Sports Coaching Brain » High Performance Sport

Can You Guarantee Winning in High Performance Sport?

Wayne Goldsmith — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 02:20:14 +0000

Yes you can!

The Big Issues:

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.

The Five Assumptions.

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

Money is unlikely to be the real problem;
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;
People are unlikely to reveal the real truth – mainly because most of the time they don’t know what it is;
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;
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.

Amazing but True.

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 openness 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.

Five useful tips.

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

Build and grow solutions to performance problems from within; don’t look to buy solutions from outside;
Focus on people – their potential, their leadership abilities, their motivation, their talent first – then worry about everything else;
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;
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;
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

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A Fish Rots from the Head: Solving Problems in High Performance Sport.

Wayne Goldsmith — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 03:22:30 +0000

In High Performance Sport, experience is important.

Knowledge of the sports industry is critical.

An understanding of the culture of high performance is vital.

But ultimately, success is high performance sport comes down to possessing exceptional talent and ability in five core areas:

Problem solving;
Crisis management;
Creating and sustaining a high performance environment, i.e. change management and continuous improvement;
Finding, training and retaining the right people;
Quality, consistent leadership.

And of these five skills, problem solving is perhaps the least understood – primarily because it hard to measure, hard to define and next to impossible to teach.

Here is Problem Solving in High Performance Sport 101.

Problem Solving in High Performance Sport 101 Lesson 1: A fish rots from the head.

The majority of problems experienced in high performance sports programs, professional teams and sporting clubs are as a result of poor leadership. The sport (the fish) will succeed or fail (rot) based on the consistent quality of the leadership (the head).

Whilst problems can be created and solved by players, coaches, management and staff, Clubs with a long term history of failure, public embarrassment, off field discipline issues and scandal invariably get that way due to poor leadership at Board and Executive level.

It is common that a sporting organisation when faced with failure will sack the coach, hire new support staff and recruit new players to try and solve their performance problems.

In sporting organisations where failure is experienced over and over and over again, replacing coaches, staff and players rarely fixes the real problems or if it does fix them, it does not fix them for very long.

It is however, to use our “fish” analogy again, much easier to remove a few scales or cut off a fin than it is to slice off the head altogether, so in many sporting organisations the real problems (i.e. the leadership) survive while the more “expendable” parts get removed and turned into “sporting soup”!

Problem Solving in High Performance Sport 101 Lesson 2: He (or she) who is responsible for the problem must solve the problem.

In all sporting organisations, problems are created, managed and solved every day. The key to effective problem solving in high performance sport is understanding what the problem really is and most importantly, who should take responsibility for solving it.

There are three classes of problems in high performance sporting organisations:

Short term Problems: Players / athletes to solve – i.e. immediate problems impacting on the current season which involve matters such as attitude, attendance, time management, self management, dress standards, personal leadership, on and off field training standards, playing standards, alcohol management, personal values and discipline. Problems involving these issues should be solved by the athletes themselves as these problems are those owned by and within the control of the athletes themselves.

Medium term Problems: Coaches to solve – i.e. those problems which impact across this season and the next including such areas as tactics, techniques, strategies, playing style, player recruitment, program planning, player development, skills and preparation. Problems in these technical, tactical and strategic areas of the organisation are the coaches domain and need to be solved by the coaching group.

Long term Problems: Board and Executive to solve – i.e. those problems which continue year after year regardless of changes in the playing and coaching areas: those broader, strategic and sustainable type (cultural) issues which the Board and Senior Management are responsible for solving.

Many of the biggest disputes in high performance sporting organisations, professional teams and Clubs are experienced when people try to solve problems which do not concern them.

For example, matters of attitude and commitment in the playing group are not for the Board to try and solve, in the same way that players should not be trying to solve economic sustainability or long term strategic planning issues for the Board.

Clarity in responsibility and accountability for decision making, behaviour and standards are the foundations of all great commercial organisations – and sporting organisations are no different.

Problem Solving in High Performance Sport 101 Lesson 3: All problems in high performance sport are inter-disciplinary in nature: there is no “one size fits all” solution to all performance problems.

Most people will try to solve problems in high performance sport using one word, one phrase or one sentence, for example:

Problem: The team is not winning.
Solution: The players need to get stronger.

Problem: The team’s attitude is poor.
Solution: The players need to try harder.

High performance sport is a complex environment where nothing exists in isolation and everything is dependent on something and someone else to be effective.

Problems in high performance are never simple and can not be solved from a single perspective – they are all interdisciplinary in nature and require an interdisciplinary, selfless, ego-less, creative, team focused, “we not me” approach to solve them.

Into this environment comes the “sales-reps” – the people representing sporting equipment manufacturers, nutrition supplement companies, gym equipment suppliers etc etc promising to enhance the performance of the team with a new machine, a few pills, some new equipment or some revolutionary new clothing technology.

There are no instant solutions, quick fixes or miracles cures in high performance sport. It takes real effort, real discipline and real commitment to make effective, meaningful and measurable change in the organisation’s culture and environment and people offering one size fits all solutions to every performance problem should not be believed or taken seriously.

In high performance sport where success is measured in fractions of seconds and millimetres of error, anyone promising solutions of 5-10% improvement in performance (as is routinely promised by sales staff representing various manufacturers) is either:

A. Lying;
B. Delusional;
C. Compromised due to their salary being based on sales commissions;
D. All of the above.

High performance sport is a tough environment and real improvement demands an uncompromising commitment to solving performance problems with honesty, integrity, responsibility, creativity, accountability and sincerity: and there are no pills or machines on earth that can deliver any of those. Performance comes from passionate people consistently preparing and performing to their peak potential.

Summary:

Problem solving is a critically important skill to develop and enhance if you are to succeed in high performance sport;
Short term problems in high performance sport can be solved by players and people involved in the current competitive cycle / season but longer term problems require solutions which are created and driven by the Board and Executive;
A Fish Rots from the Head – sporting organisations who experience failure over multiple seasons and over many years are suffering from the effects of poor leadership at Board and Executive level and changes in coaching, playing and support staff will make only minimal, temporary and unsustainable impact;
Be aware of people promising quick fix solutions to performance problems: it is sounds too good to be true….it is.

Moregold works with Sporting Organisations to create and sustain world class high performance sporting environments.

Wayne Goldsmith

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What is High Performance?

Wayne Goldsmith — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 00:46:29 +0000

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.

High Performance Mindset.

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.

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, someone who passionately seeks continuous improvement, 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

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Getting it right from the start: Building a Winning Sporting Team from the ground up.

Wayne Goldsmith — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 00:46:27 +0000

Got problems with your sporting team?

Things not going quite right?

Got issues with your culture? Your leadership? Your operations? Attitude? Performance? Preparation? Personality conflicts? Political squabbles?

Ever sit down and wish you could start all over again?

Ever dream about building a winning sporting team from the ground up or talk about how you would go about getting it right from the start?

Yes?

Then this article is for you.

People, People, People:

Before you do anything, make sure you have the right group of people to create and build your new team.

This “critical core” of people: the people with the vision, the passion, the determination and drive to build a successful sporting team are the catalyst – the “seed” from which all great things will grow.

The “critical core” can then go about putting in place the ten essentials for building a successful sporting team.

The Ten Essentials for Building a Successful Sporting Team.

Starting again step one: Have a clear reason for starting. Sounds pretty common sense but ask yourself “why”. Then listen to the answer. Then ask yourself again “why”. Once again listen to the reply. Then one more time challenge yourself “why”. Understanding clearly your motives for why you are starting down this road will underpin all the decisions, actions and strategies that are to come.

Starting again step two: Stand for something. What do you want the team to stand for? What will others know you as? What will your ”trademark” look like? This needs to be very clear and leave everyone who comes into contact with your team in no doubt about who you are and what you are trying to do.

Starting again step three: Hire people who enhance and sustain the core values, culture and vision of the team. Hire people who share your vision, who share a common belief in the potential of the team and who embrace the core values, beliefs and attitudes of the team.

Starting again step four: Do-not-compromise on the first three steps. Once you have established your vision, your values, your philosophies and your direction do not compromise on them. For example, when recruiting players, recruit not just on their talent but on their attitudes, their values, their professionalism and their capacity to lift overall preparation and playing standards through their personal example.

Starting again step five: Ensure long term financial stability, security and independence. Build a sustainable and robust financial model – one which ensures you have enough money to be competitive and one which provides stability and security.

Starting again step six: Be open, honest and transparent in all things at all times. Establish rules, policies and practices which are open, honest and transparent so that everyone inside and outside the team understands who you are, what you are trying to achieve and what is expected.

Starting again step seven: Be committed to continuous improvement, renewal, learning and change. Successful sporting organisations need to be dynamic, responsive to change and to be prepared to take the lead in the introduction of innovative new ideas to ensure success. Learn about the dangers of the Performance Clock…..and refuse to be yet another team who falls victim to it.

Starting again step eight: Put performance before popularity. In an ideal world, everyone working in sporting teams would get along as both friends and professional colleagues. However, in reality, the name of the game is winning and performance must come before popularity. Hire and retain people based on their performance, on their delivery of their key performance indicators and on their commitment to the overall vision and values of the team and not on their golf score or ability to drink heavily in social settings.

Starting again step nine: Live a ”we” not “me” philosophy. Ego is like a cancer in sporting teams. When individuals put self interest ahead of team interest, things begin to crumble.

Starting again step ten: Live excellence. Success comes when everyone in the organisation, lives excellence. For players this means excellence in preparation on field and off field, in social situations and in their personal lifetsyle management at all times. For coaches this means excellence in planning, preparation, communication and leadership at all times. For management this means professionalism in strategic planning, financial management and operations at all times.

Starting again is a nice dream, but for most of us, the reality is trying to bring about effective change in an existing sporting organisation: one which may not like or want change or even recognise that change is necessary.

The challenge for you is…in such an organisation, how can you make a difference?

Can you be the catalyst – the inspiration - for accelerating the rate of change in your team and with it ensure the team realises its potential for peak performance?

Wayne Goldsmith

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Why Professional Football Teams Lose: 100 Reasons to Explain Why Teams Don’t Win.

Wayne Goldsmith — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 02:29:26 +0000

Ever wanted to know why professional football teams lose?

Here’s 100 reasons why - and there are many, many more.

When you are trying to figure out why professional football teams win or lose, there are eight areas which directly contribute to success or failure:

Players;
Coaches;
CEO / Senior Management;
The Board;
Sports Science / Sports Medicine Team;
The Strength and Conditioning Staff;
Team Management;
Team Cohesion and Culture.

To win a premiership, a championship or any form of title in professional football each of these eight areas needs to have the right person in the right place, performing to their full potential and with clear roles and responsibilities.

You will note two surprising omissions from this list: Money and Facilities.

Without the having the right people in place, all of whom are consistently preparing and performing to their full potential, all the money in the world and the best facilities in the nation will not produce a winning team.

So let’s look at the “awesome eight” and see how many ring a bell in your team:

You recruited the wrong players;
You recruited the right players but at the wrong time in their careers, e.g. well after they were at their peak or too young;
You recruited the right players but they don’t support or enrich the Club’s culture;
You recruited the right players but for the wrong reasons, e.g. you recruited on reputation and not on form;
You recruited the right players but their attitude and commitment to preparation is poor;
You recruited players based on their physical talent only and didn’t consider personality, attitude, commitment, passion, drive, work ethic or leadership;
You recruited the right players but their professionalism off field, e.g. nutrition, self-management, sleep management, injury management, time management etc is very poor;
Your players are senior in terms of age but they prepare, think and act like juniors, e.g. do not take responsibility for their actions;
You retained your senior players for too long out of loyalty;
Your players believe that drinking alcohol is a critical aspect of their culture and who they are as group;
You failed to have a succession plan in place to replace senior players with junior players systematically and methodically;
You apply team rules inconsistently, e.g. star players treated differently to rookies;
Your player leadership group and leadership structure is wrong;
Some of your players put profile and media image ahead of character, values and performance;
Your player leadership group is right but they are performing poorly and do not understand their roles as leaders;
Your player leadership was chosen based on playing performance or popularity and not on their capacity to model team values and Club culture;
You have an high injury rate relative to the other teams in the competition;
You recruited the wrong coach;
You recruited the right coach but at the wrong time in their career;
You recruited the right coach but for the wrong reasons, e.g. you didn’t understand who they were, their strengths and weaknesses etc.
You recruited the right coach but then proceeded to interfere with their day to day coaching of the team;
Your coach does not embrace the concept of engagement, i.e. he / she relies on their position and authority to enforce their will on the players and others;
You promoted a retired player into the coaching role without mentoring, training, education and development in coaching;
Your coach surrounds him / herself with “yes” men and women and not people who compliment their skill set;
You recruited a coach based on perception rather than reality, e.g. they had success at another Club due to factors other than their coaching and it will be impossible for them to replicate success in your Club;
Your coach believes the best way forward is go to backwards, i.e. relies on traditional coaching and playing practices like the “old days”;
Your coach does not relate to or understand younger players;
Your coach can not deal with pressure;
Your coach relates poorly to assistant coaches and staff;
You recruited the wrong senior management team;
You promoted retired players into management positions without mentoring, education, development or training for the role;
Your senior management does not understand sport;
Your senior management tries to apply straight business practices to the sports environment;
Your senior management does not work collaboratively with the coaches, players and others in operational positions;
Your Marketing and Sponsorship team do not work collaboratively with the coaching and performance staff, e.g. scheduling promotional activities on rest and recovery days;
You allow an “us versus them” attitude to develop between the office staff and the performance team;
You allow player managers to have too much power and influence in and around the team;
You have not clearly defined roles and responsibilities of everyone in the organisation;
Your senior management team does not understand high performance and what it means;
Your staff are not committed to confidentiality when it comes to issues of player privacy, contracting and recruitment;
Your CEO interferes with the day to day operations of the team including under-mining the coach through direct contact with the players;
Your Board interferes in the day to day management of the team;
Your Board interferes in the day to day coaching of the team;
Your Board interferes in the day to day operations of the business of the team;
Your Board was voted in based on their playing background;
Your Board does not have a long term strategic vision for the Club for at least the next ten years;
Your Board consists of only people who played for your Club;
Your Board consists of only people who come from within your sport;
Your Board does not include people with high level skills in finance, marketing, business, media management, leadership, strategic thinking, economics and law;
Your average Board member has been in his / her role for more than ten years;
Your Board is prepared to do anything to stay in power, i.e. they are there for selfish reasons and not for the players or the team;
Your Board consists of people who are not successful in other areas of their lives;
You recruited the wrong sports science / sports medicine staff;
Your sports science / sports medicine staff work in isolation and not as a team;
Your sports science / sports medicine staff are under-qualified;
Your sports science / sports medicine team are well-qualified but do not understand high performance sport or the game;
Your sports science / sports medicine staff do not work closely with players and coaches;
Your sports science / sports medicine staff do not understand the difference between academic theory and actual practice;
Your sports medicine team works in a rigid, hierarchical way and not as an inter-disciplinary, problem solving team;
Your sports medicine team does not embrace an inter-disciplinary approach to injury management, e.g. they do not include psychologists or strength and conditioning staff in injury management plans;
Your sports science / sports medicine team does not keep accurate records of what they did, why they did it, when they did it and the effect it had;
Your sports science / sports medicine team wants to work business hours – 9 am to 5 pm and not when it really matters;
Your sports science / sports medicine team are not prepared to accept the same level of responsibility and accountability for performance as the players and coaches;
You recruited the wrong strength and conditioning staff;
Your strength and conditioning staff do not understand the demands of the sport;
Your strength and conditioning staff think they are coaches are try to coach players;
Your strength and conditioning staff do not manage the players’ training load in collaboration with the coaching staff;
Your strength and conditioning staff are gym based 100% of the time, i.e. do not get out and work with players and coaches on field;
Your strength and conditioning staff do not plan for long term development of young players at least 2-3 seasons in advance;
Your strength and conditioning staff train the players like weightlifters and body builders and not footballers;
Your strength and conditioning staff provide a one-size-fits-all program for all players, all positions, all year round;
Your strength and conditioning staff lack credibility, e.g. are overweight and unhealthy and do not practice what they preach;
You recruited the wrong team manager;
You recruited a retired player into the team management role without mentoring, training, education or development on how to manage a professional team;
Your team manager works business hours;
Your team manager is poorly organised, is not systems orientated and does not possess an outstanding attention to detail in planning;
Your team manager prefers popularity to performance and wants to be liked more than wanting to be professional;
Your team manager thinks he / she is a coach and gives players advice on how to play the game;
Your culture is wrong;
Your culture is based on the past, tradition and history and not on performance;
Your culture is right but no one believes in it or lives it;
You allow former players – i.e. players who played for the Club but who are now retired – to have too much influence over the current team;
You respond to criticism in the media and react to the demands of the press;
Your culture is based on popularity and not on performance;
You apply different rules and standards to different people, e.g. players and coaches working under different values than office staff and management;
Your internal communication, i.e. inside the Club, is poor;
You tolerate drugs and alcohol use in the player group;
You tolerate sexual misconduct, violence, harassment, bullying and / or intimidation from the player group;
Your culture is not based on trust, values, honesty and virtues;
You have a Media Management team in place whose job it is to hide and sanitise the truth about the Club’s culture from the media, fans and the public;
You tolerate corruption, e.g. coaches receiving kickbacks for recruiting certain players into the team;
You have not created a sense of identity and belonging in the Club, e.g. players, coaches, management and staff do not wear the appropriate team uniform at all times;
You have divisions and factions within the Club;
Your culture is filled with selfishness and self interest;
Your club does not embrace respect as a core value;
You have “leaks” within the Club who have close connections to the media;
You have illegal activities going on within the Club, e.g. gambling;
You make decisions based on politics and personalities rather than performance;
You don’t really know what the Club’s culture is, where it is or who owns it;
You have no idea what it takes to win.

So there’s 100 reasons why professional football teams lose.

Now if you can honestly say that none of the above apply to your Club, then by all means find some money, build the world’s best training centre and go for it.

Feel free to send me your best “losing” tips and let’s add to the list.

Wayne Goldsmith

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After the Games:Let the Games begin….50 Things You Must Do After a Major Competition…if you want to win the Next One!

Wayne Goldsmith — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 04:29:53 +0000

So the Games are over. Let the Games begin.

Win, lose or draw, there are 50 Things You Must Do After a Major Competition…if you want to win the Next One (if you seriously consider yourself a high performance coach).

Met one on one with each of your athletes and provided them with a detailed, comprehensive review of every aspect of their competition performance;
Done the same with your coaching staff, sports science support team and team management;
Analysed every aspect of your athlete’s performance from a physical, mental, technical, tactical, strategic, support-system and emotional perspective;
Have a clear “success in our next major competition” philosophy and have articulated it to the people who matter;
Reviewed the performance of the athletes or teams who won medals in your event and sport at your last competition from a physical, mental, technical, tactical, strategic perspective;
Had someone review your coaching under competition competitions conditions and provided you with clear, honest, constructive feedback;
Conducted a KISS – review: what is it we should keep doing? What is it that we can introduce to make a difference? What is it we should stop doing? What is it that we can spend to make a measureable difference?;
Met with your athletes, their family / their partner / their support structure and fully de-briefed them as a group on the outcome of the competition;
Identified at least two conferences or professional development opportunities for yourself to attend over the next year;
Provided your athlete, their family / their partner / their support structure with a detailed plan and program for next major competition including training cycles, targeted major competitions, training camps, testing and evaluation and other critical aspects of timing, planning and preparation;
Locked in your athlete’s participation in any test event or trial for their next major competition and planned a comprehensive, detailed, methodical testing and evaluation process around the test event or trial so that you learn as much as possible from the experience;
Compared the athlete’s results in their most recent competition with the best athletes in the sport who didn’t attend that competition, e.g. The Delhi 2010 Commonwealth Games did not include athletes from USA, China, Europe, South America etc;
Completed a detailed self-analysis of your own coaching, your training program, peaking, tapering and periodization;
Identified who your most difficult opposition are likely to be in next major competition and mapped out a plan to chase them and face them in several competitions prior to that competition;
Challenged each member of your coaching and support team to introduce three new ideas that will enhance their own performance and the performance of your athletes leading into your next major competition;
Identified the support team you would like to be working with at your next major competition and ensured they are locked in to working with you before and during your next major competition campaign so that your athlete has continuity and confidence in their support environment;
Identified a potential pre-competition training camp location (and a back-up location in case your first preference is unavailable) and developed detailed planning and budgeting to ensure you can utilise the training camp environment to its full potential;
Sought detailed feedback from team sports science / sports medicine staff about your athlete and asked them for specific recommendations on how the athlete can improve over the next two years;
Compared the results in your event / your sport with the past three world benchmark events, e.g. past three World Championships, past three Olympic Games, so you understand where you are in world terms;
Reviewed every aspect of your athlete’s warm up, cool down, recovery, nutrition, hydration and self-management routine in and around the competition and how each area impacted positively or negatively on the athlete’s performance;
Clearly mapped out your overall training camp and competition needs for the next 2-3 years both domestically and internationally;
Provided your assistant coaches and support team with clear position descriptions, responsibilities and accountabilities in a written contract so they know clearly what they are responsible for, when and why and how they will be measured in all aspects of planning, preparation and performance;
Clearly mapped out your periodization, tapering and peaking plans for major events in 2011 and will use them to fine tune your planning and preparation for 2012;
Addressed any personality or political conflicts in your performance environment which emerged (were exposed) during your last major competition quickly and decisively;
Accepted responsibility for what you were responsible for in your last major competition, learnt from any mistakes and moved on;
Identified aspects of your athlete’s mental approach and personality management which can be improved and enhanced, including a mental skills development program which can be initiated immediately and tested under competition conditions;
Had your athlete comprehensively screened mentally, physically and medically so that you have clear, accurate, reliable baseline data before you commence your next major competition campaign;
Identified a talented young coach who you can mentor over the next two years and who can take over from you when you travel away for competition commitments without any compromise to your home program;
Scheduled a best practice athlete education program so that your athlete is outstanding in the areas of nutrition (including the use of supplements, cooking, eating when travelling and hydration management), recovery, injury management and travel management;
Budgeted all your training, preparation, equipment, sports science, sports medicine, travel and competition expenses for the next two years and identified any shortfalls;
Identified some training partners who can you can invite into your program to help take your athlete to the next level;
Completed a detailed weather and conditions research program covering the period of the next major competition. For example, if you are targeting the Olympic games you should know the average rainfall, temperature, humidity, etc. in that city for the past 100 years;
Adopted a “no-surprises” approach to your next major competition, i.e. have systematically planned for every possible eventuality and developed plans and processes to overcome any obstacles;
Identified at least three areas of your own coaching which you can improve and master over the next two years;
Spent some quiet time alone, just thinking and reflecting on what happened in your last major competition and how you can build on it to be successful next time;
Conducted your review process with a feed-forward approach – i.e. Did not waste time on blaming or recriminations for past failures;
Sought the advice of at least one coach in another sport who coaches athletes at the same level as you and asked them about what they have learnt from their coaching experience;
Sought out the national head coach or a senior coach in your sport, presented your training and competition plans to them and openly invited criticism and comment;
Sought the best possible advice on strength and conditioning for your athlete and allocated specific blocks of time over the next two years to enhance your athlete’s strength, speed, power etc. in the gym;
Looked for opportunities to test and challenge you and your athlete in the toughest possible training conditions to learn lessons and become tougher and harder for your next competition;
Met with someone with expertise in the equipment and technology side of your sport and provided them with feedback on how your competition equipment / technology performed in your last competition. And challenged them to improve on it for next major competition;
Found someone outside your sport (and even outside of sport) who can bring new ideas and new thinking into your program;
Identified the coaches who produced the athletes / teams who defeated you at your last competition and learnt as much as you can about them, their philosophies, their education and development pathway, their attitudes, their techniques, their coaching strengths and weaknesses;
Met with your sporting organisation and engaged in an honest two-way debrief and 360 degree review process;
Strengthened your own personal financial position so that you can commit more time to your potential winning athletes;
Committed to a personal health and fitness program to ensure you are at your physical and mental best at all times;
Identified two or three young talented athletes who realistically will not be at their peak for two-three years but who can learn from the journey you are taking with your current best athletes and can become the foundation of your future success;
Recorded everything! Made detailed notes at the end of each day during taper, travel, competition and recovery period looking in depth at every aspect of competition;
Planned for some holidays and down time regularly to help you be mentally ready;
Established clear goals, targets and objectives for every training cycle leading up to your next major competition.

Have a look at your last major competition experience.

Now have a look at the above list.

How did you score?

Wayne Goldsmith

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Creating a Winning Culture in High Performance Football: the Building Blocks of Brilliance.

Wayne Goldsmith — Sat, 05 Mar 2011 01:45:54 +0000

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 value 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 performance and performance into victory.

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Why Bench – marking is a waste of time in High Performance Sport.

Wayne Goldsmith — Sat, 05 Mar 2011 01:45:53 +0000

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:

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;
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;
Benchmarking is not an end point. It is the starting point. It is only to give you an idea of where other people are – not so 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”;
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?;
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;
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?;
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;
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;
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;
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.

Learning Organisations: Learn Faster..Improve Faster:

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

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High Performance on a Budget – can you create a high performance environment without spending any money?

Wayne Goldsmith — Mon, 21 Feb 2011 05:46:11 +0000

: Spare change from Crestock Stock Images

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:

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;
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;
Create a high performance priorities system that works for you – one that compliments the overall direction and philosophy of the the high performance program;
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

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Winning and Losing: Outplayed or Out-talented?

Wayne Goldsmith — Tue, 11 Jan 2011 22:35:58 +0000

High Performance sport is founded on a relatively simple equation: you either win or you lose.

And when you lose, it is natural to look for the reasons “why” through performance reviews etc.

A critical aspect in understanding the “losing process” is to find the answer to this question….were you outplayed or out-talented?

What does it mean to be out-played?

Being out-played means that your opposition planned and prepared better than you did.

What does it mean to be out-talented?

Being out-talented means you were beaten by someone who possessed a superior athletic talent. For example, in the Golden Era of the Chicago Bulls in the 1990s if you were unlucky enough to come up against Jordan, Pippen and Rodman and company then you were always going to be “out-talented”.

However, sporting loses due to being out-talented are very, very, very rare.

What’s the difference?

The difference between being out-talented and out-played is that being out-played is totally your own fault as you had complete control and responsibility over your own preparation.

The most important principle in competitive sport:

The most important principle in competitive sport is that you as an individual must out-prepare, in every aspect, on and off the ”field”, in training and self management areas, your opponent. Doesn’t matter if you are in an individual sport or in a team sport: you, as an individual must out-prepare in every aspect the person you will be competing against.

Competitive Sport is not a handicap event:

You either win or you lose. Excuses do not count. Blame does not improve performance. It is pointless blaming losing on having “less talent” than your opposition unless, you know with absolute certainty, that you have prepared better in every aspect than they did.

Control the Controllables:

Having been involved in many many review processes over the past ten years with both professional and Olympic sports, it is common for athletes and coaches to look to blame factors outside their control for their failures.

“They had more money than we did”.

“They had more support staff and better access to facilities and sports science”.

They had the best of lucky breaks from officials and referees when it mattered”.

“They had a better group of players than we did”.

All these factors can influence the result of games, matches and even seasons but, they do not overcome the basic requirement of responsibility for optimal personal preparation for every athlete, coach, support staff member and manager in the organisation.

Let’s look at a list of just 20 (and there are hundreds) of the key factors in preparation that you as an athlete or as a coach have complete control over and therefore have complete responsibility for:

You are responsible for every mouthful of food you eat;
You are responsible for every drop of fluid you drink;
You are responsible for every drop of alcohol you drink (or don’t drink);
You are responsible for both the quantity and quality of your sleep;
You are responsible for your level of commitment to and engagement with your training program;
You are responsible for studying your sport and understanding who / where the benchmarks are in all aspects of planning, preparation and performance;
You are responsible for the way you interact with and communicate with team members, support staff, members of the public and other people involved in your Club / organisation;
You are responsible for the way you look (i.e. dress codes, personal standards – “professionalism”);
You are responsible for your attitude to training, preparation and playing;
You are responsible for saying “no” at times which can impact negatively on your preparation and performance (e.g. mid to late evening in social situations – saying “no” to alcohol, reduced sleep etc);
You are responsible for managing your own travel stress, i.e. eating, drinking, sleeping, etc during travel periods;
You are responsible for your recovery program;
You are responsible for the attention to detail to skills practices and learning;
You are responsible for maintaining a balanced lifestyle and keeping mentally healthy;
You are responsible for the attention to detail and a methodical systematic approach to planning your preparation and competition program;
You are responsible for your level of passion, drive and enthusiasm;
You are responsible for being consistent in preparation;
You are responsible for managing your own time;
You are responsible for understanding who you are and living according to your own set of personal values;
And…you are responsible for out-preparing in every aspect, your opponent.

Conclusion:

Loses in sport which can be 100% attributed to being out-talented are very very rare: most of the time you have been out-played;
Being out-played means you were out-prepared;
And being out-prepared means the loss was largely your own responsibility;
Take personal responsibility for the “controllables”, out-plan and out-prepare your opponent in every aspect and you have the opportunity to win more often.

Wayne Goldsmith

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