Motivational balance key for new Super Rugby captain

A few eyebrows were raised when on the return of current Wallaby captain Stephen Moore, young gun Samu Kerevi retained the captaincy versus the Warratahs late April. However, recent interviews have indicated a better understanding of Samu's motivations on and off the field, offering suggestions for balanced, approach focused personal strivings. "What are personal strivings" I hear you ask? Personal strivings define motives or reasons for action in more specific categories yet remain abstract and flexible by nature (Singer, 2005). Emmons identified personal strivings as similar to motive dispositions with the difference being “the idiographic nature of strivings”; “more discriminative than motives yet more stable than projects or concerns” (Emmons, 1999). Strivings imply action orientated perspective on human motivation and stresses movement towards identifiable ends (Emmons, 1999) and act as motivational organizing principles that lend coherence and continuity to day to day goals (Sheldon and Kasser, 1995). Therefore, this would also include when “individuals strive towards particular modes of being without necessarily making strenuous effort" (Emmons, 1999).

Ford and Nichols (1987) identified “individuals’ capacity for cognizing and perusing goals is revealed in everyday experience and what gives meaning and purpose to everyday lives”.  Singer (2005) recognised that “examining individual’s personal strivings allows us to get at both long standing motivational concerns and behavioral tendencies that are likely to be tied to particular situations, roles and times that provide additional context we seek”. While Emmons recognised strivings as “abstracted qualities that can be achieved in variety of ways” (Emmons, 1986), personal strivings in an athlete setting identifies what players typically or characteristically try to do on daily basis within their sport.

Why would this be important for athletes, including current Reds captain and Super 20 players I am investigating? Recognising personal strivings are necessary to understand what they or others want or value, how they function or adjust to achieve their goals, protect themselves from frustrations of goals or avoid feared outcomes while maintain motivated over periods of time. Emmons and Diener (1986) researched the positive effect related to presence and attainment of important goals in everyday life, echoing Emmons belief of progressing toward meaningful life goals is a prerequisite for subjective well-being (Emmons, 1986). Player personal strivings should satisfy three basic needs, akin to self-determined motivation principles; they should offer safety and control (autonomy), social belonging (relatedness) and self esteem or competency. Therefore, understanding personal strivings help explain course of player’s life or drivers beneath behaviour, offering reasons for player’s most immediate preoccupations or actions.

Using similar strategies and coding theories used for my current research with U20 elite rugby union players involved in Australian Super 20 competition, I looked at certain goals mentioned by Kerevi during TV interview. Some of these included:

• Always got to beat opposite man
• Got to go forward
• Trying to do the best for the team
• Stepping up as a leader
• Leading by actions
• Being a better person, brother, uncle shall translate onto the field
• Knowing and working with the talents God has given me

All goals or strivings mentioned have an approach mindset where positive incentives are being sought after or moved towards as opposed to negative consequences or outcomes being avoided or prevented; this displays signs of a positive mindset, higher levels of intrinsic motivation and reduced anxiety towards his goals orientation. When coded, Kerevi shows further signs of subjective well being and self determined motivation as his high level listed strivings coded with intimacy, personal growth and achievement mindset. All these signs show a young leader, focused on improving and positive outcomes, working within close, reciprocal relationships with a desire to competing with self determined standard of excellence; a seemingly shrewd choice by Nick Stiles and his coaching team for years to come.

Keep up to date with further research in personal strivings research in rugby setting via https://coachingthecoaches.wordpress.com/research-details-and-links/

North v South: Mastering the skills of the unstructured game

Two quality coaches and rugby environments with two very different stories coming from world rugby in early March. Mick Byrne (ex All Black and current Wallabies Skills coach) has reiterated a warning that Wallabies head coach Michael Cheika gave recently: any players who weren’t prepared to make that journey and master the skills of the unstructured game would pay the price. He is quoted saying:

Every single player out there wants to be better and we’re not doing enough work to make them better.

The game has got to the point where only 60 per cent is structured, while the other 40 per cent is unstructured.

All around the country, I watch teams doing their lineouts, doing their lineout drives. But they’re not doing any plays in an unstructured environment.

We need to upskill our players, get them into that 40 per cent part of the game. We’re scoring on the structured part of the game.

Jump to the other side of the globe and a coach formally said to not have the technical experience or expertise to cut it at international level, Stuart Lancaster (current senior coach at Leinster Rugby) has been praised by current Irish international Sean O'Brien regarding input into Leinster's attacking game. On returning from international rugby to Leinster's win in Champions Cup, in which all of Leinster's tries came from open play, O'Brien said:

I suppose you’ve more of a license playing with Leinster than at international level. It's nice to go into that environment and know the way you are going to play and know that you are going to have a crack and see where it takes you.

Different coaches have different game-plans. You stick to what they want to do.

He (Lancaster) has brought a new dimension to our attack definitely in terms of just playing, the unstructured stuff as well, the stuff that you face in games

With Stuart coming in now it’s just taken a bit of pressure off them (other senior coaches) and us, I think, as players, to give us that free reign of all-out attack

While both coaches display recognized importance for player involvement for development and improvements towards unstructured side of game, both appear to be generating potentially different player mindsets and motivational atmospheres to doing so. Comparing against work of self motivation written by Edward Deci and Richard Ryan, Byrne has reiterated a very controlling and pressurized statement of how players need to change to meet Wallaby coaches' expectations. Research has shown controlling statements undermine player's intrinsic motivations and antagonize autonomy, which in turns drains enthusiasm and interest in controlled activities; in this case, improvements to skills and the unstructured side of the game.

Pressuring players to behave and act certain ways diminishes feelings of self determination, notably perceived autonomy and competence. Players are naturally embedded with tendency and energy to grow and develop; Wallaby coaches for this example could explore and promote internalization and integration of non structured side of the game. However, this perceived controlling context shall possibly impair development by promoting imposed coach introjection, a process which shall need to be repeated once done.

When players are pressurized and controlled to achieve particular outcomes such as  master the skills of the unstructured game, their self esteem is dependent on how those targeted goals turn out.  This area labeled as ego involvement relates to when player's feelings are dependent upon specified outcome; this additional pressure results in increased tension, anxiety to perform, impairs learning and diminishes performance. Mick's comments may have created the perfect storm in pressure to perform....

External pressure from Wallabies coaches may lead to an urge to defy as the targeted goals are without player personal endorsement and not a true expression of self. By creating highly controlling contexts and environments through behaviors or language, we undermine the natural desire to feel competent and at best, controlling behaviors from the coaches may gain sense of compliance from the players yet this shall not produce lasting change.  Meaningful  and lasting change occurs when players are self motivated by accepting themselves, take interest and responsibility in what they do and decide they can be creative and are prepared to do it differently, all displayed in comments made by O'Brien.

Lancaster and other Leinster coaches appear to have adopted and offered autonomy supportive style by offering choice, encouraging self initiation and display understanding for reasons for actions, creating mastery orientated players with high self esteem. These actions could result in the involved players being intrinsically motivated to improve within these areas of the game. This should result in better understanding, greater creativity, improved problem solving skills and willingness to learn and grow, all key skills required for unstructured side of the game.

Intrinsically motivated player performance within an autonomy supportive environment such as the one created in the Irish province shall offer players with an optimal challenge. Players shall feel more responsible for development and performance while shall seek to collaboratively learn and evolve as a group with a greater sense of harmony and emotional integration to unstructured side of the game.

So how could the Wallaby coaches promote autonomy to mastering the skills of the unstructured game? Cheika and co could (and should) involve players in goal setting process, allowing roles in decision making and offering choice of areas and ways to develop. When the players feel they are acting with a sense of choice, freedom and flexibility, working for the conman good and display true willingness to behave in accord with collective interests and values, they shall also be more capable to hanging behaviors needed to master the skills of the unstructured game.

Remembering the extent to which player's behavior is autonomous, creative and intrinsically motivated is determined by the interaction of their own personalities and the degree to which the context is autonomy supportive.  To allow the players to truly express themselves in unstructured side of the game, the Wallaby coaches must be committed to creating an socially supportive environment first to do so, similar to one of Chekia's old stomping grounds, Leinster.

Global rugby calendar update

As reported by Rugby World in March 2017, "A global rugby season has been at the heart of many a discussion since the game went professional 20 years ago and last week World Rugby announced a new ‘optimized’ international calendar for the period 2020-32". As touched on, player welfare was meant to be taken into account with these changes yet was it really been addressed? On addressing the volume of rugby played and prioritizing rest periods for players, IRPA executive director Rob Nichol said “The key  is being able to firstly ensure players get a period of rest, followed by a period of conditioning where they get adequate time to prepare for a competition and playing season. We feel between 12-14 weeks, possibly more, is required to achieve this.” However, have issues of mental exhaustion been addressed? Have we taken adequate steps to prevent player burnout and optimizing player well being? Radeke (1997) identified the main symptoms of athlete burnout syndrome, which results in player illness, injury or dropout. These symptoms are emotional and physical exhaustion, sport depersonalisation or devaluation and a reduced sense of accomplishment. Athlete burnout results from “chronically frustrated or unfulfilled basic physiological needs” (Cresswell, 2006), “denotes a negative emotional reaction to sport participation” (Gustafsson, Kenttä, Hassmén, & Lundqvist, 2007) and is “a consequence of chronic stress and exposure to a point where unfavorable cost-benefit ratio for sport engagement” (Thibaut and Kelly 1989). Therefore, an extended period of rest alone may not offer personal development, sense of achievement or intrinsic satisfaction through physical rest alone.

Satisfying the basic needs of autonomy, competence and relatedness or connection to others shall “foster self determined motivation” (Hollembeak, 2005) and has been associated with “higher self-esteem, higher task engagement and lower anxiety” (Deci, 2001), which allow athletes or players to develop intrinsically defined motivation for goals or development within their sport. Basic needs satisfaction shall also result in positive psychological consequences such as adaptive coping strategies for personal development and flow experiences, ideal for player development and both consequences required for specializing adolescent athletes as part of personal development. However, intrinsic motivation is not the only reason for lower levels of athlete burnout; Lonsdale’s research found autonomous extrinsic motivations, such as integrated or identified regulators, also resulted in lower levels of athlete burnout.

The proof of this extended rest concept may be proved next year with David Pocock expressing a desire to detach himself from the daily training regimen of a professional rugby player which helped him decide to take a sabbatical year in 2017. Pocock revealed he’d sought advice on taking time away from Dan Vickerman, the big Wallaby lock who quit Australian rugby in 2008 to study at Cambridge before returning for the 2011 Rugby World Cup whom sadly took his own life earlier this year. Like Vickerman, Pocock is exploring interests away from rugby, doing some courses with conservation group Wild Ark, spend a week at Kruger National Park, another seven days in Botswana, as well as help his 80-year-old grandfather!!

"There's a lot of stuff outside of rugby I'm keen to explore," Pocock says. "I'm just going into next year with an open mind and it'd be a real treat not having that pre-season just looming like most holidays when you get two weeks of nothing and then you have to do fitness again."

Ideas such as players being able to express a sense of themselves or achieving personal valued outcomes could be areas to increase athlete engagement to sports or reduce levels of dropout from rugby if adopted or encouraged. Food for thought for Mr Beaumont and Pichot....

Rugby Global Calendar best for all concerned

For those unaware, my passion and strong belief for a unified Global Rugby Calendar is something I want to add weight to and hope will come to fruition during my involvement in the sport.

Another meeting held in San Francisco in late Jan 2017 saw comments from Bill Beaumont (Chairman of World Rugby) offer optimism that this may be on track.

"During a positive, collaborative and highly-productive forum, key principles were agreed that will underpin the development of the calendar which has player welfare and the harmony of the international and club game at its heart"

I want to see ideas such as extended international windows for current annual competitions and June/November internationals to be measure of all elite players, agreed club competition seasons dates (my ideas would be Euro Champions Cup and Super Rugby from late Feb-May and domestic leagues such as English, Pro12, Japanese and Currie Cups/NRC/NPC in late July-October, hopefully resulting less player movement, greater opportunities for existing or developing players  or agreed dual contracts on global scale) and global off season of December-January.

One of the main ideas for these proposed suggestions and areas surrounding mentioned discussions of player welfare include player burnout. Researchers studying the experiences of individuals in human care settings propose the burnout syndrome consists of three central characteristics: emotional exhaustion, reduced accomplishment and depersonalization (Maslach, 1982). Athlete devaluation to sport, regarded as “perhaps most cognitive of burnout dimensions” (Lemyre, 2006), has strong links to lack of autonomy (such as feelings of choice and self-directedness in sport development) and competence (perceptions of effectiveness in sport or team). Within Lonsdale’s research, he recognised that “self-determined motivation moderates the relationships that competence and autonomy had with exhaustion” (Lonsdale, 2009); both emotional exhaustion and devaluation were related to unfulfilled or lack of self-determined motivations. Ryan and Deci (2000) also believed “physiological need for relatedness may play a more distal role than competence and autonomy”. Hodge’s research echoed “high burnout players (investigated) had lower competence and autonomy scores yet didn’t report different relatedness (connection to others) scores” (Hodge, 2008). Therefore, straight away, the idea of "burned out players" would suggest less autonomy or feeling of control and competence or impact in teams or competitions involved in rather than physical exhaustion. Like I suggest, it's having the all unions of world rugby offer choices of where and when to play rugby to gain some personal sense of achievement, development or connectivity within or external to rugby circles to gain some deeper meaning in player's lives.

Athlete burnout results from “chronically frustrated or unfulfilled basic physiological needs” (Cresswell, 2006), with reduced accomplishment and devaluation featured most prominently and “denotes a negative emotional reaction to sport participation” (Gustafsson, Kenttä, Hassmén, & Lundqvist, 2007). Satisfying these basic needs shall “foster self-determined motivation” (Hollembeak, 2005)  and has been associated with “higher self-esteem, higher task engagement and lower anxiety” (Deci, 2001), which allow athletes or players to develop intrinsically defined motivation for goals or development within their sport. Basic needs satisfaction shall also result in positive psychological consequences such as adaptive coping strategies for personal development and flow experiences, ideal for player development and both consequences required for specialising adolescent athletes as part of personal development.

However, intrinsic motivation is not the only reason for lower levels of athlete burnout; Lonsdale’s research found autonomous extrinsic motivations, such as integrated or identified regulators, also resulted in lower levels of athlete burnout. Similar research sees Gustafsson (2007) report findings that team sport male athletes showed higher burnout scores (compared to individual athletes) based on emotional and physical exhaustion and devaluation of coach and co-athletes, while displaying no significant correlation between training volume and burnout scores. Therefore, the emotional support and perceived efficacy in sport is areas coaches can assist for prolonged athlete involvement, retention and engagement, which can be enhanced by understanding of what players’ value and why. Therefore, ideas such as players being able to express a sense of themselves or achieving personal valued outcomes (personal strivings) could be areas to increase athlete engagement to sports or reduce levels of dropout from rugby if adopted or encouraged. The most obvious and current example being David Pocock; having been granted 12 months away from rugby to pursue other goals should see him come back a more determined player, having satisfied other pursuits in his life.

From Gould’s research, he gained ideas for coaches such as cultivating personal involvement with players, offering two way communication, utilizing player input and understanding player’s feelings (Gould, Tuffey, Udry, & Loehr, 1996). Cresswell and Eklund (2006) also found ideas such as enjoyable challenges within rugby, open and free communication with coaches and management alongside few or flexible responsibilities outside sport allowed and encouraged player engagement and reduced burnout or dropout. Coaches and administration staff alike should take note from qualitative investigations which found attributions to burnout symptoms included transitions between competitions or stages in season, which added emotional and mental stress; pressure to comply and perform in elite environments and negative development environments, all areas which could factor and enable greater control for players and coaches alike. I believe many of these issues these could potentially be prevented with a global rugby calendar, offering greater opportunity and choice to those involved in rugby and extending opportunity to enter to the current diverse groups.

Acting on lack of leadership

Player leadership within rugby union has become a topic in point last week with Eddie Jones (England RFU Head Coach) commenting during the week of the lack of leadership within his squad.

"Apart from working on the fundamental skills and increasing the depth of the squad, one thing we need to do is increase the leadership density of the team. That's a big project going forward"

Therefore, how and who can step up and fill these vacant voids suggested in coach Jones' squad?

Quoting from past research, leaders within team environments have been seen to drive and coordinate 3 main areas or functions being task related, social functionality and external obligations (Longhead, 2006). Within team environments, we can find different forms of leadership forming through formally appointed leadership roles, informal leadership and/or peer leadership roles, whereby a person may only effect 2 or more people within the group yet their actions or input leads to influence of others. Looking at Leadership Scale for Sports (Chelladurai, 1980), within these 3 functioning areas of task, social or external, it looks at which areas players look for leadership within. These areas include training and instruction, democratic behaviour, autocratic behaviour, social support and positive feedback. So which areas of leadership is Eddie searching for...?

Studies have shown informal leaders or peer leaders can complete functions that formally appointed leaders such as Dylan Hartley cannot. Peer leaders are seen as influential on task related goals of the group as a whole and focus on team harmony and collective cohesion; these leaders offer greater impact around areas such as social support, positive feedback and can offer democratic decision making dependent on when situation requires them and to as small or large a group within the team as opposed to the when’s and whom by which expectations or protocol sets. Athlete or peer leaders engaged in social behaviors positively influence team cohesion and performance as a result (Vincer, 2010) as social cohesion has shown stronger link with performance than task cohesion (Jowett, 2004). These informal leaders are recognized by certain traits, most notably skill level amongst the playing group, the strongest index of peer leadership (Glenn & Horn 1993). Moran and Weiss (2006) also recognized peer leaders have higher perceived levels of competence and increased ability for expressiveness. A positive relationship has been demonstrated between the presence of athlete leaders and team outcomes such as player satisfaction, team cohesion, confidence and performance (Fransen, 2015); therefore, a open, honest and confident side....seemingly where England side have been for past 12-14 months. So, where else can coach Jones look towards?

Past research has recognized good teams having good leaders with strong social connectedness, which goes hand in hand with task leadership, as displays higher level of collective efficacy (Fransen, 2015). The quality of social support received is critical to group success and player satisfaction; while important to receive social support from coach-athlete relationship, the increased pressure to ensure the player does not let down their parts within the relationship can lower autonomy and intrinsic motivation through perceived controlling behaviours. Therefore, the leadership dynamics and coach’s willingness to allow player leaders to be identified, creating connected individuals and responsibility being distributed amongst the group through social networking is important within team dynamics.

Coaching success stems around the competence, confidence, connection and character developed by the athlete as a result of the coach-player relations; however, coach adopted transformational leadership styles, which look at the importance on the leader-follower relationship, would result in positive intrinsic motivations and increased athlete effort. Bass (1985) recognizes this style of leadership as the ability to inspire and motivate followers to exceed performance expectations by shaping follower’s beliefs and attitudes. This form of leadership can be developed by inspiration or motivation to team members, through creating a vision of common goals, idealizing influence through modelling behaviors or values, individualizing consideration, through allowing for other’s needs and feelings and intellectual stimulation through encouraging creativity.  However, if levels of autonomy are not offered, player’s feelings are ignored or common team goals discounted, this could move into controlling or style.

In coaches attempts to gain impact in instruction for learning or becoming task focused the coach could adopting an autocratic or controlling interpersonal style. Adopting this style puts reduces players levels of autonomy and increases pressure on the players to act, think and feel in a way consistent to the needs and wants of the coach (Amorose, 2015). In developing levels of control through power assertive techniques forcing player compliance and using social comparison for evaluation, would adopting these leadership styles for task functions while allowing player or peer leaders to satisfy individual player social relatedness and perceived group autonomy gain suitable levels of satisfaction and group cohesion? Is Eddie suggesting relinquishing some control to the players??

Previous studies suggest collective cohesion and team success should be seen as leadership driven and responsibility for all team members as high levels of individual’s intrinsic motivations are experienced when coaches exhibit a leadership style that empathized  instructional behaviors and democratic behavior rather than autocratic leadership styles (Amorose, 2007). It is recognized good teams having good leaders with strong social connectedness, which goes hand in hand with task leadership, as displays higher level of collective efficacy (Fransen, 2015). The leadership dynamics and coach’s willingness to allow player leaders to be identified, creating connected individuals and responsibility being distributed amongst the group through social networking is important within team dynamics.

For this example, would Eddie's time be spent identifying players to translate the coaching group's vision, helping develop task leaders through adopting principles of law of diffusion of innovation? As he introduces MMA training practices to improve contact work and adds visual awareness coach to improve player's awareness, continuing to push and improve player's abilities, can a strong clear vision with increased player involvement and group cohesion offer him the impact and number of leaders he is searching for? With the Six Nations kicking off in 2 weeks, time shall tell.....