I'm a cricket fan. No, bear with me here...
For the uninitiated and in simple terms, England went down to Australia this winter full of hope and expectation in pursuit of sporting immortality (away Ashes series wins are incredibly rare).
The narrative = "Fearless, swashbuckling England to take-on boring, aging Australia".
The result = The 'Bazball' project unravelled, England were embarrassed and lost 4-1.
But what does this teach us about high-performance?
The England Cricket Team rejected "coaching culture", valuing 'vibes' over the verifiable (stats, data, conventional strategy and technique).
Performance benefits: Players feel trusted, empowered and unburdened by fear of failure. The theory being, that if you overthink technical details you inhibit performance. What's more, when management consistently put out the message, "We believe in you", it creates belonging, identity and confidence.
Performance limiters: High support but low challenge creates comfort, safety and enjoyment, but not necessarily excellence. The tactical freedom given to players sounded great in theory but in reality, the lack of clear plans resulted in poor decision making under pressure.
To summarise, it's psychological comfort 'v' performance accountability.
Having read that, what do you and your business need more of, psychological comfort or performance accountability?
You know you need both for high-performance, but are you getting the balance right?
