April 26, 2025 • 36 mins
In this ‘Dog Walk Diary’ episode, I dive deep into how narratives and slogans shape coaching approaches and talent development, particularly examining how research concepts like the "10,000-hour rule" and "talent needs trauma" get oversimplified and sometimes misapplied in practice. I explore the tension between evidence-informed practice and harmful performance narratives, advocating for a more nuanced "talent needs turbulence" approach that values challenge without crossing into potentially damaging territory.
Key takeaways:
- How Ericsson's deliberate practice research was popularised but oversimplified through Gladwell's "10,000-hour rule," shifting focus from quality to quantity
- Why catchy three-word slogans like "talent needs trauma" can be problematic when they justify harsh coaching practices in performance environments
- The importance of researchers taking responsibility for how their work is presented and the real-world consequences of their messaging
If you're interested in joining more conversations about ecological approaches to coaching, join my learning group 'The Guild of Ecological Explorers' by heading to www.thetalentequation.co.uk and clicking on the 'join a learning group' button.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-talent-equation-podcast--2186775/support.
Key takeaways:
- How Ericsson's deliberate practice research was popularised but oversimplified through Gladwell's "10,000-hour rule," shifting focus from quality to quantity
- Why catchy three-word slogans like "talent needs trauma" can be problematic when they justify harsh coaching practices in performance environments
- The importance of researchers taking responsibility for how their work is presented and the real-world consequences of their messaging
If you're interested in joining more conversations about ecological approaches to coaching, join my learning group 'The Guild of Ecological Explorers' by heading to www.thetalentequation.co.uk and clicking on the 'join a learning group' button.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-talent-equation-podcast--2186775/support.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Good morning.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
Looking along with flow, dogwork, diary time. One of the
things I wanted to talk about today was there's been
quite a bit of a number of years ago. Well,
I think I think it was a couple of years ago.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
Now.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
A famous scientist who made massive contribution to.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
The world of.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Expertise science or the science of expertise and skill acquisition
and development and all of those sorts of things, and
to a certain extent, talent development. A very influential body
of research was and as Ericson. And Ericson's research was pioneering,
(00:56):
I suppose you could say.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
Because his research was.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
I guess one of the first pieces of or not
one of the first, probably, but but one of the
ones that really cut through into the mainstream. Maybe his
research that suggested that talent and expertise was less about
(01:24):
innate abilities or inherited gifts, genetic capabilities, things like that,
things that were sort of less less changeable, perhaps less adaptable.
And he suggested that the primary.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
Driver of.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
Ability scale expertise was practice and in it and he
determined but it was a very specific form of practice,
which he referred to as deliberate practice, and the definite
(02:08):
defined deliberate practice as something that was quite effortful, required
a lot of focus and intensity, and had usually had
another individual there providing feedback or support, guiding the sort
of developmental journey. Not necessarily fun, but but you know,
(02:38):
perhaps rewarding.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
Enjoyable, different types of words.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
Anyway, So now that research, I think that got grab
a lot of attention research. Quite a few books were
written at the time, sort of popular science books were
written that you know, kind of spouse those ideas and
(03:03):
spoke to those ideas. This idea that you know, talent
is not a genetic thing. The Talent Code by Daniel
Coyle was particularly influential for me. And then also but
also one of the one of the other books that
I think was really popular that really popularized the idea
was Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers, which is a book.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
I really enjoyed and was really influential on me.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
But one of the things that Gladwell did in that
book which was problematic.
Speaker 1 (03:40):
Was he.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
He actually called, you know, coined the phrase the ten
thousand hour rule, because one of Ericsson's findings was that
the average amount of time spent by experts on deliberate
practice equated to a round about ten thousand hours. And
then Gladwell, obviously being the storyteller that he is, calling
(04:07):
the phrase the ten thousand hour rule, and sort of,
whether deliberately or not, sort of suggested that ten thousand
hours was, you know, the was like, you know, sort
of the number the magic number. So the you know,
the idea that you would, you know, be counting down
(04:29):
the days on the fridge at home. And I have
heard that there are parents who do this nine hundred
and ninety nine and then the next day right gold
medal time, And of course.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
That is preposterous.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
And Erickson didn't suggest that, it suggested that the number
was probably more important than it actually was. But the real,
the real, the problem with that was is that everybody
then became fixated on volume practice volume, and then they
lost interest or lost focus on practice quality. And the
(05:07):
bigger message around deliberate practice for me, was around the
idea of the level of intention and focus and access
to teacher or you know, person giving feedback. And when
you start to look into the biographies of sports people
access to that kind of support, whether it's through a
(05:29):
knowledgeable parent, a knowledgeable sibling, or a knowledgeable other coach
whatever seems to feature very heavily, So again, access to
that becomes a major factor. And of course I've then
spent a lot of my career thinking about and working
(05:51):
towards how can we find ways to a make coaching
better and more so that the kind of experiences we've
of I are aligned. But also how can we make
more how can we make coaching more accessible? How can
we make more people access coaching, and for that matter,
how do we helped coaches to be as inclusive as
(06:15):
they can be? So so yeah, so, now the thing
about glad Now, at the time before he died, Ericson
lamented Gladwell's contribution. Whilst he obviously valued the fact that
you know, Gladwell popularized his research and his research became
(06:40):
part of the conversation around expertise and talent developments and
became for the fairly central feature, he also lamented it
because his his he felt that his his work had
been misrepresented and as a result of it being misrepresented,
(07:03):
the work you know, there was a lot of criticism
of Ericson's work, and the criticism really came from the
idea that you know, this sort of mass volume training
meant that increasingly organizations intentionally or otherwise began to engage
(07:26):
young people in dedicated, like focused training earlier and earlier,
the rationale being that if they're going to in inverted commas,
make it.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
That they need to be really.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
Focusing and putting much more time into their activity their
sports earlier and earlier in order to be able to
hit the numbers to do the volume.
Speaker 1 (07:53):
And then what we then saw was.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
Lots of sports, particularly sports that engage young people and
have young people performing at relatively young ages, but lots
and lots of sports then either bringing in training protocols
that involved volume, lots of volume and therefore asking young
(08:21):
people to make increasing levels of sacrifice in pursuit of
a performance goal or dream because of the requirement to
get the reps in. They either brought those training protocols
in or they used this site, this research to justify
(08:42):
these protocols, which had been in existence for several years
and didn't necessarily have a particularly strong scientific backing, but nonetheless,
but there were just there that's what everyone sort of
common sense what you should do. And this research came
along and it was like here we go, this is
(09:04):
what we should do. Now The reason I tell that
story about the Ericson thing is that I think what
Ericson said, and I'm going to paraphrase what Ericson said
about Gladwell's contribution was something along the lines of, you know,
it becomes challenging when journalists talk tell stories about your
(09:29):
scientific work. And his view was that without that sort
of misrepresentation or perversion of his work, you know, he
feels that he would have his work would have made
a different kind of contribution, not necessarily some of the
negative contributions that started to emerge, and it wasn't just
sport what has happened, by the way now and so
(09:54):
you know, messaging that what I was left reflecting on
was how import sortant messaging is. And you know, sometimes
the central, uh you know, kind of point of the research,
the nuanced discussions and arguments that though are within the research,
are lost because a compelling narrative from a really good
(10:18):
storytellers and the message behind that compelling narrative becomes or
takes primacy and begins to take hold in the popular consciousness.
And as a result of that, it means then that
what was potentially a really good idea start to lose
its impact and grip, and then you know, people question it.
(10:45):
Research comes out and that questions the validity, and then
nobody knows what the hell they're doing. And often then
folk pedagogies and traditional approaches just maintain, maintain there where
an actual fact there could have been challenging in the
different way. I was particularly taken by the research at
the time because for me, I just focused in on
(11:07):
the practice quality, and I was working in time development,
I was obviously working in coaching. It harmonized those two
areas really well, and it basically suggested to me that
if we can provide way higher quality coaching experiences earlier,
you know, that are really positive for young people, but
at the same time means that they get this enriched experience,
(11:29):
then we get a better they get some better opportunities
if some of them decide to step into a journey
of self actualization through sporting performance. But that message sort
of seemed to lose. So anyway, why am I saying that,
Because here was a researcher lamenting the fact that a
(11:52):
storyteller managed to take his research and launch it into
the popular consciousness, but did so in a way that
actually had some negative consequences. And the key thing about
that is that the how important and how impactful the
story is and the messaging behind the story. You know,
(12:17):
so simple phrases. And I've been thinking about this when
you look at the sort of socio political landscape and
the impact of simple phrases. And we saw this a
lot through certainly in the UK with things like Brexit,
where populist politicians would grab on to slogans that would
then capture the popular imagination, for example, get Brexit done.
(12:39):
Usually three words seems to be the way, you know,
and that just gets and then that can be repeated
ad nauseum. More recently, we've seen in America with the
work that Elon Musk's group has been doing in the
Department of Government Efficiency, which is such a fascinating concept,
(13:01):
and this idea of waste for aud and abuse three
words can be repeated over and over captures the public consciousness,
regardless of the facts or realities behind it. You know,
now what that you know, that whole project is being
just whatever you think about it is being justified because
this person is getting waste for auden abuse.
Speaker 1 (13:26):
So that's you know.
Speaker 2 (13:27):
And those kinds of slogans, those kinds of stories, those
narratives ten thousand hour rule, they grab, they catch, you know,
and they become impactful, and you know, it becomes something
that people can easily reference, easily talk about, becomes a
(13:49):
kitchen table type conversation. And I hear people talk about
ten thousand hours all the time, all the time, which
shows how much of an enduring see it has in
the popular consciousness.
Speaker 1 (14:02):
Now.
Speaker 2 (14:06):
The reason, so the realm that came about, the reason
I was thinking about it was a travel to Essex
on Thursday to deliver a workshop for coaches in that area,
and I got to meet a few of them beforehand.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
We grabbed a.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
Coffee and we were just chatting ahead head assignment. These
are a couple of guys who were working actually over there
and doing you know, some really interesting things, actually very
ecologically minded.
Speaker 1 (14:38):
They're part of my.
Speaker 2 (14:40):
Learning community, the Guild, which it meets sort of monthly
for sort of some in depth, heavy duty conversations about
all aspects of coaching. But we do tend to sort
of focus in on we look at it, you know,
through an ecological lens to give of.
Speaker 1 (15:00):
The ecological explorers.
Speaker 2 (15:01):
If you're interested in enjoying by all means, head to
the website. The little button head assessed.
Speaker 1 (15:06):
Joining here and love.
Speaker 2 (15:12):
Yeah, we've got a couple of spaces I think available actually,
so be quick because we can really have so many
in the group, was asked getting a little bit unwieldy.
The last one we had actually had Cal Jones that
are just doing a deep dive into his practice where
he watched some video of him in practice and he
did Q and A and he was in the hot
seat if you like, And we do that from time
(15:34):
to time with members because Cal has been a long
time remember, and if you can't make it, I record
them and then send them out so people get the
opportunity to watch them back afterwards. Anyway, Yeah, so I
was talking to the two particular coaches and one of
them brought up a piece of research that someone attend
(15:54):
to him. Actually, I think he had been sent to
him from a somebody within the governing body, and it
was a piece of research that has the title Talent
needs Trauma. And because you're talking to me about the
fact that one of his areas of focus, the areas
he sort of challenged with is they've got a very
(16:16):
successful team and where he coaches the facility, the university
and the club that are linked to the university are
probably one of the strongest environments in the country. They
have the best players, they have the best facilities, they
have full time coaches one like many others. And as
(16:38):
a result of that, they are sometimes find it a
little bit easy. They don't necessarily get the challenge that
they perhaps could or should.
Speaker 1 (16:48):
And he likes to sort of.
Speaker 2 (16:50):
He wants to create challenge and he wants to create difficulty.
So this paper got sent which he said, talent needs
trauma and there's a suggestion obviously, and you know what
he were talking about was this idea that you know,
challenging situations and the value that has for individuals who
are on a developmental journey of growth. Now, obviously that
(17:14):
particular paper was written by somebody, you know, Dave Collins,
who is no fan of mine for who knows why,
probably got his own reasons. He mainly has found me.
He did not like my message about its billed. He
(17:36):
very much thinks that we should have a much more
nuanced than stance on that. You know, my position is simple.
It is a simple message. And again it corrects about narratives,
isn't it so? Talent needs for all us three words. Again,
the title of that paper has captured the imagination. People
(17:57):
can understand very quickly and easily what it means and
why it's relevant, or what it you know, to a
certain extent, what it can what it could mean, without
necessarily having to get into the meat potatoes of the research.
And one of the things said to me was, you know,
like you know, because I sort of smiled Riley when
(18:19):
I saw him say, he could pick up on my
my response, and so I said, look, you know, I'm I.
I'm a big sort of believer in you know that
you need to sort of have a more enriched understanding
of some of these sorts of things. But you know,
(18:41):
I'll be honest with you. You know, I'm I am fairly
critical of that piece of work. And we talked about
that a little bit, and I explained a little bit why.
I said, because whether or not the actual research suggests
that talent needs trauma, actually when you read it, there
is probably a little more nuance in there than in reality.
(19:05):
It doesn't necessarily the research certainly doesn't back up for
the title talent needs trauma. It's definitely not going that far,
but it does as is often the case with research
from this particular individual, you know, it has a little
bit of a tendency to overclaim. So the research that
(19:30):
is there, you know, the conclusions drawn often are very
very well I find very often aren't really supported by
the research, which I think is really quite problematic. And
so one of the things that I was thinking about
(19:54):
was and I talked about that and said, like, you know,
there's these are sort of some challenging issue and I
actually believe that the again, you know, the narrative and
the slogan, if you'd like, has led to a little
bit of a proliferation of sports culture, particularly in talent
(20:16):
and performance, where to a certain extent, athletic difficulty and
you know, challenging experiences for athletes has become almost justified.
And I'm going going to go beyond difficulty. You know, actually,
(20:40):
I think either poor practice or abusive practice that doesn't
take into consideration the needs of young athletes. And I
see this a lot actually in performance realms, where actually
there's many many organizations that have this perception that perform
months is a different kind of beast, and the behaviors
(21:04):
of practitioners in performance environments needs to be in a
certain way. And I've definitely seen this throughout my experiences.
I'm not saying it's widespread. I'm not going to overclaim that,
but I have definitely seen this, and I know our
friends of mine who have been released from coaching roles,
you know, where their approach was very much about nurturing
(21:28):
and people thriving and creating extremely supportive and positive environments.
They're let go because the organization, and this is what
they say explicitly to this individual, believe they need someone
who is more performance focused, which is.
Speaker 1 (21:48):
Code for tougher.
Speaker 2 (21:52):
And there is this association in the sort of popular
parlance around all this identity of a performance practic being
someone who is uncompromising and like you don't need to
look very far to see that. You know, when you
see coaches who adopt this approach where they're much much
(22:16):
more about a much more human centered and focused great
piece of research by Andy Pitchford. You know, when coaches
in the community space are very child centered, they're sort
of derided as being fluffy brothers, woke intruders, that's the
terms that he used previous podcast, and in the performance realm,
(22:41):
say someone like for example, Gareth Southgate, who I've talked
about on this podcast before, who very much took that
nurturing approach to athletic development and team building, and the
discourse around that approach. You know, given that actually his
(23:02):
you know, the performances that those groups have made, you know,
from a you know, in terms of the team competing
you know, in the latter parts of tournaments with regularity,
you know, and how the approach that and the results
that that brings. But nonetheless, this idea that oh well,
(23:24):
if it'd been tougher aight of one, well I vehemently disagree.
Speaker 1 (23:29):
I think.
Speaker 2 (23:31):
Performance score is very often won and lost on a
knife edge, and the goal of the performance coaches to
continuously have your team performing at the best, at the
highest level it can be, and being in the mix
for winning things. And then you just hope that on
(23:53):
some days that you know, opportunities to prevail and then
you know, you actually get to the particularly when you're
playing in tournaments as opposed to you know, over a
longer period of time.
Speaker 1 (24:05):
You know, it's so variable and.
Speaker 2 (24:07):
There is so much luck involved that it becomes really difficult.
So so thinking about all of this and the messaging anyway,
so to digress slightly, let me just reverse back onto
my central theme, which is so the messaging of this
idea of talent need's trauma has led to this sort of.
Speaker 1 (24:30):
Implicit in culturation of.
Speaker 2 (24:34):
The sort of performanceport world adopting approaches where there is
an assumption that in order for athletes to really progress
into the elite realm, that they need this sort of tough,
tough love style traumatic type experience.
Speaker 1 (24:59):
Andticular coat.
Speaker 2 (25:00):
Was you know, quite taken by this idea as a
sort of you know, this justification for challenge.
Speaker 1 (25:07):
Now, he was smart enough.
Speaker 2 (25:10):
Particularly because he's ecologically minded, to know that that's not
you know, that it's not what it seems to be.
And it's not a question of right, let's get my
bull whips and cattle frogs out in order to get
some performances out of my athletes. That's not what he's done,
and he knows that, and he's smart enough to recognize that.
(25:31):
But there is It showed to me how some of
the messaging in this this kind of research and how
impactful it can be and how much it can kind
of grab hold of popular consciousness. And it seems to
me that that there is a real issue in sports
(25:57):
research where I think researchers have to take a very
very researchers have to take I guess, some real care
over the way they articulate their research, so they, you know,
(26:21):
they should, I think, be very responsible in making sure
that their conclusions and also the way they you know,
kind of present their research in a way that you
know doesn't necessarily come, you know, result in some of
(26:42):
these potentially negative consequences. And as Erickson had it done
to him by somebody else reporting on his research, that's
not necessarily his faults. Albeit some people would argue he
he did make some similar types of claims, but anyway
(27:02):
he would argue if he didn't he didn't was.
Speaker 1 (27:05):
That his work was misrepresented.
Speaker 2 (27:08):
But if you're a researcher and you you almost take
your own research and try to popularize it yourself using
pithy terms that grab the public consciousness, you have to
be you have to be very responsible. And I would
argue accountable when people kind of utilize that sort of
(27:34):
language and say that that's an important part, you know,
and actually start to you know, kind of challenge it
and criticize it.
Speaker 1 (27:42):
And one of the things I've noticed I've noticed. This
is true of.
Speaker 2 (27:48):
Quite a lot of people in the public sphere who
have similar personality traits, some particularly.
Speaker 1 (27:58):
Visible ones the moment.
Speaker 2 (28:00):
In the world of politics, there are very similar personality
traits who it seems want to make outlandish or make
sort of you know, kind of big claims, and then
if things go wrong or there is backlash or there
is pushback, then the response is quite an attacking response.
(28:26):
Don't you dare misrepresent me? I never said that I
didn't do this, that wasn't my fall. I didn't make
that claim death. And I've seen this happen in this
space as well, where that particular titling. I've seen, you know,
people get defensive and say, that's not what the research says,
(28:48):
then misrepresenting, et cetera, et cetera. Read the research. You
made a title that was designed to capture the public imagination.
It was clearly done with that intention, because then you know,
these people are smart, so they know what they're doing.
(29:09):
They know that the research itself doesn't match the title.
But they wrote the title, they published the title. It
was their idea to put that title out there. It
has worked, It has captured public imagination, it has coaches
passing it to other coaches, saying, this is interesting, they
(29:31):
might be useful for you. And if what you know
a lot of people do is they look at the
title and they sort of skim read the research because
most coaches and these people are saying, you know, they're
not academics, they don't necessarily they can't like unpick it all.
And they go, I've got the title, I will look
at the abstract. I'm going to have a skim read through,
or I'll put it through AI and see what the
(29:53):
summaries are. And you know, and you come away with
this message that right, we're going to we need to
get tougher. And then all of a sudden, we see athletes,
athletes having extremely negative experiences and we see a performance
performance culture which or a performance narrative which Leanne Norman
(30:16):
from Leeds Beckett University spoke about in on the podcast
with me Uh, which basically that performance narrative becomes you know,
there's like a story of performance which is actually around
drivers and challenge and difficulty and struggle and all of
(30:38):
these ideas. And this stuff is being challenged by organizations
like the True Athlete Project, Sam Parfitt and Lawrence Khalsted
who's been on the podcast as well, and they have
a different manifesto for performance sport. Lawrence, particularly being an
Olympic fencer, really questioning the experiences he have and it's
(31:00):
becoming increasingly challenged now in the wider sporting landscape where
you know, the UK has had significant Olympic success with
the you know, with the support of lottery money and
athlete development and athlete and lots sort of stuff, but
how that has done has become really important. It's not
medals at all costs now, it's the phrase often used
(31:20):
to try phrase again, but three line slogan, they're medals
with morals winning. Well, these are the ideas that are
coming through. But I think a lot of organizations are
struggling to get a grip of that because they're having
to unshackle themselves from a performance narrative. I know, or
in some in organizations where coaches they're struggling to recruit
performance coaches because they're scared, or the coaches in those
(31:44):
environments are scared, they're worried, they're concerned. I know organizations,
you know, leading coach development initiatives focusing on you know,
kind of ethics and integrity. I'm doing quite a lot
of work with organizations and supports as well myself around
ethical practice in coaching, and have a number of courses
(32:06):
and workshops that I'm leading and developing and turning into
some kind of a bigger, kind of more accessible programmed. Obviously,
reach out to me if you're interested. I'd love to
talk to you an area of great interest. But so
my I guess, coming back to my sort of central thesis,
(32:30):
the issue I think we really face is that I'm
massively supportive and I'm a big advocate for evidence informed practice,
but I think there is it's important that if we
are to take evidence and research, I believe we should
(32:53):
make it more accessible. And I believe part of my
role is sometimes to allow researchers, through their own voices,
to communicate their ideas to practitioners, rather than everything just
being in the article or the book, which is sometimes
you know, extremely dense and difficult to read. So I
act as a sort of interpreter, and you know, ask
the questions in my own search for understanding, but I
(33:20):
asked the questions of the researchers so that hopefully practitioners,
you know, can make sense of them. And take away
the core the core ideas and apply them in practice.
But I do believe that there is a responsibility on
the research community to be responsible and in some respect
(33:43):
own it as well. So like just put your hand
up and do a mere culper and write a follow
up or go on podcasts and say I shouldn't have
said it, I shouldn't have said that, shouldn't use that title.
I'm going to retitle it. I'm going to write the
follow up. I'm gonna, you know, do my level best
(34:07):
to you know, find a better phrase. And I've coined
the phrase for him, talent need turbulence, because yes, there
is definitely an association with you know, challenging and finding
helping people to solve problems and navigate difficulties and you know,
(34:27):
working their way through you know, difficult situations. There is
real value to to doing that. But it's not trauma.
No way, it's not trauma. And if it is trauma,
then you know, I'm out. But turbulence one, so we
could retitle it.
Speaker 1 (34:46):
So there you go.
Speaker 2 (34:47):
Uh. Dog walk diary thought Ravens thinking about narratives, thinking
about the messaging of narratives. I've received criticism for saying
those drills, Well, right back at you. I'm not a
researcher though, so I'm just conveying I am a practitioner.
(35:08):
But also i'm also you know, someone who's in Africa,
and I advocate for a different way of doing things
that are more engaging, and it turns out that it's
also better from a developmental perspective. So I'm going to
be a really strong advocate for that, and I'm going
to own my my my three word slogan, ditch those drills,
(35:28):
and I'm you know, going to back it up and
I'm going to support it, and I'm going to have
a discussion with anybody who doesn't like that. Oh, by
the way, talking of that, I am going to be
at the Emergence or at the Sport Movement Skill Conference
in Saint Paul Minneapolis.
Speaker 1 (35:46):
St.
Speaker 2 (35:46):
Paul, Minnesota on the sixth and twenty seventh of Dunes,
which is hurtling towards us really fast, where I'm going
to be speaking on this very topic, how to ditch
those bills, how to be a little ditcher. If you
can get there, I'd love to see you and come
and say hi. Go over to Emergence emergence, Movements and
(36:11):
search up Support Movement Skill Conference and you'll see it
there and you can register and it'd be great to
see you.
Speaker 1 (36:17):
In the meantime, have a great week. I'll see you
soon
Good morning.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
Looking along with flow, dogwork, diary time. One of the
things I wanted to talk about today was there's been
quite a bit of a number of years ago. Well,
I think I think it was a couple of years ago.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
Now.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
A famous scientist who made massive contribution to.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
The world of.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Expertise science or the science of expertise and skill acquisition
and development and all of those sorts of things, and
to a certain extent, talent development. A very influential body
of research was and as Ericson. And Ericson's research was pioneering,
(00:56):
I suppose you could say.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
Because his research was.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
I guess one of the first pieces of or not
one of the first, probably, but but one of the
ones that really cut through into the mainstream. Maybe his
research that suggested that talent and expertise was less about
(01:24):
innate abilities or inherited gifts, genetic capabilities, things like that,
things that were sort of less less changeable, perhaps less adaptable.
And he suggested that the primary.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
Driver of.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
Ability scale expertise was practice and in it and he
determined but it was a very specific form of practice,
which he referred to as deliberate practice, and the definite
(02:08):
defined deliberate practice as something that was quite effortful, required
a lot of focus and intensity, and had usually had
another individual there providing feedback or support, guiding the sort
of developmental journey. Not necessarily fun, but but you know,
(02:38):
perhaps rewarding.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
Enjoyable, different types of words.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
Anyway, So now that research, I think that got grab
a lot of attention research. Quite a few books were
written at the time, sort of popular science books were
written that you know, kind of spouse those ideas and
(03:03):
spoke to those ideas. This idea that you know, talent
is not a genetic thing. The Talent Code by Daniel
Coyle was particularly influential for me. And then also but
also one of the one of the other books that
I think was really popular that really popularized the idea
was Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers, which is a book.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
I really enjoyed and was really influential on me.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
But one of the things that Gladwell did in that
book which was problematic.
Speaker 1 (03:40):
Was he.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
He actually called, you know, coined the phrase the ten
thousand hour rule, because one of Ericsson's findings was that
the average amount of time spent by experts on deliberate
practice equated to a round about ten thousand hours. And
then Gladwell, obviously being the storyteller that he is, calling
(04:07):
the phrase the ten thousand hour rule, and sort of,
whether deliberately or not, sort of suggested that ten thousand
hours was, you know, the was like, you know, sort
of the number the magic number. So the you know,
the idea that you would, you know, be counting down
(04:29):
the days on the fridge at home. And I have
heard that there are parents who do this nine hundred
and ninety nine and then the next day right gold
medal time, And of course.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
That is preposterous.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
And Erickson didn't suggest that, it suggested that the number
was probably more important than it actually was. But the real,
the real, the problem with that was is that everybody
then became fixated on volume practice volume, and then they
lost interest or lost focus on practice quality. And the
(05:07):
bigger message around deliberate practice for me, was around the
idea of the level of intention and focus and access
to teacher or you know, person giving feedback. And when
you start to look into the biographies of sports people
access to that kind of support, whether it's through a
(05:29):
knowledgeable parent, a knowledgeable sibling, or a knowledgeable other coach
whatever seems to feature very heavily, So again, access to
that becomes a major factor. And of course I've then
spent a lot of my career thinking about and working
(05:51):
towards how can we find ways to a make coaching
better and more so that the kind of experiences we've
of I are aligned. But also how can we make
more how can we make coaching more accessible? How can
we make more people access coaching, and for that matter,
how do we helped coaches to be as inclusive as
(06:15):
they can be? So so yeah, so, now the thing
about glad Now, at the time before he died, Ericson
lamented Gladwell's contribution. Whilst he obviously valued the fact that
you know, Gladwell popularized his research and his research became
(06:40):
part of the conversation around expertise and talent developments and
became for the fairly central feature, he also lamented it
because his his he felt that his his work had
been misrepresented and as a result of it being misrepresented,
(07:03):
the work you know, there was a lot of criticism
of Ericson's work, and the criticism really came from the
idea that you know, this sort of mass volume training
meant that increasingly organizations intentionally or otherwise began to engage
(07:26):
young people in dedicated, like focused training earlier and earlier,
the rationale being that if they're going to in inverted commas,
make it.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
That they need to be really.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
Focusing and putting much more time into their activity their
sports earlier and earlier in order to be able to
hit the numbers to do the volume.
Speaker 1 (07:53):
And then what we then saw was.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
Lots of sports, particularly sports that engage young people and
have young people performing at relatively young ages, but lots
and lots of sports then either bringing in training protocols
that involved volume, lots of volume and therefore asking young
(08:21):
people to make increasing levels of sacrifice in pursuit of
a performance goal or dream because of the requirement to
get the reps in. They either brought those training protocols
in or they used this site, this research to justify
(08:42):
these protocols, which had been in existence for several years
and didn't necessarily have a particularly strong scientific backing, but nonetheless,
but there were just there that's what everyone sort of
common sense what you should do. And this research came
along and it was like here we go, this is
(09:04):
what we should do. Now The reason I tell that
story about the Ericson thing is that I think what
Ericson said, and I'm going to paraphrase what Ericson said
about Gladwell's contribution was something along the lines of, you know,
it becomes challenging when journalists talk tell stories about your
(09:29):
scientific work. And his view was that without that sort
of misrepresentation or perversion of his work, you know, he
feels that he would have his work would have made
a different kind of contribution, not necessarily some of the
negative contributions that started to emerge, and it wasn't just
sport what has happened, by the way now and so
(09:54):
you know, messaging that what I was left reflecting on
was how import sortant messaging is. And you know, sometimes
the central, uh you know, kind of point of the research,
the nuanced discussions and arguments that though are within the research,
are lost because a compelling narrative from a really good
(10:18):
storytellers and the message behind that compelling narrative becomes or
takes primacy and begins to take hold in the popular consciousness.
And as a result of that, it means then that
what was potentially a really good idea start to lose
its impact and grip, and then you know, people question it.
(10:45):
Research comes out and that questions the validity, and then
nobody knows what the hell they're doing. And often then
folk pedagogies and traditional approaches just maintain, maintain there where
an actual fact there could have been challenging in the
different way. I was particularly taken by the research at
the time because for me, I just focused in on
(11:07):
the practice quality, and I was working in time development,
I was obviously working in coaching. It harmonized those two
areas really well, and it basically suggested to me that
if we can provide way higher quality coaching experiences earlier,
you know, that are really positive for young people, but
at the same time means that they get this enriched experience,
(11:29):
then we get a better they get some better opportunities
if some of them decide to step into a journey
of self actualization through sporting performance. But that message sort
of seemed to lose. So anyway, why am I saying that,
Because here was a researcher lamenting the fact that a
(11:52):
storyteller managed to take his research and launch it into
the popular consciousness, but did so in a way that
actually had some negative consequences. And the key thing about
that is that the how important and how impactful the
story is and the messaging behind the story. You know,
(12:17):
so simple phrases. And I've been thinking about this when
you look at the sort of socio political landscape and
the impact of simple phrases. And we saw this a
lot through certainly in the UK with things like Brexit,
where populist politicians would grab on to slogans that would
then capture the popular imagination, for example, get Brexit done.
(12:39):
Usually three words seems to be the way, you know,
and that just gets and then that can be repeated
ad nauseum. More recently, we've seen in America with the
work that Elon Musk's group has been doing in the
Department of Government Efficiency, which is such a fascinating concept,
(13:01):
and this idea of waste for aud and abuse three
words can be repeated over and over captures the public consciousness,
regardless of the facts or realities behind it. You know,
now what that you know, that whole project is being
just whatever you think about it is being justified because
this person is getting waste for auden abuse.
Speaker 1 (13:26):
So that's you know.
Speaker 2 (13:27):
And those kinds of slogans, those kinds of stories, those
narratives ten thousand hour rule, they grab, they catch, you know,
and they become impactful, and you know, it becomes something
that people can easily reference, easily talk about, becomes a
(13:49):
kitchen table type conversation. And I hear people talk about
ten thousand hours all the time, all the time, which
shows how much of an enduring see it has in
the popular consciousness.
Speaker 1 (14:02):
Now.
Speaker 2 (14:06):
The reason, so the realm that came about, the reason
I was thinking about it was a travel to Essex
on Thursday to deliver a workshop for coaches in that area,
and I got to meet a few of them beforehand.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
We grabbed a.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
Coffee and we were just chatting ahead head assignment. These
are a couple of guys who were working actually over there
and doing you know, some really interesting things, actually very
ecologically minded.
Speaker 1 (14:38):
They're part of my.
Speaker 2 (14:40):
Learning community, the Guild, which it meets sort of monthly
for sort of some in depth, heavy duty conversations about
all aspects of coaching. But we do tend to sort
of focus in on we look at it, you know,
through an ecological lens to give of.
Speaker 1 (15:00):
The ecological explorers.
Speaker 2 (15:01):
If you're interested in enjoying by all means, head to
the website. The little button head assessed.
Speaker 1 (15:06):
Joining here and love.
Speaker 2 (15:12):
Yeah, we've got a couple of spaces I think available actually,
so be quick because we can really have so many
in the group, was asked getting a little bit unwieldy.
The last one we had actually had Cal Jones that
are just doing a deep dive into his practice where
he watched some video of him in practice and he
did Q and A and he was in the hot
seat if you like, And we do that from time
(15:34):
to time with members because Cal has been a long
time remember, and if you can't make it, I record
them and then send them out so people get the
opportunity to watch them back afterwards. Anyway, Yeah, so I
was talking to the two particular coaches and one of
them brought up a piece of research that someone attend
(15:54):
to him. Actually, I think he had been sent to
him from a somebody within the governing body, and it
was a piece of research that has the title Talent
needs Trauma. And because you're talking to me about the
fact that one of his areas of focus, the areas
he sort of challenged with is they've got a very
(16:16):
successful team and where he coaches the facility, the university
and the club that are linked to the university are
probably one of the strongest environments in the country. They
have the best players, they have the best facilities, they
have full time coaches one like many others. And as
(16:38):
a result of that, they are sometimes find it a
little bit easy. They don't necessarily get the challenge that
they perhaps could or should.
Speaker 1 (16:48):
And he likes to sort of.
Speaker 2 (16:50):
He wants to create challenge and he wants to create difficulty.
So this paper got sent which he said, talent needs
trauma and there's a suggestion obviously, and you know what
he were talking about was this idea that you know,
challenging situations and the value that has for individuals who
are on a developmental journey of growth. Now, obviously that
(17:14):
particular paper was written by somebody, you know, Dave Collins,
who is no fan of mine for who knows why,
probably got his own reasons. He mainly has found me.
He did not like my message about its billed. He
(17:36):
very much thinks that we should have a much more
nuanced than stance on that. You know, my position is simple.
It is a simple message. And again it corrects about narratives,
isn't it so? Talent needs for all us three words. Again,
the title of that paper has captured the imagination. People
(17:57):
can understand very quickly and easily what it means and
why it's relevant, or what it you know, to a
certain extent, what it can what it could mean, without
necessarily having to get into the meat potatoes of the research.
And one of the things said to me was, you know,
like you know, because I sort of smiled Riley when
(18:19):
I saw him say, he could pick up on my
my response, and so I said, look, you know, I'm I.
I'm a big sort of believer in you know that
you need to sort of have a more enriched understanding
of some of these sorts of things. But you know,
(18:41):
I'll be honest with you. You know, I'm I am fairly
critical of that piece of work. And we talked about
that a little bit, and I explained a little bit why.
I said, because whether or not the actual research suggests
that talent needs trauma, actually when you read it, there
is probably a little more nuance in there than in reality.
(19:05):
It doesn't necessarily the research certainly doesn't back up for
the title talent needs trauma. It's definitely not going that far,
but it does as is often the case with research
from this particular individual, you know, it has a little
bit of a tendency to overclaim. So the research that
(19:30):
is there, you know, the conclusions drawn often are very
very well I find very often aren't really supported by
the research, which I think is really quite problematic. And
so one of the things that I was thinking about
(19:54):
was and I talked about that and said, like, you know,
there's these are sort of some challenging issue and I
actually believe that the again, you know, the narrative and
the slogan, if you'd like, has led to a little
bit of a proliferation of sports culture, particularly in talent
(20:16):
and performance, where to a certain extent, athletic difficulty and
you know, challenging experiences for athletes has become almost justified.
And I'm going going to go beyond difficulty. You know, actually,
(20:40):
I think either poor practice or abusive practice that doesn't
take into consideration the needs of young athletes. And I
see this a lot actually in performance realms, where actually
there's many many organizations that have this perception that perform
months is a different kind of beast, and the behaviors
(21:04):
of practitioners in performance environments needs to be in a
certain way. And I've definitely seen this throughout my experiences.
I'm not saying it's widespread. I'm not going to overclaim that,
but I have definitely seen this, and I know our
friends of mine who have been released from coaching roles,
you know, where their approach was very much about nurturing
(21:28):
and people thriving and creating extremely supportive and positive environments.
They're let go because the organization, and this is what
they say explicitly to this individual, believe they need someone
who is more performance focused, which is.
Speaker 1 (21:48):
Code for tougher.
Speaker 2 (21:52):
And there is this association in the sort of popular
parlance around all this identity of a performance practic being
someone who is uncompromising and like you don't need to
look very far to see that. You know, when you
see coaches who adopt this approach where they're much much
(22:16):
more about a much more human centered and focused great
piece of research by Andy Pitchford. You know, when coaches
in the community space are very child centered, they're sort
of derided as being fluffy brothers, woke intruders, that's the
terms that he used previous podcast, and in the performance realm,
(22:41):
say someone like for example, Gareth Southgate, who I've talked
about on this podcast before, who very much took that
nurturing approach to athletic development and team building, and the
discourse around that approach. You know, given that actually his
(23:02):
you know, the performances that those groups have made, you know,
from a you know, in terms of the team competing
you know, in the latter parts of tournaments with regularity,
you know, and how the approach that and the results
that that brings. But nonetheless, this idea that oh well,
(23:24):
if it'd been tougher aight of one, well I vehemently disagree.
Speaker 1 (23:29):
I think.
Speaker 2 (23:31):
Performance score is very often won and lost on a
knife edge, and the goal of the performance coaches to
continuously have your team performing at the best, at the
highest level it can be, and being in the mix
for winning things. And then you just hope that on
(23:53):
some days that you know, opportunities to prevail and then
you know, you actually get to the particularly when you're
playing in tournaments as opposed to you know, over a
longer period of time.
Speaker 1 (24:05):
You know, it's so variable and.
Speaker 2 (24:07):
There is so much luck involved that it becomes really difficult.
So so thinking about all of this and the messaging anyway,
so to digress slightly, let me just reverse back onto
my central theme, which is so the messaging of this
idea of talent need's trauma has led to this sort of.
Speaker 1 (24:30):
Implicit in culturation of.
Speaker 2 (24:34):
The sort of performanceport world adopting approaches where there is
an assumption that in order for athletes to really progress
into the elite realm, that they need this sort of tough,
tough love style traumatic type experience.
Speaker 1 (24:59):
Andticular coat.
Speaker 2 (25:00):
Was you know, quite taken by this idea as a
sort of you know, this justification for challenge.
Speaker 1 (25:07):
Now, he was smart enough.
Speaker 2 (25:10):
Particularly because he's ecologically minded, to know that that's not
you know, that it's not what it seems to be.
And it's not a question of right, let's get my
bull whips and cattle frogs out in order to get
some performances out of my athletes. That's not what he's done,
and he knows that, and he's smart enough to recognize that.
(25:31):
But there is It showed to me how some of
the messaging in this this kind of research and how
impactful it can be and how much it can kind
of grab hold of popular consciousness. And it seems to
me that that there is a real issue in sports
(25:57):
research where I think researchers have to take a very
very researchers have to take I guess, some real care
over the way they articulate their research, so they, you know,
(26:21):
they should, I think, be very responsible in making sure
that their conclusions and also the way they you know,
kind of present their research in a way that you
know doesn't necessarily come, you know, result in some of
(26:42):
these potentially negative consequences. And as Erickson had it done
to him by somebody else reporting on his research, that's
not necessarily his faults. Albeit some people would argue he
he did make some similar types of claims, but anyway
(27:02):
he would argue if he didn't he didn't was.
Speaker 1 (27:05):
That his work was misrepresented.
Speaker 2 (27:08):
But if you're a researcher and you you almost take
your own research and try to popularize it yourself using
pithy terms that grab the public consciousness, you have to
be you have to be very responsible. And I would
argue accountable when people kind of utilize that sort of
(27:34):
language and say that that's an important part, you know,
and actually start to you know, kind of challenge it
and criticize it.
Speaker 1 (27:42):
And one of the things I've noticed I've noticed. This
is true of.
Speaker 2 (27:48):
Quite a lot of people in the public sphere who
have similar personality traits, some particularly.
Speaker 1 (27:58):
Visible ones the moment.
Speaker 2 (28:00):
In the world of politics, there are very similar personality
traits who it seems want to make outlandish or make
sort of you know, kind of big claims, and then
if things go wrong or there is backlash or there
is pushback, then the response is quite an attacking response.
(28:26):
Don't you dare misrepresent me? I never said that I
didn't do this, that wasn't my fall. I didn't make
that claim death. And I've seen this happen in this
space as well, where that particular titling. I've seen, you know,
people get defensive and say, that's not what the research says,
(28:48):
then misrepresenting, et cetera, et cetera. Read the research. You
made a title that was designed to capture the public imagination.
It was clearly done with that intention, because then you know,
these people are smart, so they know what they're doing.
(29:09):
They know that the research itself doesn't match the title.
But they wrote the title, they published the title. It
was their idea to put that title out there. It
has worked, It has captured public imagination, it has coaches
passing it to other coaches, saying, this is interesting, they
(29:31):
might be useful for you. And if what you know
a lot of people do is they look at the
title and they sort of skim read the research because
most coaches and these people are saying, you know, they're
not academics, they don't necessarily they can't like unpick it all.
And they go, I've got the title, I will look
at the abstract. I'm going to have a skim read through,
or I'll put it through AI and see what the
(29:53):
summaries are. And you know, and you come away with
this message that right, we're going to we need to
get tougher. And then all of a sudden, we see athletes,
athletes having extremely negative experiences and we see a performance
performance culture which or a performance narrative which Leanne Norman
(30:16):
from Leeds Beckett University spoke about in on the podcast
with me Uh, which basically that performance narrative becomes you know,
there's like a story of performance which is actually around
drivers and challenge and difficulty and struggle and all of
(30:38):
these ideas. And this stuff is being challenged by organizations
like the True Athlete Project, Sam Parfitt and Lawrence Khalsted
who's been on the podcast as well, and they have
a different manifesto for performance sport. Lawrence, particularly being an
Olympic fencer, really questioning the experiences he have and it's
(31:00):
becoming increasingly challenged now in the wider sporting landscape where
you know, the UK has had significant Olympic success with
the you know, with the support of lottery money and
athlete development and athlete and lots sort of stuff, but
how that has done has become really important. It's not
medals at all costs now, it's the phrase often used
(31:20):
to try phrase again, but three line slogan, they're medals
with morals winning. Well, these are the ideas that are
coming through. But I think a lot of organizations are
struggling to get a grip of that because they're having
to unshackle themselves from a performance narrative. I know, or
in some in organizations where coaches they're struggling to recruit
performance coaches because they're scared, or the coaches in those
(31:44):
environments are scared, they're worried, they're concerned. I know organizations,
you know, leading coach development initiatives focusing on you know,
kind of ethics and integrity. I'm doing quite a lot
of work with organizations and supports as well myself around
ethical practice in coaching, and have a number of courses
(32:06):
and workshops that I'm leading and developing and turning into
some kind of a bigger, kind of more accessible programmed. Obviously,
reach out to me if you're interested. I'd love to
talk to you an area of great interest. But so
my I guess, coming back to my sort of central thesis,
(32:30):
the issue I think we really face is that I'm
massively supportive and I'm a big advocate for evidence informed practice,
but I think there is it's important that if we
are to take evidence and research, I believe we should
(32:53):
make it more accessible. And I believe part of my
role is sometimes to allow researchers, through their own voices,
to communicate their ideas to practitioners, rather than everything just
being in the article or the book, which is sometimes
you know, extremely dense and difficult to read. So I
act as a sort of interpreter, and you know, ask
the questions in my own search for understanding, but I
(33:20):
asked the questions of the researchers so that hopefully practitioners,
you know, can make sense of them. And take away
the core the core ideas and apply them in practice.
But I do believe that there is a responsibility on
the research community to be responsible and in some respect
(33:43):
own it as well. So like just put your hand
up and do a mere culper and write a follow
up or go on podcasts and say I shouldn't have
said it, I shouldn't have said that, shouldn't use that title.
I'm going to retitle it. I'm going to write the
follow up. I'm gonna, you know, do my level best
(34:07):
to you know, find a better phrase. And I've coined
the phrase for him, talent need turbulence, because yes, there
is definitely an association with you know, challenging and finding
helping people to solve problems and navigate difficulties and you know,
(34:27):
working their way through you know, difficult situations. There is
real value to to doing that. But it's not trauma.
No way, it's not trauma. And if it is trauma,
then you know, I'm out. But turbulence one, so we
could retitle it.
Speaker 1 (34:46):
So there you go.
Speaker 2 (34:47):
Uh. Dog walk diary thought Ravens thinking about narratives, thinking
about the messaging of narratives. I've received criticism for saying
those drills, Well, right back at you. I'm not a
researcher though, so I'm just conveying I am a practitioner.
(35:08):
But also i'm also you know, someone who's in Africa,
and I advocate for a different way of doing things
that are more engaging, and it turns out that it's
also better from a developmental perspective. So I'm going to
be a really strong advocate for that, and I'm going
to own my my my three word slogan, ditch those drills,
(35:28):
and I'm you know, going to back it up and
I'm going to support it, and I'm going to have
a discussion with anybody who doesn't like that. Oh, by
the way, talking of that, I am going to be
at the Emergence or at the Sport Movement Skill Conference
in Saint Paul Minneapolis.
Speaker 1 (35:46):
St.
Speaker 2 (35:46):
Paul, Minnesota on the sixth and twenty seventh of Dunes,
which is hurtling towards us really fast, where I'm going
to be speaking on this very topic, how to ditch
those bills, how to be a little ditcher. If you
can get there, I'd love to see you and come
and say hi. Go over to Emergence emergence, Movements and
(36:11):
search up Support Movement Skill Conference and you'll see it
there and you can register and it'd be great to
see you.
Speaker 1 (36:17):
In the meantime, have a great week. I'll see you
soon
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