Who is accountable?

In the wake of the ‘performance review’ undertaken by SARU of the incumbent Bok coach, it brought to mind some thoughts as to who exactly is accountable for poor results. The natural inclination is always to blame the coach when things go awry, and that may often be justified, but sometimes I feel we are too quick to jump to conclusions.

I have just seen a headline on a rugby site, stating that players need to control the controllables, and the main controllable is their fitness. As a mental coach I always preach the need to control what you can and accept the things you cannot. However at what stage does a player’s fitness become his job, and at what stage does the responsibility rest with the conditioning coach, or the physio or the biokineticist or his Pilates instructor or personal trainer or indeed the Head coach? At what stage does a player’s skill levels become his responsibility, and when does it rest with the skills coach, the head coach, the coach he had at school etc? Surely, as professional or semi-professional players trying to make it to the top of their game, the accountability of peaking in their performance should rest with them? When players may be battling mentally, I find it is very rare for them to seek out help from a mental coach or psychologist without being prompted by their union, club or school. My underlying point is that although the head coach is indeed in charge of his team and accountable for his results, at some stage accountability needs to rest on the players themselves, and to examine whether they, in line with their job descriptions and performance areas, are meeting their requirements and more importantly doing all they can themselves to meet them.

The second area of accountability, and one that I believe is extremely relevant now, is that of the administrators. In my opinion, sport administration is simply political and removed from true performance evaluation. In the corporate world, recruitment is seen as massively importance, with the hunt for scarce skills and top talent being a vital ingredient of organisational performance. Should the recruitment be poor, the performance will suffer, and major questions will be asked of the recruiters. Now we sit with an obvious skills gap within the Bok coaching structures, and all the blame is pointed at the coaches themselves, whilst the administrators sit ‘giving their full support’ and ‘conducting the due processes’. How often do we see coaches being selected at all levels that are just not up to the job, then when they fail, as they inevitably were going to do, the fingers are all pointed at them, and not the recruiters. When selecting coaches, all sorts of areas need to be examined within their skills range. I have written an article before highlighting what a complete coach should look like in fact. My belief is that often administrators either recruit poorly or support poorly (WP officials complaining about young talent at a time when WP are finally doing well) and thus the coach ends up looking worse than he should do due to poor administration.

I fully agree with performance reviews, and people needing to be accountable when things go wrong, but I would like to challenge who truly is accountable for what in the world of sport. And therefore when things become cut-throat as they often do, the correct people’s reputation suffers, and the correct people carry the can.

Discipline is a must

Increasing talk of empowerment and a movement from autocratic to participative leadership in sport as well as in the working world is very apparent in modern times. Supposedly gone are the days of the ‘Hitleresque’ sports coach or MD, and in have come the relationship-former, the caring-communicator and the facilitator. I use the word supposedly though as I know that some coaches and MD’s still lead by fear or in fact feel that personal issues have no place on the sports field or in the office, and that respect is not an option but rather an obligation. I would stop short of describing a particular style that works for everyone as I’d be way off the mark. With each team having its own characteristics and each leader of a team also possessing his/her own strengths and weaknesses, it is important to create a particular style of environment that suits each team. This comes with one caveat however, without discipline nothing will work.

It has been intriguing to observe sporting teams of late and to see who is succeeding and who isn’t. I believe it is hard to judge a sports team or organisation on a few weeks, so I would hesitate to make definite judgements based on a bad run of form or a purple patch, however there are certain trends that do show up. It has been a breath of fresh air watching the Lions rugby side of late, which seem to be playing with enthusiasm, flair and instinct – all the things Dick Muir has sought from his troops. What is interesting is that it seems John Mitchell has been the one who has extracted this from his group players. This he has done without big-name players. Corrie Van Zyl for many years led the Free State cricket side to trophies and finals also without big-name players and massive budgets. So why has this been the case? Without doubt, these two guys have implemented an immense amount of discipline and structure to their set-ups. One could look at many other teams who have a disciplined set up, and have also shown success in both amateur and professional sport.

Discipline does not necessarily mean fear or autocracy but rather a set way of doing things that is mutually decided upon and stuck to at all costs. Discipline, like excellence, is an all-round thing, it applies to everything that a team does from the way they treat each other, to the way they practice to the way they dress and to the way they stick to their game-plans. You cannot have a team that sticks superbly to their game-plan but has no discipline when it comes to practice attendance or sticking to the team’s values. It is also difficult to have well-disciplined side with a number or ill-disciplined individuals within it. Some people will say, that sweating the small stuff is waste of time, and that what is important is whether the team win or not, and they may have a point. But there is no doubt that a happy, disciplined environment is more than likely going to be a winning one. This may be something that is difficult for players and coaches to accept, as hard-discipline and ‘sweating the small stuff’ may be unnatural for them, but there is no doubt the results will begin to speak for themselves.

The implementation of this discipline is probably best left for another article, but I would be interested to hear of people who have perhaps not focused on this area and failed as a result, or of people who indeed subscribe to a disciplined set-up and it has worked for them. Jim Collins, in his book Good to Great spoke about the need to find what your unique strength is as a team, what you are absolutely passionate about, and what you use to measure success. Once this is found you will know where to focus your energies. He then goes on to mention, that this is all well and good knowing, but if you do not have the discipline to stick 100% to these focus areas, you will not succeed. This discipline may be more on a broader scale, but also shows the necessity for a holistically disciplined approach. Sportsmen thrive in environments where unknowns are kept to a minimum where fairness is a core value. The only way to ensure this is to keep strong discipline.

With this in mind, it is interesting to observe the Boks’ recent plight, the Protea’s inability to win the big trophies, and also the likes of Jose Mourinho and Alex Ferguson who lead their football sides without compromise in disciplineand values.
All the best and I welcome comment!

The curse of the opponent

In my recent conversations and work with some sports teams, a realisation has become even more apparent – focus too much on the opposition at your peril. In chatting to a professional coach recently, he showed me the amount of analysis they do on their opponents, and I was blown away. Of course this is vital, could well be the difference between winning and losing and should be done. But it really was amazing to see how much information the players need to digest before a game. I also worked recently with a Waterpolo team who has to play in a 3 day tournament involving at least 8 different matches against varying opposition. The difficulty in this format is getting information on your opponents, and knowing when the ‘big’ games are. The team involved seemed to attach a lot of meaning to who their opponents were in terms of how ‘up’ for the game they would be.

Both of these situations affirmed my thinking that although one should always look to be as prepared as possible in analysing and respecting your opponents, your primary focus must always be on yourself. So often teams and players attach a huge amount of meaning to their opponents, play poorly, only for them to look back at the game afterwards and realise that they could easily have had a better result. This is as a result of forming beliefs on opponents that dominate the mind. How often do we see sides perform at a lower level when playing a lower- strength opponent? How often do we see teams underperform in games where the opponents are perceived to be stronger? I can think of many occasions where this has taken place. This often lies in a large focus on result and not the process of obtaining the result. When this takes place, teams will alter their playing intensity or style based on whether they think they have a chance of winning, or whether they think they should win the game or not. I believe that at amateur level, this is extremely prevalent.

So what is the solution you may ask? The solution lies within the team itself. A team with a strong vision and purpose is an absolute must. Without this, you will always be vulnerable to over-emphasising the opposition and weakening your own focus. What is even more important though is having a team that is wholly process-focused. A team that aims to play a certain way and attaches meaning to their way of playing and the values they keep as a team is far more likely to be internally focused and mentally ‘on-the-ball’ for every game. One needs to remember that a team’s own play is far easier to control than that of the opposition, and as we have all heard, teams need to place an emphasis on controlling the controllables. In the pressured environment of sport we should always be looking at ways to stay calm and comfortable and it is for this reason that our primary focus as sportsmen and women needs to be on self and our own standards.

Have a great sporting week and let’s hope the Boks and WP are completely internally-focused and ready to produce their best!