Lessons from a football coach

As much as I love my job, I've got a real passion for football. I enjoy understanding different coaching philosophies and how that drives the tactical side of the ‘beautiful game’.

I recently listened to a great podcast featuring Matt Wells – the grandson of the Tottenham Hotspur double-winning legend, Cliff Jones – who is now one of the first team coaches at Spurs. He shared plenty of insight on how Ange Postecoglou approaches his job. ‘Big Ange’ has restored confidence to the Spurs team this season, and has got them playing in a fast-paced, attacking, stylish, swashbuckling manner that has – other than the odd slip-up – put a smile on the faces of supporters. As a fan, it feels light years away from the negative, turgid, conservatism we endured over the previous few years. It sounds like the Spurs coaching team has warmed to Big Ange as much as the fans have.

So how has Postecoglou achieved this? And what lessons are there for those of us that spend most of our time in meetings rooms or sat at a desk?

Matt Wells shared a number of anecdotes, but the three takeaways for me are:

1. You play the way you train. Spurs try to play every game with a fast tempo and high intensity. That takes work though and you can't just turn up and do that on a match day. You have to train the habit. As a result, the training sessions are configured so that the tempo and intensity is at a very high-level from the first minute until the end of the session (see next point). What’s that mean for us in our jobs? Perhaps we think about how we prepare for big client meetings and how we manage our training.
2. It's a team sport. Training sessions are configured so that each of the coaches runs a different part of the overall session – part of the logic for this is to maintain the high energy levels throughout the entire session. It keeps the tempo up, because as the players move from one coach to another, there’s a new voice and a new set of rules/asks/standards to drive everyone forward. I think it’s a sign of strength to not monopolise a meeting or conversation – we all respond well to hearing a variety of voices and opinions over a prolonged period of time.
3. Empower your team. Big Ange shares the overall direction and makes it clear what outcome he wants to achieve on a match day, but he leaves the individual coaches the freedom to design and run their own sessions across the week, building up to each match. Every coach has a vital role to play in making the pieces of the jigsaw come together effectively, but they’re given autonomy and that ensures they are motivated and invested in the outcome too. Clearly this is relevant to all of us, as is the importance of debriefing and providing feedback after each session. Apparently one of Postecoglou’s pet hates is when a coach starts a session before the players have all fully understood the rules of what they're trying to do, so the coach then has to pause the session, go back through the instructions, and then re-start it. That’s counter to the strategy of maintaining the high level of intensity from beginning to end.

Perhaps the link between football coaching in the Premier League and the world of work for me in the media and entertainment industries is a bit too tenuous, but I do think we can all look at leaders and role models in different industries and think about what we can learn from them and what elements of their approach we can take into our own worlds.

Given my circle of friends and colleagues, I expect more Arsenal fans will be reading this than Spurs fans, so please be kind with your comments ??