Did a 3 word slogan destroy sport for a generation of young people?

A number of years ago, a famous scientist who made massive contributions to the world of expertise science and skill acquisition passed away. Anders Ericsson's research was pioneering in suggesting that talent and expertise was less about innate abilities or inherited gifts, and more about practice—specifically, what he termed "deliberate practice."

Ericsson defined deliberate practice as something quite effortful that required focus and intensity, usually with another individual (coach or teacher) providing feedback or support to guide the development journey and it was not necessarily fun.

This research grabbed a lot of attention. Quite a few popular science books were written at the time that espoused these ideas—the notion that talent is not primarily genetic. Daniel Coyle's "The Talent Code" was particularly influential for me. Another book that really popularised the idea was Malcolm Gladwell's "Outliers," which received widespread acclaim and was a best seller

However, one thing Gladwell did in that book was problematic. He coined the phrase "the 10,000 hour rule" based on one of Ericsson's findings that the average amount of time spent by experts on deliberate practice equated to around 10,000 hours. Gladwell, being the storyteller he is, turned this into a sort of magic number—as if you would be counting down the days on your fridge at home (although I've heard that there are parents who actually do this!).

Like....9,999 hours... and then the next day, gold medal time. Of course, that's preposterous, and Ericsson never suggested that.

The problem was that everybody became fixated on practice volume rather than practice quality. The bigger message around deliberate practice for me was about the level of intention, focus, and access to quality feedback. When you look into the biographies of successful sports people, access to that kind of support—whether through a knowledgeable parent, sibling, or coach—seems to feature very heavily.

I've subsequently spent much of my career thinking about how we can find ways to make coaching better and more accessible. How can we help coaches be as inclusive and skilled as they can be and how we can provide better access for more young athletes from a broader range of backgrounds?

Before he died, Ericsson lamented Gladwell's contribution. Whilst he obviously valued the fact that Gladwell popularised his research and made it part of the mainstream conversation around expertise and talent development, he also felt that his work had been misrepresented. he wrote about this in a famous letter, the title of which speaks for itself "The dangers of delegating education to journalists" where he writes..."In fact, the 10,000 hour rule was invented by Malcolm Gladwell (2008, p. 40) who stated that “researchers have settled on what they believe is the magic number for true expertise: ten thousand hours.”...."Gladwell cited our research on expert musicians as a stimulus for his provocative generalization to a magical number."

The Power of Narratives

At the same time that the 10,000 myth was gaining popularity, there was a proliferation of sports organisations adopting 'player pathways' and 'development programmes' that seemed to be influenced by the idea that volume of training required them to engage young people in dedicated, focused training earlier and earlier - the so called 'race to the bottom'.

The rationale was that if young people were going to "make it," they needed to focus and put much more time into their activity earlier to get the volume in. What we then saw was many sports, particularly those where young people perform at relatively young ages, implementing training protocols that involved high volume, asking young people to make increasing levels of sacrifice in pursuit of a performance goal or dream because of the requirement to "get the reps in."

What I was left reflecting on was how important messaging is. Sometimes the central, nuanced discussions and arguments within research are lost because a compelling narrative from a good storyteller takes root in the popular consciousness. As a result, what was potentially a really good idea starts to lose its impact, people question it, contradictory research emerges, and nobody knows what they're doing.

I was particularly taken by the research at the time because it focused on practice quality, not quantity. It suggested to me that if we could provide higher quality coaching experiences earlier—really positive experiences for young people that are enriching—then they would have better opportunities if they decided to step into a journey of self-actualisation through sporting performance.

But that message seemed to get lost.

Three-Word Slogans and their impact

The impact of simple phrases is remarkable. We've seen this throughout the socio-political landscape—with Brexit's "Get Brexit Done" or more recently in America where we see Elon Musk's DOGE searching for "waste, fraud and abuse." Three words seems to be the magic number that can be repeated ad nauseam, capturing the public consciousness regardless of the facts behind it.

These kinds of slogans and narratives—like the "10,000 hour rule"—grab attention, becoming kitchen table conversations. I hear people talk about ten thousand hours all the time, which shows its enduring legacy in popular thought.

Recently, I travelled to Essex to deliver a workshop for coaches. I met with a couple of coaches beforehand who are part of my learning community, 'The Guild of Ecological Explorers', which meets monthly for in-depth conversations about coaching through an ecological lens. (If you're interested in joining, head to the website and click "join a learning community"—we have a couple of spaces available.)

One of the coaches brought up a piece of research titled "The rocky road to the top: Why talent needs trauma." He was reading it because he coaches a very successful team, that sometimes find things a bit too easy. He wanted to create challenge and difficulty, and this paper seemed relevant.

That particular paper was written by someone who is not particularly fond of me or my work. He took issue with my message about the "War on drills" (another 3 word slogan!) and believes that I shouldn't be making arguments like this. I should have a more nuanced stance.

Which is ironic really, when his most cited work has such a provocative, attention grabbing title... "talent needs trauma"—three words that capture the imagination. People can quickly understand what it might mean without having to delve into the details of the research. The political commentator Alex Andreu writes about the three word slogan in The Byline Times, in an article that lamented the reduction of medical guidance during the Covid-19 Pandemic to 3 word slogans like 'hands, face, space'...

"Three-word slogans come from the world of advertising, in which a good strap-line can add a halo of values to a brand. “Just do it”, “every little helps”, or “I’m loving it” are great at being memorable – but are they the appropriate vehicle for passing on detailed information?"

I believe that this narrative and slogan has contributed to a performance narrative that has led to a proliferation in sports culture, particularly in talent and performance contexts, where the well being of children and adults has been downgraded because of the belief that extreme measures are required to reach elite levels. Beyond mere difficulty or challenge, we've seen what most would consider poor or even abusive practices that don't properly consider the needs of young athletes become normalised and justified. Spend anytime reading reports like 'The Whyte Review' which was commissioned by UK Sport and Sport England to look into widespread reports of abuse in gymnastics and you will see horrific stories of young people being forced or coerced into things that do not take their best interests at heart. These stories range from extreme physical, mental and emotional abuse, to body shaming and marginalisation. There are also stories of 7 year olds being 'encouraged' to commit to 20 hours+ a week of training or 'they will never make it'.

Products of the environment

But in most cases I have a degree of sympathy with the coaches....don't get me wrong...some of them were just cruel, some of them should never have been allowed to work with young people. But the majority were a product of their environment. An environment that was happy to treat people as a means to an end...that used slogans like 'talent needs trauma' as a way to defend the indefensible. So it is no surprise that this culture exists...if you want to progress in coaching and move up the ladder...you need to adopt these approaches or you will be over looked and ostracised.

There's an association in popular thinking around the identity of a performance practitioner being someone who is uncompromising, demanding and exacting. When coaches are very athlete-centred, they're often derided as being "fluffy brothers" or "woke intruders," terms that Andy Pitchford spoke to me about in this podcast about his research.

I've seen this several times where key people in organisations have the perception that performance is "a different kind of beast" and that practitioners in these environments need to behave in certain ways. I've seen friends released from coaching roles because their approach was about nurturing and helping people thrive in supportive environments. They were let go because the organisation explicitly said they needed someone who was "more performance-focused". The irony being that they got results too...better results that the more 'performance focussed' coaches who replaced them!

In the performance realm, someone like Gareth Southgate took a nurturing approach to athletic development and team building. Despite his teams performance improving immeasurably by competing in the latter stages of tournaments with regularity, there's still discourse suggesting "if he'd been tougher, they'd have won."

Performance coaches that take a more human centred approach can get results and the athletes are happier...but they are still treated with suspicion and they are quickly dispensed of by decision makers who should really know better.

Being human centred carries a lot of risk...

It seems to me that the messaging around "talent needs trauma" has taken root in the sporting system consciousness and contributed to an implicit acceptance within the performance world that athletes need tough and traumatic experiences to progress into the elite realm. The coach who mentioned this research to me was smart enough to know it's not about getting out "bull whips and cattle prods" to extract performances from athletes. But it showed me how impactful this kind of messaging can be and how it can take hold in popular consciousness.

There's a real issue in sports research where researchers need to take great care over how they articulate their findings. They should be responsible in ensuring their conclusions and presentations don't result in potentially negative consequences.

Ericsson had his work misrepresented by someone else, which wasn't necessarily his fault. But if you're a researcher who takes your own research and tries to popularise it using catchy terms that grab public attention, you have to be responsible and accountable when people utilise that language.

I've noticed that quite a lot of people in the public sphere who make outlandish claims respond quite defensively when there's pushback: "Don't you dare misrepresent me! I never said that! That wasn't my fault! I didn't make that claim!" I've seen this happen in this space as well, where people get defensive and say, "That's not what the research says. They're misrepresenting it. Read the research."

Most practitioners skim-read research—they aren't academics who can thoroughly unpick it all. They look at the title, read the abstract, and come away with the message: "We need to get tougher." Then suddenly we see athletes having extremely negative experiences and a performance culture that prioritises challenge and difficulty over wellbeing.

A Better Way Forward

This performance narrative is being increasingly challenged by organisations like The True Athlete Project. Sam Parfitt and Lawrence Cassoe-Halsted (who spoke to me on this podcast) have a different manifesto for performance sport, questioning traditional approaches.

And now we have seen the emergence of new slogans it isn't "medals at all costs" anymore, but rather "medals with morals".

Many organisations are struggling with this shift because they're having to unshackle themselves from established performance narratives. Some are finding it difficult to recruit performance coaches because coaches are scared or concerned. I know of organisations focusing on ethics and integrity in coaching development, and I'm doing quite a lot of work myself around ethical coaching practice.

I've coined an alternative phrase: "talent needs turbulence." Yes, there is definitely value in helping people solve problems and navigate difficulties. But it's not trauma—and if it is trauma, then I'm out. 'Turbulence', however, I can get behind 100%.

I am currently working with several organisations to unpick the ethical elements of coaching practice and to give coaches more frameworks and thinking tools to help them navigate the complexity of coaching. Please get in touch if you would like to start an exploratory conversation about some of these themes.

So there you have it—my thoughts on narratives and messaging. I've received criticism for saying "ditch those drills," but I stand by it. I'm not a researcher, but I am a practitioner and advocate for a different way of doing things that is more engaging and, as it turns out, better from a developmental perspective. I'm going to be a strong advocate for that, own my three-word slogan, back it up, and have discussions with anybody who doesn't like it.

For those interested, I'll be speaking on this topic at the Sport and Movement Skill Conference in St. Paul, Minnesota on June 26-27, discussing "how to ditch those drills" If you can make it, I'd love to see you there.

This blog post was generated using a transcription from a 'Dog Walk Diary podcast recorded on the 25th May. It was then edited and refined using Claude AI and then further edited and rewritten by me.

What is your learning and development ‘Prosecco moment’?

I travelled down to London a few weeks ago to do some professional development with Nick Shackleton-Jones.

For those who don't know, Nick is a learning and development specialist who has worked in a whole array of different fields. Initially a psychology lecturer, he's worked for major firms including Deloitte (as chief learning officer) and BP, among others. He now runs his own consultancy, Shackleton Consulting.

His book, "How People Learn," presents a powerful alternative position on learning and how it needs to radically change. Many of his positions align very closely with mine. We share very similar views on how we need to transform learning to enable human beings to thrive in whatever roles they have.

One of the key concepts Nick discusses is the "Affective Context Model." The summary of this model is remarkably similar to the underlying thesis of ecological dynamics: the context in which you're in provides a crucial aspect of why somebody would be motivated to learn. In simpler terms, the problem you're trying to solve and the situation you're in defines what you learn.

Instead of learning something abstract that might benefit you in the future—what we might call "just in case" learning—you engage in "just in time" learning. You learn as you go, focusing on things that are genuinely meaningful and matter to you.

Yesterday we explored the "5Di framework" - This framework outlines the approach you would take to develop a learning framework for an organisation, whether you're a consultant or an internal L&D business partner helping with design.

The fascinating day began with a glass of prosecco. Why? It wasn't just for enjoyment (though that was a nice bonus). Nick explained it through the peak-end hypothesis, which describes how people remember experiences. If you go on holiday, for example, you tend to remember the peak moments—the most memorable moments—and the end.

So we began with a toast towards improving learning for everybody. Rather than sitting down and watching PowerPoint slides, we stood for about an hour, talking to each other. Nick had done preparatory work, asking us about the things we were interested in and keen to know more about. He put these topics on the board and asked, "Which are the most interesting to you?" We discussed those topics.

From the start, he made the experience relevant, meaningful, and focused on the things that mattered to us. We were immediately engaged, standing in a room with prosecco, toasting and discussing what we wanted to talk about.

The key takeaway for me wasn't necessarily the content of what we discussed, but the fact that Nick had taken the time in designing a learning experience to create a hook—a memorable moment that would ensure whatever we talked about would stay with us.

We discussed how so many learning experiences are designed to deliver content to people and how most of this ‘information transfer’ is actually forgotten as quickly as it is transmitted. Nick spoke of researchers like Hermman Ebbinghaus and Eric Mazur, who have demonstrated that the vast majority of learning experiences are actually quite meaningless.

Mazur, a Harvard physicist, apparently concluded that traditional lecturing was actually unethical. He determined that as a learning modality, lecturing was doing students no good whatsoever and might even be harming their future learning prospects. It was neither enjoyable nor beneficial.

This finding resonates with research by Donald Clark, who notes that "lectures as a teaching method have never been subject to proper evaluation... they persist through historical inertia" (Clark, 2010).

I found this discussion fascinating because it has parallels to the sports world. I've been advocating for quite some time—lobbying, if you like—for a change in how we provide sports experiences for young people. I've been passionately campaigning for "ditching the drills."

My reasoning isn't just that coaches need to do things differently because it's "better" or because it develops more skills. Rather, I believe that meaningful experiences enrich people's lives and bring them joy. They have value that makes people want to pursue a life filled with physical activity—which brings numerous benefits socially, emotionally, mentally, and physically.

To deliver physical activity in a way that isn't meaningful or appealing seems ethically or morally questionable.

If there is evidence, however incomplete, suggesting that providing sports experiences in a meaningful, memorable, and enjoyable way would give people a sense of purpose and value, and we knew it would at the very least do no harm in terms of development—then we would opt for that, wouldn't we? Why continue using models that don't provide that framework?

This aligns with research by Joan Duda, who found that "creating a climate that emphasises personal progress and effort rather than comparison with others leads to greater enjoyment, sustained participation, and ultimately better performance".

One of the big points Jones made about learning was how many organisations and leaders think they know what learning and development is, largely because their own experiences were of teaching in a classroom. They have an unconscious view that learning involves delivering some kind of course.

The solution to most problems presented by a workforce with training needs—after conducting a training needs analysis—would be to produce content, assuming this content will solve their problems.

Nick challenges this approach, arguing that people don't need content delivered to them. What they need are things that help them do their job—resources or experiences. The reason experiences are important is that when people do things practically, when they live them and feel them, they develop a deeper knowledge that stays with them and is more useful to them.

This approach helps people develop skill as opposed to just knowledge. We know that knowledge without context—or learning something out of context—needs to be relearnt in context. That's why the vast majority of learning and development interventions fail; they don't transfer to the real world. They're not momentary, not in the moment, not related to the challenge the person faces, and therefore don't have meaning. More often than not, they're forced—"You've got to do this. It's compliance. It's mandatory."

As David Perkins notes in his work on "learning that matters," there's a fundamental problem with learning that doesn't connect to real-world challenges: "A chief enemy of transfer and application is inert knowledge—knowledge that sits in the mind but isn't activated in situations where it would be useful" (Perkins, 2009).

The 5Di framework stands for Define, Discover, Design, Develop, Deploy, and Iterate. The framework begins by considering the recipient—who the learner is and in some cases, who they're going to engage with. Then you work backwards through a discovery process to understand their needs and real-world challenges. Finally, you design experiences and resources that will meet those particular challenges.

The Challenge of Coach Development

It's not surprising that when I talk to clients and ask them to assess how many of their coach development workforce they consider to be really good or exceptional, the number is often very small. The vast majority are in the middle, considered okay, and there's a decent number considered below standard.

This shouldn't surprise us because these people aren't given much support to develop. The idea of putting together frameworks is to create experiences and moments that people will find attractive, meaningful, and useful in their day-to-day work.

Part of the challenge is understanding what their day-to-day challenges are and what issues they face. Many clients don't have enough information about what these people are experiencing and need—their discovery phase is lacking. Going through that process might be challenging, but it's extremely valuable because anything difficult typically is. It provides real clarity about who you're serving and what you're trying to support them with.

‘Re-hiring’ - continuous onboarding

One idea that emerged from the sessions was having an annual or bi-annual experience where the workforce is brought together in what was called a "re-hiring." This is essentially re-engaging, reconnecting, and re-onboarding employees.

The idea is that onboarding isn't just something that happens at the start—it's continuous.

New priorities emerge, business plans change, and new opportunities are created. You need to rebuild your organisation and reconnect your workforce with the new direction.

The Future: Handmade Pottery

We discussed the future and the role AI would play in learning and development. There was a lot of concern in the room that L&D was rapidly becoming obsolete and could be replaced by AI ‘bots’.

As anantidote to the concern, Nick used a wonderful phrase: we're moving towards "handmade pottery." If you're in the learning and development space just churning out content and believe passive content delivery with no relationship to context is the future, that's not going to last much longer. People will look for cheaper alternatives.

But if you're providing meaningful, contextualised, emotion-rich experiences for people, the future is very bright.

AI can augment and support. It's there for immediate, on-demand performance needs ("How do I submit my expenses? Etc)

But humans will also need and want deeper, richer human connection and engagement, those things will only be enhanced by people creating experiences for each other—either digitally because of distance or ideally in a physical space where we come together.

This "handmade pottery" idea suggests we need to become extremely skilled at providing experiential learning models because that's what humans will seek out.

What Is Your Prosecco Moment?

It was a fascinating day with many takeaways that I'll be bringing to my clients over the coming months and years. The main question I'll be asking myself is: "What is your prosecco moment?" How will I design prosecco moments into learning experiences?

By the way, if you want to join my learning community, ‘The Guild’, we come together once a month via Zoom (since people are from all over the world). You can join through the website.

The Eighth Waste

During my early morning dog walk, with Flo wearing her flashing collar in the darkness, I found myself reflecting on some recent conversations with people in workforce development roles that have highlighted a fairly widespread issue… the widespread undervaluation of workforce development professionals and the systemic and cultural barriers they face.

Most roles involve supporting and developing other humans, whether explicitly stated or not. Unless your work is entirely process or machine-driven, people development is an inherent part of almost every position. This is particularly true for those specifically tasked with developing the sport and physical activity workforce – the individuals who directly interface with participants, whether they're leading exercise classes or guiding athletes on their talent development journey.

Several years ago, the S&PA sector in the UK recognised that the qualifications framework that we were operating under was not providing the required level of training or ongoing support to practitioners. There was also a recognition that they were cumbersome and inflexible which meant that they were acting as a barrier to people from under represented groups entering the workforce. In essence, qualifications were an efficient form of coach training but they were not effective...we needed something different, a new approach and some new thinking. The world renowned management consultant Peter Drucker famously noted, "There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all." This resonates with the challenges faced in workforce development, where workforce development leaders are often forced to prioritise efficiency over effectiveness.

A good friend of mine used to work for Toyota, he introduced me the Toyota management principles, which have become synonymous with operational effectiveness and efficiency across the globe and are often referred to in lean and agile management discussions. One of the elements that stuck with me is the concept of waste reduction (Muda). Looking at systems through a ‘muda’ lens has the goal of reducing waste leading to more efficient and effective production systems.

Traditionally, there are seven types of waste in production systems: overproduction, inventory, transportation, waiting, over-processing, motion, and defects. There are many of these forms of waste in existing workforce development systems - I think often about the over processing involved in asking people to get together folders and folders of paper to be used as ‘evidence’ that they are competent!

However, there's an eighth waste that's particularly relevant to those of us in workforce development roles….the waste of human potential.

This eighth waste manifests clearly in workforce development teams, which are typically under-resourced both in terms of human capital and financial support. Many organisations allocate minimal budgets to workforce development, and in some cases, these departments are expected to generate revenue just to break even – I find this perplexing in what should be considered a vital investment in ensuring that those who are at the front line, providing sports experiences are well supported to provide the best experience possible.

The challenge often stems from leadership's limited understanding of workforce development's value. Some leaders have a tendency to focus on two primary concerns: organisational performance outputs (participation numbers, memberships, income, etc) and risk management (safeguarding, governance, legal compliance). While these are legitimate concerns, this narrow focus often leads to overlooking the potential of proper workforce development to support these goals. I've always struggled to understand why sports leaders struggle to make the connection between investing in people development and the impact that it would have on their business.

As workforce development professionals, I don't think we help ourselves. I do believe that we need to adapt our communication approach.

I’ve learned this the hard way…

I’ve spent hours preparing detailed slide decks and business cases explaining the different approach that we are taking and how we are going to do it only to be faced a load of blank faces and the dreaded ‘so what?’ question!

I would come away really frustrated…thinking “they just don’t get it!”.

I now realise the issue was with me…I was speaking a different language…they don’t speak ‘workforce’, and why would they?

I now realise that instead of focusing on the 'how' of initiatives, I need to articulate the 'what' in terms that resonate with leadership priorities. For instance, rather than detailing the intricacies of an integrated training model, we might present it as a solution to reduce stakeholder complaints by X% or increase workforce development income substantially.

The waste of human potential is particularly acute among those tasked with building development systems within organisations. These individuals often receive minimal support while being expected to deliver significant outcomes. Their experience mirrors the parable of the cobbler's children – always helping others while lacking support themselves..

This challenge isn't unique to sport and physical activity sectors; it reflects broader neoliberal approaches to organisational management where growth and production often overshadow human development. However, by recognising and addressing 'the eighth waste', we can begin to create more effective, sustainable approaches to workforce development that benefit both individuals and organisations.

My role now is to act as a ‘thinking partner’ to support these workforce development professionals. By being another pair of eyes helping them make their case effectively while providing the guidance and understanding they often lack from their own leadership. It's about enabling them to serve their stakeholders effectively while satisfying organisational requirements – a delicate balance that requires both strategic thinking and emotional resilience

As someone who has worked extensively in this field, I find it crucial to share these insights and support others facing similar challenges. If you're working in workforce development and these experiences resonate with you, know that you're not alone in this journey and there are people out there who can help. If you would like to book a free call to explore any of these challenges then please get in touch and we we can set something up.

This post is adapted from my latest ‘Dog walk diary’ podcast.