The Crafted Conversation: 16th of September, 2024

Week commencing: 16th of September, 2024

Weekly Crafted Concept

Autonomy, mastery, and purpose are strongly correlated with better performance. 

How, then, are we offering our people these vital senses of human agency? 

Whether staff, athletes, pupils, a self-determined rein might be less efficient than an articulated plan with every task already defined; but it’s certainly more effective for breeding creative, lateral thinking.

Tapping into humans’ innate desire for independence boosts morale and engagement. And engaged, challenged team members/stakeholders are the ones most likely to bring novel ideas forward and be motivated to succeed. So, how does this correlate to our role as leaders in performance sport and education?

September brings about the new year of curriculum delivery for physical education, new sports programmes, and new elite team sport seasons. Inevitably, we will also be negotiating the integration of new members of coaching staff and new athletes into our programmes or pupils into our classrooms. All of these factors contribute towards the uncertainty and chaos which descends at the start of term. All of these factors justify the seeming necessity for top-down leadership and inflexible structure, objectivity, and predetermined processes. The production-line of performance.

Inflexibility is a barrier, by definition. Leaders have missed an opportunity to reframe the lens which we view the chaos? By planning effectively to accommodate and leverage opportunities for autonomy, mastery, purpose, and growth, could we set a value-system which harnesses chaos into progress?

We have all heard of ground-breaking books such as Dr. Steve Peters’ “The Chimp Paradox”; certainly, heard ourselves confidently discuss the “fight or flight” response; and most definitely experienced the effects of the sympathetic nervous system narrowing our focus, or, as Peters’ describes so effectively, ‘hijacking’ our mind and body.

But how much do we actually engage with the basic neurochemistry which underpins these aspects of our lives? Unless you have studied psychology or branches of biology or chemistry, then you are unlikely to have met such principles in your own education. I certainly didn’t.

Yet we boldly step into our professional environments every day surrounded by, and in many cases contributing to, stressors and potential flash points. How much time do we take to consider the neurological states which we actively promote in ourselves and our people?

Agency, autonomy, a sense of purpose and being seen for the person/contributor the athlete/pupil/staff member are goes a long way to promote states of lower cortisol and more serotonin and oxytocin, of belonging and challenge over restriction and “dumbing down” inputs.

Perhaps, then, this is a systems conversation. Yes, it might be harder work. Yes, it requires a greater level of pre-planning. And no, not all would take kindly to offers for additional involvement, feedback, and creative thinking in their practice. But we are all here to benefit the experience and ultimate skill mastery of our athletes and pupils: so, the collective goal is a shared one. To repeat the above comment,

Curious Craft: Application to The Classroom

• seek pupil feedback. They are the major stakeholder - ask them about practices and be vulnerable enough to respond and listen

• how are you offering unique voces and lenses in your teaching practice?

  • what are you questioning methods?

  • how are all expected to be involved in discussion - no opting out?

• in what way can you offer the opportunity to make choices on the variance of task orientation to pupils, so that they are exposed to different stimulus in applying their knowledge and able to make choices relevant to their skillsets?

Curious Craft: Application to The Coach

• involve athletes in session planning/weekly planning/analysis of performance

• leaders seek feedback and cold call your team in the same way you would cold call pupils in your classroom. Make accountability and responsibility to contribute a central value to your team

• encourage collaboration and projects to inspire creativity in the delivery of the programme

• set a culture of open communication and welcome ideas without psychological threat in regular meetings and general communication

The Crafted Conversation

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