In our Coaching Inisghts posts we highlight and comment on useful and relevant coaching stories in the media. Scroll to the bottom of the post for a link to the original article.

This is a great read about the importance of focusing on the details. It is about the coach of the British Cycling team but the lessons are applicable to coaches in any sport—hockey coaches as well. Here are some of my favorite quotes from the article.

“When Sir Dave Brailsford became head of British Cycling in 2002, the team had almost no record of success: British cycling had only won a single gold medal in its 76-year history. That quickly changed under Sir Dave’s leadership. At the 2008 Beijing Olympics, his squad won seven out of 10 gold medals available in track cycling, and they matched the achievement at the London Olympics four years later.”

An amazing turn-around for sure. How has he able to achieve such success?

“Sir Dave… gambled that if the team broke down everything they could think of that goes into competing on a bike, and then improved each element by 1%, they would achieve a significant aggregated increase in performance.”

Amazing results can be achieved when you focus on the details. How do you know what to focus on?

“You have to identify the critical success factors and ensure they are in place, and then focus your improvements around them.”

One of the critical success factors they identified is finding the right people and then figuring out how to make them better.

“It struck me that we should think small, not big, and adopt a philosophy of continuous improvement through the aggregation of marginal gains. Forget about perfection; focus on progression, and compound the improvements.”

It is interesting to think how this philosophy could be applied to a hockey team.

Could your players improve by 1% each practice? How? What if your coaches improved by 1% each practice as well? How quickly would you see a difference? By the end of the first month? What could you achieve by the end of the year?

If you want results like this there needs to be daily focus on the details from both the players and the coaching staff. Ask yourself:

How can you improve your practices so your players get more out of them? Can you help your coaching staff become more knowledgeable? Are you taking advantage of the latest training methods and tools?

“Focus on progression, and compound the improvements” is the good advice that I take from this article. It is by focusing on the details on a daily basis that players build great skills and habits. And it is this process of daily improvement that you want your players and coaches to strive for throughout the season.

You can read the full article here:

How 1% Performance Improvements Lead to Olympic Gold
By Eben Harrell
Harvard Business Review

https://hbr.org/2015/10/how-1-performance-improvements-led-to-olympic-gold