Time to be honest about this whole Leadership concept in high performance sport – it is not working.

And why?

It’s not working because of the Accountability Myth: The Accountability Myth is the reason why the current Leadership models in High Performance Sport are failing (badly).

Every professional sporting team in the world has some sort of leadership plan, leadership program, leadership group, leadership team, leadership system and leadership structure.

And yet, every day, the back pages of the world’s sporting press and the on line sporting web sites, blogs, wikis and news services are littered with stories about what’s wrong with sport:  more about trouble than triumphs, more about violence than victory, more about scandals than scoring.

So, the message is simple and very very clear:the current leadership models in high performance sport are failing and failing badly.

And why? The current trend in most professional teams is to create leadership groups and give players the opportunity to collaborate with the coaching team by accepting some ownership for the team’s preparation and performance. How can involving and engaging players in the decision making of a professional team not work?

The reason…the accountability myth.

Accountability is like being pregnant: you either are or you are not.

If you accept a leadership role in a professional team then you are accountable: not half accountable, semi-accountable or fractionally accountable. There is no part-time accountability, no nine day fortnight of accountability with the tenth day off to not be accountable: if you willingly accept a role which includes accountability – then you are accountable.

But, a new accountability has emerged in high performance sport - it’s called Convenient Accountability or Conveccountability for short.

This new accountability – conveccoutability – is the accountability you have when you are not really accountable. It is being accountable only up until when things get a bit ugly, a bit serious (and a bit public), then it becomes an S.E.P. (to quote the late, great Douglas Addams) – a Someone Else’s Problem.

Why don’t the current leadership models work in high performance sport? Because real accountability is a myth- it does not really exist. It lives in a bag somewhere in another world with Unicorns, the Dodo, Honest Politicians and really lovable mother in laws…but it does not live in the real world of high performance sport.

And for that reason, the current leadership models fail over and over and over again.

Players are happy to accept the tag of “team leader”.

They are happy to be seen as one of the “leadership group”.

They are happy to take on an important role in team strategies, tactics and even selection decisions.

They are happy to sit on discipline committees and fine players for arriving to training late wearing odd socks.

But when things go really wrong (and by really wrong read “publicly” wrong), no one is happy to put their hand on their heart and take full responsibility and accountability for the problem.

Let’s look at some examples.

A professional football team – which has a leadership group - wins the title. The following year – not so good. The next year even worse. The year after that their winning record is under 10%. The predictable happens…the head coach gets sacked.

Why? Because the coach is accountable. Says so in his contract.

But, the coach was not alone in his accountability. A review two years before the team’s title victory, recommeded the team create a leadership group so that the players could have more input into the decision making process and thereby have more ownership of the team’s preparation and performance.

Upon hearing of the coach’s sacking, did the players from the leadership group accept accountability and either resign or accept a significant pay cut? No.

They are only accountable when it suits them to be: convenient accountability.

In the defence of players, most of the time, real accountability is taken out of their hands. The Board or Management Team or Media Spin Manager decides that having the players publicly accept full accountability will damage the one thing more important than the team’s performance…..the organisation’s Brand…you know, that thing the organisation sells to sponsors, the fans, the television audiences – you know…the Brand.

It is because protecting the Brand is more important than any player, any coach, any team, any result that full and total accountability is a myth and is why the current leadership models are failing. 

Consider another example. A player from the leadership group breaks a team rule or is involved in a scandal (drugs, alcohol, sexual harassment – take your pick).

Does the player immediately contact the media, organise a press conference and say, “Please forgive me. I did something wrong. It was my fault. I accept full responsibility and accountability for my actions and willingly accept any and all consequences as a result”. No.

No – the organisation convenes it’s Crisis Management Teamand they work around the clock to spin the story so the player not only appears innocent but he should actually be awarded for running naked through a neighbourhood shopping centre blind drunk yelling obscenities at children, spinning it as “Our player’s tireless contribution to the local community and commitment to communicating with the youth of our nation”.

The name of the game is not, “how do we grow a strong, sustainable, high performance culture where everyone accepts full accountability for their own decisions, standards, actions and inactions: the name of the game is protect the Brand at all costs: it’s about damage control.

Trouble in professional sport is like an iceberg – you only ever get to see a fraction of what’s really there. In many teams, accountability is only publicly accepted when the story has been broken in the media and public admissions seem like the only way to get out of jail with Brand more or less in tact.

There is an explanation for all this……money.

When it all comes down to it – professional football is a business, professional basketball is a corporate exercise, professional hockey a marketing vehicle: professional sport is about making money…and lots of it.

So what if we sack the head coach, who cares? People don’t pay to watch coaches coach: they pay to see players play and win. Coaches are expendable and replaceable: good players are rare and great ones even rarer. Sack the coach, protect the players, bury the truth, spin the story and move on quickly before someone notices.

Want real leadership? Real leadership which grows and sustains the success of the organisation (and the Brand) for the long term???

Then embrace real accountability: and not just for players and coaches: but for management, Board, office staff, sports scientists, medical team…everyone is accountable for their decisions, their actions, their inactions, their behaviours, their standards and their professionalism.

All change is personal: this comes down to personal leadership and to the decisions of individuals to embrace real accountability. This is the new leadership: the personal leadership of individuals.

And if someone stuffs up: Don’t spin it: chin it (as in take it on the chin). Stand up, look the team, the organisation, the fans, the sponsors, the media and the public in the eye (or the camera lens) and say with total humility, sincerity, integrity and honesty, “It was me – I did it – I am responsible and I am accountable”.

Only when professional teams and high performance sports , (and more importantly each individual who is part of the organisation) start openly and honestly embracing this total accountability environment will their leadership programs work effectively.

The time has come to change the culture of Spin and conveccountability to one of honesty, openness, integrity and real, genuine 100%, 24/7 accountability.

Reject the Spin, and Win!

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.

Leadership groups, leadership teams, player leadership teams, team councils………

What’s going on here? Players making decisions? Players leading? Players taking ownership of their training and playing programs?

• What’s all this empowerment stuff about?
• What does engagement mean? Is someone getting married?
• And what the hell is a leadership group?

I thought coaches coached, managers managed, fans cheered, doctors doctored and players played.

All of sudden every AFL, rugby, football, cricket, netball and rugby league team has embraced a player empowerment leadership model. Five years ago, most of us couldn’t even spell it.

Let’s have closer look at what’s going on.

Leadership groups have become very popular in sporting teams over the past few years. Even the press have now become comfortable using the term “leadership group” and respect it’s role in clubs and teams.

So why has it become fashionable to have a leadership group in sporting teams?

There are several reasons why this has happened:

• Society has changed. Authoritarian dictatorships do not work anywhere in the world. Society demands engagement and people want input into the direction of their lives and community. People no longer tolerate being ordered what to do – they demand consultation and communication. Governments and business have all been forced to shift to open, transparent and accountable ways of operating. Players have grown up in this society where authoritarian models do not work – their parents have changed, their teachers have changed…….so accordingly, their coaches must change.
• It makes sense. Players have to solve problems and make decisions on the field that determine the outcome of the game. Coaches can coach off field and at training but they have limited impact on the field in the heat of battle. Better problem solving and decision making occurs when people “own” their performance and have to take responsibility for the outcome.
• Players are smarter. One impact of the Internet and the electronic literacy of players is that they have access to ideas, techniques and skills that once were hidden away in coaching education texts. Professional players are comfortable using video analysis to evaluate their own performances. Players have views and opinions about their own performances that can add real value to their coaching program. 
• We understand leadership more. Leadership has been studied more in the last 20 years than the Swim Suit edition of Sports Illustrated. There are millions of books about leadership from every possible angle: business leadership, financial leadership, corporate leadership, political leadership, leadership biographies – lots of people are thinking about, talking about and writing about what leadership is and how to develop it.
• The nature of sport has changed. Team sports in general have become more dynamic, faster and entertaining. Most team sports have changed their laws and rules to facilitate more open, flowing, exciting competition. This means decisions need to be made quickly and players able to respond to rapidly changing playing situations. Teams with rigid, highly structured, inflexible playing systems do not do well in any code in this century. Winning is about making quality decisions quickly and responding to opportunities faster than the opposition.

What are the Ten key elements of a successful sports leadership team?

1. Learn to lead. I can call myself a Formula One Driver or the King of Persia but unless I have training and education how to drive fast or lead a nation, I will not do it very well. Leadership is the same. Just appointing or electing a group of players to a leadership role and expecting them to do it well is two steps short of insanity. You would not give them a ball and say “OK – now you’re a talented player” without coaching, education, teaching, training, practice, feedback and development. Great leadership groups have been trained and educated how to lead.
2. Real power! Some coaches “talk the talk” about empowerment and engagement and players owning decisions but when push comes to shove, they take the power off the leadership group. The essence of great leadership is taking responsibility for decisions and turning decisions into actions. By giving a leadership group limited power to make decisions and taking it off them as soon as the team is under pressure takes away any sense of responsibility:the group is a leadership group in name only.
3. Consistency. The same rules must apply to the Leadership group as apply to the rest of the team. People do not tolerate double standards or inequity in teams. Everyone plays by the same rules or there can be no trust – and without trust, teams do not succeed.
4. Real meaningful decisions. Some Clubs allow the Leadership group to make decisions about jersey colors, where the team will go at the end of season holiday, what food to eat at the Annual presentation dinner and not much else. Teach the leadership group to lead and trust them to make significant decisions, to own them and to implement them. And to be held accountable for them!
5. Responsibility and accountability. Responsibility and accountability. Responsibility and accountability. Are you getting the idea yet?
6. Honest, regular feedback. Athletes grow from receiving honest, regular feedback. Leaders grow the same way. Provide opportunity for leaders to give and receive honest feedback from their peers, their team mates, coaches, staff and management. And don’t be afraid of conflict. People who trust each other can give honest feedback and learn, grow and improve through vigorous (even heated) debate.
7. Flexibility. The old models of leadership were based on hierarchy and rigid vertical structures. Modern leadership is based on flexibility and dynamics which respond to changing needs and circumstances. The leadership group should be a dynamic, living group which is comfortable responding to whatever challenges it confronts.
8. Communication. Leaders must communicate but listen ten times more than they talk. Leaders who listen and respect and care about the views of the people they represent are the greatest of all leaders.
9. Start ‘em young. Just as you would not wait until a player was 25 to teach them how to kick, pass, run, jump etc, if you want leaders - train ‘em young. Ensure your elite junior player development program has a significant, well structured leadership development program as an integral aspect.
10. The Culture Virus – Culture changes and grows from the inside out. Provide systems, structures and opportunities for the leadership team to “infect” the rest of the team with a winning culture and positive attitudes.

 So enjoy the “new” leadership. Help players learn to lead, provide them with the environment and opportunity to evolve into quality leaders and your team, the players, the Club and the sport will all benefit.

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.

So much of the world’s high performance sports dollars (or Yens or Yuans or Euros or Pounds or Pesos or Rands depending on where you come from), time, energy, focus and attention is spent on three things:

1. Talent identification;
2. Talent recruitment;
3. Talent development.

Or if you like, find them, sign them, refine them.

And most of the world has still got it wrong. There is a better way.

First item on the Talent Identification agenda…can we please change the name!!!

Let’s all agree to call it the ”Talent Management” Program or the ”Targeting Success” Program or something catchy like T.O.P. (Talent Optimization Program) but the term T.I.D. should be killed off, given a nice funeral and buried by the world’s sporting community once and for all.

Calling the overall process of finding, recruiting and optimising the performance potential of athletes “talent identification” is like calling a game of football “the kick off”. Finding talent is just the first step in a long, long process to turn potential into performance.

Number 2: Adopt an integrated approach. There is too much focus on physical talent and physiological factors in all T.O.P.s all over the world. Success in high performance sport comes about from the integration and blending of physical, mental, technical, tactical, cultural / family and genetic factors or…my “big six”:

Number 3: Invest ten times more money on talent optimisation and talent development than talent I.D because Real talent is harder to hide than it is to find: Finding talent is not hard. Open your eyes! It is not hard to find kids who are bigger, stronger, faster or more skillful than their peers. Finding them is not the challenge – it’s what to do once you have found them that is the tricky part. The protocols used to screen athletes for “talent” have been around for over 60 years – test protocols are not the problem. It’s creating an optimal, integrated talent development pathway to turn potential into performance that’s the problem.

Numer 4: Make your objective measurements of talent more subjective and your subjective measurements of talent more objective: This the real trick in all applied sports science. There are no totally objective, research proven, evidence based methods of testing which can measure the “talent” and potential of an athlete and guarantee their elite level competition performance success. And similarly, the old days of just looking at an athlete and using some mystical “eye” or instinct to accurately predict their elite level competition performance success are over. It’s the blending of the objective with the subjective that gives the best results in any T.O.P. process.

Number 5: Any investment in a T.O.P. for athletes must be matched by a T.O.P. for coaches: Governments and sporting organisations will spend millions on mass T.I.D. screening programs and implementing T.I.D. testing protocols then allocate pittance to educating and developing the people charged with developing that talent to its full potential: i.e. coaches. That just does not make any sense.

Number 6: Educate parents and the talented athlete’s immediate cultural influences: You play like your place! Athletes – no matter how talented – need people and places around them which nurture them, support them, nourish them and love them. It is critical to influence, support, educate and help the parents, partners and peers of talented athletes so that they can better create an environment which enriches the athlete’s real performance potential.

Number 7: Stop beating around the bush with genetic testing- just get on with it: We all know its coming – let’s face it – it is already here and the whole industry of Sport Genetics is an unstoppable force. Once we get around the ethical, religious and philosophical zealotry surrounding the genetic testing of athletes, everyone will be doing it. My advice – do it now. Just get on with it or risk being left behind by your competition.

Number 8: You need to learn to recognise genius, uniqueness and difference: Sport is about health, fitness and lifestyle. It’s about providing opportunities for people to play sport through the implementation of standardised systems, structures and programs. High performance is completely different! High performance is about providing unique opportunities for unique individuals to realise their full potential. Too many T.O.P.s fail because they fail to recognise genius. They spend millions finding and recruiting talented athletes, then force them into standard programs to fit a funding model or some mythical all encompassing athlete development system. High performance means being different, being unique, being an individual and thinking, talking and acting outside the box.

Number 9: It has to be a “non-system” system: As per number 8 – there is no system you can create which will guarantee the success of your team, your sport, your club or your nation in high performance sport. That’s because greatness and uniqueness are intimately entwined and uniqueness does not flourish in a system. That’s why the best win – they do it their way, they do it uniquely, they do it differently to the rest….and any high performance sport system which discourages difference will fail.

Number 10: There has to be multiple entry (and exit) points: Too many teams,  sports and even nations miss talent because of stringent rules about T.T.T. – Talent Testing Timing. Some of the biggest mistakes here include:

• Setting an age range – i.e. “we test kids aged 12-15″ years;
• Creating elite junior development pathways which are rigid and inflexible (i.e. “you are either in or out”);
• Testing for now and not for the future – i.e. looking for talent and potential to sustain the team’s current style or system of play without thought of evolving it over time;
• Relying on historical data to provide a framework for the future, i.e. using test data from talented athletes from the past to evaluate the performance potential of athletes to be successful in the future.

There is no doubt that an effective T.O.P. is important for the success of every sporting team, organisation and nation. However, the way it has been done to date lacks real sophistication, practicality and effectiveness and it is time the whole concept of T.I.D. was revisited, revamped and re-developed. 

There’s my Top Ten Talent I.D. Tips for High Performance Sp0rt – the T.O.P. Approach….what’s yours?

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.

Spring is the season of re-newal, re-birth and re-generation.

And for many Australian sports – AFL, Rugby League, Netball and Rugby – spring is also the season of the Performance Re-view.

That time when players, coaches, management and staff sit down together and try to work out what went wrong, what went right and how to do it better next time around.

How do you make certain your end of season Performance Review makes  real difference to next season and is not a waste of time, energy and money?

1. FEEDFORWARD – not FEEDBACK. Everyone talks about wanting feedback – but they are lying! No one really wants to be told what they did wrong in the past – what they want is feedforward - suggestions, ideas and direction on how to improve in the future. No one ever achieved success in the future by looking backwards. So don’t waste any time in your review by looking at the past season – it has gone!
2. BENCHMARK – only to establish a starting point - not to copy. If you have to benchmark, do it only to establish a starting point – to be certain where the current level of best practice is – but only so you can do it better, smarter and more consistently than your opposition. Copying = failure in high performance sport.  
3. The last game of this season (and the review process) is the first game of next season. Use the end of this season and the review process to set the standards and behaviours for next season. If you are already lagging behind the c0mpetition, the earlier you start the continuous improvement process the better.
4. Challenge without blame: engage without emotion. Performance reviews are often a waste of time because it becomes a game of blame and a commotion of emotion! No use crying over spilt milk or fighting over lost matches and missed opportunities. Seek the views, opinions and comments of everyone involved with the team without judgement, blame, emotion or finger pointing. Engage everyone in the review process but take the emotions, personality conflicts and pointless petty political conflicts out of the equation.
5. Attention to detail – get the facts – eliminate the fiction. Performance reviews should be about what actually happened and not what the media, a few fans and a Board member thinks happened. The first step in every Performance review process is a commitment to data collection and the establishing of facts, evidence and a detailed, systematic analysis process.
6. Be systematic – look at all the performance elements.  No one performance element can be totally responsible for the success or failure of the team. Look at coaches, players, facilities, management, sports science, sports medicine, rehab, resourcing and the other 2356 performance elements – in isolation and in combination.
7. Change something. Change something. Change something. In high performance sport, the dumbest attitude of all is the old “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”. History proves again and again that this year’s winning team is often the least likely team to win again next year – due primarily to the “if it ain’t broke…” attitude. Every team is moving forward – the name of the game is learning faster and changing faster than the opposition.
8. Make decisions and communicate them clearly, concisely and immediately. Performance reviews are worrying times for all staff – particularly when they are accompanied by a major change, e.g. a new head coach, new CEO etc. All decisions and actions arising from the review process should be communicated quickly, clearly and appropriately to the people who are effected by them. Dismissals, retirements and retrenchments should be communicated in person, quietly, discretely, honestly, respectfully and with dignity.
9. Build quality control systems and structures to ensure the effects of the changes you make are measured and that people have clear accountabilities and responsibilities for ensuring the changes are successfully implemented, i.e. actually impact on the performance of the team.
10. Do what you say you are going to do. The purpose of doing a performance review is to accelerate the rate of change of the team and in doing so enhance the performance of the team next season. Talk is cheap – but winning comes from implementing consistent quality actions. Once you have gone through a detailed, thorough, professional review and made changes based on the findings – persist and persevere with them. Many teams will spend a fortune on their end of season review, make 1001 changes then go back to their old ways if they lose a few games early in the new season.

Performance Reviews: The Golden Rules:

• Thorough, detailed and professional and based on real, accurate information and analysis;
• Develop an intelligent, independent, review process – one which is systematic and methodical and devoid of personality and political influences;
• Inclusive- every one’s opinion listened to, respected and valued;
• Remove the emotion from the moment! – anger, blame and judgement do not lead to a quality review, good decision making or intelligent effective change management;
• Do it now! – next season has already started!
• Follow up – follow up – follow up:  Change is only as good as the commitment of people to implement the way it was intended.

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.

Every four years, us non football (soccer) people get excited, enthusiastic and ecstatic about the FIFA Football World Cup.

We get caught up by the nationalism, the marketing hype and the promises of the ”beautiful game” and being witness to the world’s biggest sporting event.

And, every four years, we walk away scratching our heads thinking “why haven’t they fixed the same problems they had four years earlier? ”

Like so many others, I want to believe. I really do. This is after all, the “World’s Game”. I love sport. I love competition. I really want to be a Football fan.

But first and foremost I am high performance sports professional and if I apply the same standards to Football that I do to other sports – particularly other professional sports - Football fails.

So, let’s go ahead a few days from this post.

Several predictable comments will come in from Football tragics:

“You don’t understand the game”.

“You don’t understand the culture of Football“.

And the inevitable, “You are an idiot. Who cares about your opinion anyway”.

Thanks for the thoughts but save yourself the time and energy: I have heard them all before.

The fact remains that at a time when the world is watching, Football has got it wrong.

Players and teams who give their lives to compete at the FIFA World Cup deserve the best support, best technology, best officiating and best sports science available: the best players and the best coaches with the best high performance environment. Hard to argue with.

So why when a range of technologies can accurately, simply and consistently improve the game, why does FIFA persist with doing things the way they did when Pele was in nappies?

Let’s look at some of the Horrible Highlights of the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa:

• Goals that should have been goals but weren’t goals;
• Goals that were goals but shouldn’t have been goals;
• Players given a red card for not doing anything wrong;
• Players not given a red card in spite of committing illegal acts on the pitch;
• Players “diving” and “milking” penalties with such predigious acting talent they should hang up their boots and just accept the Academy Award for Best Actor next year.

Add in things like the allegations that the “freaky-football” was made available to a certain European team months before anyone else got their hands on it and the rumours about bribery and corruption in the host nation bid process for the 2018 and 2022 FIFA World Cups and you are looking at a sporting organisation with no direction, no leadership and no hope of becoming all it could be.

And all this in the “beautiful game’s” showcase competition. (Makes you wonder what really happens in football around the globe in local and regional level games if this is what happens in the best football competition in the world). 

I want to be blown away by the FIFA Football World Cup.

I want to sit there with my mouth open thinking, “wow these guys are so professional, so innovative, so cutting edge in all aspects of high performance that the rest of the world will never catch up”.

I want to tell clients and colleagues in other sports that they should be flocking to the FIFA Football World Cup to watch football coaches, football sports scientists, football medical teams, football performance analysts and football teams in action to learn from the best of the best.

Instead we see a fantastic game ruined by conservative administrators, pedantic traditionalists and over zealous sports leaders who passionately believe in the most destructive seven words in high performance sport “that’s the way we do it here” . The only thing they ever want to see changed is their business class seats to first class for their families and 126 friends on their next junket to a would be World Cup host nation.

Don’t get me wrong – I want to believe. I want to become a Football Fanatic. I see the passion and enthusiasm of football fans on T.V. and I want to be part of it.

But I am also a high performance sports professional with 20 years experience working with the best of the best sports teams around the world: I know when something is not working and the FIFA Football World Cup just does not work. It is more of a terrible shame than the epitome of the beautiful game and, as always, the people who suffer the most are the players who just want a fair, consistent, honest, high quality high performance environment to play the game they love.

Expert commentators will explain this away with statements like “It’s just football” and “These things happen in football” - but why should it be?

Surely with the money and resources available, football can be - must be - the leader in all aspects of high performance sport: science, technology, coaching, officiating, sports medicine etc and be the benchmark of high performance sports environments in the world.

Football is the biggest sport in the world in terms of participants, television audiences and resourcing – why isn’t it also the undisputed leader in every aspect of high performance sport????

See you in 2014 – I will be saving this post so I can cut and paste it and use it again in four years as I suspect the same issues will be there next time the World meets on the football pitch.

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.

First…there were the LEADERS. The autocratic, dictatorial, “my way or the highway” type leaders.

Then came the LEADERSHIP GROUPS, LEADERSHIP COUNCILS, LEADERSHIP TEAMS.

So what’s next?

There is a revolution in leadership coming: the way we think about it, the way we talk about it, the way we develop it is all about to change.

Read on…………………. 

Let’s look at it this way:

Sport is one small part of society and as such is subject to the social trends and changes being experienced in other areas of life.

The way society is going, it is highly unlikely the old style, dictatorial, autocratic, “bully boy” head coaches will re-emerge as the dominant leadership style in sport. Their time has come and gone. They were a product of the times and of our limited understanding of leadership in the past. But things have changed: everything changes.

Business learnt this about 30 years ago. Sport has been a little slow on the uptake but we are getting there.

Then the concept of “decentralised” or “shared” leadership become popular – and again sport started a little behind the business community in embracing this idea, but over the past 10 years has grabbed the concept enthusiastically with the introduction of the now ubiquitous “leadership team or leadership group”.

The “leadership teams” model which has become “the” trendy thing for all professional sports to put in place is becoming increasingly under challenge for several reasons including:

• Players not in the leadership team, will often pass the responsibility for their own standards and behaviours to the leadership team;
• Clubs rarely invest any where near enough time or money into developing the leadership abilities of all the individuals in the leadership team;
• Inevitably, some individuals on the leadership team find loopholes in the system with the end result of feeling they do not have to play by the same rules as the rest of the team;
• There is no evidence that having a leadership team makes a difference to on field performance. Sure it makes sense to have players “leading” as decision making on field in the heat of battle is an important part of all team sports. But teams have won and will win titles without the benefit of a great leadership group.

And let’s face it – the leadership team model has not worked.

Look at the newspapers – we still have problems with discipline, alcohol, drug abuse (social and performance enhancing), violence, sexual harassment in all professional sports every where in the world.

The leadership team model has given a voice to some players – maybe even provided a forum for some players to raise important issues and “play” leader but in the majority of cases the real leadership in the team is still the Board, the Owners, the CEO, the Sponsors and the Head Coach.

So what’s left? What possible direction could leadership go if it isn’t based on the old “Military General” style leadership model or the trendy “leadership teams” model?

Answer: leaders…..there won’t be any! Well, not in the traditional sense.

Think about it.

What we are seeing in society and particularly from the generation Y athletes and players is a distinct “my way” approach. It is the era of individualisation.

In the past we have talked about teams in terms of WE not ME.

Now we are looking at a prevailing attitude of ME and WE – the maximisation of the potential of each individual and the combining of individuals operating at their full potential into a functioning team.

In the past a team could carry an individual with weaknesses or frailties.

Now with the emphasis in professional teams on analysis and review, teams can not afford to carry any players who have weaknesses which can be exposed in competition under pressure situations.

It is the responsibility of every player to be operating consistently at their maximum possible potential: as players, as athletes, as people and as leaders – at training, on the field and in society.

There are no true team sports at professional level left in the world.

At professional level with the emphasis on finding and exploiting every possible advantage, football, AFL, cricket, basketball, rugby, American football, baseball……all of them – have become individual sports wrapped in a team environment. 

The critical leadership area now is for every player to be leading themselves  – on and off the field -to the best of their abilities and to the limits of their potential.

How many times have we seen members of a club’s leadership team, in trouble?

Have a look at the back pages of your morning newspaper today. The press is currently full of them.

How can someone lead a team if they can’t lead themselves? 

The way we have looked at the concepts of leadership and team has to change considerably: we are at the threshold of some revolutionary changes in how we think about both areas.

The challenge of course is how to best embrace this new leadership direction and enhance the leadership abilities of each individual whilst fitting it into a team environment and…..most importantly…ensure that it makes a measurable impact on performance.

Watch for a lot more on this topic in coming posts. 

Let me know what you think.

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.

The most basic of all concepts in high performance sport (and art and other areas of human endeavour) is that you do things as an extension of your national culture – or in simple terms “you play like your place”.

Brazilians play football like Brazilians.
Italians play football like Italians.
Germans play football like Germans.

Happens in hockey. Happens in football. Happens in the Olympic sports. Happens in all sports. You play like the culture that made you, that grew you, that developed you.

Same principle applies to football clubs (in all codes) - each football club culture produces a unique playing style, a unique trademark of playing that reflects the people, the places and the processes of their culture.

So hiring any foreign coach to come in and aim to teach one nation to play football like another nation is absolute stupidity.

Until each nation accepts that they need to take a long term approach, grow their own unique way of playing, i.e. their own unique trademark brand of football, they can never win at World Cup level.

Look at the handful of nations who have won the Football World Cup. They play a unique style / trademark of football, they back their players and coaches to deliver it and they persist at mastering it over the long term.

Here’s a sure bet: most nations – i.e. the ones who keep failing at World Cup level will shortly announce the appointment of a German head coach or Brazilian head coach or a head coach from one of the other top 16 Football World Cup nations, hire them for the next four years, and once again give them the mandate to create a foreign football culture in their “adopted” home.

If the team makes it to the Football World Cup finals in 2014, they will fail again and the cycle will continue: new imported coach, new imported football culture. 2018 same story. And then they will fail in 2022.

Every nation must develop it’s own unique  playing style, grow it and nurture it from the grass roots up and then take on the world with the same passion, determination, unique style and cultural qualities that drives the success of the nation in other fields of endeavour.

Failure at the FIFA World Cup is not the fault of the coach, the players, the fans or the Clubs: it’s the responsibility of the national football leadership.

The question you must ask of your nation’s football leadership must be, “When will we seriously commit to growing our own unique football playing style – one that is truly representative of all of us as a nation – and one that can provide us with the opportunity to be competitive against the rest of the world?”

Let me know how they answer.

Be Yourself and Back Yourself.

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.

I get asked to help athletes, coaches, teams and sporting organisations all over the world.

My process is simple.

Find out what the problems really are, find out where the problems really are, find out who the problems really are and figure out how to fix them: what I call the PPP approach – Practices (i.e what people do), Places (i.e. culture, environment) and People.

I look at lots of things: coaching, player talent and abilities, sports science, sports medicine, facilities, equipment, management, strength and conditioning and of course I look at the resources (money) available for the organisation to spend enhancing the performance of their high performance program.

Want to know how I know when money is not the real problem in the organisation?

When they tell me that it is.Money is rarely the real problem in sporting organisations – but it is the easiest target to blame for a lack of performance.

If you have a sporting organisation which lacks innovation, is driven by tired, unimaginative people, which continues to deliver the same programs over and over and over again, no amount of money will enhance its performance.

There are five critical things to consider when planning to enhance the performance of your sporting organisation through an effective change process:

1. Acceptance that you have a problem and it is necessary to change;
2. Having the desire, commitment and determination to change – including fighting through all the political and personality conflicts that impede the introduction of any change;
3. Having creative, innovative ideas and solutions to your performance problems;
4. Having outstanding people capable of introducing the change with drive, passion and energy;
5. Having the money to implement the changes and performance enhancement strategies.

I am not saying money is unimportant in high performance sport.

What I am saying is that money does not make a significant difference to performance if the organisation is tired, devoid of creative ideas and is driven by people who live the “that’s the way we do it here” philosophical approach to high performance sport.

Imagine you had a winning Formula One Car and a great driver.

You win the F1 in the year 2010.

The next year, you use the same car, same engineering team, same driver, same fuel, same tyres.

You got close to winning again – second this time.

So the next year, you again put the same car, same driver, same fuel, same tyres etc. on the starting line.

You finish fourth on the championship.

The following year again – same car, same driver, same, same, same.

You finish tenth.

Now someone in the team says, “if we had more money, we could rebuild the same car, we could re-hire the same driver, we could buy more of our old fuel and more of our favourite brand of tyres and we will win again”. Sounds reasonable.

The problem is that in the years following your peak performance your competition have developed new engines, revolutionary fuel, partnered with NASA to build more aerodynamic chassis designs, partnered with Microsoft to develop cutting edge car electronics and identified, trained and developed a team of highly intelligent, highly athletic drivers and engineers.

More money only enhances performance if it funds new ideas, innovation and creative ways of doing things.  In high performance sport, more than any other field of endeavour - success is a moving target and the name of the game is accelerating your performance faster than that of your opposition – and this means being more creative, more innovative and learning faster than your opposition – the best ideas win!

De Bono once said, “you can’t dig a new hole by digging the same hole deeper” – and for many sporting organisations, all they do with more money is dig a deeper and deeper hole – one that ultimately they can’t get out of. In the meantime their opposition is building skyscrapers, bridges and even rockets.

And the saddest thing of all is that while many sporting organisations are wallowing in a pit of their own mediocrity and drowning in a sea of limited imagination, talented young athletes and coaches never have the opportunity or environment to realise their full potential. How many generations of gifted, talented and amazing athletes never have the opportunity to achieve their dreams because of the bumbling of bureaucrats and apathy of administrators more concerned about their own egos and job security than they are about embracing a real high performance philosophy?

Where politics comes before potential - failure follows.

What are the biggest impediments to performance in sporting organisations?:

• lack of vision;
• lack of strategy;
• lack of creativity;
• lack of leadership;
• lack of capacity to change;
• lack of alignment and cohesion across the organisation;
• and…….lack of money.

The things that can make the biggest impact on performance in high performance sport are free - they are just not easy.

The hardest – but cheapest way of enhancing the performance of sporting organisations is to develop a creative, thinking, learning environment where everyone embraces a commitment to intelligent change, creativity and continuous improvement regardless of the political and personality obstacles.

Which would you prefer? An organisation built on passion, driven by creativity, fueled by innovation and fired by great leadership – but with limited money or an organisation with limited ideas, old thinking, outdated programs and closed minded people but with plenty of resources????? You can not buy greatness – you have to live it.

Be enthusiastic about ideas, embrace passion, recruit great people, value quality leadership, prize vision and be excited by creativity then……….chase the cash!

The only place cash should come before creativity is in the dictionary.

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.

What will sports coaching look like in 20 years?

How will a training session differ in 2030 to a training session in 2010?

How will our coaching have changed, improved and evolved over the next 20 years?

It will have changed so much that it will be barely recognisable.

The future is already here. And it is a scary place for those living in the past.

Are you ready for it? Will you race towards it? Will you resist it?

Read on.

To see where Sports Coaching is going – look at where the world is going:

1. People can access just about any information, anywhere, anytime and for free;
2. People are happy to share ideas, information and innovations with their colleagues, friends and the public on line for free;
3. People have unprecedented access to learning tools, articles, on-line video, slide presentations, audio files and research journals – and mostly for free;
4. People are adopting a “do it yourself” approach to many things – look at the abundance of TV shows, web sites, blogs and on line information available on any topic – average, ordinary people are becoming experts at all things;
5. People are happy to work cross disciplinary and “have a go” at things, rather than seek the opinions and views of experts and professionals.

Coaching knowledge – is – for all intents and purposes – worthless.

When what you have is easily and freely available to everyone – it is worthless.

How much would diamonds be worth it you could find them anywhere, anytime and they were as common as ordinary pebbles? They might still look great, sparkle in the sun, be incredibly useful but they would be worth nothing.

And your coaching knowledge – all those “secret” training sets, all those “unique training systems”, all those “miracle plays” that you have built your coaching career around….are also worth nothing. Scary.

Don’t believe me?

Go to YouTube – www.youtube.com and search for videos demonstrating the skills of your sport. Off you go – I’ll wait right here.

OK – you’re back. What did you find out?

That many of the techniques, strategies and ideas of your sport are now available free on-line, anytime, anywhere for anyone and for free? Funny about that. Don’t say I didn’t tell you.

Even very traditional sports like martial arts – where techniques have been kept within a close circle of experts and handed down through traditional teaching methods and structured learning environments are freely available in video form at YouTube. And people are using YouTube to learn martial arts – and piano and Greek and Tennis and how to build a fence and how to service a car……………..the knowledge you need to be an expert is everywhere – and it’s free.

So you might counter my argument with a yesbut – a “Yes, but…” and try to convince me that your sport is different, that athletes need coaches, that the people doing the free YouTube videos about your sport are not the best people, that your sport is a people sport…..yada, yada, yada – I have heard them all.

Guess again. The average person does not care about the quality of the source or their qualifications or the University they studied at – they just want the information, they want it now, they want it to look good, they want to feel it is pitched at a level they can understand and they don’t want to pay for it.

If you want to know where sports coaching will be in 20 years – the starting point is to ask yourself these three questions:

1. What do I have to offer my clients (athletes, players) other than knowledge of the sport, e.g. skills, drills, tactics, strategies, physical preparation techniques because anyone get these things anywhere, anytime for free!
2. What will my clients need in 20 years that only I can provide, i.e. accepting that your knowledge is no longer what your clients will need.
3. What unique talents, gifts and abilities do I possess that will ensure my coaching future - again apart from what I know?

OK, OK – there will be some of you thinking, “That’s all very interesting, but that will not happen in my sport. My sport is different”.

Try to get your head around this then.

Sport – as an institution and as an industry – represents about 1% of that big box we call society.

And the most popular sport in the world – football (soccer) makes up the vast majority of that 1%.

So your sport – particularly if it is one of the traditional Olympic sports like swimming, track and field, field hockey, rowing, cycling etc makes up a fraction of the institution which is sport.

We know that trends in some of the big institutions like health, like education, like the environment, like energy and like communications are all heading towards the open sharing of ideas, collaborative research methods and the collective sharing of knowledge, information and experiences.

So hanging to the “my sport will not change” thinking is like trying to hold back the Ocean with one grain of sand…..it is futile.

This has enormous implications not just for sports coaches but for sport coach educators. Coach education needs a total re-think and re-structure.

And the reason is simple.

All sports coaching education and training programs are content based. We bring coaches together for a day or two, we throw lots and lots of content, ideas, information and sports specific knowledge at them, assess their ability to learn and apply that knowledge and call them “coaches”.

Now think about Sports Coaching 2030 - If knowledge is worthless and ideas and information are available anytime, anywhere and for free, who is going to go to a coaching course? No one! No one unless sports coach educators completely change they way they go about educating and developing coaches.

Summary:

1. To steal a line from the environmental warriors -“think global; act local”. Be aware of world wide trends in communication, in education and in the way ideas, information and innovations are being discussed and shared but make it relevant to your own program, your own coaching and your own philosophies;
2. You can’t change the world – but you can change your world – and you can achieve this by being open to the possibilities and embracing of the new opportunities provided by the acceleration of learning that is currently possible;
3. Imagine a world where knowledge is worthless and your current beliefs about gaining a competitive edge being in “what” you know are wrong…..how will you be a successful coach? How will you continue to find a performance edge for your athletes and players?

In future posts I will discuss the amazing opportunities that the future presents..for those who are ready for it.

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.

All coaches have five things in common:

1. A love of the sport they coach;
2. The passion and drive to be the best they can be;
3. An unquenchable thirst for knowledge and learning;
4. A desire to see every athlete they coach realise their full potential;
5. An unbreakable devotion to their philosophy on training volume.

Why this obsession with volume of training? Why do coaches resist any attempt from sports scientists and others to reduce their training volume? Why do coaches resent any implication that they are training their athletes too hard?

Because, in spite of all the research and all the literature and all the advances in sports science, sports medicine and performance technologies, the ONLY thing that is proven – beyond doubt – to improve performance is consistent hard training.

And because coaches know that hard training works – and all the other stuff is pretty much theory, fad or trend, they are reluctant to change their approach to training and incredibly resistant to any notion of tampering with their training methodologies.

Take for example the world’s obsession with recovery. Do we think things like hydrotherapy, massage and recovery nutrition strategies enhance competition performance? Yes.

Does it make sense that they should enhance competition performance? Yes.

Are they proven to enhance competition performance? No.

You could say the same things about “core stability / Pilate’s”, “vibration machines”, “sports supplements” and “altitude training for sea level performance” – good ideas, great concepts, interesting to talk about but not proven to enhance competition performance.

The only thing that has been conclusively demonstrated beyond any doubt to enhance competition performance is training. So logically, any attempt by a researcher or sports science service provider to change the one thing coaches know works is likely to be met with blank looks, cold stares and a loud “no thanks”. Coaches think – “I am responsible for the performance of my athletes. I know that training hard works. So why would I risk my reputation, my job and the success of my athletes on anything that is not proven to work?”. And this has led to 20 years of frustration, fear and fighting between coaches and sports scientists all over the world.

However, it is also clear, that in many sports, coaching beliefs about the volume of training required to become an elite performer are more based on myth, anecdote and legend than they are on logic and practical experience.

Take for example the following training volume “myths and legends” of various sports:

• Distance running – 100 miles a week;
• Swimming – 100 kms a week;
• Diving – 100 dives a session;
• Tennis – 1000 hits a session;
• Cycling – 1000 kms a week;
• Many Olympic sports – 10 sessions a week / or 24 hours a week.

Many of these “volume myths” have grown out of “coaching conference story telling” where successful coaches share the secret to their success which then gets written down and copied by every coach in the room; coaches who mistakenly believe that copying the success secrets of others is the secret to achieving their own.

Over time, these “myths” become “training truths” – e.g. “if your swimmers are not swimming ten sessions a week they will never be successful” and like all myths, these stories get passed down from coach to coach, from generation to generation until they become accepted practice by the entire coaching community of that sport.

Now to More with Less.

Let’s look at the issues.

1. There is no one size fits all, magic formula, guaranteed to succeed, every athlete must do, mythical training volume which works for all athletes: Fact: all athletes are unique individuals;
2. Kids and parents (and coaches for that matter) have limited time to fit in all the opportunities and options that life offers: Fact: everyone has less time available;
3. There is an unprecedented explosion of ideas and information on the Internet that is free for athletes and coaches to access – anytime – anywhere: Fact: everyone knows what you know;
4. Our understanding of peak performance in sport has become increasingly sophisticated and we know more than ever about learning, training adaptation, genetic potential, mental abilities, recovery, nutrition and performance technology: Fact: we have the knowledge and information to train, prepare and compete more efficiently;
5. The ability and capacity of Generation Y and I athletes to learn has accelerated due to the integrated, collaborative learning environment social media now offers them: Fact: your athletes can and do learn faster than any previous generation.

Now put all these facts together……and what do you come up with?

We need to create an efficient, effective training, learning and development environment which provides the optimal opportunity for individual athletes to train, to learn and to improve at an accelerated rate.

I am with the coaches on this: let’s not reduce training volumes unless…..we create an environment at training which consistently embraces accelerated learning.

Just kutting kilometres and minimising miles is not the answer unless………we first ensure that every athlete is totally engaged in every aspect of the program and trains efficiently every moment they train.

Having training sessions off is not the solution unless…….we know that every athlete trained to the full extent of their ability and potential at every session they attended.

So, more with less is possible but it requires some fundamental changes in your performance environment, beginning and ending with athletes accepting greater responsibility for their own performance and coaches prepared to coach in collaboration with their athletes: a perfect performance partnership.

Times are changing: are you?

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.