Cutting Diamonds - Developing A $1bn Player! (Part One)
Brilliant cut diamonds have 58 facets that brings to life a sparkle that have mesmerised men and women for eons. And did you know that you will have to sort through 1,25bn pieces of grit the same size as a 1 carat diamond to find it? Luckily, we don’t have to screen that many players to find one diamond amongst them, but the ratio is still fairly high. Perhaps only 1:10 will become a better than average player, 1:100 an excellent player worth a million, and 1:1000 may become an elite player worth a billion, like the Renaldo’s and Messi’s of this world.
Would you like to develop players worth that much? You CAN! If you believe YOU CAN and you are prepared to do what it takes! All it requires is for you to read this article with an OPEN MIND, be receptive to new ideas, and consider what you will do about it!
The problem in most instances is not a lack of diamond material, it is a lack of understanding what it will take to bring out the brilliance! To cut (develop) the 58 facets (qualities) that superstars display time and again on the field of play, you need diamond cutters (Elite Performance Engineers) and time! And time is something most clubs do not wish to spend on developing players, not realising they are sitting on a diamond mine! They want immediate results and will base most management decisions on the current need to win, and neglect to plan for the future and replacement of players as they grow older or are sold to other clubs.
After all it is easier to buy a fully assembled piece of furniture than to build your own. Very few clubs are prepared to invest sufficient time and money in setting new development standards and cultivating their own superstars, they’ll rather go shopping in the transfer market than create a pipeline of up-and-coming stars through a well-thought-out talent development structure. One that does not let the diamonds fall through the sieve on the sorting table.
Everyone knows that the hardest thing in the world to cut is a diamond. Right? Wrong!
The hardest thing to cut into is a fixed mindset!
It is near impossible to change someone’s mind if they have already made it up! Try and convince a ‘Flat Earth’ believer that the planet is a ball and you’ll quickly discover how difficult it is to get someone to change their ingrained believe systems.
“The darkest place in the universe is inside a closed mind”
Some people are just not open to new ways of thinking or trying different technology, methodology, or to explore other alternatives to improve their own or their team’s performance. “We have always done it this way and that is the way it’s going to stay!” “Why fix it if it isn’t broke?” “Don’t try and reinvent the wheel!”
Resistance to change is a default state of mind with a lot of people and they will avoid effecting changes that may feel uncomfortable to them, even though history tells us that to resist change and adaptation is the surest way to become extinct! End of story!
Someday someone will wake up one morning and realise it is not necessary to shave or brush your teeth with your right hand if you are right handed; you can shave and brush your teeth with your left hand, even though it may feel awkward at first. It is not necessary to take the same route to work every day, or to go to the same holiday destination year after year. There are many different routes, and some may turn out to be better and faster to get from point A to point B at a certain time of day, and there are other more beautiful places you will discover if you venture outside your comfort zone.
How will you ever discover a better way if you never risk it? One just need to look around you to see how new discoveries and improvements in technology are changing our lives every day! Are you going to resist change? Or are you going to initiate change?
I have a few tough questions for you! Are champions born or bred? Is it nature over nurture? Do you select young players for your development teams based on their current ability to participate and be successful in events taking place in the near future? Or do you identify talent based upon a prediction of future performance using scientific tools to evaluate current physical, technical, tactical and psychological qualities, and how that may change in future?
Talent selection is pretty simple; talent identification is an art. One yields great results today; the other builds elite athletes and winning teams for the future. If you select rather than identify then you will more than likely exclude a lot of talent that currently may be less skilled physically, technically, and tactically, but because they have a greater desire and eagerness to learn and grow will eventually overtake, outlast, and outperform the early bloomers later on.
Around 70% of the athletes in sport who are considered ‘talented’ are leaving the sport even before hitting their years as a teenager. However, this is the age that they can develop skills, are inspired, can be coached (correctly) and are able to grow in all other aspects, not just sport technical. That takes time, experience in the right setting and a safe environment
The biggest mistake clubs can make is to cull players at an early stage and not to use scientific and psychometric tools to assess the potential of candidates. Selection of talent by an individual is by its very nature preferentially prejudiced, whereas using identification tools remains scientific and objective, having the same outcome every time regardless who applies the tools.
How can one best assist one’s players to become the best they can be if we don’t have an idea what makes them ‘tick’? Continuing to use a ‘shotgun’ approach (one size fits all) to develop one’s team into a winning team is no longer good enough if you want to beat the best. You have to target the developmental needs of each individual player in the team like a sniper does if you want to bring the best out in them. First, he focuses on his target, lines it up in the crosshairs, considers the elevation, cross winds, the range, etc, before squeezing the trigger in order to hit the target.
BE SPECIFIC! BE VERY SPECIFIC!
That is the secret of success! Pointing a shotgun in the general direction of the target you want to hit is hoping you’ll succeed, not KNOWING you’ll succeed! Has it ever worked to treat everyone in the same manner? Do YOU want to be treated the same as everyone else, or do you want to be treated in a way specific to your personal needs? Will you change your mind about screening talent, or are you still going to stick with your old way of selecting talent, rather than using new and better methods of identifying talent?
Psychometric Testing* of a player’s basic psychological characteristics is quite simple and effective to determine their psychological makeup in order to know how to best design and manage an individually designed development programme for each player. After all, no two individuals respond in exactly the same way to the same stimuli. Therefore, it is imperative to assess each player for:
- Coachability
- Work Ethic
- Competitiveness
- Accountability
- Self-Control
- Perseverance
- Game Preparedness
- Mental Strength & Toughness
- Focus & Concentration
- Accident Proneness
- Need for Security
- Physical Toughness to endure discomfort and pain
- Team Spirit
- Ability to deal with intimidation
- Sportsmanship
- Passion
- Courage
- Decisiveness
When we consider the Profile of an Elite Performance Athlete it is obvious we need to find more effective ways to identify those rough diamonds (with hidden and underdeveloped skills) that can be cut and polished into brilliant players! You can take an average player and make him a good player, and you can take a good player and make him an excellent player, but you need undeveloped potential to begin with to make him a brilliant player!
And then it is off to the diamond cutting factory (Academy) to bring out the true value of the rough diamonds you have identified and are prepared to spend time on cutting, shaping, polishing, until finally you have a finished product that will be worth 100 to 1000 times more than what you’ve put in to develop the talent.
What are the 58 facets (qualities) that needs to be cut (developed)? 33 on the crown and 25 on the pavilion?
We will discuss that in a bit more detail in Part Two of this article for those of you interested in developing a $1bn player, and I’m not exaggerating! You CAN develop players worth millions, if not billions!
I do want to leave you with this thought …
Does it not make good business sense to invest in developing players, not only for your own succession needs, but to supply the world market with highly polished and fully developed players worth millions?
Become a producer of superstars, and not only will you own a top team in the world, you will enjoy great satisfaction in having developed champions, AND you will have a business worth a lot of money!
*Sample report of Psychometric Testing are available upon request