How To Find that Extra Yard

For ten years there’s been intensive study into the coaching of sports that consistently achieve high performance levels. One company, UK Sport Limited, has spent millions on understanding how it’s done. John Bull, ex-boxer and rugby player, now a consultant with Management Futures, has been tracking that process. Here he summarises what leaders in other fields can gain from the technical and leadership approaches used in sport.

Ambition with belief

Question: what changed for the Welsh rugby team that took it from worst to best in Europe between 2003 and 2006? Answer: a culture shift. Coach Mike Ruddick encountered a rugby culture where it was acceptable to be in a pub at 10.00pm the night before a big match and replaced it with one where individuals focused on ambition with belief, and took personal responsibility for achieving the highest standards of fitness and skill.

How did he do it? By inspiring ambition, setting the goal of becoming world champions – previously unthinkable. By raising standards, exposing his team to world-class competition, with more games against Southern Hemisphere sides. Crucially though, by reviving their pride in what it meant to wear the Welsh shirt and making them take individual responsibility. Today, if the team is losing they take it personally!

Leadership lesson: the energy and drive of successful teams comes from within. Inspire ambition by getting the team to chase a vision that excites people; challenge complacency with high standards; and build accountability through involvement, feedback – and recognition.

NB: in sport it’s the team that’s given the credit!

Performance understood

Top athletes have always been students of their game but what’s transformed our understanding of performance is sports science. It is the microscope that pinpoints the factors on which success most depends; with that knowledge athletes can measure and manage their own improvement. The underlying assumption here is that excellence, once fully understood, can then be replicated.

Back in 2002 the women’s curling team of Olympic and World Cup fame gained their competitive edge from research conducted by the Scottish Institute into the ‘art’ of effective sweeping (the team sweeps the ice in front of the stone to control its speed), a factor in this traditional sport nobody had previously thought to study. Yet as length-of-throw accuracy is so important, the performance improvement was there to be found.

New Zealand helped their Olympic triathlon athletes by studying how best to conserve energy in the swimming and cycling phases because their research suggested that most races were won in the run phase. Unsurprisingly they won both Gold and Silver in Athens.

Leadership lesson: to advance in any business or public sector task, deep insights into what matters most are needed. Key performance indicators (KPIs) can help by identifying where the most effective measures should be introduced and sports experience by distinguishing between two types of measure – the performance measure (how well we did – e.g., our finish time in a race) and the enabling measure (what success depends on – e.g. how fit we are, which in turn may depend on how much training we’ve done).

The enabling measure is where sports science can be most help. In business, many clients over-emphasise performance measures, e.g. the number of sales they make, neglecting enabling measures such as the quality of customer relations.

Where the coach/leader scores

In sport or business, coaches/leaders should (i) inspire ambition, (ii) raise the performer’s awareness of what success depends on and how their current performance shapes up against top standards and, (iii) get the best out of individuals and the team by building and supporting their confidence and belief.

Witness the work of Frank Dick, the UK Athletics coach who successfully coached the GB team to success in the European Championships: by Day 2 of this two-day event his team lagged by 14 points. His response was to spread the responsibility by setting clear goals for individuals within the team. Christie (like other potential champions) had to win his 100 metres final – no option; but Frank’s masterstroke was to make the team believe they could win if only each of them finished a bit above their ranking: by a 1,500 metre runner ranked sixth getting at least to fourth, so assuring one point. He focused the team on winning (a goal they’d abandoned), and on what each was accountable for. They won.

Leadership lesson: in terms of skills, what matters most to a coach/leader from sport or business must be: (i) the quality of relationship between coach and performer – trust and credibility being paramount; (ii) the clear transmission of vision, strategy and personal responsibility; (iii) the challenge to complacency by exposing the performer to top class competition; (iv) feedback and recognition, and of course, (v) teamwork.

To make what works for sport work for you, reach John Bull at Management Futures on 020 7242 4030.