Bring your expert to the party.

Succession is complex. We’ve seen 14 England managers come and go since Sir Alf Ramsey guided England to their first and only World Cup win. A reframing was needed.

The new England setup with Gareth Southgate behind the wheel somehow feels different, there is an air of freedom and an undercurrent of confidence. It finally feels like there is a strategy. Dare I say it, even trust.

What makes Southgate different from the 14 managers that have been before? His background team resembles the modern-day startup, rather than the archaic behemoths of the past. He's more Ben Francis than Philip Green and understands that experience beyond the confines of football will create the change that is needed.

"I like listening to people who know things that I don't, that's how you learn." Gareth Southgate

A fresh perspective that Clive Woodwood would call ‘teachability’ is likely to have been the catalyst for the energy and passion that we’ve seen throughout the tournament. A mindset that creates a hunger within a team, whatever the environment. Perhaps akin to a startup disrupting an industry that has yet to be shaken up. Unlike a startup however, there is no noise to cut through, it’s not about first player advantage, they’re not Brewdog ringing the bell of ‘look at me’. They’re building for the long term. A team that has been given the freedom to creatively expand their boundaries and challenge the convention of the sport, not be influenced by disingenuous boardrooms, owners or agents.

Like Francis and Gymshark, a company and team seeing a boundless amount of traction, Southgate has brought in precision. Precision from a wide field of performance-specific experts. Not clones or dinosaurs of industries with decades of legacy habits or accumulated behaviors. Clones can't step out of their sphere of vision with biases and misplaced incentives. Instead, we see a team of strategic, yet executional pros. All have achieved greatness, irrespective of their industry and all, intentionally, outside the walls of the football changing room.

“Members (all unpaid volunteers) include Sir Dave Brailsford, a cycling coach, Colonel Lucy Giles, a college commander at the Sandhurst Military Academy, the Olympic rower Kath Grainger, Manoj Badale, a tech entrepreneur, the rugby coach Stuart Lancaster and David Sheepshanks”?Source – BBC

They’re experts without the ego. Nothing to prove to the club boardrooms and no incentive other than to be part of re-building what has become, let’s face it, a national failing.

I hope the post-covid world encourages more of this openness to learn and adapt beyond what once was. Expertise is hugely transferrable across industries not just within departments or business units. A fusion of experience and expertise is the magic dust that will super drive culture and ultimately performance.

What have I learned from this? I recognise the need to look beyond the boundaries outside my conscious hemisphere. Why? Because change and success are often found far from the crowd.