Culture Change

I’m writing this post after a brief yet thought provoking exchange with Tom Byer on Twitter. Nothing malicious about it, just different thoughts that I wanted to expand upon. I would also encourage you to read his tweets to make sure they are understood in the correct context.

I was made aware of a post by Mr Byer by a good friend of mine that works for the All India Football Federation, Richard Hood. Mr Hood had retweeted a post that mentioned culture being at the heart of everything, and in Japan it was common place for players aged 6 years old to do multiple 2.5 hour training sessions each week. Now, I wanted to discuss the point with Richard however, the 140 character restriction left my ‘quality over quantity’ comment open for Mr Byer to step in. His response prompted me to look deeper into his posts and I found a treasure trove of titbits to dig my teeth into.

Mr Byer spruiks his ‘Football Starts At Home’ book (which I have no problem with anyone selling their wares) with the sentence, “Culture eats Strategy, Coaching, Curriculum's [Sic], Manuals, Facilities, Experts, Licenses and Finances, all combined!”. My initial thought was, “Eats it? You’ve just described the recipe for culture!” And culture is what? A collective ideology, customs and traditions of a particular people. Now, I will admit, I have tried to change culture the hard (wrong) way before. I worked in India in 2010/2011 and spoke with representatives from I-League clubs and regional associations about how Coerver Coaching India could help develop their youth, academy and coach education programmes. I met with resistance; many of the men I met with were older than I, and seemed to take offence to a foreigner telling them how to improve their offering. Indeed, I was told after presenting a plan to a senior member of the Western India Football Association that, “We do all that already, well, we have plans to do that.” 5 years later, and I still smile when I see that none of the proposal points have been enacted. Maybe that was my downfall, the more resistance I found, the more I pushed back. I can be direct, and I don’t often hide my feelings when I don’t like someone.

But I digress. I wondered why couldn’t quality coaching, with a progressive curriculum and coaching manual; with good facilities and expert consultants who are properly qualified, and appropriately paid – be the perfect mix to create, adapt, or change a culture? I worked with a fantastic club in the Sunshine Coast region of Queensland, Australia.  I was Director of Coaching for U6 – U17s. The club was the smallest in the region and was extremely volunteer driven; including the volunteer President who told me that whilst he had played the game all his life, he hired me, and therefore trusted me, to add a level of professionalism to the club. This was key for me to affect a positive change. It was part top down, part bottom up change management. The President enacted the change, I went to the boots-on-the-ground volunteers to hear their thoughts, and begin to develop a plan to upgrade training, coach education and club structure. This took time and effort, from all involved, but after two seasons of small progressive changes; I had a further three-year club development plan to present to the President.

You may say, ‘That’s all well and good, but what proof do you have?’ I wish I could give you empirical proof but all I can offer is circumstantial. The parents group acknowledged they had a ‘Big Kick’, ‘Run Fast’, shout-what-you-see mentality. They were brilliant, embraced change and began self-policing. Parents normally stood and watched games in the same small groups each week; the first parent who shouted ‘big kick’ or ‘boot it’ had to get a round of coffees in. I love this approach, and promote it whenever I can. Parent coaches attended monthly in house coach education sessions, the club had session plans and a curriculum to work from and expand, and the club have continued bringing in specialists to further the development. This club has changed its culture, it’s not an overnight change, there are no magic bullets, and it requires a large amount of buy in at multiple levels. But it can happen.

Michael Morris, a psychologist at Columbia University, suggests that “The inner conformist is stronger than the inner activist,”. What does this mean for those trying to foster culture change? Convince people that everyone else is doing it, whatever ‘it’ might be. This may seem underhanded to an extent, but it works. A 2009 paper in the Journal of Politics found people were more likely to vote if they were told the turnout had been higher in the previous election than any other in history.  In other words, more people were voting — so if you want to be normal, then you should vote. Let’s call that journalistic licence, shall we?

I find myself agreeing and disagreeing with Mr Byer’s tweets almost in equal measure. Especially since some of them seem to contradict one another. “Unfortunately, coaching is a bit over-rated at the young ages. Especially since most kids are technically deficient that play the game.” Seemingly contradicted by, “So our expectations for 6yr old kids is so low. People expect kids shouldn't be able to do anything. This has to change, its [Sic] not true.” He continues, “Culture matters & if the training is quality and focused on technical skills you will produce many good players just because of the numbers.” I may be confused, but isn’t training content dictated by coaches and/or other technical staff? Coaching is not the mere presence of ‘Stop, stand still’ moments in training sessions. A good coach can help shape an environment with conditioned games, and also knows when not to step in and talk.  These same overrated coaches can apparently help produce quality players if they provide technique focused training sessions. Whilst I agree that the content of training sessions can greatly affect the development of young players, I struggle to distinguish the separation of coaching being overrated, or the coaches being overrated. Coaches coach, even if they are volunteer parent coaches or highly qualified professionals; I think it does a disservice to those willing to put time and effort into developing the next generation of footballers.

Mr Byer also says he, “Wouldn’t disagree” with @SamuVarga that “some well qualified coaches in leading positions can influence a football culture”, but Byer also wrote “You can invite the best coaches in the world to coach the kids. That will not change a countries culture which is the key for development.” Forgive me for being straight forward but I always thought one person could make a difference. Lord Mansfield striking a blow against slavery, Emmeline Pankhurst leading the charge for women’s suffrage, or Martin Luther King Jr being a spark for civil rights in America. Whilst I wouldn’t put changing a sporting culture on the same level of importance as the examples I mentioned; I do believe that those examples are massive, drastic and incredibly important ones. Bigger changes than altering the sporting landscape have happened.

Leaders can facilitate change from the top, or help guide from the bottom. Cultural change is a big task, not an impossible one; and whilst changing the sporting culture of a nation could take years or decades, I believe it was Lao Tzu that said it best, “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.

(Originally posted on 9th November 2016)

#CultureChange #YouthDevelopment #Football