What Swan Lake has to do with developing your people
‘In Sweden’s far north, a group of people are waiting to go out on stage and perform. Part of their performance involves a rendition of Swan Lake, the ballet. The troupe is half-excited, half-nervous. This would be normal were they seasoned performers. The fact that they are professional footballers makes this somewhat extraordinary.’
So begins Chapter Eleven of Staying the Distance: The Lessons From Sport that Business Leaders Have Been Missing.
The Chapter is titled ‘How to Develop Your People in a Long-Term Way.’ So what’s the link between the introductory story, and the chapter name?
When we think about learning and development, we often think quite narrowly. Considering skills, knowledge and insight that relate specifically to our role and remit. But do you ever consider how broader training, learning and development could improve your, and your people’s, performance in their job?
The footballers in the story above were male players at Östersunds FK, a club based in the far north of Sweden. Coached at the time by Graham Potter, this initiative was part of the Culture Academy that had been set up at the club in response to the dark times in which they found themselves. Relegated to the fourth tier of Swedish football for the first time ever in 2010, the Board sat down and planned out an ambitious strategy to get the team to the Allsvenskan (the top tier of Swedish football) and eventually qualify for Europe. Part of this strategy was a bold and unorthodox plan to establish a Culture Academy at the club. The Academy would work with players and staff in areas outside of their comfort zones (music, theatre, books, ballet), help them develop as human beings and, ultimately they believed, improve the team’s chances of victory on the pitch. And so it proved. By 2015, the club had been promoted to the Allsvenskan, in 2017 they managed to win their first major trophy (and so get into Europe), and they qualified for the Group Stage at the first time of asking in the 2017/18 EUFA Europa League. As Club Secretary Lasse Lanin commented in 2019, ‘In football, you have to be brave and know how to think and how others are thinking, including your own teammates and the opposition. The Academy is one way of making the players and staff braver and more creative, which in turn will make them better at decision-making.’
And this isn’t a one-off. In the same chapter of Staying the Distance I highlight the stories of Venus and Serena Williams, two of the most successful, and long-standing, tennis players of all time. Coached by their father, Richard Williams, he took a rather unusual approach to their development in a variety of ways. One of the areas in which he deviated from the norm was in how he encouraged the development of a broader range of interests in his girls, alongside their tennis. This is something that the author David Epstein has written about extensively. Epstein argues in his book Range: How Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World that modern life requires range. The ability to make connections across domains and ideas. That bringing experience and perspective from other areas can enhance your performance over the long term.
And it’s not just about improved ability in your role. It’s also linked to better and more sustained motivation. The importance of broader development is increasingly recognised in elite sport, and so in the realms of ‘elite’ performance anywhere. Serena and Venus Williams both developed a variety of different skills, academic qualifications and business interests whilst playing tennis at a sustained world-beating level. Developing the person as well as the player equals better long-term performance.
So what does this mean for you and your people?
We know that developing your people is critical. To performance, to retention, to recruitment. But less talked about is the value of developing in a way that goes above and beyond skillsets directly linked to the day-job. Organisations need people to be skilled at their jobs. To have the right capabilities, skillsets and attributes. And for the individual, sufficient focus and dedication enables them to build and develop towards mastery of their role. This doesn’t mean however that they can’t also develop in other areas: develop other, related skillsets; broaden out their spheres of understanding. And in fact, this can enhance their performance, and mastery, over the long term.
Practical tips
One of the best examples of this that I have come across is the legal team of a large financial institution. At the beginning of each week, a member of the team brings some insight and knowhow to the team meeting. Whilst it can be linked to the law, they are encouraged to focus on topics and areas that are tangential, relevant, useful, but not directly about the law. After the knowledge share, each team member goes away and finds five follow-up pieces of insight on the topic, and each of them shares this at the team meeting at the end of the week. It’s a brilliant way to engage, motivate and develop your people in a way that goes beyond the short term. That ensures they each bring a richer and deeper set of skills, knowledge and attributes to their roles.
Other organisations support their people in learning and development that very much sits outside of their day jobs. Actively encouraging their staff to apply for funding in areas that develop them as a person, rather than just as someone who fills a particular role. Team away days where the activities take people out of their comfort zones, where they learn new things about themselves and their team mates, again can be a great tool in this area. Just think back to the players in Östersunds FK’s squad.
For more on this or any aspect of leadership, with a healthy dose of mindset, sport, and I hope usefulness thrown in, do feel free to browse through all the articles in the Huddle, or get in touch with me directly on catherine@sportandbeyond.co.uk. For more detail on the area this blog covers, as well as many others, please do order a copy of my book - Staying the Distance: The Lessons From Sport That Business Leaders Have Been Missing. Links to buy the book can be found here