England Lose to Germany – Again!

New England Football Manager Gareth Southgate articulated his plans for transforming the future of the national team in advance of their friendly last night in Dortmund, versus Germany. It seemed to help. England played well, but the final result was the same – Germany won, only this time in open play, not on penalties!

The pre-match hype revealed a shift in leadership culture from ‘selling the dream’ about how good England are/can be (based on the riches of the FA Premier League, and the fame gained by specific players) to a more realistic assessment of ‘let’s be honest’ about the past 50 years – it’s been hurtful. Fundamentally, Southgate highlighted that England isn’t very good at international football, or the results would say otherwise. The painful facts are represented by England’s failure to win a knockout game at a tournament since beating Ecuador in 2006!

When asked by the media how he felt about holding one of the most prestigious roles in Football, Southgate replied: “well, it’s not if we’ve only won three knockout games in 27 years, respectfully.”

In the recent past, despite English football’s abysmal record, our sporting return on investment as a nation has paid healthy dividends. England’s Rugby team has won the Rugby World Cup (2003); England’s Cricket team has reached 3 World Cup Finals (1979, 1987, 1992) and won the ICC World T20; Andy Murray has won Wimbledon twice; Great Britain has won the Davis Cup; English golfers have won Golfing Majors; Sir Steve Redgrave and Sir Matthew Pinsent dominated Olympic Rowing for decades; and in the last two Olympic Games, Team GB has achieved a record haul of medals.

Gareth Southgate’s honesty is refreshing. His team played well, especially in the first half, and the creative element seemed more likely to be unlocked due to a seemingly relaxed mood among his players. The 3-at-the-back system favoured by one of our most creative players and coaches Glenn Hoddle, was deployed thus enabling an overload in midfield and players from midfield supporting the front players.

The signs are good. Can we develop further as a national team and become competitive in future tournaments? We appear to have another generation of gifted young players – Harry Kane, Delle Ali, John Stones, Adam Lallana, and Marcus Rashford, to name a few. Time will tell if they can make Gareth Southgate look more than a thoughtful, articulate and earnest coach. Whether he can pass the test of capability as an international coach will only come in tournaments, not friendlies, and certainly not press conferences.

Is it worth investing hope? I hope so.

The Durability, Grace, and Resilience of Roger Federer

Yesterday, in Melbourne’s Rod Laver Arena, (where else?) the world’s greatest Tennis player won his 18th grand Slam Tennis Major, and with the victory, Roger Federer extended his world-record number of wins to match the same record number achieved in golf by by Jack Nicklaus.

The 35 year-old sporting legend from Switzerland charmed everyone at The Australian Open, and in the process, revealed all the qualities of a role model sporting champion. Graceful movement and strokeplay, tactical wisdom, remarkable physical fitness, resilience under fire, an indomitable will to win underpinned by a deep inner confidence.

His mature, classy response to his opponent and long-term rival Rafa Nadal, and all the spectators present (plus those around the world connected via internet and satellite TV) in the moments which surround the spoils of victory revealed his admirable generosity of spirit. Such class and ambassadorial qualities which come to the fore despite the heat of the moment is what distinguishes Federer from so many other elite sportspeople as a human being.

Such grace seems beyond lesser men who seem to succumb to a large degree of self-absorption in their moment of glory – this may be interpreted as a lack of respect for others as a consequence of their lack of emotional control.

But Federer, is a rare animal – he can display the ruthless qualities of an assassin and ‘take out’ his opponent in a hotly-contested fifth set of a Final, and reveal a rare depth of self-focus and immersion in his play. And then, as if flicking a switch, he can return to being calm, composed charming husband and family man that makes him such a special person. Gracious in defeat, humble in victory – that is Roger Federer. It supports an important maxim: ’Nice guys can come first.’

It was five years since Federer last won a Major, a period which co-incided with the emergence of Novak Djokovic, causing a seemingly terminal interruption of his flow of success. Despite three appearances as a losing finalist, it seemed Federer’s days as a Grand Slam winner were over.

But, this past fortnight in Melbourne, and playing in his first proper tournament for six months due to a knee injury, saw the champion of champions sweep aside all-comers. Andy Murray (who has recently become the world’s number one player) was among others in a strong field who failed to match Federer’s quality and durability in the cauldron of Australia’s sporting capital.

Federer’s first title was at Wimbledon in 2003, and he now has 5 Australian Opens to go with his 7 Wimbledon’s, 5 US Opens, and 1 French Open. What makes his number of victories so remarkable is that the field has comprised other top-level players too. To overcome the likes of Nadal, Djokovic, Murray, Raonic and Wawrinka is an incredible achievement.

Quality opposition is the lifeblood for progress as a sportsperson – it helps prevent complacency. For Federer to have touched the heights he has, he has needed to be pushed by such quality opposition. That is what makes top sport – the pursuit of individual mastery linked to the challenge of intense competition. And the richness comes from having to excel against a variety of styles and tactics according to the approach of different opponents. Ultimately, champions need contenders snapping at their heels to ensure the standard of play continues to evolve over time.

In a sport, it is a world where age is often an impediment to progress. Jack Nicklaus may trump Federer’s achievement purely in age terms, when he won the US Open golf tournament at 46, but the athleticism required for golf is totally different to that required to excel at tennis. Muhammad Ali defeated George Foreman (‘The Rumble in the Jungle’ in Zaire) for the world Heavyweight crown at the age of 45, but whilst I remain in awe of Ali as a sportsperson, I would suggest that one-on-one bouts (that allow for a knockout blow to terminate the contest) do not test the athlete’s durability in the same way.

Tennis players have to deal with round after round of tournament play against all of the world’s best players. The finalists have to strain every sinew of the mind and body for duration of the tournament and with such little time between semi-final and the final, have to summon up incredible resilience and determination to produce their best performance when it matters most.

Put simply, I suggest that Roger Federer’s 18th Grand Slam win yesterday has confirmed him as the greatest professional sportsman.

A Deeper Reflection on England’s Tour to India

Assessment Overview:
Re India/Bangladesh tours – Did we learn anything we didn’t already know? We were competitive (at times), but fell short on quality in the key areas of batting and spin bowling. Graeme Swann and Monty Panesar were masters of their respective art – such craftsmen don’t get replaced easily, unless the breeding ground is really healthy.

Quality Reflection:

A sense of perspective is always needed when reflecting on poor results – in this instance, India had superior players in Indian conditions to England. Thus, England’s focus should be to address the issues that will continue to affect their own team evolving from good to great in the next four years.

England’s Deficiencies:
All the talk about Alastair Cook resigning the captaincy (or not) is a bit of a sideshow to the real problem since he became Captain – his batsmen don’t consistently make enough runs, especially when it really counts. Captains don’t affect batsmen in the way they can impact a bowler’s performance. Individually, batsmen must front up to their responsibility of making the lion’s share of the team’s runs, and England’s top order has failed too often.

On the Indian tour, Cook’s spinners lacked the ability to take wickets AND have control over the scoring rate on a consistent basis – especially against very good players. But, in fairness, Zafar Ansari, Liam Dawson and Moeen Ali are batsmen who bowl – it is wrong to expect the kind of returns a front-line spinner like a Panesar or a Swann have achieved before.

Adil Rashid did as well as most wise observers could have predicted. Leg-spin is a difficult art to master, but I suspect he is unlikely to gain selection as a sole spinner in a Test match bowling attack unless he improves considerably in the coming 9 months – and how can he with such little scope to bowl in English conditions, even for his domestic team Yorkshire. The India tour will have added to his confidence, and part-time coach Saqlain Mushtaq appears to be a positive influence on him too.

But, despite Adil being a very useful lower order batsman, England need a top-class specialist spinner to play a major role in a bowling attack in every innings. When a pitch doesn’t spin, he needs to bowl maidens, just like Derek Underwood, Graeme Swann and Monty Panesar did in previous eras of successful England teams.

Being the sole spinner is a different job from being a twin or a member of a trio. I would love to see Adil grow into the role but for now, I just can’t see him providing the control that 3 or 4 seamers need in England when they are operating from the other end on ‘seam-bowling friendly’ pitches, and need their spinner to ‘bowl dry’ (go for no runs).

In England, we can succeed against most cricketing countries without a spinner due to quality seam/swing bowling from the likes of Stuart Broad and James Anderson (for how much longer?) Ben Stokes, Chris Woakes etc. And, the proof of the pudding is that only South Africa has beaten us convincingly at home recently.

The batting is more of a problem. For too long, England’s batsmen have cashed in on flat wickets, and struggled when the ball has moved. Whether it has spun (regular sub-continent heavy series defeats), seamed, or bounced (eg Perth) there have been numerous collapses down the years. If we are to be a consistent force in world cricket, the development of the system to produce English cricketers needs to do more than produce ‘good’ batsmen – Joe Root (and other emerging players) must join ‘the ‘greats’. Can Haseeb Hameed and Keaton Jennings do so? Both have started well – but so did Sam Robson (recently), and John Hampshire, Frank Hayes, etc (from yesteryear). Let’s hope an obvious passion for the game and dedication to their craft will enable both Jennings and Hameed to fill the two major gaps in the team at numbers 2 and 3. If they can’t, we will be in trouble in Australia next winter. If Root reverts to his best position at 4, he may play his very best cricket over the next few years.

Developing Future Talent:

The big challenge in the future is can we (as a cricketing nation) develop batsmen who average 50-60, not 40-50 and bowlers who can take 10 wickets in a match? Such high-level individual performance makes the difference in Test cricket. History says so.

Recent cricket history has seen batting averages go through the roof. The best players are very dominant. Sri Lanka has produced Jayawardene and Sangakkara; West Indies Gayle, Lara, Chanderpaul; South Africa Smith, Kallis, AB De Villiers; Australia has Smith, Ponting, Hussey, Hayden, Waugh; India has produced Tendulkar, Dravid, Sehwag, and Kohli, Pakistan has produced Younus Khan. But England’s ‘home-grown’ batsmen have not got close to these top players stats. However, I do acknowledge that our batsmen play predominantly on English pitches in May/June and this may be a factor in a lower career average. But, most of our Test pitches are flat these days and covered, so it shouldn’t be too difficult to excel if you have developed a technique and a mindset to be superior in all conditions to your opponent. And to think in the days of yore – top players like Hammond, Hutton and Compton still dominated the opposition in bowler-friendly conditions!

The Ashes 2017/18 Will Be The Benchmark to Measure England’s Quality:
Very few experienced cricket people would have predicted England success before the plane left London, so it is important to maintain a balanced perspective with regard to where the England journey has reached under Trevor Bayliss’s guidance, 11 months in advance of the next Ashes series. England are a good, young, emerging team – they just need two young batsmen to mature (possible) and find one quality spin bowler (unlikely) if they are to become more competitive than they currently are.

Overseas series wins are rare in the game. They do happen, but they only consistently when teams like Australia under Steve Waugh or West Indies under Clive Lloyd have a team of players with the skill and the will to win under all conditions. Such results tend to be determined by batsmen making very big scores, and setting matches up for bowlers to strike the final blows. Big team totals must be dominated by contributions from front-line batsmen (not the middle-order and lower-order) if a team is to perform at its optimum.

In India, despite playing on flat pitches and winning 4 tosses, England were unable to create impregnable positions in a match and revert pressure on to the opposition because of the failure of their batsmen. And worst still, they were woeful when ‘the heat’ was turned up and match-defining moments appeared. When resilience is needed, ‘loose play’ is too often seen from too many England players. It has become the catalyst for the many England batting collapses in recent years. But, if the players learn from their errors and become more resilient cricketers over time then the experience is not wasted. If England win in Australia, all will be well..

County Championship Cricket:
County cricket often takes the blame for England’s ills – it is sometimes unfair. But, the purpose of a domestic structure that is funded by the national team’s commercial value is to nurture emerging talent by providing a breeding ground for the best to learn and progress to international selection.
Can the regular batting collapses, and ‘soft cricket’ played by England from time to time be attributed to the lack of a really tough domestic cricket competition? Would a ‘best versus best’ domestic competition reveal such ‘softness’ in advance of Test selection if it was in place? The mix of skill, and the will to succeed, must be honed lower down ‘the food chain’ if a sportsperson wants to enjoy consistent success in the highest form of the game.

County cricket is a professional ‘marathon’ over a 7 month season now, with 3 formats shoe-horned into the calendar. In recent years, it has encouraged better fitness, and a strong commitment from players to an increasingly professional approach to preparation. But, is it attending to other (major) factors such as the variety of skill, the ability to perform under pressure in ‘the big moments’, and the development of character? I would prefer to see a mid-summer shorter tournament with each match testing the players ability to perform against the nation’s best players.

This possibility has been eradicated by ECB central contracts and by a County Championship played predominantly in April, May and September in bowler-friendly conditions. Does there need to be a 16 match championship, if the main purpose of the competition is to develop Test match cricketers?

And, many of the 18 county cricket clubs are doing themselves a disservice by signing Kolpak players on inflated salaries to cover for their own weaknesses in developing ‘home-grown’ players of sufficient standard to be a highly-competitive county team, despite being given plenty of financial support to do so. I believe the role of a coach is to develop local players, and not be a recruitment consultant mining foreign talent!

T20 Cricket:
Is T20 Cricket the reason for the current status of few Test players emerging from domestic cricket? Or can T20 be ONE of the solutions to developing better skills, and not just improving the county clubs’ finances?

Developing Specialists:
Evidence suggests County Cricket’s recent structure has ‘produced’ a shortage of top-class ‘specialist’ spin bowlers. Has the financial focus on ‘white-ball cricket’ averted players eyes from ‘mastering the basics’ of spin bowling such as flight, spin, use of the crease, and being tactically savvy against players capable of staying in for a whole day if you aren’t good enough to bowl them out? Containment should never be a spin bowler’s only weapon.

And recent evidence shows that too few ‘specialist’ batsmen with the technique and temperament to excel on the world stage are being developed. The golden period of the 50′s and early 60′s which saw Boycott, May, Barrington, Cowdrey, Dexter and co emerge seems a long way off today. And more recently, Gooch, Atherton, Gower, Gatting, Lamb and Botham represented England successfully against some of the world’s best attacks in the late 80′s and early 90′s.

I reckon the lack of batting experience/quality available to the Cook era of captaincy has been partly due to the indirect consequence of Andrew Strauss’s successful era of captaincy. Most batsmen played around 100 tests or more – Cook (139), Strauss (100) Trott (52) Bell (118) Pietersen (104) – preventing others from gaining experience. And, without top quality overseas bowlers (especially fast ones) and virtually no England bowlers playing regular county cricket, there is a shortage of experienced, top-class, top-order batsmen outside the Test team. The best way to learn is by ‘doing’ – and ‘doing it’ against/alongside the very best is the best preparation for top sport.

It seems to be a problem Australia is facing too – historically their Shield Cricket was a great breeding ground for wrist spin and fast bowling, toiling away on flat pitches, in the hot sun. Batsmen learned to make big hundreds too. Today, it seems a very different landscape. So few top players play domestic cricket today due to the crazy international schedule. This ends up devaluing performances, and dilutes the standard, as well as depriving the emerging players from the all-important inter-action through good conversation with the game’s best practitioners.

India has become a powerful force AGAIN in world cricket under the highly-impressive leadership axis of Anil Kumble and Virat Kohli. I fear they may be nurturing the best team they have ever had.. If so, England, Australia, South Africa and others, have their work cut out. But the best news is that India is thrilled by Test cricket again when many of the game’s best observers thought it had been superceded by the IPL.

Virat Kohli’s passion for Test cricket is arguably the best thing to happen to the game for a while.

Finding A Way Forward For English Cricket

Whenever a team is on the receiving end of a humiliating series defeat, determining the best way forward as quickly as possible is essential. England’s woeful performance on the sub-continent against Bangladesh and India risks undermining every individual player’s confidence. But, there is enough alternative evidence to support the thinking that so much is healthy within the current England team.

In short, there is a core of very good players and some highly-promising young players, who can transform the team’s potential, and make them serial winners.

To achieve collective success though, it will require the system which underpins the England team to provide top quality emerging talent to ensure ‘bench-strength’ (initially), and also to challenge the more established players from becoming complacent over time.

Good Signs:
Despite the disappointment of the series hammering in India and a disastrous 2nd test v Bangladesh, it is clear we do have some brilliant emerging international all-rounders who could become renown as ‘world-class’ over time.. Ben Stokes and Jonny Bairstow have enjoyed a wonderful calendar year, and may inspire others to achieve world-class status. And, I reckon Jos Buttler is a unique talent – coming in to the Test team with no cricket behind him (and virtually no red-ball cricket in 18 months) and looking ‘at home’ is an impressive feat in itself.

Every year since debut, Joe Root has looked an increasingly top-class player, despite not making the big hundreds needed on the sub-continent. But it is only his second tour of india and on the first tour, he hardly played in 2012. His progress since then has been considerable, and I remain fascinated to see if he pushes on to become ‘a true great’, or comes back to the field, over time.

The Future Focus:
Developing top-class specialists, not good ‘multi-dimensional’ players, must be the priority. But, it takes time, and the right challenge to stretch a player’s development. Craftsmen need to be apprentices first – and the learning journey is never linear.

A Cricketing Culture Needs Constant Nurturing Beyond The Professional Game:

The answers to long-term sustained success lie deeper than a strong domestic game. It is about clubs and schools having a healthy cricket culture – it is needed to continuously feed the first-class structure as a healthy loop.

Rather sadly, most of the resources in world cricket are focused on funding the professional game…

To have a healthy sport, the opportunity to excel must be open to all from a young age, and access to pro sport must remain open to as many as possible into adulthood. A closed shop (Academy system and performance-related fee payments for playing youngsters in county cricket – which can dilute the playing standard (in Div 2 especially) is unhealthy for developing higher standards and generating wider interest in the game..

Better quality organic growth is always the solution to long-term sustainable development:

Sport gets too focused on short-term objectives, especially when big money is available. It gets (inadvertently) thrown at feeding the problem, rather than developing a long-term solution through sound investment into better infra-structure and by developing more ‘local’ people through better educational opportunities. English Premier League football is the best example of the worst of this situation!

Fundamentally, unless you feed the roots properly, healthy organic growth remains a fantasy. With 60 million people in the UK, we really ought to be enhancing our reputation and culture of sporting excellence worldwide by dominating in all team sports too. It should not be only the individual athletes and non-core sports who achieve global success and were rightly celebrated by SPOTY on Sunday.

Individual Sportspeople as Exemplars Who Achieve Their Potential:

Perhaps the fact that so many of these leading sportspeople people aren’t well-funded in many sports is one of the reasons why they achieve greatness on the world stage? I admire the fact they stand or fall by their own efforts. And, because of their relative independence, I wonder if part of their success is down to the sense of freedom they feel as a consequence of not being part of a system with inward-looking people who are fearful of having to constantly defend itself (e.g. LTA) and/or protecting its’ employer from criticism for not producing better returns on investment?

Brilliant Individuals and Outstanding Leadership Make Good Teams Great:

Whatever the reasons given behind the England cricket team’s woeful series result in India, the most important response will be from the individual players themselves. Ultimately, it is individuals within a team who have the power to change the culture of a team for the better. This individually-driven self-leadership is the key to turning results around. Players have to develop higher levels of skill to excel on the biggest stage – for it is competence that breeds confidence.

Spending Money on Developing Better Basics at Youth Level is a Wise Investment:
Young players need to develop a commitment to the mastery of the basic skills to be able to excel on the biggest stage in the future.
A player’s technical foundation begins way back in the development of ‘the performance process’. The need for high-quality specialist coaching at school and youth level is vital, and has never been greater in our quest for long-term achievement in team sports. Making youth coaching the top priority and not paying the national team coach a fortune would be a better use of financial resource in my opinion.

The reality is that an International coach inherits other people’s work further down ‘the food chain’. The focus must be on improving the players through investing in top quality coaches to develop the skills and the attitude of emerging talent.

Return The Responsibility for Performance to Players:

Modern sport has become a media circus with constant speculation about the job security of the top man/or ‘The Boss’ as some call the Head Coach. It is madness! They are not magicians who have a wand to immediately cure the systemic flaws they inherit. And, the constant speculation about the impact they are having on the team eventually wears the individual down. Many become ultra-defensive in their manner and lose some of their passion for a sport they love. Does cricket need such a focus on such a person other than the captain just because other team sports do?

Is it time to dispense with support staff? Has professional sport become an over-populated muddle where accountability for performance has shifted from players onto the coaches? If so, I suggest it needs to revert to being a player-responsible culture if teams are to extract more consistent top performance.

2017 Onwards:
The challenge for the England Captain, Coach, and National Selector, is to determine who to invest opportunity in during the next 9 months. Another disastrous Ashes Tour will be a terrible return on investment based on all the heavily-funded ‘elite talent’ programmes the ECB promotes, so making good use of the next period of time in advance of departing for Australia will be pivotal to our chances of success Down Under.

Normally, what follows a poor Ashes Series, or a poor World Cu,p is a Full-scale Review, or a ‘Task-Force’ to look into the game and its management of elite performance. I hope Andrew Strauss and England get ahead of the game, and make some tough calls now. Perhaps streamlining the management process and making key people much more accountable for their performance as leaders would be a good start?

Exploring The Role of The Senior Leader:
Are there ‘too many cooks spoiling the broth’ currently?

I wonder if is time to make Andrew Strauss the Chief Selector, and fully accountable for England’s results? Maybe Andy Flower (as his assistant) could support him? As Head Coach of the pipeline of emerging players through the England Lions programme, he is ideally-placed to offer input on the credentials of the candidates for future selection.

Are Part-time Selectors Compromised as Directors of Cricket at County CLubs?:
Perhaps now is a good time to stop spreading of shared accountability for the England team by dispensing with part-time selectors Mick Newell and Angus Fraser? Their role in developing a healthy cricket culture at famous county clubs is vital to feeding the future England teams and, if ECB is honest, both men have endured the criticism of having conflicts of interest, as they are primarily employed to serve their own county club, not England. And, if they are too focused on part-time England roles, would their county membership be happy? In the case of Newell’s Nottinghamshire, relegation in 2016 was a bitter pill to swallow.

The idea that Managing Director Andrew Strauss is ‘line-managing’ others (National Selector, Selectors, Head Coach, Captain, Head of England Lions Programme, Head of National Cricket Performance centre) could suggest a possible cosiness gets developed among the leadership team. If so, it that makes the notion of who is really accountability for the performance of the England team harder to define. If the much-respected Strauss were to be fully responsible for picking the team, then it is the coach’s job to work with the team. Or, if Strauss wants to be ‘the overlord’ (and not tread on the Head Coach’s toes) then I suggest the Head Coach should pick the team after consulting with trusted advisors and paid observers.

Any self-respecting ‘General’ would only want to go into battle with deep knowledge of his own men, and be clear about their individual strengths and weaknesses. This deep confidence comes from knowing the process his men have been through before being sent to ‘the front-line’. The players must become more hardened and better prepared for the diverse challenges which lie ahead. Creating a top quality learning and development process is everything in this regard. I trust Andy Flower is now doing this in his recently-defined new role as Head Coach of England Lions in conjunction with richly-experienced cricket people like Graham Thorpe.

Managing Public Expectations:
The management of the expectations going forward will be interesting to observe. There is an ICC Champions trophy to host, and a World Cup in 2019 as well as a home series v South Africa in 2017 followed by the Ashes Tour next winter. I predict England will do well if they can find two cricketers who can mature and fill the big gaps at the top of the order. In Root, Stokes, Bairstow and Buttler, they have some of the most dynamic and competitive cricketers in the world today. If Hameed and Jennings are as good as some are predicting, all will be well.

Developing Talent:

As ever, the solution to brilliant team performance is the quality of emerging talent pushing to get into the team, and also the refinement of top talent when it gets into top-level sport. Who has the insatiable hunger to be a continuous learner and achiever? The quality of the team environment and the learning process which flows from such, is what will determine the future achievement of both the individual and the collective.

The foundation of excellent technique combined with an excellent temperament is the requirement for success. Such refinement doesn’t get grooved in a standard of cricket that doesn’t (closely) replicate that played at the top-level. Therefore, I reckon less domestic cricket (and more meaningful cricket) with all the top players available, is the solution to raising the standard.

Is ECB Compromised by its Structure:
The ECB is effectively a body made up of the 18 county clubs. Whilst there is an executive team in place, I get the impression that the decision-making process is quite cumbersome, and needs the approval of so many people with conflicting agendas before anything gets ratified.

Whether the English Cricket structure will ever allow radical thinking to be implemented would most likely depend upon a change to the ECB constitution. I wonder if the current voting rights of 18 county chairman is more of a hindrance to progress than a help. If so, it would make radical change virtually impossible. An example of this can be seen by the struggle Chairman Colin Graves and CEO Tom Harrison seem to be having with the introduction of their lucrative proposal for a new city-based t20 competition.

It does seem that a common problem with many of our sports is the lack of independent governance at the core of a National Governing Body’s structure. As a consequence, self-interest of the decision-makers will drive the thinking in a variety of directions as opposed to having a more consistent and coherent strategy to drive the sport forward. If only our sports NGB’s could become more like the world’s leading 21st century organisations…..

Managing Expectation

Was the expectation of England winning in India based more in hope than in pragmatic reality?

Only those inside the team will know what their ‘private talk’ was about, while the rest of us are left to consume ‘the public talk’ which is often put out to project a positive mentality in a team or squad departing on an overseas adventure. Managing expectations is a critical aspect of senior leadership. Raising a group’s confidence is a vital skill, but so is keeping confidence in check, if it is mis-placed or premature.

Assessment Overview:
Re India/Bangladesh tours – did we learn anything we didn’t already know? We were competitive (at times), but fell short on quality in the key areas of batting and spin bowling. Graeme Swann and Monty Panesar were masters of their respective art – such craftsmen don’t get replaced easily, unless the breeding ground is really healthy.

Managing Expectation:
The management of expectation is essential in sport – it is not being negative to acknowledge you are a strong candidate to come second best in a two-horse race unless you perform to the maximum and your opponent under-performs. Such a possibility exists every time two opponents come together, so there is always reason to be optimistic in the struggle.

Quality Reflection:
But, a sense of perspective is always needed when reflecting on poor results – in this instance, India had superior players in Indian conditions to England. Thus, England’s focus should be to address the issues that will continue to affect their own team evolving from good to great in the next four years.

England’s Deficiencies:
All the talk about Alastair Cook resigning the captaincy (or not) is a bit of a sideshow to the real problem since he became Captain – his batsmen don’t consistently make enough runs, especially when it really counts. Captains don’t affect batsmen in the way they can impact a bowler’s performance. Individually, batsmen must front up to their responsibility of making the lion’s share of the team’s runs, and England’s top order has failed too often.

On the Indian tour, Cook’s spinners lacked the ability to take wickets AND have control over the scoring rate on a consistent basis – especially against very good players. But, in fairness, Zafar Ansari, Liam Dawson and Moeen Ali are batsmen who bowl – it is wrong to expect the kind of returns a front-line spinner like a Panesar or a Swann have achieved before.

Adil Rashid did as well as most wise observers could have predicted. Leg-spin is a difficult art to master, but I suspect he is unlikely to gain selection as a sole spinner in a Test match bowling attack unless he improves considerably in the coming 9 months – and how can he with such little scope to bowl in English conditions, even for his domestic team Yorkshire. The India tour will have added to his confidence, and part-time coach Saqlain Mushtaq appears to be a positive influence on him too. But despite Adil being a very useful lower order batsman, England need a top-class specialist spinner to play a major role in a bowling attack in every innings. When a pitch doesn’t spin, he needs to bowl maidens, just like Derek Underwood, Graeme Swann and Monty Panesar did in previous eras of successful England teams.

Being the sole spinner is a different job from being a twin or a member of a trio. I would love to see Adil grow into the role but for now, I just can’t see him providing the control that 3 or 4 seamers need in England when they are operating from the other end on ‘seam-bowling friendly’ pitches, and need their spinner to ‘bowl dry’ (go for no runs).

In England, we can succeed against most cricketing countries without a spinner due to quality seam/swing bowling from the likes of Stuart Broad and James Anderson (for how much longer?) Ben Stokes, Chris Woakes etc. And, the proof of the pudding is that only South Africa has beaten us convincingly at home recently.

The batting is more of a problem. For too long, England’s batsmen have cashed in on flat wickets, and struggled when the ball has moved. Whether it has spun (regular sub-continent heavy series defeats), seamed, or bounced (eg Perth) there have been numerous collapses down the years. But, if we are to be a consistent force in world cricket, the development of the system to produce English cricketers needs to do more than produce ‘good’ batsmen – Joe Root (and other emerging players) must join ‘the ‘greats’. Can Haseeb Hameed and Keaton Jennings do so? Both have started well – but so did Sam Robson (recently), and John Hampshire, Frank Hayes, etc (from yesteryear). Let’s hope an obvious passion for the game and dedication to their craft will enable both Jennings and Hameed to fill the two major gaps in the team at numbers 2 and 3. If they can’t, we will be in trouble in Australia next winter. If Root reverts to his best position at 4, he may play his very best cricket over the next few years.

Developing Future Talent:

The big challenge in the future is can we (as a cricketing nation) develop batsmen who average 50-60, not 40-50 and bowlers who can take 10 wickets in a match? Such high-level individual performance makes the difference in Test cricket. History says so.

Recent cricket history has seen batting averages go through the roof. The best players are very dominant. Sri Lanka has produced Jayawardene and Sangakkara; West Indies Gayle, Lara, Chanderpaul; South Africa Smith, Kallis, AB De Villiers; Australia has Smith, Ponting, Hussey, Hayden, Waugh; India has produced Tendulkar, Dravid, Sehwag, and Kohli, Pakistan has produced Younus Khan. But England’s ‘home-grown’ batsmen have not got close to these top players stats. However, I do acknowledge that our batsmen play predominantly on English pitches in May/June and this may be a factor in a lower career average. But, most of our Test pitches are flat these days and covered, so it shouldn’t be too difficult to excel if you have developed a technique and a mindset to be superior in all conditions to your opponent. And to think in the days of yore – top players like Hammond, Hutton and Compton still dominated the opposition in bowler-friendly conditions!

The Ashes 2017/18 Will Be The Benchmark to Measure England’s Quality:
Very few experienced cricket people would have predicted England success before the plane left London, so it is important to maintain a balanced perspective with regard to where the England journey has reached under Trevor Bayliss’s guidance, 11 months in advance of the next Ashes series. England are a good, young, emerging team – they just need two young batsmen to mature (possible) and find one quality spin bowler (unlikely) if they are to become more competitive than they currently are.

Overseas series wins are rare in the game. They do happen, but they only consistently when teams like Australia under Steve Waugh or West Indies under Clive Lloyd have a team of players with the skill and the will to win under all conditions. Such results tend to be determined by batsmen making very big scores, and setting matches up for bowlers to strike the final blows. Big team totals must be dominated by contributions from front-line batsmen (not the middle-order and lower-order) if a team is to perform at its optimum.

In India, despite playing on flat pitches and winning 4 tosses, England were unable to create impregnable positions in a match and revert pressure on to the opposition because of the failure of their batsmen. And worst still, they were woeful when ‘the heat’ was turned up and match-defining moments appeared. When resilience is needed, ‘loose play’ is too often seen from too many England players. It has become the catalyst for the many England batting collapses in recent years. But, if the players learn from their errors and become more resilient cricketers over time then the experience is not wasted. If England win in Australia, all will be well..

County Championship Cricket:
County cricket often takes the blame for England’s ills – it is sometimes unfair. But, the purpose of a domestic structure that is funded by the national team’s commercial value is to nurture emerging talent by providing a breeding ground for the best to learn and progress to international selection.

Can the regular batting collapses, and ‘soft cricket’ played by England from time to time be attributed to the lack of a really tough domestic cricket competition? Would a ‘best versus best’ domestic competition reveal such ‘softness’ in advance of Test selection if it was in place? The mix of skill, and the will to succeed, must be honed lower down ‘the food chain’ if a sportsperson wants to enjoy consistent success in the highest form of the game.

County cricket is a professional ‘marathon’ over a 7 month season now, with 3 formats shoe-horned into the calendar. In recent years, it has encouraged better fitness, and a strong commitment from players to an increasingly professional approach to preparation. But, is it attending to other (major) factors such as the variety of skill, the ability to perform under pressure in ‘the big moments’, and the development of character? I would prefer to see a mid-summer shorter tournament with each match testing the players ability to perform against the nation’s best players. This possibility has been eradicated by ECB central contracts and by a County Championship played predominantly in April, May and September in bowler-friendly conditions. Does there need to be a 16 match championship, if the main purpose of the competition is to develop Test match cricketers?
And, many of the 18 county cricket clubs are doing themselves a disservice by signing Kolpak players on inflated salaries to cover for their own weaknesses in developing ‘home-grown’ players of sufficient standard to be a highly-competitive county team, despite being given plenty of financial support to do so. I believe the role of a coach is to develop local players, and not be a recruitment consultant mining foreign talent!

T20 Cricket:

Is T20 Cricket the reason for the current status of few Test players emerging from domestic cricket? Or can T20 be ONE of the solutions to developing better skills, and not just improving the county clubs’ finances?

Developing Specialists:
Evidence suggests County Cricket’s recent structure has ‘produced’ a shortage of top-class ‘specialist’ spin bowlers. Has the financial focus on ‘white-ball cricket’ averted players eyes from ‘mastering the basics’ of spin bowling such as flight, spin, use of the crease, and being tactically savvy against players capable of staying in for a whole day if you aren’t good enough to bowl them out? Containment should never be a spin bowler’s only weapon.

And recent evidence shows that too few ‘specialist’ batsmen with the technique and temperament to excel on the world stage are being developed. The golden period of the 50′s and early 60′s which saw Boycott, May, Barrington, Cowdrey, Dexter and co emerge seems a long way off today. And more recently, Gooch, Atherton, Gower, Gatting, Lamb and Botham represented England successfully against some of the world’s best attacks in the late 80′s and early 90′s.

I reckon the lack of batting experience/quality available to the Cook era of captaincy has been partly due to the indirect consequence of Andrew Strauss’s successful era of captaincy. Most batsmen played around 100 tests or more – Cook (139), Strauss (100) Trott (52) Bell (118) Pietersen (104) – preventing others from gaining experience. And, without top quality overseas bowlers (especially fast ones) and virtually no England bowlers playing regular county cricket, there is a shortage of experienced, top-class, top-order batsmen outside the Test team. The best way to learn is by ‘doing’ – and ‘doing it’ against/alongside the very best is the best preparation for top sport.

It seems to be a problem Australia is facing too – historically their Shield Cricket was a great breeding ground for wrist spin and fast bowling, toiling away on flat pitches, in the hot sun. Batsmen learned to make big hundreds too. Today, it seems a very different landscape. So few top players play domestic cricket today due to the crazy international schedule. This ends up devaluing performances, and dilutes the standard, as well as depriving the emerging players from the all-important inter-action through good conversation with the game’s best practitioners.

Team Development: Factoring In Phases of Maturity
Developing a professional sporting team to become top-class over time is much harder than most people imagine. If you don’t back the right people, the opportunity costs are significant to giving others exposure to the playing standard and the chance to reveal their quality. If you change the team too often, players don’t settle, and you can sometimes discard a player before time and end up going through the same process with an inferior player. Therefore, selection is critical to future success. Invest the right opportunities with the right people is fundamental to success. The challenge is to enable a group of players to mature, whilst also integrating emerging players so that the best players don’t all leave the team simultaneously. Sir Alex Ferguson was the master of this art – but he had a global transfer market to assist him. In international cricket, players are supposed to be developed from within your own domestic system – thus the need for a healthy system of organic growth is vital to long-term success.

Managing People in Top Sport

The quality of relationships define teams. The best relationships thrive on mutual respect and trust, and top sport is no different. There is a difference between liking each other and relying on each other. In top sport, it is more about relying on each other.

The skill of the ‘Master coaches’ is in getting the best out of every individual on their list. At times, this is tricky because not everyone can play at once, and certainly not always in their preferred position/role. So, the coach needs to be a mix of tactician, strategist, counselling-based psychologist, and group motivator. Being one step ahead of the team, and seeing problems ahead of time and neutralising them off at source is a key skill.

Managing Confidence:
Maintaining a balanced approach to the ‘highs and lows’ of top sport is easier said than done. Australia’s England coach Eddie Jones seems to keep the England Rugby team ‘grounded’ by saying there are no ‘world-class’ players yet. And “until we beat the best in the world in World Cups, we haven’t achieved much.”

But, with our football and cricket teams, I wonder if we tend to ‘over-celebrate’ potential rather than achievement, at key times. And does complacency set in at the first sign of major success? For example, from a team perspective, when England win the Ashes, it’s as if there is no other mountain to scale, and sustaining excellence has proved impossible. Two subsequent 5-0 defeats speak volumes for the argument.

Is Selection More Important than Coaching at International Level?

Every sporting team sets out to develop a successful team and hopes to sustain its success over time. However, very few achieve this. The reason is normally because the quality of the organic growth process is inferior to your opponents who have been able to nurture emerging talent more successfully and, in the process, establish deep bonds between players which helps to form the soul of the next team they are busy developing. Good shared history is so important to successful long-term team development.

The key role in any talent management process is to ensure the pool of talent you are selecting from has the necessary raw ingredients to achieve future success.

Selection Is Key:
Identifying players with the potential for a very high peak is a most important ‘off-field’ skill – because investing in the right people ensures the works don’t get ‘clogged up’ with players who are unlikely to make the national team ‘world-class’ over time. Some players are stand-out picks based on their early age group success (Wayne Rooney, Michael Owen, Owen Farrell, Joe Root) but the real skill of the selector is in spotting the players with the desire and capability to learn very quickly as they journey into the higher echelons of top sport. Such players are often ‘late-developers’ – Andrew Strauss being one who didn’t reveal his potential as early as say Marcus Trecothick, Andrew Flintoff, or Ian Bell who all excelled for England at age-group level. Andrew Strauss didn’t even get near selection! And, the leading run-scorer on both teams in the last two back-to-back Ashes Series was Chris Rogers, who debuted at 30, and played his second test in the first match of the 2013 Ashes series aged 35.

Performance analysis today (with its emphasis on computers) tends to focus on statistics, but ‘wise owls’ who observe the sport closely focus more on understanding performance by contextualisation. When did a player perform well? What were the stakes when the player performed poorly? How did the player respond to a match-defining passage of play?

Towards Greatness:
True greatness in sport gets measured by both high peaks and long-term sustained achievement that takes in all conditions. That is why it is unwise to get over-excited about emerging talent. There are peaks and troughs to manage before a player matures into a consistent top performer, unless the player is one of those ‘once in a generation types’ like Sachin Tendulkar who start young and play at the top level throughout their illustrious careers.

Team Development: Factoring In Phases of Maturity
Developing a professional sporting team to become top-class over time is much harder than most people imagine. If you don’t back the right people, the opportunity costs are significant to giving others exposure to the playing standard and the chance to reveal their quality.

If you change the team too often, players don’t settle, and you can sometimes discard a player before time and end up going through the same process with an inferior player. Therefore, selection is critical to future success. Invest the right opportunities with the right people is fundamental to success. The challenge is to enable a group of players to mature, whilst also integrating emerging players so that the best players don’t all leave the team simultaneously.

Sir Alex Ferguson was the master of this art – but he had a global transfer market to assist him. In international cricket, players are supposed to be developed from within your own domestic system – thus the need for a healthy system of organic growth is vital to long-term success.

A Quality Response Is Needed by England’s Cricketers

A quality response to the disappointingly poor performance by England in India would be a renewed commitment to cricketing excellence, not a new National Governing Body focus on participation, however important this new initiative is.

Fundamentally, it is individual excellence on the field that will turn the tide of losing Test matches and (not) winning ODI’s and the World Cup(s).

England’s cricket team has been demolished 4-0 in India. The result included heavy losses (by an innings, after scoring more than 400 runs in the first innings each time) in the last two Tests of the 5-match series. England has now lost 6 out of their last 8 test matches and in 2016. In all, they have lost 8 Tests this year, their highest number of Test matches losses in any calendar year.

Developing The Collective: It’s A Journey of Discovery
Is it such a disaster if poor team performance reveals some important hidden truths that could propel a team forward over time? The wisest leaders recommend embracing every aspect of a crisis – knowing that deep, honest reflection is where the richest learning tends to reside.

Sometimes, heavy defeats can galvanise a body of sportspeople and fuel their desire to come back to a country (or a tournament) as a stronger and smarter unit in the future. Sir Clive Woodward’s success as coach of a World Cup-winning Rugby team more or less began with ‘the tour of hell’ to Australia where the England team was humiliated 76-0 in one Test match. In such circumstances, players and coaches can learn a great deal about each other. I imagine winning the World cup in Australia against Australia was the sweetest revenge a coach could possibly have.

So, maybe this recent sub-continent tour offers England a more accurate reflection of where both individuals and the collective are, in terms of their development on the international stage?

I reckon the 4-0 result is an accurate reflection on the two teams relative strengths when playing in India. However, the manner of defeat in the last two matches should the biggest concern to England.

And, looking into the possible mentality of the team’s individual players, perhaps the pitch conditions and climate in England have enabled some players to enjoy the acclaim beyond what may be regarded as healthy. Celebrating the regular defeat of teams in our home conditions (influenced by the opposition having little, or no experience of playing in England), seems more hollow today than before.

In reality, many England players in this tour have been relative newcomers to Test cricket (5 debutants!) and any assessment of collective performance must factor this in.

If the 4-0 result is a true representation of where the team is, in terms of its overall development, then the result can serve as a marker to the administration (and the media) to not get carried away by small sample achievements in the career of any player, or ‘young’ team, until top performance has been replicated on a regular basis.

What is undoubted, is that England has some outstanding young cricketers who can lead the team towards some brilliant experiences in years to come. Let’s hope they mature quickly enough to retain the Ashes next winter, and become a top ODI team capable of winning the World Cup for the first time too.

Is English Football Beyond Repair?

Gary L Captain
As I watched England legend Gary Lineker discuss the debacle of England’s defeat on Monday night from the European Football Championships, after their defeat by Iceland, I recognised this was arguably the lowest point in our sporting history. It must be ranked alongside their shocking 1-0 defeat by USA at the World Cup in 1950.

But, in reality, if England had won against Iceland, such a result should be regarded as a shock – if only because England has not won a knockout match in a tournament for a decade! A victory would have represented the anomaly.

How has it come to this? Is it just about being unable to perform under pressure? Or is it that English players are over-hyped, over-paid, and have over-inflated egos which prevent them from playing together successfully outside of the ‘big’ clubs who employ them. And are these players only ‘top-class’ when they are surrounded by top-quality foreign talent?

And such humiliating experiences at tournaments time after time adds another layer of complexity to the players’ psyche which manifests itself in the players (possibly) not wanting to be part of the opportunity in future as they fear the backlash from the media and public alike should things go wrong. Ultimately, this fear comes on during a match when the team goes behind – a sense of “here we go again, we know what’s coming next” kicks in. From such a mindset, there is no way back in a match, or tournament- it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

So, what can be done going forward?

The challenge is to develop brilliant performers who are also top quality individuals. And my definition of this is: humble learners, in service of others. The deeper meaning here is that an individual learns new skills and becomes wiser in order to share that with others for the greater good’. That is what I believe ‘fully-functioning human beings’ do – they lead a life of service to others. The contrasting opposite is ‘the one-man corporation’ which we see quite often in top sport today.

Tomorrow, the FA’s very able, new Chief Executive Martin Glenn faces the biggest challenge in his job to date. The high-achieving former boss of PepsiCo will be sitting down with his chosen advisors to plot the way forward and look at the process which will select the new England manager over the coming weeks and months. And as this search for a new England manager begins, all of us who are genuine fans will be hoping that a new compelling vision from the new person will change 50 years of poor history in football tournaments. What chance is there of future success beyond hope?

It will only come if there is a change of culture. National team performance must become the priority, but in England, the FA Premier League dominates the landscape. And thus my concern is that in a few weeks another false dawn will be ushered in as the new England Manager (interim or permanent) reveals his/her appetite for the challenge at their first press conference.

But in any change process, the key questions are:
1) What needs to change?
2. Where in the organisation/team does this change need to occur?

And then, key to making change a success, is the notion of measurement. Questions need to be asked – how are we going to measure this change?

The reality is the new boss and his team of cultural advisers and change experts must value what they decide to measure and then measure what they value. The biggest asset in any organisation, especially in sports performance environments, are the people. It is about HUMAN performance. And people respond best when they are treated as HUMAN BEINGS.

But, if the development process up to this point has not developed people sufficiently to become ‘fully-functioning human beings’ then the team’s prospects of success are reduced considerably. What happens is a defensiveness emerges in people’s personalities when they are faced with new challenges.

The best individuals embrace new experiences and even see setbacks as a gift to their learning. So, perhaps the talent identification process needs to shift from picking out ‘the gifted one’ and instead, commit time to learning more about the character and the desire to learn as ‘pre-qualifying’ characteristics for the best opportunities in the talent pathway programmes. Fundamentally, my theory is: “stop indulging ‘the chosen children’ otherwise they will become softer over time.”

The challenge is to identify people who are ‘quick, receptive learners’, and people who are prepared to be adaptable, so they can learn to thrive in all conditions.

How best can the new ‘Head of Player Development’ accomplish this? Well, I have been thinking about such problems since I retired from professional cricket in 2003. I had always been passionate about coaching, and the notion of developing high-performance, but this question was different. It required me to look at a question/problem from a systemic perspective and explore how to ‘design’ not only a solution, but also a sustainable model. One-off success can be exhilarating, but return on investment must be about changing a culture so that generations benefit from the change and not just a select group of people for one moment in time.

And this is what I have learned through trial and error learning experiences, reading about philosophy, psychology, elite performance and leadership:

“Better people play better sport”.

Thus, the coach’s challenge is to create contexts which draw out ‘the athletes’ character, and then reflect back to the individuals what emerges. And then, it is about working on the less well-developed aspects of the person so that they can become more whole over time. And, in the process, the individual becomes increasingly comfortable with ‘learning discomfort’. Ultimately, when ‘the athlete’ reaches the point where they actively seek challenging experiences which are most likely to reveal thier flaws, the coach knows the athlete has been fully empowered to drive their own learning and development.

And, then having identified the best learners with the requiste base levels of sporting talent, the consistent challenge is how best to infuse those people with a strong sense of purpose, whilst also providing them with the highest level of technical training to enable world-class performance.

Most significantly, every top coach must work out how to do this best, without imposing anything on anyone. The key is to create a culture and environment where individuals become ‘the drivers’ of their own learning and development.

The ‘real work’ is in developing people to really thrive across life. The journey towards becoming a top-level sportsperson can contribute towards accelerating this possibility, but only if the learning context is suitably broader than just working on playing skills. It is about developing an integrative process which enables the individual to think for themselves and be able to seek creative solutions when under stress.

The Role of The Coach: ‘A Way of Being’ not just ‘A Way of Doing’

How should the modern coach be? My thinking – and the subject of one of our Learning programmes @LondonCounty called ‘The Transformational Leader’. The coach needs to be a master of the art of collaboration, and not be perceived as ‘a heroic soloist’ (Jose Mourinho!).

At London County, we have a think-tank who explore the challenges of leading in a high-performance world. I wonder about whether KEY PEOPLE AT the FA would be interested in joining us in the future?

We have met annually (normally in July) and in the past our workshops/think-tanks have involved the likes of Julian Powe (International Leadership Development consultant); Andy Flower OBE; John Inverarity (retired Headmaster, former Australia Test Cricketer, retired National Selector); Jock Clear (ex Mercedes F1 now Ferrari); Jon Holmes (Sports Agent and Entrepreneur); Dr David Priestley (Arsenal Psychologist, ex Saracens); Richard Hill (RFU) ; Professor Robert Iliffe (Oxford University History of Science); Gary Lineker OBE; Vanessa King (Action for Happiness); John Altman (Musician, Composer, Arranger); Dr Ken West (Performance Scientist); Dr Ken Jennings (International Performance Psychologist); Glenn Hoddle (International Footballer and former England Manager); Gary Kirsten (International Cricket Coach); Eric Simons (International Cricket Coach for SA & India); Chemmy Alcott (Olympic skier and Inspirational Female speaker); Hemal Randerwala (Arjuna Capital Trading & India Charity Worker); Katy Sexton MBE (former World Champion Swimmer); Alexander Campbell (Principal Soloist, Royal Ballet Company); Steve Turner (Business Psychologist); Professor David Gilbourne; Alastair Storie (Chartered Psychologist and consultant to Glasgow Rangers Womens Football Team); Nigel Wray (Businessman and Saracens Rugby Club Owner); Dr Ian Millward (Educational Psychologist) and this year our group will most likely be joined by retired Surgeon, Professor Chris Rudge CBE; and former England Cricket Captain turned Psychotherapist, Mike Brearley OBE.

And, the research that I and my team of psychologists, educationalists and leadership development consultants have undertaken on creating models for developing greater balance in high-performance systems may be helpful to people at the FA. If they ever want to sit down and do some thinking with us around this theme (at a specifically-designed workshop ) I would be delighted to create a learning context which enabled key people to explore ‘the big problem’ – how do we develop a player development/coach education system which enables top talent to emerge and then perform under pressure in global tournaments.

The future must be about equipping footballers with better ‘inner resources’ – well-rounded as players and people. The process of committing to ‘Inner Fitness’ AND ‘Mastery of Skills’ needs to be integrated into their daily lives from a relatively young age.

Culture and The Development of England’s Future Footballers:

For me, it is about the cultural leader(s) modelling the culture of the behaviours they would like to see in the current group of emerging players for England.

It’s about how these players play the game, how they think about the game, how they look after themselves physically, and how they interact with their peers.

It will be about how they come to view themselves as professionals (not rock-stars!!) and how grounded they can remain in the face of wealth and fame.

Ultimately, their success (or otherwise) will be a personal choice. It will be fed by their passion for excellence, and their evolving love for the game.

Culture Change

Photo: Paul Carter / sportspixI particularly enjoy conversations about culture, and the challenges of creating meaningful change in teams and organisations.

One of my most treasured conversations was in 2004, with West Indian cricket legend and one of my sporting heroes, Sir Vivian Richards, about the inspirational former West Indies captain, the late Sir Frank Worrell. Viv explained how “Mr Worrell” transformed the culture of the region’s cricket by empowering the smaller islands to believe in their ability to become top-class at the game. He said they should see themselves as becoming the force who would eventually inspire the West indies to become consistently world-class for over a decade, rather than the poor relation/smaller cousins of the more established cricketing islands such as Barbados, Guyana, and Jamaica.

Transforming potential into high-achievement requires a big cultural shift. Quality in action is not easy to replicate day after day. Consistent top performance requires a dedicated commitment to a lifestyle – it’s not a project to be picked up and put down to suit the whims of any individual.

In sport today, there is a lot of talk about values, philosophy and culture, but I often wonder how much attention players really pay to this. Most professionals in my experience are primarily focused on playing well enough individually to stay in the team and remain employed. And, if the meeting about culture, values and philosophy is just ‘a pet project’ of the management, it stays in the room, or on a laminated piece of paper in the drawer or on the office wall of ‘the boss’.

Culture change can only happen successfully if people become very honest about what is happening in the team/organisation today, and in the recent past. If any recommended changes are subtly ignored – that is the culture. If organisations respond slowly to good opportunity – that is the culture. If individuals lose ambition and get cynical the longer they are employed in the team/company – that is the culture.If senior players/employees say all the right things in a meeting but don’t live the change ‘on the job’ – that is the culture.

And, how many bosses/management people get ‘conned’ into believing their input at such meetings and workshops has been effective, which inspires them to say such things as “we’ve got good buy-in.” True culture change requires skilful introduction, careful management and ongoing observation and support of key people to nurture the processes and underlying processes which impact performance. It is hard work, and needs to be ‘worked at’ – something many people (particularly in sport) tend to resist beyond their initial enthusiasm for change in results and professional status.

I have often wondered why so many sportspeople under-achieve relative to their teenage potential. My hypothesis is that the culture has an over-reliance of the notion of ‘talent’ and people feel it is ‘not cool’ to try hard in case it reveals they lack ‘talent’. There is a nonsense which prevails in many organisations that you can’t be that good if you have to ‘work at it’.

This culture of an over-reliance on historical learning means that a new commitment to learning never gets established and many people become ‘cruisers’ in their working environment. And then, when they plateau (and wake up to the reality of their stunted progress affecting their ongoing employment prospects) it is often too late to arrest the decline in their performance and also very difficult to change the lazy mindset which has taken hold of their senses.

In sport, my opinion is that for true top creative performance to emerge, cultural differences need to be embraced and not diluted by DNA projects led by a few people who work out of a small office.

As I see it, the challenge of creating a particular identity is that regional differences, an ever-changing population offering greater diversity of ethnicity, and historical ways of ‘how we do things around here’, makes ‘culture change’ work very complex to undertake successfully in some countries, especially England. The challenge of wanting to make meaningful progress whilst being careful so as to not creating something ‘fake’ which people feel ‘forced’ to adopt is not easy.

Professor Edgar Schein:

Over the past year, I have developed a strong interest in the work of Professor Emeritus of MIT Sloane School of Management who has been exploring the subject of culture for 50 years. People may be interested in the short link about culture change here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EMaj2JjZlL4

Creating a High-Performance Environment Through Challenging and Changing Existing Culture:

In my research into the topic of culture for the purpose of developing brilliant performers, transforming disparate groups into brilliant teams, and enabling organisations to become brilliant, I have learned the following:

The 3 Key Steps to a High-Performance Culture

Step 1:
Establish a common understanding of culture and develop metrics for it

Step 2:
Focus on the few changes that matter most

Step 3:
Integrate culture change efforts with performance improvement initiatives.

Leadership and Culture:

Culture is driven by the leader and what happens at the core of a team, or an organisation on a day-to-day basis.

I wonder what will happen to a nation’s sporting community if there is a learning revolution and if the powers that be were to (truly) embrace the diversity of culture, thinking, and ‘ways of being’, within its shores.

I reckon that no self-respecting adult wants to be told how to be, or what to do, and when to do it. But so many organisations do that to people.

However, when a person is freed up to be who they really are, and can operate with freedom within a gilded cage, all sorts of pleasant surprises and good output can emerge in a rich-learning environment.

Let’s see which nations and regions can transform themselves over time now that more people seem to be interested in the language of culture change. Or is it just a fashionable conversation?

REAL CHANGE IS HARD TO ACHIEVE. MEANINGFUL CHANGE REQUIRES HONEST REFLECTION AND CONSTANT RENEWAL OF PURPOSE UNTIL OLD (UNHELPFUL) HABITS WITHER AND DIE, AND ARE REPLACED WITH NEW ONES WHICH TRANSFORM PERFORMANCE.