Sports Coaching Brain » Sports Management

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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Top Ten Talent I.D. Tips for High Performance Sport – The T.O.P. Approach

Wayne Goldsmith — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 02:20:12 +0000

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:

Talent identification;
Talent recruitment;
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”:

Physical abilities;
Personality characteristics;
Playing skills;
Performance abilities;
Pedigree (i.e. genetic makeup);
Preparation ((i.e. environment, family, culture).

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.

Number 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.

Conclusion:

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

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Ten Tips to Make Sure Your End of Season Re-view is a Pre-view for Success for Next Year

Wayne Goldsmith — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 23:21:44 +0000

Typically the end of season means a well earned rest, a few quiet drinks with team mates, some time with family and then… the end of season review.

Every team does some kind of season reflection or review – in most cases motivated by one or more “P” – Performance, Politics, Pressure.

The Performance Review: is one motivated by a drive to improve the performance of the team – players, coaches and staff – for next season.
The Political Review: is a review often driven by the Board or Executive to achieve a political agenda or philosophical shift in the club.
The Pressure Review: is one forced on a team by media, fans, club, Board or other stakeholders as a result of a poor performance.

By far the most effective review is one that is deliberately and strategically placed in the team’s “performance cycle” each year and is embraced by coaches, players, staff, Management and Board as being an important and positive aspect of progressive performance from season to season.

The Performance Cycle: The review is a key part to the overall performance cycle of the team.

Every team – every club – every coach – every player – is seeking one thing -Sustained Competitiveness: the ability to be competitive year after year after year.

A well structured review process ensures that by systematically reviewing and evaluating all aspects of performance, the opportunity to sustain competitiveness is integrated into the culture of the club.

Here are some tips to help make this year’s RE- view and PRE-view of success next season.

Review with next year in mind – don’t waste time looking back in anger

Reviews can make people very nervous and many coaches and players see it as a negative process. A well planned and well implemented review can be THE most critical element of planning for the next season and is an opportunity to move forward. It can be one of the most positive and productive times of the year. It is the time when feedback can be given and received with real positive energy and enthusiasm.

Don’t waste the review time by looking back and micro-analysing every aspect of every game, tackles missed in game one etc. This has all been done through the season. Use the RE-view as a PRE-VIEW: use it as an opportunity to get your best people together and work co-operatively and honestly to improve next season.

Benchmark against the best, whoever and wherever they may be

All sports are close communities and secrets do not stay secrets for long. It is safe to say that everyone knows what you know. In this closed environment, teams need to look outside your sport for the best solution – not just the AFL solution or the baseball solution or the swimming solution……the BEST solution!

If you were looking to improve the individualisation of player’s preparation, the answer might lie in one of the Olympic sports. If you were looking to improve on field endurance, the answer might lie in soccer or Rugby league. If you were looking to improve player leadership skills, the answer might lie in the corporate sector, business community or even politics! Once you have identified the problems, look for THE best solutions.

Keep the things that you do well, change the things that aren’t working – 10% rule

One of the biggest mistakes teams make at review time is to throw everything out and start again. Most clubs do far more right than they do wrong. If your car’s gearbox is broken, fix the gear box – don’t replace the engine, tyres, brakes, steering, cooling system and stereo. Build on the things that work well and change or eliminate the things that don’t. Try to adopt this simple three step review process of each area:

What do we do that works? – What should we keep doing?
What do we do that doesn’t work? – What do we do that we should stop doing?
What are things that we can introduce that will positively impact on performance? – What should we start doing?

Make sure you know what the budget is for next season BEFORE you start planning

Before you start planning for next season, make sure you are clear on what you can and can’t do from a budget perspective. Everyone has millions of ideas and suggestions of things that might work but in a real world, most clubs are working on a tight budget and it is a matter of prioritising.

Start with the things you must do – e.g. train hard, eat well, sleep and recover well, manage and minimise injuries.
Then start to look at things you want to do – e.g. introduce new equipment, new specialist coaches and staff, training camps, new facilities.
Then look at things you wish you could do – e.g. altitude camps, individualised diet management, specialist coaching services for individual positions.

Be Systematic: Look at everything: little things can make a big difference

At the beginning of the review process, write down a list of everything in your program that can make a difference. The easiest way to do this is to ask each person – coaches, sports scientists, medical team, team manager and players to review their own performance using the Keep, Stop, Start method and to highlight the key factors of their specialist areas.

Aim to make everything subject to a genuine 360 review process, i.e.

Each person reviews their own performance
Each person is reviewed by their peers
Each person is reviewed by their immediate report, i.e. the person they report to
Each person is reviewed by the people who report to them

For example, a team defensive skills coach would be reviewed by himself, the other team skills coaches, the head coach and the players.

Start with a philosophy: If you don’t stand for something, you will fall for anything.

With the review process comes a flood of ideas, innovations, new technologies, new supplements, gym equipment and gimmicks. Everyone will have great ideas and new products that will “guarantee” success next year.

Start the review with a philosophy. This keeps you grounded and keeps you focused on improving the right things. The process starts with understanding what you are about as a team and club.

Ask yourself three questions:

What do we stand for? Who are we? This will help you clearly identify what it is about the team and the club culture that is unique, special and worth keeping.
What are things we do well that will sustain this culture?
What do we need? Who can we recruit to add value to this culture?

The real trick in program reviews and strategic planning is deciding what not to do – finding new ideas is the easy part – finding out what will work and add genuine value to the team is the real art.

Get someone independent to help with the review process – take personalities, politics and emotions out of it.

In the majority of cases, reviews are commissioned on political grounds. Someone in the club has decided that the performance of the coach, players and team is an issue and commissions someone to review the program. In many cases, the reviewer may also have political connections to the club and an agenda for change that may not be in the best interest of the team and the team’s performance next season.

Find someone independent, objective and politically neutral to co-ordinate the review process. Aim to identify someone who will establish a professional process – one that systematically analyses and reviews all key performance areas and is focused on improving the performance of the team, players, coaches and staff without any political or personality bias or prejudice.

Do it sooner rather than later. A season’s memories fade quickly

The ideal time to do a review is 3-5 days after the end of the season. Doing it immediately is often a bad idea as there is too much emotion, fatigue (and maybe hangovers) for it to be effective. Waiting until after players and staff have a long break is less than ideal as the accuracy of memories can fade quickly at the end of the season and a lot of detail forgotten.

The key is to build the review into the season and that the review is seen as integral to the overall team performance cycle rather than something distinct, separate and unrelated.

If you have to change personnel. Do it soon.

Unfortunately, sometimes reviews come up with a solution that results in the need to change coaches, players, staff or management. If this happens, make the changes quickly – fairly, honestly, with integrity and compassion, but quickly. The outgoing people need time to find new employment opportunities before the next season and the new personnel need the maximum possible time together to form an effective team and to provide the best possible performance environment for the team to succeed.

The aim of the review process is to ensure that the rate of acceleration of improvement in your team is greater than that of your opposition.

No one goes backwards in this business. There are too many great people working 24/7 in every team for performance to actually regress. Everyone is improving – it is the rate of improvement that is the key issue.

The aim is to progress at a faster rate than your opposition. And to do this means you have to be:

Honest – about where you are now
Clear – about where you want to go
Committed – to getting there faster than anyone else
Consistent – in doing the things that will make the difference better than anyone else, everyday.

Summary:

A review is a positive, constructive opportunity to improve performance, sustain competitiveness and progress from season to season.
It should be systematically planned and scheduled into the overall performance cycle each year.
Keep it simple – look at it through a simple Keep Doing, Stop Doing, Start Doing perspective.
Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater – a well thought out, intelligent 10% change in key areas is usually enough to significantly improve performance.

About the author: Wayne has worked at the highest level of elite sport for 15 years and has worked with some of Australia’s leading sports, clubs, coaches, players and teams. He specialises in working with people and organisations to help them develop peak performance environments and cultures designed to achieve success and sustain competitiveness.

Wayne Goldsmith

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Sports Employment: How learning Sports Speak can get you your Dream Job in High Performance Sport.

Wayne Goldsmith — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 07:41:59 +0000

Whoopee!

You finished your Uni degree. Bachelor of Applied Science in Sports Studies. Or Bachelor of Science in Human Movement. Or Masters in Exercise Science. Congratulations!!! Mum, Dad and Aunt Lucy are all proud of you. You did it!

You have a nice shiny new degree, a huge brain full of ideas and intelligence and a heart full of optimism, passion and drive just itching to enter a career in high performance sport.

So you start digging through the Sports employment adverts, you visit the sports jobs web sites and you sign up for a few sports career update newsletters.

And you wait.

And you apply for a few jobs.

And you wait.

And maybe you get an interview.

And you wait.

And then, six months after graduation you find out that maybe getting a job in high performance sport wasn’t as easy as you thought and you might want to start learning lines like, “Would you like to Super Size that today, Sir”, “Can I tell you about our blackboard specials today Ma’am” and “Did you have discount coupon to get 4 cents off your fuel purchase?”.

So to help you get in and stay in the world of high performance sport, here is a guide on how to read those all too appealing job advertisements in the high performance sports industry.

The Three Golden Rules of Getting a Job in High Performance Sport.

There are three rules when it comes to getting a dream job in high performance sport – and for that matter a dream job in any industry:

It’s about who you know;
It’s about who you know;
It’s about who you know.

And, my friends, here’s another piece of advice – it is no good wining, whinging and complaining about it: you need to be as committed to making contacts and industry connections as you are about study, research, coaching and high performance programs. Fact of life: accept it – move on.

The next piece of truth for you budding high performance sports professionals to accept is that very few advertised jobs in the sports industry are actually really open to all applicants.

Take a list of 100 advertised jobs in high performance sport.

A large percentage of these 100 jobs, (particuarly the government sports jobs) are often opened to internal applicants only (in spite of what it says on the official job advertisement). It’s what large sporting organisations do when they have had a review, have re-schuffled a few roles, re-named a couple of departments and now have to get the incumbents to re-apply for their own jobs – usually at higher salaries. Goes on all the time.

Now take off another large percentage of these 100 jobs who are informally taken by head nods, hand shakes and agreements signed with cappuccinos, (with most jobs in high performance sport its more about dinner than your degree).

Now take off another percentage of the 100 jobs which will go to former athletes and coaches and people who have political and personal connections within the sport.

What are you left with? Three jobs out of 100 that you can actually apply for:

Development Officer for Junior Underwater Trampolining;
Sports Administrator for Regional Tug-a-war;
Assistant to the assistant deputy, vice, assistant Treasurer of Kurdistan Cricket.

Good luck with your application - feel free to list me as a referee!

Sports Speak

In addition to having great networking skills, there is an art to applying for jobs in the high performance sports industry: you have to master Sports Speak.

Sports Speak is a special secret magic language that people in sport use to communicate secret messages to other people in sport through the medium of position descriptions and advertisements and unless you are fluent in this language, your chances of securing that high level high performance gig are about as good as Paris Hilton winning the Nobel Prize for Literature this year.

Sports Speak must become your second language and to master it means that dream job with professional sport, an Olympic team or a government run sports institute is within your grasp.

Here’s some examples of Sports Speak to help you on your pathway to success:

“Demonstrated experience in leading people“: Sports Speak Translation = Have been in charge of staff but never introduced any changes which upset them or created any problems;
“Proven record of stakeholder engagement”: Sports Speak Translation =Listen to everyone, pander to factions and splinter groups, compromise all decisions to avoid conflict and get nothing of real significance actually done;
“Change management skills”: Sports Speak Translation = Must make a few minor, largely ineffective, cosmetic changes but not too many and not too fast – you might wake up some of the staff;
“Demonstrated decision making skills”: Sports Speak Translation = Being able to do what you are told to do;
“Innovative”: Sports Speak Translation = Copy the best ideas of other organisations after doing benchmarking junkets all over the world and claim them as your own;
“Ability to develop financial and strategic plans”: Sports Speak Translation = Desk Job - mostly administrative;
“Ability to monitor progress towards objectives and use evaluation and research information to improve effectiveness”: Sports Speak Translation = Desk Job – totally administrative.
“Understanding of the structure and dynamics of sport and government processes”: Sports Speak Translation = Have lots of connections and contacts in the sport world who you can use as consultants to help sort out problems.

The Position Description you will never see.

Here’s a list of things that you will never see on a position description or job application for a role in high performance sport – and this is a fundamental reason why sport continues to be a remarkably conservative institution around the world where change, innovation and creativity - and by extension the industry as a whole – does not progress to a level that is anywhere near it’s potential:

Wanted: Sports Leader – to lead us to be the best in the world.

Qualities and attributes:

Someone who thinks about, talks about and openly embraces winning;
Visionary leadership: able to lead consistently with passion, drive and enthusiasm;
Team inspirer: able to create and sustain a high quality collaborative team environment where every one’s talent is optimised and every individual consistently contributes to their full potential;
Creative and innovative: prepared to take risks, to think laterally, to think things and do things that no one else in the industry is prepared to;
Uncompromising in their commitment to create a winning environmentfor all athletes, coaches and people involved in the sport (sorry – can’t say stakeholders. The only people who should be called stakeholders are those planting tomatoes or installing picket fences);
Integrated thinker: thinks and acts across disciplines, across sports, across industries to search for the best possible solutions to performance problems;
Experience valued but only if you are capable of thinking, learning and growing faster than at any time in your professional career;
Change management not needed: you must live change and thirst for continuous improvement.

If the Universities and other sports industry training organisations were serious about preparing people for a career in high performance sport, instead of pumping students through a Bachelor of Applied Science (Human Movement), they would create a new, more practical, more realistic list of course offerings:

Bachelor of Language (Sports Speak);
Bachelor of Applied Sports Networking (Sports Management Systems);
Masters of Sports Contacts and Connections.

What does your degree say?

Wayne Goldsmith

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The Culture Combination: 5 People and Positions You Must Get Right to Build a Winning High Performance Culture in Your Sporting Organisation

Wayne Goldsmith — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 07:41:53 +0000

There is no one thing that you can do which will guarantee success: no single change which, in isolation will create and sustain a winning culture in high performance sport.

There are however a combination of things that you can do to increase the likelihood of success: “The Culture Combination”: 5 People and Positions You Must Get Right to Build a Winning High Performance Culture in Your Sporting Organisation.

People. People. People.

Achieving peak performance in high performance sporting organisations and professional teams is about three things:

People;
People;
People.

Sure…money, programs, structures, systems, facilities, innovation etc etc are all important but the critical factor is now, always has been and always will be – people.

Get the people factor right and everything else is possible.

Get it wrong and all the money, facilities, equipment, gimmicks, gizmos and gadgets will not deliver to you the success you seek: it’s about people.

More than that: its about the right peoplein the right positions driving the right programs at the right time. But it all starts with the right people.

The “Big Five” – the Culture Drivers.

So what are the 5 People and Positions You Must Get Right to Build a Winning High Performance Culture in Your Sporting Organisation?

They are:

The Political Leader; Chairman of the Board.
The Strategic Leader; CEO.
The High Performance Leader; High Performance Manager, Performance Director (or similar leadership role, e.g. Football Manager).
The Technical / Tactical Leader; Head Coach.
The Team Leader; Team Captain.

Culture Driver 1: The Political Leader: This leadership role is critical in every sporting organisation. The Chairman (man or woman) of the Board needs to have outstanding political skills and the capacity to position the Club within the business community to ensure the Club’s long term financial viability. The Political Culture driver needs to have strong connections at the “big end of town” yet be the consummate politician: being equally skilled in shaking hands with corporate leaders and yet being able to listen to, talk with and respond to the needs of club members.

Culture Driver 2: The Strategic Leader: The CEO (the Strategic Leader) drives the culture of the sporting organisation through the systematic implementation of the vision of the Club’s political leader. If you like, the Political Leader decides that the organisation needs to build a new car, then the CEO pulls together the plans, the people, the programs and the places (facilities) to build it.

Culture Driver 3: The High Performance Leader: The area of high performance has evolved to become a specialist culture area in its own right. Innovation, creativity and the effective integration of all the aspects of high performance are critical if the organisation is to develop and sustain a genuine high performance culture.

In sports with a “draft” system and “salary cap” in place, the role of the High Performance Manager, Performance Director or similar role will only become more important in the future as the ability to create and sustain a winning high performance environment becomes the only real advantage available to sporting teams.

Culture Driver 4: The Technical / Tactical Leader: The Head Coach drives the culture of the organisation from a tactical and technical perspective. It is the Head Coach’s job to build and sustain a winning culture through superior tactical and technical skills and the ability to see tomorrow today: i.e. to help the organisation accelerate its rate of learning and change and gain a winning advantage over the competition. An outstanding Head Coach sees where the Game will be – and knows how to get there first.

Culture Driver 5: The Team Leader: The team captain is responsible for driving the culture of the player group: on and off the field. Winning culture grows from within. It spreads like a “virus” - starting with the inspiration of a quality captain, then spreading to the leadership team and on to each individual in the player group.

Leadership from all five Culture Drivers is vital in a sporting organisation in four critical moments:

When the team is winning;
When the team is losing;
When the organisation is under pressure (e.g. due to scandal, financial failures, misconduct etc);
When change is involved.

So how does leadership, culture and change fit together in a sporting organisations?

Culture and Change.

To change the culture at your Club or your sporting organisation means you have to:

Accept the limitations and problems of the current one;
Define what your culture actually is, what’s good about it and who owns it;
Find people who can strategically, systematically and effectively change it (i.e. The “Big Five”).

It’s a Big Job.

No one person can change the culture of any sporting organisation. A brilliant head coach with a great winning record and proven skills in technical and tactical leadership can not change the culture of the organisation without the support of the other culture drivers.

An outstanding CEO with years of corporate successes can not change the culture of the organisation without the support of the Chairman, the COO, the Head Coach and the player group.

Real change, meaningful change, sustainable change in a high performance sporting organisation requires the combined commitment, energy, passion and expertise of the “Big Five” working together towards a single goal: to create and sustain a winning team and a successful organisation.

Change is like exercise.

Everyone knows that exercise is important. Everyone knows it is good for you and it is essential for both the quality and quantity of life but no one wants to actually go through the pain of starting an exercise program, particularly after a long period of inactivity.

It’s the same with Change in sporting organisations. Everyone accepts that change is important. Everyone agrees that “success is a moving target”. Yet, when change does occur it is usually in the “superficial” areas, e.g. facility development, the purchase of new technologies, minor changes to organisational structures etc.

The thing that requires the most meaningful change and the thing that can potentially make the biggest impact on the organisation’s performance now and in the future, is the organisation’s culture.

And to change culture, like commencing an exercise program, requires a willingness to experience a little pain.

Changing what you do is easy: changing who you are…….now that’s the real challenge.

But, to the few sporting organisations who are prepared to embrace a little pain, the rewards are immeasurable.

Dare to be different!

Wayne Goldsmith

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The Facility Fallacy

Wayne Goldsmith — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 23:19:15 +0000

Here’s how it goes.

Your club has had another poor season.

People looking for answers come up with a lot of ideas on how to improve next year.

The management team determine that what the Club needs is a new high performance facility: new stadium, new meeting rooms, new computer lab, new medical facilities, a new gym and of course the obligatory new recovery facility.

Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.

Dumb. Dumb. Dumb.

This is the Facility Fallacy.

Facilities are not the answer

Facilities are rarely, if ever, the real limiting factor in developing a winning performance environment.

Imagine someone buys you a new Ferrari Formula One car for Christmas.

Unless you spend ten years learning how to drive like a world class F1 driver, you will never drive the car to its potential. Try to drive it with your existing driving skills and you get sub standard performance.

And unless you also surround the F1 with the best mechanics, analysts, technicians, engineers and management team and use the world’s best fuel, tyres and components, the car never reaches top speed.

The best car in the world needs the best driver, support team and equipment to perform at its best. And it all has to be put together in an integrated, focused, aligned team approach to performance success.

It’s the same with sporting facilities, (including stadiums, sports academies, gyms, recovery facilities, training facilities, testing and medical centres).

Under performing teams or sports will often blame the lack of facilities as the reason for their poor performances. They lobby government and their supporter base to get the funding to build the latest and greatest, world class sporting facility but usually end up building a monument to mediocrity.

Think about it.

If you have a team with a poor coaching leadership, a player group of below average talent, a sports science / sports medicine support team which is out of touch with the best practices and a divided, uninspired management team but put them in a nice new high performance sports facility and believe things will get better you are:

A. Delusional

B. Insane

C. Have lost the capacity to see what’s actually going on

D. All of the above.

Swimming – as an example

Imagine you have a coach working in an old pool.

He has a poor coaching record, his methods are 20 years behind the times, he does not understand how to help swimmers achieve their goals or realise their potential.

He works with a strength and conditioning coach who believes the way to improve the performance of elite swimmers is to turn them into body builders.

The club is poorly managed and their use of sports science non existent.

It is a turbulent political environment with factions between parent groups and continual in-fighting.

Now put them in a new world class 50 metre, 10 lane, indoor pool with underwater camera facilities, state of the art starting blocks and throw in a world class recovery facility and gymnasium in the change room area.

What have you got?

A poor coach, a sub standard program with bad management and parents who still kick each other but now they do it……..in a nice new pool.

Nothing meaningful, i.e. nothing that will make a real difference to performance – has changed.

When you really think about it, this is the complete opposite of the way we should do it.

Spend some time at the end of each season, objectively, intelligently and logically reviewing what worked and what didn’t work this year.
Clearly identify the strengths and weaknesses of the program – working systematically through the “big five” of all sporting environments: Coaching, Players, Management, Sports Science / Sports medicine support team (including strength and conditioning) and Facilities.
Look at the cohesion and synergies between the “big five”. Is everyone working together, striving towards a common goal? Is everyone working together to accelerate the performance of the team?
Follow the P-P-P-P rule of investment in high performance programs: Invest in People first, then Processes / Practices, resolve any Political / Personality conflicts then build Places (facilities).

Buying a new car…………

When you buy a new car – the most important question to ask is, “why do I need this car – i.e. what do I need it to do for me – what are my needs from the vehicle?”.

If you have a family of six – you need a people mover.
If you are single, wealthy and live the fast live – you buy a Porsche.
If you are a farmer – you buy a four wheel drive.

Sporting facilities exist only to provide the opportunity for coaches, players, management and staff to deliver the best possible program - to meet their needs.

If your medical team does not understand recovery techniques, if your coaches refuse to buy into the importance of recovery in a training program, if your recovery management practices are not world class – then don’t waste money building a recovery facility.

Get the people right first, then the program and practices…….then build the place!

If you are not going to change your coaching, player group, management, sports science / sports medicine program – then don’t waste money on new facilities.

Invest in people first.

Help them to work to their full potential.

Improve their leadership ability.

Enhance their capacity to be innovative, creative and unique.

Ensure your sports science / sports medicine is world class.

Bring everyone together – aligned towards creating a sustainable winning environment and then………….build them a world class facility.

Wayne Goldsmith

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Responsibility for Performance in Professional Football: Where the Buck Stops!

Wayne Goldsmith — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 07:07:40 +0000

Whether teams win or lose, people want to know who is responsible.

Just take a look at the after match interviews.

The media want to talk to the players who were responsible for scoring the winning goal, the winning try, the incredible touchdown that won the game or the unbelievable conversion kicked from the sideline, while the final siren was blowing, in the pouring rain with a hostile crowd chanting “miss-miss”.

The media want to talk to the coach and ask why the team lost and to find out who was responsible for the lack of effort, lack of energy, poor execution of team strategies, poor skill execution under pressure, the missed tackle and the blown opportunity.

And it continues over the year to the end of season review process where people aim to pin responsibility for the team’s poor record on one person, one system, one coach, one player, one aspect of preparation…….

Professional football is very much about responsibility, so let’s try and clarify who exactly is responsible for performance in professional football: where the buck stops.

Some definitions to get us started.

Because I have readers from all over the world where the word “football” means different things to different people, let’s define some important terms:

Responsibility: My favourite definition of responsibility comes from the Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms. US Department of Defense 2005.

Responsibility is……”The obligation to carry forward an assigned task to a successful conclusion. With responsibility goes authority to direct and take the necessary action to ensure success – See also accountability“.

In other words, responsibility means you will take action and make things happen with the goal of achieving success and you will be accountable for those actions.

Season: In professional football, the season commences on the first day of pre-season training and ends with the final siren of the last game / match the team plays.

Team: The “team” has been traditionally defined as just the players. However, in professional football now, where many non playing staff are being paid a lot of money to help produce a winning outcome, the “team” is the players, the coaching staff, the sports science and sports medicine staff, the team management, the strength and conditioning staff and the special skills staff (e.g. technology professionals, IT support, psychologists, medical specialists etc). In other words, if you accept a role working with the organisation where your actions directly or indirectly contribute to the planning, preparation and / or performance of the players, you are part of the team and as such you are in part responsible for the team’s performance.

In a perfect world……..

In a perfect world, everyone in a professional football team environment, from the star player to the guys who clean the boots, drive the team bus and pick up the towels, would willingly accept responsibility for every aspect of their own preparation and performance, on and off the field, every day.

But it aint no perfect world.

When times are good, everyone wants to be seen as part of the team. It’s great for the ego. It’s great to hand someone a business card with “Operations Manager, Wolves United” on it and see the envy in the eyes of the person you handed the card to who’s own professional life involves sitting behind a desk processing bank receipts.

People want to be associated with professional football players because of the prestige and kudos involved but, who is prepared to stand with those same players when the team is losing and say, “I also accept responsibility for the team’s performance”?

Whilst it has been the practice to place the full responsibility for the performance of the team on the players and the coaches, in professional sport, it is more appropriate to consider an extended responsibility model where everyone associated with the team assumes a level of responsibility for the team’s performance.

OK – so who is responsible and when?

There are four key periods in every football season where the degree of responsibility shifts within the team, i.e. where some team members have greater responsibility for performance than other members.

This does not mean that all the responsibility for preparation and performance falls on one group: it just means that during specific times in the season some people are more responsible for the team’s performance than others.

The key to understanding why football teams win or lose is to first understand who is responsible for the preparation and performance of the team at key points in the season.

Season Key Point 1 – the first 25% of the season: Responsibility – Strength and conditioning staff / sports science team.

The results of the first 6-8 games of a football season are largely the responsibility of the strength and conditioning staff and the sports science team.

It is their responsibility to take the gamble on how much or how little pre-season training to do and the results of early season games are a reflection on how good their gamble was.

And it is a gamble. No one really knows with 100% certainty what the standards and intensity level of the competition will be in the coming season. But strength and conditioning staff and the sports science team get paid to increase the odds in favour of the team.

Many teams over-train in the off season and look brilliant during the early season games, then look tired, flat and fatigued later in the year. Other teams who take a more conservative approach to pre-season training may start slowly but build momentum progressively over the season towards the finals.

Season Key Point 2 - the next 50% of the season: Responsibility – Coaching Staff.

Once the influence of the pre-season preparation has run its course, the responsibility for the next 50% of the season belongs to the coaching staff.

Once players have gone through the first 25% of the season they are “match-fit” and “game-hardened” and at the peak of their playing potential.

It then comes down to the coaching staff’s ability to implement the technical, tactical and strategic aspects of performance to keep the team in a winning position.

Season Key Point 3 - the next 15% of the season: Responsibility – Medical team and rehab / pre-hab Staff.

As the finals get closer and the majority of players in the team are showing signs of fatigue and injury, the medical team and re-hab / pre-hab staff must accept the greatest degree of responsibility for the team’s performance.

In every code of football, the finals series is generally won by the team who is able to have more of their best players on the field at or near full health more often.

That’s why Clubs focus so much on recruitment and chasing preferential “draft” selections: not just to get the best players but to have the best players deliver great performances when it really matters, i.e. in important games.

Having a team of super stars who are never on the field due to injury or who are on the field but never at full health is like having a Ferrari in the driveway with two flat tyres and a blown engine. Sure, if it is working it can beat anything but while it’s broken a three year old on a skateboard can go faster.

Season Key Point 4 – The finals – i.e. the last 10% of the season: Responsibility – Players.

And, then responsibility for the big games at the end of the season shifts to the player group.

The role of the Strength and Conditioning / sports science staff, the Coaching Staff and the Medical team and rehab / pre-hab Staff for the first 90% of the season leading up to the championship games has been to prepare the players to master the important moments and win the critical games.

The non-playing members of the team have spent 90% of the season helping players to realise their full potential as athletes and as people so that when it really matters the players have the physical, mental, technical and tactical abilities to win when it counts.

If the non-playing members of the team have done their job……….the players will do theirs!

Summary:

If you want to increase your success rate in professional football, you must clearly understand the concept of responsibility: what it is, who owns it, where it is and what it means;
Anyone who is associated with the performance of the player group, directly or indirectly, must accept a level of responsibility for the team’s performance;
Whilst everyone associated with the team should accept full responsibility and accountability for their own performance every day, there are times during the season where the primary responsibility for the team’s performance shifts between team members.

Note: The Sports Coaching Brain conducts workshops and seminars on the Extended Responsibility Model for football teams and professional sporting teams.

Contact us now.

Wayne Goldsmith

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English Premier League (EPL): Doomed to Fail.

Wayne Goldsmith — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 02:42:44 +0000

Who doesn’t love to watch the English Premier League – the EPL?

The talent of the players, the drama of the contests, the excitement of the competition, the passion, the skills, the crowds, the coaches…it’s got it all.

Enjoy it while you can, because the English Premier League is doomed to fail…it is only a matter of time….

Why will the EPL fail?

There is one reason above all that the English Premier League will fail: money.

Money, (and the standard of competition that the money has been able to buy) has been the EPL’s greatest strength. It has allowed a few teams to purchase the greatest pool of football talent from the four corners of the globe. But ultimately, money will be the cause of the EPL’s demise.

The situation which has existed in the EPL for the past few seasons where the top four teams are known before the first kick off is the surest way of all to kill a sporting competition.

And the reason the top four teams are known is that finishing order in the EPL is dependent on bank balance and that’s never a good situation for any sport, any industry, any walk of endeavour.

Without competition, real competition, professional sport dies.

The Glorious Uncertainty of Sport.

There is one thing that keeps people passionate about sport: the uncertainty of the outcome.

Why does sports betting flourish all over the world? Uncertainty of outcome.

Why do people tune in to sporting events where the athletes and teams are closely matched? Uncertainty of outcome.

Why do so many professional sporting competitions build their foundations on the “draft” and “salary-cap” concepts? To retain the uncertainty of outcome.

In the English Premier League, money matters. Without huge sums of cash, teams are just not competitive and it is this widening of the gap between the football ”haves” and the “have-nots” which will prove to be the ultimate demise of the EPL.

How will the EPL die?

The first signs of death will be political battles from the teams who are struggling at the bottom of the EPL and in the other English leagues.

First of all they will move to limit spending by the top four or five EPL teams, e.g. to introduce a salary cap of some kind. Or they will try to introduce a rule to limit the numbers of professional players from outside of the UK who can play in the EPL.

Fans from teams other than those who support the top four or five EPL teams will become increasingly vocal and demand a change to the rules to ensure all teams have a fair chance to be competitive.

This move will be ferociously resisted by the top teams.

Maybe the end will be triggered by one or two of the top four or five teams being declared bankrupt necessitating a sell off of their players and other assets.

Or maybe the end will be triggered by falling TV ratings as fans look to other sporting contests – particularly to other football leagues - which may offer genuine competition and uncertainty of result.

Or maybe there will be a “perfect storm”…….political squabbling, bankruptcies, collapsing TV audience numbers, decreasing gate takings and dwindling fan interest.

Can the EPL be saved?

Yes. But it will demand vision, determination, leadership, drive and the capacity to embrace meaningful, effective change.

The history of professional sport has taught us one thing above all: long term, sustainable success is next to impossible to achieve.

And the reason it is next to impossible to achieve is that no one is prepared to make serious, visionary, effective change when things are doing well: no one wants to change the “winning-formula”.

People in sport do not change until it is too late – or almost too late.

Just look at the hundreds and thousands of examples around the world where athletes and teams and even National sporting systems were deemed to be invincible and beyond compare and the greatest of all time but then have subsequently fallen, failed and disappeared to become nothing more than a question in a sporting trivia quiz.

The EPL has the opportunity to break this cycle: to not be another casualty of the Performance Clock and in doing so be the shining light for all sport that long term, sustainable success is possible.

The E.P.L.’s Obituary.

Pretty soon E.P.L will stand for Expired Professional League and whilst we will all lament its passing, no one can say they didn’t know it was coming.

On a stone somewhere in London, football historians will one day read the following:

“Here lies the EPL. A once great football competition that did not learn from the mistakes of the past and therefore, through arrogance and the belief that success now means success forever, collapsed and died”.

Wayne Goldsmith

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Five World Wide Trends in Sport which you ignore at your peril.

Wayne Goldsmith — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 03:08:21 +0000

Having visited more than 30 countries in four continents in the past few years and spent time with sports leaders, coaches, athletes, sponsors, sports scientists, sports academics, sports medicine practitioners, sports administrators, government funding agencies and other sports professionals in many of the world’s leading sports systems,five world wide trends in society
(and by extension in sport) have become very clear and are screaming so loud that they can no longer be ignored.

Ignore them at your peril.

Getting Sport into Perspective:

First of all you have to get sport into perspective.

Imagine the world and everything in it was a bucket of sand: that’s all the people, the money, the institutions, governments, buildings, resources….everything.

Sport is roughly a teaspoon of sand in the bucket.

And we know, that if you look at sport as a whole across the entire world, the vast majority - over 80% - of that teaspoon is related to football (soccer).

And the other 20% of our single teaspoon of sand from our bucket is motor sport, basketball, the Olympic Games, golf, tennis, swimming, ice hockey, baseball, the NFL, the AFL, the NBL, the NHL, rugby, rugby league, cricket, netball, shooting, billiards, snooker………..everything else in the world of sport lives in that 20% of that teaspoon from our bucket.

So ignoring what’s happening in broader society is insanity. Making strategic decisions about your team, your sport, your national sports program without first taking into consideration the broader international social, political, economic, geographic and population trends is like wanting to go swimming but not wanting to get wet.

It’s different here:

Now quite often I will do a strategic planning presentation about this topic – about where sport actually fits in the world and how it is totally connected to and subject to all the broader social trends happening across the planet and there is always someone in the audience who will say, “That’s great Wayne, but you don’t understand it here. Our sport is different. Those things don’t apply to our sport. Our culture is unique“.

That’s like saying, “Look the rest of world might need oxygen to survive but we don’t – we don’t really live on this planet”.

The “Big Five”:

The following Five World Wide trends in sport apply to all sports, all athletes, all coaches, all sports managers, all government sporting bodies, all National Federations, all international Federations and every person who has any interest in any aspect of sport in any country in the world:

The demise of volunteerism.Volunteerism is dead. Stop throwing money at namby pamby programs to increase volunteerism. It is over. It is full time. Elvis has left the building. People in this century barely have enough time, money and energy to do the fundamentals of their own lives without giving up a lot of it to amateur sport for nothing. The extension of this is that many of the amateur sporting clubs around the world will collapse and fold within the next twenty years leaving many sports with a network of larger more professional and semi professional clubs to work with – i.e. the “Super Club” concept. Start planning for this fundamental change in the sporting landscape now!;
The “more with less” attitude of society. Think about this for a moment. Look at your own sport. Do you honestly believe that in the future athletes and parents will actually commit more time, money and energy to your sport? We can barely keep them engaged with the amount of training, preparation and competition we are demanding now. Where in society do you see people prepared to work harder for the same return? Not on this planet! Demanding more from athletes to achieve more will not work. And demanding more from athletes to sustain current levels of performance will not work. We will all have to find ways to enhance performance, improve athletes and teams but do it in less available time – we have to figure out how to achieve more with less;
The changing world of communication, connectivity and collaboration. Anyone on the planet can connect with anyone else on the planet and can learn anything, anytime, anywhere and for free. This means that your sport must be committed to open, honest, transparent, ethical standards and to the paradigms of integration, co-operation, communication, collaboration and partnerships. The old days of secrecy in sport are gone. The sports who will grow and flourish in the future will adopt an attitude of “we” and “us” and reject the ancient sporting philosophies of “me” and “I”;
The revolution/s in coaching. Coaching is one of most rapidly changing industries on the planet. The old ways of training coaches by forcing them to complete boring courses and workshops heavy with inappropriate content are over. So too are the old autocratic “do it my way or take the highway” methods of coaching. Coaching is about collaborating, partnering and building sustainable, dynamic sporting environments with coaches, athletes and parents / partners working together as a team to achieve peak performance potential. The world is desperate for coaches who can thrive in this century and who are prepared to work with – as opposed to coaching at – athletes;
The changing demands on the sports marketplace from families and athletes. Families have no spare time: that’s a fact. So to say to a family, “If you want to play our sport, you must totally commit to 10 training sessions a week and give up 6-10 weekends a year for competition (and pay for the privilege of coaching and competition)” and expect them to buy in is lunacy. Within a few short years sports like swimming, gymnastics, diving, rowing and others with huge training and competition demands will either be forced to radically change the way they do things or they will perish.

So, what are you going to do about it?

Where will you sport be in 20 years? In 30? In 50?

And, more importantly, what are you going to do about it?

Without a genuine and urgent commitment to intelligent, strategic change many sports will not survive the next 20 years, let alone the next 90….your sport could be one of them.

You could go from making history to just being another part of it, lost in the trillions of pages of on line resource materials to be searched for and studied by your great great grandchild in 2110 to pass their school project on “ancient sports”.

Too often people yell and scream and demand that national governing bodies, international federations and governments take the lead in these broader issues: stop yelling, stop screaming and start acting.

You can’t change THE world but you can change YOUR world: start today with the “man (or woman) in the mirror”.

Wayne Goldsmith

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The Performance Clock and Coaching

Wayne Goldsmith — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 03:08:20 +0000

For many years now I have been talking about, writing about, presenting workshops and teaching on the Performance Clock concept.

It has been and still is in my view the single most important concept in high performance sport or any field of endeavour for that matter.

Yet, for some reason, the majority of people still don’t get it.

Everyday, the newspapers, the television and the online news and sports services are loaded with stories about coaches, athletes and sporting teams who are failing due to their lack of understanding and acceptance of the Performance Clock, or more accurately, their failure to do anything about it.

Yet, by understanding this one simple concept, anyone who wants to be successful in sport has the single most valuable tool they will ever need in the palm of their hand (or at least on the screen of their laptop).

Let’s have another look at this most important of sporting principles, The Performance Clock and how it relates to effective coaching.

The Performance Clock: The Three Principles.

There are three fundamental principles behind the Performance Clock:

Everyone involved in sport is striving to improve;
To improve demands a commitment to ongoing, continuous improvement;
Continuous improvement demands the capacity to honestly evaluate all aspects of your planning, preparation and performance.

Sounds pretty simple doesn’t it.

So why don’t people get it?

The Performance Clock explained:

Everyone in sport is striving to get better: to improve.

Athletes, coaches, support staff and teams spend their time planning, preparing and performing with the intent of getting better at what they do.

Success in sport is a moving target: the name of the game is improvement.

Typically, the Performance Clock works like this:

Stage one: non competitive: the organisation is failing to perform and struggling to survive;
Stage two: striving for success: a passionate person and / or motivated team ignites the desire to succeed and inspires the organisation to strive for success. The acceleration of progress comes from embracing change and learning and through the commitment to turn learning into action;
Stage three: the right culture. The right people and the right environment are in place and the opportunity has been created for the club to be successful;
Stage four: success: the organisation gets to the top but then loses momentum by ceasing to change and learn at the same rate. They adopt a “secret formula” mentality, i.e. “we know what it takes to win, therefore all we have to do is repeat what we did last year and we will keep winning”. In the meantime the competition is accelerating their learning and enhancing their performance, determined to become the next no 1;
Stage five: the fall: things start to fail. Management and staff get sacked, reviews, reviews and more reviews are commissioned, finally the Board is overthrown, there is public brawling and the organisation is at the brink of collapsing altogether…… And we are back at stage one again.

The performance cycle of an athlete, coach or sporting team can be compared to a clock: The Performance Clock.

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

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

At 12 o’clock – the team wins the Premiership Final or World Championship or Olympic Gold Medal etc. – they are at the peak of their performance cycle;

Then a funny thing happens……

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

1 o’clock and the team stops being creative and open minded. They start believing that their way is the only way and that they have the infallible secret formula for success. This is the beginning of disaster!

The team starts losing.

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

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

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

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

But then…..

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

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

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

The reality for most sporting teams is that they spend one or two seasons at most between 10 o’clock and 12 and then often spend many many years between 1 o’clock and 6 o’clock!

Again, you are probably thinking, “This all makes perfect sense. It happened to an athlete or coach or team in my sport. This is a simple concept”.

So why don’t people get it?

Three words: Leadership, Creativity and Arrogance.

There are three reasons why people don’t get the Performance Clock and hence why they fail.

Leadership (the lack of it):
Creativity (the lack of it):
Arrogance (an abundance of it:

Without leadership and vision, people become focused on the here and the now and the current situation. They believe that if they are winning now, they will always win and the Performance Clock does not apply to them.

Without creativity and the ability to create new ideas, new directions and new and better ways of doing things, people believe that their current methods, beliefs and ways of doing things will always be best practice and the benchmarks in their sport.

With arrogance, i.e. without humility, people believe that their way is the only way and it will always be that way.

Don’t be a Sad Sporting Statistic:

So if all this makes perfect sense – and it does – then why are so many people determined to be Sad Sporting Statistics?

No one wants to be down at the bottom of the Performance Clock, i.e. between 4 am and 6 am. No one chooses to lose. No one actually prefers to be uncompetitive.

So don’t be.

Don’t allow a lack of leadership, a lack of creativity and the abundance of arrogance determine your sporting future.

The key to this is simple: don’t look for a destination, (e.g. a single event, a single campaign, a single Olympiad, one season or one game).

Think of sport as a never ending journey: one that strives to improve every day and in everything. This one change in your thinking can make all the difference in your sporting career. Thinking of sport as a journey rather than as a single destination, means you always need to keep looking forward towards the future and to new paths to progress.

Summary:

The Performance Clock is your key to understanding success in sport. There are countless examples of how it works in every sport, in every nation and at every level;
However, knowing something and not acting on it, has the same effect of not knowing about it…nothing changes;
Those who do not learn from the mistakes of the past are doomed to repeat them: learn and make the changes necessary now or be condemned to failure;
Think differently. Success in sport demands a commitment to lifelong learning, continuous improvement and creative thinking. There is no end point to excellence and no final destination for those who crave sustainable success in sport.

Wayne Goldsmith

The Performance Clock – The Most Important Concept in High Performance Sport. I often get asked, what’s the difference between sport and...