There’s an excellent drama on the BBC right now exploring Gareth Southgate’s leadership of the England Football Team.
More importantly for us, it is an incredible examination of Southgate’s belief in the importance of team culture.
Early on we see him recruit the incredible Pippa Grange, a former performance psychologist now culture coach, after having seen her give a talk on ‘fear’ and its paralysing effects.
The first episode is basically a masterclass in leadership and culture so we’ve pulled out some of our favourite lessons below.
Set an emotive vision
In the opening scene, during his interview with the FA team, Gareth Southgate says that he believes “radical change” is needed. He wants to ask deep questions about “how people feel about the very nature of English football itself.”
This sort of philosophical musing draws a big sigh from the outgoing head who just wants a caretaker manager who won’t rock the boat.
Anyway, Southgate gets the job and the first time he meets the coach and physio he says that his main goal is “to get people smiling again.”
Not to win a World Cup or win a penalty shoot-out.
Southgate goes for the heart of what he sees as the problem. His goal is emotive, cultural.
Winning a World Cup is a byproduct of the right culture and behaviours.
Establish psychological safety
When Southgate gets the job, Wayne Rooney tells him that “no-one wants to play for England anymore.”
The pressure is too high. If you make a mistake, it is immortalised and haunts you forever. “It’s too much, and for what?”
One of biggest challenges facing Southgate and the English team is fear. Fear of making a mistake. Fear of saying something stupid. Fear of looking weak.
Now, obviously, it’s not enough as a leader to simply say “you’re free to say anything.” We know that the power dynamics are too strong.
But, in the drama, its an important moment where we clearly see the impact that a history of low of psychological safety has had on the team – which Southgate addresses by genuinely trying to seek honest input.
This fear is crippling the team, particularly around penalty shoot-outs. In fact, Pippa notices in her analysis that when England players miss a penalty they literally curl up into the foetal position.
“They’re afraid. They do feel completely alone when they’re standing on that spot.”
So the team introduced a number of small but powerful interventions to combat this.
The keeper Pickford would always hand the football to the next kicker, rather than them having to collect it on their own. They always knew the order of penalty takers so no-one had to decide in the moment. And the team would always welcome the player back into the huddle in exactly the same way whether they scored or missed.
I love the impact that small changes can make to a culture.
Harness the power of stories
In a rather peculiar first squad meeting, Southgate doesn’t talk about football or tactics, he talks about stories
His belief is that there is a story which is “imprisoning” the team. The story started in 1966 and has trapped every England player ever since. The story is that England can and should win every World Cup. Why? The data doesn’t suggest this. England haven’t won since 1966 and they didn’t even qualify on a number of occasions.
And yet the story persists. Southgate wants them to create a new story for themselves.
He describes the classic three act story structure of Beginning, Middle and End. Everyone expects them to be at the End. Winning every time.
But he knows they’re at the beginning and wants to give them permission to be at the beginning, to not feel the pressure of being fully realised without practise.
So he sets his sights on winning not the next the World Cup, not even the one after that. But to score the winning goal in 3 World Cup’s time.
We are the stories we tell ourselves. They can liberate us or they can hold us back.
Model vulnerability
From his work with Pippa the team psychologist, Southgate knows that the hidden fears and anxieties that each player feels is severely holding them back. He wants his players to open up and start to share their doubts with one another.
Early in the episode, in the locker room, each player’s armour is clearly visible when this is suggested. Dele says he only has a positive mental attitude, others say that they don’t need to do this.
On a walk with the psychologist, Pippa hints that Southgate has to open up himself if he wants his team to follow suit.
So, sat around a campfire, Southgate opens up. He shares how he felt during the 1996 World Cup when he missed the penalty that resulted in England losing to Germany. He models the vulnerability that he wants in his players.
A few scenes later and we see the players start to do the same, as Henderson opens up to Dier about his father’s battle with cancer.
The episode naturally climaxes with all of this being tested in a tense penalty shoot-out with Colombia. Can the team break the curse that haunts England?
I won’t spoil the ending but it’s worth remembering that all of these lessons are just from the first episode so it’s well worth diving in! (Although the ref might give you a yellow for that…)