Tags: Coach Vs Performance Led; Coaching Vs Science; Performance & Profiling; Diagnostics; Protection Vs Performance Bubbles; MDT Process; Problem Solutions; Performance Structure; Ain’t Planning a bitch; MDT Process; Performance Problem Classification
Performance puzzles, Performance backwards and demystifying the complexity of the performance support process.
Deconstructing performance is a complex puzzle, an activity that practitioners and support teams (PST) constantly wrestle with, unlocking layers, solving elements and aspects but never fully completing the task or finding the ultimate solutions. Are performance solutions hidden within a stack of ‘logic’ blocks or, do solutions emerge from inserting ‘knowledge’ shapes into a shape sorter? Do practitioners sift through the pieces of a ‘performance’ jigsaw, connecting them together to uncover a hidden and contextually influenced picture ?
How do practitioners establish their strategy and philosophy and how do they determine where to start, what direction to travel and how to make sense of complex environments? Understanding the performance demand and then modelling this against first principles enables the team to quantify and objectify training metrics and then work backwards from there. To unlock a rubik’s cube, coloured blocks need to be in key positions before a pattern of twists and rotations return it to order, practitioners similarly, need key pieces of information to establish what needs to be done.
The following model provides a ‘lock and key’ cheat guide to enable the Performance Support Team to make sense of the sport from a reductionist, first principles perspective. By building the blocks of performance in a logical order, PSTs should be in a strong position to identify performance problems and ask great performance questions. If thorny solutions are wrapped in wicked problems, perhaps we need to embrace thinking that helps us to simplify, demystify and clarify our process before executing our intervention. Systems thinking can help with this.
