Enjoy this inspirational insight from Adrian Bradbury, Founder & Director of Football For Good in Uganda. With a wide-ranging background in business, basketball and charitable work, Adrian has founded the only full-time player development programme in formerly war-torn Northern Uganda. Thanks to his tireless efforts, the program continues to grow and FFG offers young local players an opportunity to receive quality coaching and education through the FFG program. We speak to Adrian about some of the progress FFG is making, the cultural challenges that…
Culture & Leadership
A topic at the heart of PDP content. The culture of our team or club can shape the development of our players.
Duarte Araújo, and Keith Davids The Big Idea The authors of this is recently published research paper (Frontiers in Psychology, September 2016) aim to demystify how individual players can better become a coherent team in sport performances. More team coherence usually translates into more team success They do this in three steps. They: 1) explain the ecological dynamic frameworkof their theory; 2) describe what they call the shared affordances of the individual players and of teams; and 3) reveal four necessary ecological properties of team synergies and their measurement. While understanding…
Tom Mallinson is a UEFA A license holder who works at Nottingham Forest as the U16 coach. Tom has been part of the staff at Nottingham Forest staff for a number of years and worked his way up through the academy. Tom shares some of the methodology he uses with his players as well as giving us an in depth insight to the club player development approach and playing philosophy. Don’t miss this excellent interview with one of England’s brightest young coaching talents. Show Notes…
Claudio Ranieri’s dismissal as Leicester Manager this season has been one of the most controversial decisions in recent sporting history. Assistant Editor Jon Hoggard challenges the current football system and its tendency to place extrinsic motivators at the forefront of both clubs’ and players’ agendas. Who’d be a manager? The sacking of Claudio Ranieri just nine months after he led Leicester City to the Premier League title is one of the most gut-wrenching stories of the season. Clubs sacking league-winning managers isn’t that uncommon…
Margaret Wheatley with Debbie Frieze The Big Idea Get ready for a wake-up call to the common among us—which is to say a call to all of us. In this short paper published in Resurgence Magazine (Winter 2011) Margaret Wheatley takes a unique position regarding leadership. She will argue that the place to look for true leadership in an age of complexity is inward, and not outward to the time-worn desire for heroes to come to our rescue. Early on, Wheatley refers to the opening line of the…
The question this week comes from Justin: “We are an U13 boys team, with half the team from last season, and half the team is new this season. How do I create an environment to continue the friendships from last season whilst integrating the newer players who may feel left behind socially, which could in turn, inhibit their development as a player?” Your Turn: Ask PDP Anything Do you have a coaching question that we might be able to help with? We would love to hear…
Richard Tinning The Big Idea The subject of this paper is what Richard Tinning calls “the idea of physical education.” In one form or another Tinning argues, physical education is universally familiar. As a cultural manifestation, we find it early on. In ancient Greece, it was institutionalized for the all-around education of male citizens. Since then, even if in fits and starts, wherever formal education in general is valued we find in one form or another a physical component attached to it. The question Tinning…
How does a teacher or coach transition to a learner-centric view where you can allow the learner to explore and develop within the environment? Co-founder of Myfastestmile, Mark Upton reflects on how coaches can facilitate this process. The image below appeared on my twitter timeline a couple of times today… It prompted retrieval of one of my favourite passages on teaching/learning… “Teaching is, in some ways, a myth. The greatest skill is learned, more than it is taught. And the great teacher realizes…
How do we break down self-imposed barriers? How do our own limiting beliefs affect coaching performance? Founder of Fit Across Cultures & cultural intelligence expert, Susan Salzbrenner examines just how you can navigate around your own invisible rope. I recently read a short story about how elephants are trained that I would like to share: “As my friend was passing the elephants, he suddenly stopped, confused by the fact that these huge creatures were being held by only a small rope tied to their front…
Shalom H. Schwartz The Big Idea There could hardly be a bigger research goal than what this paper represents. In the last quarter of the 20th Century the nature and function of human values and the cross-cultural value comparisons between entire countries has attracted a fair number of international researchers. One of the more recent research efforts (M. Rokeach, 1973) was a cross-cultural Value Survey proposing 36 values thought to be “reasonably comprehensive and universally applicable.” Nonetheless, Rokeach also recognized that such a claim to completeness…
The question this week comes from Barry: “I want to be a better leader and control my sessions. I work with an U12 team who I am struggling to get to focus and I want to improve my control over sessions. I also work with an U17 team and I feel like I need to communicate my ideas to the players more effectively.” Your Turn: Ask PDP Anything Do you have a coaching question that we might be able to help with? We would love to…
PDP Lead Researcher James Vaughan and Research Associate Hanna Eggestrand explore the basic human values that shape coaching sessions and discuss some practical implications for coaches and clubs. Behind everything we do in life, there is a why. Why do people hold certain attitudes and behave in certain ways? Research shows a consistent but often overlooked factor at play here: our values. Essentially, when you ask yourself “why do I coach?” or “why do I coach like that?”, the answer comes from what you value deep down….
Some Costs of American Corporate Capitalism: A Psychological Exploration of Value and Goal Conflicts
Tim Kasser, Steve Cohn, Allen Kanner, Richard Ryan The Big Idea It might seem from the title of this research discussion on American corporate capitalism that it might have little relevance for the interests of our loyal Player Development Project readers. Well, if you give this summary a go you will likely change your mind. If one thinks a bit about the values and goals of corporate capitalism, it is impossible to ignore what has mysteriously become something of “the elephant in the room” in…
Freedom, what does it mean in a performance or player development environment and can it overwhelm or confuse your players? Co-founder of myfastestmile and top PDP contributor, Mark Upton shares his excellent blog post on managing this cultural and environmental shift. “You can’t get sustained exceptional performance from a controlling environment – push autonomy down the hierarchy” I’ve recently spent some time on performance cultures and environments, fortunate to be able to share experiences with a handful of exceptional people working in a range of…
Mark Upton, Co-founder of myfastestmile continues his discussion on learning dynamics. Mark outlines the challenges and benefits that come with the concept of self-organising and understanding what you can & can’t control in coaching. “When I explain complexity theory to my old Mum, she looks at me quizzically and says, ‘Isn’t that common sense, dear?’” In a recent post on Learning Dynamics I covered how patterns of behaviour emerge due to interactions between people in a system (or at a different scale of analysis, interactions…
Antonio J. Figueiredo, Carlos E. Goncalves, Manuel J. Coelho E Silva, and Robert M. Malina The Big Idea The customary belief about youth and sports is that the youngsters who drop out of youth sports are developmentally disadvantaged somehow when compared to those who succeed over time. But a question immediately arises: What is meant by developmental disadvantage? The big idea of this research study is to help remove some of the mystery behind what kinds of differences between youngsters are or are not relatively…
Masculinity: what is the dominant narrative around it and how does it effect the way we coach, educate and behave? PDP Lead Researcher, James Vaughan confronts this challenging topic all in the name of a good cause. PDP will be raising money & awareness for this campaign in October. Are you a polished man? Over the last 18 months I’ve written (and talked – probably too much) about the influence of: Social norms Cultural assumptions Expectations Values The language we use Dominant narratives Especially in…
Clifford Mallett and Sergio Lara-Bercial The Big Idea The rub for these researchers is that the empirical basis for the vocation of sports coaching is seriously limited exactly at the time it is most needed. The burgeoning growth of national and international high performance sports in the last few decades certainly calls for professional coaches. It is a surprise then that the process of professionalising high performance coaches is still so little understood. The Research What we know already about highly successful coaches? Surveying the…