Informed Coach, Informed Leader, Informed Practitioner
Paul Gamble
Crimes Against Critical Thinking in the Face of ...

As the saying goes ‘never let the truth get in the way of a good story’. But it truly is quite remarkable how readily we will override our capacity for critical thinking in the face of a story we want to hear. As we will see, if the message on offer appeals enough to a particular desire or bias, it appears we will happily overlook whatever shortcomings in methodology and inconvenient flaws in logic are apparent. In this way, we can be active participants in ‘group think’.

We might then question our roles in upholding the conventions that abound in performance sport. Upon closer inspection, there is rarely logic in convention. It is beguilingly easy to fall prey to participating in such group delusion. On some level, we could argue that we willingly enter into this to prop up a particular tenet of our belief system in relation to theory and practice.

Crimes Against Critical Thinking in the Face of a Good Story
Informed Coach, Informed Sport Parent, Informed Leader
Paul Gamble
Uniting Participation and Performance

There is a strange insistence that participation and performance are entirely distinct and never the twain shall meet. But is there really no common ground to be found here? I will argue that participation and performance are NOT in fact mutually exclusive - especially in the case of youth sport. There is in fact plenty of overlap. So why should we keep them apart? Is it possible that bringing participation and performance back under the same roof might provide benefits in both directions?

Uniting Participation and Performance
Informed Leader, Informed Practitioner, Informed Coach
Paul Gamble
The Tyranny of Safeguarding in Sport

A provocative title, so allow me to specify at the outset what exactly I am highlighting and the limits of the argument. Firstly and most importantly, let me make it clear that I am excluding from the discussion the necessary and vitally important domain of child-protection and the protection of vulnerable adults under law. What I am specifically referring to is the concept creep that has seen the safeguarding approach extended to sportsmen and women at senior level, who are otherwise (in the eyes of the law) deemed responsible adults capable of providing informed consent, making decisions and advocating on their own behalf. I am also excluding clear cases of misconduct that unamibiguously violate professional ethics and the boundaries of the athlete-coach relationship - for instance, sexually inappropriate behaviour or physical abuse. What I am also highlighting is the mission creep of those charged with investigating such claims and the present danger of over-reach. Why I feel these trends need to be challenged is that the safeguarding system if left unchecked threatens to penalise coaches simply for carrying out their proper duties.

The Tyranny of Safeguarding in Sport
Paul Gamble
Special Post: Choosing the Right Programme

EDITOR’S NOTE:

To celebrate the imminent release of the new title ‘Sports Parenting: Negotiating the Challenges of the Youth Sports Journey to Help Kids Thrive’ we are sharing this special post. The excerpt featured is from the chapter ‘Choosing the Right Programme’.

Environment is everything when it comes to developing talent. Parents are naturally highly motivated to find the programme that provides most optimal conditions to allow their child’s talents to flourish. Seeing past the sales pitch and making the right choice is however not a straightforward proposition. Being successful on this endeavour begins with understanding the key features that make for the most conducive setting to enable young performers to realise their athletic potential. In this chapter we aim to provide parents with some criteria to guide the search.

Special Post: Choosing the Right Programme
Informed Coach, Informed Leader, Informed Practitioner
Paul Gamble
Ingredients for Progress: Heretics and Dissent

The inclination to question is not common - looking back, most of us would admit that we uncritically accepted what we were taught. There is a general assumption that authority figures know what they are doing, so it may not necessarily occur to us that the consensus view that is espoused might be flawed or even untrue. Yet it is always worth allowing for the possibility that the prevailing view may not necessarily have a sound basis or at least might be missing something important. It might serve us well to consciously foster in ourselves and others a readiness to challenge preconceived ideas and the received wisdom, simply in the interests of our own enlightenment. More broadly, it merits highlighting that willingness to question and to offer competing ideas are necessary ingredients for progress. Clearly this has some important implications for leaders and organisations, as well as for the professions and fields of study that we are part of.

Ingredients for Progress: Heretics and Dissent

Consequences

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Diversity and Inclusion in Elite Sport

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Diversity and Inclusion in Elite Sport

Elite sport is not immune to shifts in cultural norms and conventions in wider society. The number of diversity and inclusion roles have increased 60% in the UK over the past five years, and this has started to be mirrored in sporting organisations. The governance and national sport systems for Olympic sports are government funded, so it perhaps unsurprising that these organisations might be prompted to adopt policy that is becoming the norm in other sectors. That said, professional sports have also begun to follow this trend, notably in the US. In this post we consider what diversity and inclusion means in the context of sport at elite level.

Honing Professional Judgement and Decision-Making

Honing Professional Judgement and Decision-Making

Coaching is characterised as a judgement and decision making process. Practitioners and indeed most professionals who work in human performance are de facto coaches of humans. As such, the quest that unites coaches in different sports and practitioners across disciplines is to develop our professional judgement and our ability to make better choices and decisions over time. There is no endpoint to this journey and so the need to continually hone our judgement and decision making applies irrespective of what stage we are might be at in our career. That said, the question of how we best develop these skills for practitioners at the start of their career versus catering for these aspects in continuing professional development thereafter will likely require different solutions.

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Where Do We Draw the Line in Elite Sport?

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Where Do We Draw the Line in Elite Sport?

Recent scandals, including multiple allegations and criminal cases of serious abuse, have rocked sport around the world. Arguably the most egregious example is the case of USA gymnastics, which should serve as a cautionary tale for everybody involved in sport at all levels. Against this backdrop, there has been something of an avalanche of allegations of bullying and improper conduct that are presently playing out in the public sphere. In turn, this has prompted calls for national sporting bodies to be less obsessively driven by winning medals. The perils of the ‘winning at all costs’ mentality have been cited as the reason behind the toxic environments and climate of fear that has been alleged in multiple sports, notably in the investigations that are presently ongoing within the UK. But of course winning on the world stage does come at a cost, both financial and personal. So where should we draw the line?

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Battling Hubris: The Perils of Success

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Battling Hubris: The Perils of Success

Ascending to the top is a major accomplishment in any domain. But it could be argued that it is here that the greatest challenge begins. A number of teams have won the championship, but only a very small fraction are able to back up this success. Something about reaching the summit makes it less likely that those individuals will repeat the feat thereafter. Aside from the added motivation for opponents eager to knock the champions off their perch, the experience of success in itself serves to undermine our efforts and reduces the odds of subsequent success. With this post we take a deep dive into the paradoxical effects of success, identify what factors what should be vigilant for, and explore some potential countermeasures to increase our odds of sustaining success.

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Special Post: 'The Illogic of Being Data Driven'

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Special Post: 'The Illogic of Being Data Driven'

In the digital era there is a great onus on being ‘data driven’ across all domains. The drive to be objective and to quantify input and output is eminently understandable. The well-worn phrase that gets thrown around is ‘how can you manage something if you don’t measure it?’. We do however need to be very careful about what metrics we use as a proxy for the thing we are attempting to evaluate. There is inevitably a separation between the measure we can objectively quantify and the complex entity that it represents. We need to be very confident about the specificity and sensitivity of the particular measure in relation to what we are seeking to evaluate, to avoid false positives (detecting something that isn’t there) and false negatives (failing to detect something that is there). On a more fundamental level, complex phenomena defy simple measurement.

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First Do No Harm: Iatrogenics in Coaching and Practice

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First Do No Harm: Iatrogenics in Coaching and Practice

Iatrogenics is a term most commonly used in medicine. As attested by the Hippocratic oath (and the premise ‘First Do No Harm’), the medical profession is familiar with the concept that an intervention may pose potential risks and unforeseen consequences. In contrast, the idea that we may either not be helping or through our involvement inadvertently making the athlete worse off does not necessarily occur to coaches and practitioners. In this post we explore how iatrogenics applies in the context of coaching and practice, and make the case for considering potential risks as well as benefits before we intervene.