Alfonso Montuori and Gabrielle Donnelly The Big Idea The winningest coach in the (USA) National Basketball Association is Phil Jackson with 11 NBA titles. Whatever you might think of Jackson’s coaching philosophy, there is one thing he seemed to intuitively know and later put into words: “The strength of the team is each individual member. The strength of each member is the team.” This research discussion on creativity is unwittingly a suggestion of the meaning and implications of Jackson’s paradoxical quote about individual and collective…
creativity
PDP Video Session Plans are adaptable sessions designed by academy coach, Dave Wright. All sessions show key focus points, set up, and progressions so you can use them in your next practice.
The question this week comes from Mario via Twitter: “How do you coach creativity?“ Your Turn: Ask PDP Anything Do you have a coaching question that we might be able to help with? We would love to hear from you! Here’s what you can do: 1. Tweet your questions to us @playerdp, or contact us on our Facebook page.2. PDP Members can chat directly with the PDP team to ask questions, share ideas, and support each other on our exclusive Coaching Community. Start your membership today, and join…
Margaret J. Wheatley The Big Idea Margaret (Meg) Wheatley has been an organizational development speaker and international consultant since 1973. In this keynote conference address published in the Occupational Development Practitioner, she chides us for so willingly continuing to use 17th Century images of the universe in the 21st Century world. For centuries, she argues, “we have been planning, predicting and analyzing the world . . . holding on to an intense belief of cause and effect and we’ve let numbers rule our lives.” Her major concern is…
Sara D. L. Dos Santos, Daniel Memmert, Jaime Sampaio, and Nuno Leite The Big Idea In the team sports it is traditional that when coaches are asked what they are coaching, the usual response is, for example, “I coach soccer.” But if soccer coaches were collectively to adopt the general idea of what these researchers call the Creativity Development Framework, they might be more inclined to say “I coach creativity.” However odd this latter response may seem, the authors of this paper imply that this…
Alfonso Montuori The Big Idea While summarising Montuori’s paper may well bring it home to the reader, there is an even better way to see the Big Idea. For a wonderful and current example of this big idea in action, just follow the United States Presidential election process for the duration of the summer and fall of 2016. In it you will see exactly what an anti-pluralist, totalitarian mind-set is in the so-called campaign of the Republican candidate for President. We are not trying to…
Alfonso Montuori and Ronald Purser The Big Idea Get ready for a dust-up! The authors of this paper published a lengthy literature review and discussion on the social dimensions of creativity in an earlier paper we previously summarised for the Player Development Project. Its title was “Deconstructing the Lone Genius Myth: Toward a Contextual View of Creativity.” Their primary intent in that paper was to argue that the idea of the lone genius theory of creativity needs revisiting. It wasn’t long before Carl Hale took…
Euro 2016 provided a fascinating insight into the relationship between football, player development and culture. PDP Lead Researcher, James Vaughan looks at the importance of culture and how its influences can be traced in different development environments across the world. The way we play football is a reflection of culture. Playing styles (team and individual) mirror the social values and cultural practises within socio-cultural contexts. Contexts like the schools, clubs, or groups we’ve belonged to. Growing up in England I tackled hard, avoided making mistakes and played it safe, especially under…
When we picture a proactive approach to player development, many people see structure and methodical organisation as a sign of effectiveness. Stuart English, Birmingham City’s Assistant Academy Manager, outlines the importance of allowing players to take initiative and solve problems on their own if they are going to become truly unique and creative on the field. Chaos is the monster we seek to contain within our structured lives. Chaos is adversity in ordered environments and can be defined in the dictionary as: ‘complete disorder and confusion’. How…
Alfonso Montuori and Ronald E. Purser The Big Idea The topic is creativity. The problem is the stubborn persistence in popular culture of believing creative artists of all sorts—musicians, scientists, inventors, athletes, writers—are lone geniuses. These authors ask the question: Just how autonomous is the creative individual? They answer: Not very. Takeaways This paper exhibits what it explains: that creative ideas (in this case on the subject of creativity itself) depend heavily on social contexts, dimensions, and histories. The authors attempt to demystify the idea…
PDP Video Session Plans are adaptable sessions designed by academy coach, Dave Wright. All sessions show key focus points, set up, and progressions so you can use them in your next practice.
How can play impact performance? PDP Lead Researcher & International Futsal player, James Vaughan examines how important play is when it comes to finding solutions in a high performance setting. Last month New Zealand played against the Solomon Islands in the FIFA Futsal World Cup qualifiers in Fiji. Tied at the top of the table this game was the tournament decider, the game that determined Oceania’s representative for the upcoming World Cup in Colombia. Four years of preparation and sacrifice on the line during 40…
Simone M. Ritter, Rodica Ioana Damian, Dean Keith Simonton, Rick B. van Baaren, Madelijn Strick, Jeroen Derks, Ap Dijksterhuis This study discusses human creativity in relation to diversifying life experiences – the kind of experiences which shape character – early parental loss, having immigrant status, or even living abroad. A fascinating look into the adaptability of the human mind, and especially how the brain reacts to these often extremely stressful and life changing conditions. Can creativity be a bi-product of these experiences? How does sport play…
Kenneth Aggerholm, Ejgil Jespersen, Lars Tore Ronglan The Big Idea In the 2010 Champions League football final, Diego Milito fooled Daniel van Buyten for his second goal, leading Internationale to defeat Bayern Munich 2-0. A writer for The Guardian described Milito’s second goal this way: “The Argentinian feinted as he twisted Daniel van Buyten this way and that before turning back inside, opening his body and guiding a shot with his right instep past Butt’s left hand.” The writer went on to sum up the meaning of Milito’s two goals: “Vision,…
Player Development Project believes who we are is how we play. In this Live Webinar replay, UEFA Affiliate Tutor at The FA, Jonny Henderson joins us to discuss just how important the power of play is in youth development. Jonny holds a UEFA Pro License, an MSc in Coaching Science as well as a BSc (hons) in Sports Coaching. He is holds both a UEFA A Licence and the FA Advanced Youth Award. Jonny has been full time with Bristol Rovers for 4 years in…
Critically acclaimed and widely accepted as the most effective performance enhancing mental skill by high-performance athletes, CEOs, actors, public speakers and authors, ‘visualisation’ is often undeveloped and largely under-used in player development settings, as well as other educational environments. But why is this the case? PDP Lead Researcher, James Vaughan discusses. Similarly, while ‘vision’ is regarded as the cornerstone of organisational, leadership, or long-term development structures, minimal emphasis is placed on players’ vision for their own future. American author Stephen Covey sees vision as an…
Creativity involves putting ideas together in new and useful ways. Lara Mossman, Positive Psychology Researcher, football player, and mother of three, offers a refreshing and practical view on creativity. What is it, and how can we prime our young players to become more creative? Dutch legend Johan Cruyff, inventor of the ‘Cruyff Turn’ and the man behind the ‘phantom goal’, epitomised the creative footballer in the 1970s, as does today’s global superstar Lionel Messi. Cruyff was a king of improvisation, throwing out the rulebook on positioning and producing…
A trend can be seen in the top echelon of the European transfer market, with hundreds of millions of pounds (and euros) spent on players from South America. But what do these South American footballers have that others don’t? Flair? Creativity? Arguably yes, but then why are these attributes developed so successfully in South America, or is it more important to ask why isn’t creativity developed in other cultures around the world? Sir Ken Robinson’s TED Talk ‘How schools kill creativity’ gives a unique insight into this…