Imagine you had a Formula One Car with the latest in engineering, technology, fuel, tyres, braking and a world class support team: the best of the best equipment, facilities and people. And it didn’t perform. Who is responsible? The team manager, the driver and the (lack of) cohesion between the various performance areas.

And here’s the good news….fixing leadership, personality and political problems costs nothing, takes very little time but is worth everything.

Here are five tips for solving most problems in high performance sporting organisations;

1. Build and grow solutions to performance problems from within; don’t look to buy solutions from outside;
2. Focus on people – their potential, their leadership abilities, their motivation, their talent first – then worry about everything else;
3. Accept that money is rarely the real problem: money only solves problems when you have real, practical, effective solutions to spend it on – and that means innovative, creative and intelligent leadership;
4. Personality and political problems in high performance sporting organisations are like open wounds. Do not allow them to fester and hope they will get better by themselves. Diagnose them quickly and then treat them immediately, aggressively and consistently until they heal;
5. Don’t just look at the parts – look at the “whole” - regardless of the skills, experience and knowledge of individuals in the team, it is their ability and desire to work collaboratively and cohesively as a high performance team that  makes the difference.

And – um – call me if you get stuck!

Wayne Goldsmith

© 2010, Sports Coaching Brain. All rights reserved. This post can not be reproduced in full or in part without the expressed consent of the author Wayne Goldsmith.

When clients ask me to work with them, it is usually to help them  become the best they can be in one or both of these two areas:

1. Help them to create a sustainable winning culture and / or:

2. Help them to create a world class high performance environment, (i.e. the things you can build and buy).

Although most of the time I get to work with professional sports and elite level Olympic teams, I am regularly asked to work with schools, amateur sporting clubs and part time coaches on a range of performance related issues, athlete attitudes, motivation techniques, leadership development, coach development exercises and sports performance enhancement programs.

Recently a client from an amateur but highly successful sporting Club asked me, “Wayne, we hear what you say about the best high performance environments in the world and about tools like GPS systems, ice baths, recovery centres, the latest video analysis systems and having a sports medicine team available 24 / 7. But we are all part timers. We gladly donate our time to coach the team and we have to fit our coaching around our jobs and our family. Our budget is minimal. Can we still create an effective high performance environment without spending any money?”

Yes, you can.

The first step in doing anything where money (or the lack of it) is an issue is to establish priorities - if you can’t afford to do everything you would like to do (optionals), spend time, effort and money on the things you have to do (essentials).

In sport, there are millions of things you could do – look at the long list of sports products and services available to choose from: equipment, nutrition supplements, clothing, sports science equipment, technology, software……in fact it is harder to decide what not to do then what to do!

With so many choices to make and so many potential purchases possible, it is critical to think rationally and intelligently about what you spend your high performance dollar on and to establish a clear rationale for spending money in the high performance area.

Start with a simple High Performance Prioritisation exercise:

• Priority One: Essential: must do;
• Priority Two: Important: should do;
• Priority Three: Desirable: could do;
• Priority Four: Optional: would like to do.

Priorities will be based on what the team is trying to achieve at the time – on what the team’s core philosophies are all about. For example, a team who decides to enhance their performance by increasing the size, strength and power of all players in the off season might score gym work as Priority One.

Another team that has decided to enhance their performance by learning faster and improving their skill levels might score video technologies and feedback tools as Priority One and gym work as Priority Two.

Clearly, not everything in a high performance environment can be Priority One at all times.

One exercise I have found that works well is to bring the key drivers of the high performance program together – senior athletes, coaches, sports science, sports medicine and strength and conditioning staff together and have them work collaboratively on establishing priorities for the team. Ideally this exercise is completed for four specific periods:

• Off season;
• Immediately pre season;
• In season;
• Immediately post season.

Priority One: Things that are essential. This is the toughest part: deciding what you absolutely can not do without. Everyone will argue that their particular area or skill or philosophy is the most important. Strength and conditioning coaches will argue that spending time in the gym is essential. Physiotherapists will argue just as passionately that injury management is essential. Coaches will argue that the most essential element of all programs is coaching time spent working with athletes on the technical, tactical and strategic skills of the game. Clearly not everyone is right or wrong – the process is dynamic.

The simplest way to resolve these arguments is to ask this question: “Can we be competitive without “xyz” (where xyz is one aspect of the performance environment)?”

In a sport like football for example:

• Can we be competitive without regularly training together to our full potential? Answer: No.
• Can we be competitive without taking sports supplements?  Answer: Yes.
• Can we be competitive without consistent hard physical training? Answer: No.
• Can we be competitive without using heart rate monitors, lactate analysers and GPS tracking systems? Answer: Yes.

It is funny! Having gone through this prioritisation exercise with many sporting teams over the past ten years, inevitably the things that consistently score Priority One are “people” factors – i.e. coaching time, player attitudes, cohesion and communication across the organisation, player behaviour issues, on field / off field leadership etc. The lesson here is that ultimately- even in professional sporting teams, people, their attitudes and their passion to perform are the real difference between winning and losing, and most importantly…..

• Attitude is free;
• Desire costs nothing;
• Passion has no price tag;
• You pay zero for Commitment.

Amateur sports can think like, act like, perform like successful, winning teams if they build their culture around people factors.

Conversely, a professional team with the money to buy and build the world’s best performance environment will fail unless the right people with the right attitudes are driving the program.

Priority Two: Things that are important. Priority two issues are those which are important but not essential. Having a world class gym with the latest equipment is important for a sport like rugby, AFL, American Football and basketball but when money is an issue, a good gym with reasonable standard training equipment will suffice.

Priority Three: Things that are desirable – “perfect world” things. For example, in a “perfect world” all players would have access to a one hour massage three times a week. But, when it comes down it, most players are OK with one massage and taking responsibility for implementing their own recovery program.

Priority Four: Things that are optional. In the optional category are quite often time saving devices and technological advantages: things that can potentially save time and reduce inconvenience but in a tight budget situation, they can be overcome by a little hard work, improved communication and learning some new skills.

Summary:

1. Unless you have an unlimited budget – (and there is no one in the world who can honestly say that their budget is unlimited) – building and sustaining an effective high performance environment comes down to choices: to prioritising how, when and where you will allocate resources;
2. Priorities will change from season to season (and even within seasons) depending on the situation and the challenges the team is facing at any time;
3. Create a high performance priorities system that works for you – one that compliments the overall direction and philosophy of the the high performance program;
4. Invariably, people drive performance! If you only had one single dollar to spend, spend it on enhancing the performance of your people – it is the one high performance program investment that returns ten times what you spend.

Wayne Goldsmith

© 2010, Sports Coaching Brain. All rights reserved. This post can not be reproduced in full or in part without the expressed consent of the author Wayne Goldsmith.

Regular readers of this blog will recognise the phrase “High Performance Environment” - it something that has appeared many times in SCB blog posts and discussions.

A High Performance Environment is more or less things you can buy to increase the opportunity for athletes and coaches to perform to their full potential, e.g. facilities, equipment, sports science support, supplements etc etc ad infinitum.

However, creating and sustaining the worlds best high performance environment is of little meaning if your team is not winning.

A high performance environment: i.e. having the fundamental elements of best practice in high performance sport, is merely the framework – the skeleton on which to hang a winning culture.

You need both: the high performance environment provides the opportunity for athletes, coaches, management and staff to perform to a high standard: a winning culture drives the standards and behaviours that take full advantage of the high performance environment.

A high performance environment provides the potential for success: a winning culture turns potential into victory.

Check out this great Prezi I just presented at the AFL National Coaches Conference – let me know what you think.

Click on the Full Screen Icon on the bottom right of the Presentation screen to get the full effect.

WG

© 2010, Sports Coaching Brain. All rights reserved. This post can not be reproduced in full or in part without the expressed consent of the author Wayne Goldsmith.

What is High Performance?

I spoke at a conference once and after the formal side of the presentation I invited questions from the 100 or so gathered coaches and sports managers.

The first question from the audience was, “Wayne, you’ve spoken a lot today about HIGH performance. Will you be covering Performance at sea level (i.e. low performance sport)?”.

Many people think that the world of high performance sport is a bit mystical and magical and that it takes a lot of money, a PhD and a laboratory to do it well.

In reality, creating and sustaining a successful high performance culture is more about attitude than altitude, more about motivation than money and more about learning than a laboratory.

So, to help you understand what High Performance is really all about…….

My business card reads “High Performance Sports Consultant” - meaning I should know a few things about High Performance sport – the “pointy end” of sport.

Yet, when people ask me, “So what is High Performance Sport”, it is often difficult to define in a few words or with an overly verbose statement for the sake of having a one line definition.

So let’s try it this way…what are the ten core features - the “non negotiables” of high performance sport?

Number 1: High performance sport is about change: specifically it’s about accelerating your rate of effective change faster than your opposition;

Number 2: High performance sport is about consistency – it’s about being better in your role – everyday -than any of your competitors;

Number 3: High performance sport is about taking risks – it’s about daring to be different – about being the first to turn your back on the known to embrace the unknown;

Number 4: High performance sport is about never being complacent or resting on your results – it is a commitment to continuous improvement;

Number 5: High performance sport is about cohesion – about people working together under pressure and with urgency towards a common goal;

Number 6: High performance sport is about innovation and creativity – about seeing things and doing things that no one else will or can;

Number 7: High performance sport is about alignment between all areas of the organisation: Board, Executive, Management, Coaches, Athletes, Staff…everyone from the person who signs the cheques to the person who checks the signs - one team, one vision;

Number 8: High performance sport is about passion – it’s about drive and enthusiasm and attitude and commitment;

Number 9: High performance sport is about science – it’s about integrating leading practice sports science (and sports medicine) into a cohesive, problem solving focused, multi disciplinary, dynamic high performance environment;

Number 10: High performance sport is about living excellence – on and off the field – in and out of the gym – in public and in private.

And…what are the top ten mistakes most sporting teams, clubs and even countries make when they try to create a high performance culture…….see the next post!!!!!!!!!!

Here’s a preview….

Number 1: The biggest mistake most sporting teams make when trying to create a high performance program is to throw money at new facilities, new staff and new equipment but ignore the “elephant in the room”……..the inherent poor performance culture of the organisation. A 50 year old car with a new paint job and four new tyres is still a 50 year old car.

Stay tuned for the rest of this article….It could save you a lot of time and money.

Wayne Goldsmith

© 2009 – 2010, Sports Coaching Brain. All rights reserved. This post can not be reproduced in full or in part without the expressed consent of the author Wayne Goldsmith.

I often get asked, what’s the difference between sport and high performance sport.

Read the next 800 words and find out.

Winning is rarely about doing it once and walking away. Winning is about Sustaining Performance: Sustaining Competitiveness: about getting to the top and Staying There.

Lots of people, teams, coaches, athletes and companies win once – but very few are able to adopt the thinking, systems and practices that enable them to sustain competitiveness year after year after year.

Why is Sustainable Competitiveness so important?

No one goes from being Uncompetitive to Winning. Being Competitive means you can launch a winning campaign or grand final winning plan from a position of relative strength. It is almost impossible to go from last (or near last) to first in a single year or season.

Sporting teams – particularly football teams – are notoriously BAD at sustaining competitiveness. They blame the draft. They blame salary caps. They blame the Governing body. They blame injuries. They blame not having enough money. They blame everything except the thing that really makes the difference: their ability to seriously commit to continuous improvement and accelerated change.

With very few exceptions, around the world, most teams feel the need to (unnecessarily) go through the Performance Cycle:

Stage One: Non Competitive: The organisation is failing to perform and struggling to survive;

Stage Two: Striving For Success: A passionate person and / or motivated team ignites the desire to succeed and inspires the organisation to strive for success. The acceleration of progress comes from embracing change and learning and the commitment to turn learning into action;

Stage Three: The Right Culture. The right people and the right environment are in place and the opportunity has been created for the Club to be successful;

Stage Four: Success: The organisation gets to the top but then loses momentum by ceasing to change and learn at the same rate. They adopt a “secret formula” mentality, i.e. “we know what it takes to win, therefore all we have to do is repeat what we did last year and we will keep winning”. In the meantime the competition is accelerating their learning and performance – determined to become the next No 1;

Stage Five: The Fall: Things start to fail. Management and staff get sacked, reviews, reviews and more reviews are commissioned, finally the Board is overthrown, there is public brawling and the organisation is at the brink of collapsing altogether…… And we are back at STAGE ONE again.

I did some work with a top professional football team who was highly successful in the 1960′s. Now, almost 50 years later, many of the players who starred on the field in the golden days of the club were running the Board, the Management committees, and even had a hands-on role in the coaching.

The biggest problem the club faced was that these people – with the welfare of the club in their hearts and only the best intentions, kept looking for ways of taking the club back to the 60′s – because “that’s the way we do it here”.

My reply was, “So your way is to fail to perform for 50 years?” After some heated discussion came the realisation that they needed to retain their proud traditions but embrace effective and meaningful change. Respect the past:but embrace the future.

Most businesses, sporting organisations and even people perform in cycles.

There are times when they are performing well – and times when they are performing poorly.

The performance cycle of a sporting team can be compared to a CLOCK: the Performance Clock.

At 10 o’clock, the organisation is hungry for success and changing rapidly. They are accelerating their rate of change by learning fast and by being innovative, creative and committed to success;

At 11 o’clock, the team is close to their best. They are consistently playing well, making the final series and they are continuing to strive for success. Most importantly, they have created a culture which has a high likelihood of succeeding;

At 12 o’clock – the team wins the premiership or the World Championship etc – they are at the peak of their performance cycle;

Then a funny thing happens……and no matter how many times I present this concept to organisations it just keeps happening….

Often when a team is at the top of its Performance Cycle it stops doing many of the things it was doing to make it successful.

1 o’clock and the team stops being creative and open minded. They start believing that their way is the only way and that they have the infallible secret formula for success. This is the beginning of disaster! The teams who have to make the greatest commitment to change and improvement are the ones who are successful – why……….

Because your resistance to change is greatest when you believe you have all the answers and that’s why most teams fail to repeat success!

So, what happens????? The team starts losing.

2 o’clock……3 o’clock……..the coach gets sacked. The club starts spending money on new players, new equipment, new coaches in a frantic attempt to stop the decline in performance;

The team keeps losing. If they are in a relegation / promotion competition, they get relegated to the next league;

4 o’clock…..5 o’clock….the CEO and Management gets sacked. The organisation is in disarray;

6’clock. The team cannot win a game. The fans and the sponsors have deserted it. It appears that the team may never ever experience success again;

But then…..

7 o’clock – Someone decides things have to change. They put together a plan and find some people and money to make it happen;

8 o’clock…..9 o’clock – People start believing that things can change. New players, new coaches, new staff, new ideas……..there is enthusiasm and energy and passion in the Club;

10 o’clock and 11 o’clock – The cycle is complete and the team can look forward to a short period of success as their Performance Cycle is at its peak once more.

The reality for most sporting teams is that they spend one or two seasons at most between 10 o’clock and 12 and then often spend many many years between 1 o’clock and 6 o’clock! And for no reason! There is no reason for sporting organisations to spend years at the bottom of competitions.

The aim is to create a Sustainably Successful High Performance Environment – and to ensure your organisation is always competitive.

Winning once can be luck – sustainable competitiveness comes from good planning, good management, good vision and hard work.

Success is not a destination - success is a moving target and your aim must continually be adjusted if you want to keep it in your sights!

So the difference between sport and high performance sport is this…if you understand this post – congratulations! You have a long career in high performance sport ahead of you.

If you don’t understand it, enjoy a game of golf or tennis with friends and family now and again but stay out of the pointy end of sport. Please!

Wayne Goldsmith

© 2009, Sports Coaching Brain. All rights reserved. This post can not be reproduced in full or in part without the expressed consent of the author Wayne Goldsmith.

The term “Sporting Widow” (or widower) is almost a cliche in high performance sport as many, many relationships have fallen apart in the industry due to the demands and pressures of travel, preparation, competition, training camps etc etc.

This article is for all my coaching, sports science, sports medicine and sports management colleagues (and their long suffering partners and families) written after many years chatting over beers and lamenting the challenges of working on the road, away from loved ones trying to balance success in high performance sport with a successful relationship.

1. The presents you buy when you travel are for YOU – not for the people at home. The biggest “sucker” deal in sport. You are away from home. You are lonely. Missing the kids and your partner. So you go and spend 500 bucks on a pile of expensive presents. Whilst the family will no doubt love the gifts, the bottom line is you bought the presents for yourself to make yourself feel better and alleviate some of the guilt you feel by being away from home. AND – there is a direct and linear relationship between how bad you feel and the cost and number of the presents you buy!
2. No matter what you are doing, when your partner calls, you are always busy and hard at work.I know we get to go to some glamorous and exciting places working in high performance sport, but someone who is at home with four screaming kids, a pile of housework to do and who had three hours sleep last night does not want to hear about it. Don’t lie! But there is no need to talk about how great your day was when theirs may have been very tough.
3. When your partner calls, always ask about her / his day first before talking about yours and when you do talk about your day – no matter how interesting it is – keep it to less than one minute. We have all fallen for this one. Because what we do it so exciting and interesting we all fall for the trap of believing our professional life is the centre of the universe. Sure you could talk for weeks about the training and the competition and who beat who and how fast they ran etc etc but listen ten times more than you talk!
4. The things happening at home are MORE important than whatever you are doing – even if they’re not. I was at the Olympics, doing something that was important to the team and one athlete in particular. My wife called and wanted to talk about what type of curtains she wanted to buy for the kid’s rooms. Even though what I was doing seemed very important, what she was doing, to her and at home, was far more important. What you do might get the media attention and the kudos but what the family is doing is of EQUAL or even GREATER importance.
5. When you get home, no matter how tired you are, offer to help out with the kids, the housework, the shopping or something else.
6. Absolute, total, unconditional loyalty at all times.Should go without saying but we have all seen more than one marriage fall apart because of the temptations of being on the road, in a high pressure environment, in glamorous settings and thousands of kms from home. Think of the situation in reverse. If you came home early and found your partner being less than “loyal”, how would you feel? Being in Paris, celebrating a world record win or in New York having a good time after winning a gold medal does not justify the wedding ring coming off!
7. Do one caring, considerate, thoughtful thing for your partner everyday. Doesn’t have to cost money. Could be a text message, a caring email, a letter or postcard, a quick call – doesn’t need to be much: just from the heart.
8. When you come home or have a holiday – switch off the mobile, don’t answer emails and don’t check in with the office. Athletes can’t train and compete all year round. The Prime Minister takes holidays. Bill Gates goes skiing every year. Tiger Woods has time off. Do you really believe working 52 weeks a year is going to make you better at what you do? Give “Caesar what is Caesar’s” and your family what is theirs.
9. Have some friends who have nothing to do with your sport or profession. Nothing drives a partner crazier than finally getting you to agree to a social function, only to find you spend the night talking test sets, injury records, scoring percentages, tactical ploys and recruitment systems. Find some friends that know nothing and care nothing about what you do, who you are or where you spend your time and just enjoy being a member of the human race.
10. Remember, you are an ordinary person, who does extra-ordinary things: no egos at home. You might be the best in the world at what you do, a media superstar and the leading professional in your field but to your kids you are “dad” or “mum”, to your partner you are “husband” or “wife” or “partner” or “boyfriend” or “girlfriend”. Leave your ego on the pitch, at the pool or on the court and just be yourself at home.

I hope this article has helped all of my professional friends and colleagues come to terms with the demands of the business and contributes to a long, happy, successful relationship.

Wayne Goldsmith

© 2009, Sports Coaching Brain. All rights reserved. This post can not be reproduced in full or in part without the expressed consent of the author Wayne Goldsmith.

Benchmarking.

It has become one of the Buzz words in high performance sport.

Benchmarking means that someone in an organisation decides to find out what the best people in the industry are doing, learn from them and usually copy what they are doing.

For example, coaches in professional football codes will sometimes visit successful programs in other codes – maybe even in other nations – to try and learn what they do and how they became successful.

Institutes and Academies of Sport and Government sporting authorities often send people to other countries to benchmark systems, structures, programs and innovations.

It seems like a good idea. Travel to see another program, get some instant solutions to problems and some new ideas to help enhance performance - seems like a great idea.

However…………..

• It’s a waste of time
• It’s a waste of money
• Even if you have the time and the money it doesn’t work.

There is a simple reason why benchmarking is a waste of time in high performance sport – it’s someone else’s bench!

One mistake that has been repeated over and over and over and over in high performance sport is the benchmarking exercise – people looking for answers and breakthroughs in other places.

Here’s ten reasons why NOT to benchmark the way we currently do it:

1. Programs, systems and structures do not work outside of the culture that created them. The best example of this is Talent Identification. The mass TID models that were developed in Eastern Europe in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s have been subsequently copied by every other sporting nation in some way and……with the exception of China and Cuba…..it has failed. Why? Because there was a unique set of social, political, cultural, economic and ideological factors in Eastern Europe when their TID model was developed which do not exist anywhere else in the world. Successful high performance sporting systems are culturally specific.
2. Ideas, innovations and benchmarks are everywhere. However, ideas, innovations and benchmarks do not make a sustainable impact on an organisation unless supported by a systematic, holistic approach to change management and the implementation of the new ideas. Going on a benchmarking holiday, coming back with a bag full of tricks, gimmicks and ideas and throwing them into the organisation without a systematic, strategic approach to their evaluation, assessment, implementation and review is insanity.
3. Benchmarking is not an end point. It is the starting point. It is only to give you an idea of where other people are – notso you can copy them – only so you know where to START and then proceed to do it better than they could ever dream. One of the silliest habits people get into is to do the benchmarking junket, come back to the Club or Country and say, “The Americans are doing xyz, so we have to do it that way here”.
4. You assume the people, programs, and systems you are benchmarking are telling you the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Think about it. If you had a cutting edge, ground breaking idea, would you give it away to another nation, club or coach for a couple of cappuccinos and a sandwich over lunch?
5. Ideas are not political. Finding the ideas is easy. Fighting and winning the fights to get those ideas accepted by the political forces in your organisation….now that’s the problem. It’s not Ideas that are the issue – it’s the implementation of those ideas.
6. At 6 am every Monday, one thousand consultants leave New York for a week of consulting in Los Angeles. At the same time, one thousand consultants leave Los Angeles to work in New York for seven days. Now the New York and LA consultants have the same stuff to teach but being from out of town gives them credibility, and the respective groups are lauded by their audiences as being innovative and possessing genius. The lesson is – genius might be living next door – have you bothered to listen?
7. There are no absolutes in sport, in life, in business or in sport - (I needed to say sport twice). People often come back from benchmarking tours with a list of things that must be implemented because some other nation or team is doing it. If history has taught us anything it is that there are no “musts”, no “always”, no “nevers” and no “onlys”. In fact, if someone else is doing it, it probably is a good reason NOT to do it.
8. A fundamental reason why benchmarking does not work is that if you and your people are any good, you are working at benchmark levels all the time and as such, your own rate of change and rate of improvement is faster than anything you will find. You are the benchmark.
9. A really great way to stifle creativity, ingenuity and innovation in your own organisation is to spend thousands of dollars looking for new ideas in others. In the end, your own people give up trying to be creative and innovative and just give you the minimum standard – which in high performance sport - is suicide.
10. You never find out the whole story. History – and benchmarking in sport is written by the winners. So you may be benchmarking at an organisation and be talking to someone who will explain their success is being due to ABC. Someone else in the organisation believes it is due to XYZ. Someone else believes that ABC cancelled out XYZ and success was actually due to something completely different. One important reason why benchmarking does not work is that you can never be sure if what you find out is the real reason behind the success.   

So, benchmark if you have to. Sure it’s a great way to waste some time, meet some cool people and spend some professional development funding which allows you to tick the “professional development box” each year!

However, you are far better off looking within the organisation, examining the way you do what you do now and tapping into the genius and expertise in the people you already have rather than trying to copy something that can not be copied or attempt to repeat something that can not be repeated.

Peter Senge – the great Systems thinking author reminds us that organisations flourish when people are provided with the opportunity to be creative and to accelerate their own rate of learning. This in turn helps to create a Learning Organisation – and a learning organisation can achieve anything.

Benchmarking does the opposite – it stifles the creativity of your staff, dampens enthusiasm and curtails real innovation by telling people – “they do it better somewhere else”.

Guess what? They don’t!

Be yourself – be unique – and above all believe in yourself.

Wayne Goldsmith

© 2009, Sports Coaching Brain. All rights reserved. This post can not be reproduced in full or in part without the expressed consent of the author Wayne Goldsmith.

One of the most commonly asked questions in this business is, “What Exactly is High Performance?”

People talk about, write about, think about sports science, sports medicine, exercise physiology, talent identification, performance psychology, biomechanics, skill acquisition, elite coach development, recovery, sports physiotherapy, sports massage, performance analysis and all the elements and components of high performance sport, but what is it?

What is this thing called High Performance?

I can summarise it all in one word………Change.

People make High Performance seem a lot more complex, tricky and mysterious than it really needs to be. Sure there is some really cool technology and terminology involved – as there is in all industries – but the essence of High Performance is Change – or rather, accelerating the rate of it.

Here’s an example.

Two people pick up a book about exercise and read that jogging 30 minutes a day for six weeks will improve fitness – specifically endurance.

Person A – reads the book and gets up the next morning and jogs 30 minutes.

Person B – reads the book and gets up the next morning and jogs 30 minutes. Along the way, they start thinking, if I increased speed and covered more distance in the 30 minutes, I would improve faster. And maybe if I included a few hills, I would get stronger and that will help me to go faster. And I wonder if I increased the time to 40 minutes, how much more benefit would I get. And if went faster, added some hills and a few sprints, maybe I can get the same benefit from running for 25 minutes, etc etc etc.

And that’s the core philosophy behind High Performance. Not so much the latest technology or the most up to date sports drinks or the greatest facilities – it is much simpler than that.

It is the attitude that things exist in sport only to be improved and enhanced.That what we know, is only the starting point for what we can know. That there are no absolutes, no “onlys”, no “always” and no “nevers” in high performance sport – there are only limits to be ignored, boundaries to break and obstacles to overcome. Nothing is static – nothing is permanent – nothing is fixed.

No record is unbreakable. No title unwin-able. No contest impossible. No opposition unbeatable.

High Performance at its core is a belief that anything is possible and that nothing is impossible.

Money helps create world class high performance environments. There is no doubt that funding helps build the best facilities, buy the best equipment, support innovative research programs and so on.

But money alone does not make high performance programs successful.

It is the attitude and beliefs of the people who drive the environments that makes the difference. 

You are either someone who is passionate about change – or someone who is equally passionate about keeping things the way they are.

Around the world this morning, thousands of people involved in sport woke up, got out of bed and started to think about their jobs.

A few thought, “I wonder what is least amount of effort I can put in today and still get paid?”

Most thought, “I wonder what’s for dinner tonight when I get home from work?”

A few – the real High Performance people thought, “I wonder how far I can push the limits of what I do and how fast I can accelerate the rate of change in my sport?”

Which one was you?

Summary:

• The essence of High Performance is Change. If you are a person who loves the challenge of change, who looks at things in terms of how much they can be improved, then High Performance is for you.
• Decide if you are a “make the car go faster” type of person or a “how can we make the car safer” type of person. High performance people are risk takers who know no limits, no boundaries and see “what is” only as the starting point for “what can be”.
• High Performance is not so much secrets and mysteries and big words about muscle energy and applied physics. It is a mindset – a mindset that actively seeks and embraces change – accelerating the rate of change faster than the competition.

Wayne Goldsmith

© 2009, Sports Coaching Brain. All rights reserved. This post can not be reproduced in full or in part without the expressed consent of the author Wayne Goldsmith.