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.

Why do you coach the way that you coach?

Adapted and inspired by EIS 'Curriculum Project'

I must have asked this question to more than 10,000 coaches in my career. To me it is one of the most fundamental questions..."why do you do what you do the way that you do it". The answers tend to centre around 2 themes...either "I was coached like this and I hated it so I don't want anyone else to be coached like that..." or "I was coached like this and it was amazing so I want others to have the same experience". 

Sometimes it is based on what they have seen others do rather then what happened to them first hand.

Every now and again someone will say because of the way they have been trained. 

Hardly ever do they say..."because of my coach education". 

I then follow up the question with a further clarification...I ask, "How many of you have a theory of learning that guides your coaching practice". 

Hardly any hands go up...

I then say, "what if I told you that you do have a theory of learning guiding your coaching practice...you just don't know it". 

I get a LOT of blank stares...

It is no surprise that there are gaps in coaches' understanding of learning theories, most people don't even know that their are multiple theories about learning and that scholars, researchers and practitioners have been arguing about them since the beginning of time. 

But the way people are generally educated and the way they develop their ideas of learning are based on the dominant learning paradigms that are embedded within our culture. Most people's experience of learning is based on formalised models of learning that they would experience at school or in another learning institution.  

Those models of learning become culturally engrained in the way we think and as such a lot of coach education has followed the same model. So whether they are aware that they have a theory of learning or not...they actually do...it has been culturally influenced and become embedded in their thinking without them realising it. 

It's like the old joke about the 2 fish in the fish tank, one says to the other "this water is really dirty isn't it?" the other one replies "what's water?"

Many people don't know they have a theory that guides the way that they approach learning but nonetheless, a dominant learning theory is all around them...they are immersed in it!

So one of the things I do is to help people to understand different ways to think about learning based on some different theories and what impact that can have on learning design. This allows us to explore ways that we could provide a richer support architecture around sport and physical activity practitioners. 

I like to use visual metaphors and so this image of 'gardens of learning' or 'learning ecosystems' has become a bit of a reference point in a lot of my engagements and workshops. It acts as a thinking tool or a reference point in the design conversation.  

The aim is to rebalance the offer so that we shift from being so dominated by formal learning that is subject or content driven and work more from within context to more informal learning opportunities that are experience based. 

Now this is critical because without this paradigm shift in learning models...education and development in sport an physical activity will never be truly inclusive. 

The 'traditional' learning models have been around for centuries and they still have many of the features of their time. They are based on a class dominated system of learning that prizes knowledge and the ability to retain knowledge as being associated with intelligence. This is why there is a social stigma associated with more 'on the job', vocational style learning models. 

In most western societies...'vocational learning is for the thick kids'. 

Subhadra Vas talks about this in her brilliant book 'Uncivilised' where she lays out the way that education was shaped by thinkers such as Francis Galton, and became designed by the ruling upper class and was very much focussed on using education to separate those who had knowledge and could be considered part of the white collar managerial class and those who take roles in the blue collar working class. 

Even though the vocational 'apprentice' model of education had been around for a long time and was a very powerful way for people to learn skills and trades...this became unfashionable as people wanted social mobility and sought to gain this through formal education in the great institutions of learning. 

If the sport and physical activity workforce is going to diversify and be more open and equitable...it must let go of these culturally resilient ideas and recognise them as being artifacts from a bygone era. 

The interesting thing is that recent changes to legislation brought in by the previous government and now the labour government has started a radical shift towards more practical and skills based models of learning - moving away from qualifications that don't bear very much relevance to real world application. 

Sport and physical activity has been moving in this direction for several years so we are well placed to take advantage of these changes. 

Those who are able to break free of the shackles of the old ways of thinking and can embrace this paradigm shift will be able to access resources that have not been imagined before...those that stick with what they know will find it harder and harder to make progress. 

This is a daunting prospect and can often make people really anxious. I have several calls each month with learning systems managers, coaching leads, heads of workforce development all looking for some guidance, support and clarity on what to do next and how to go about it. 

Realistically, this doesn't have to be that scary...and the thing I always remember is that we owe it those we serve...and perhaps more importantly, we owe it to those we currently don't serve.

If any of this resonates for you...please reach out for a free call to explore some of these areas. 

Will sport embrace AI?

This LinkedIn post from a good friend and colleague, Ollie Bell, tells the story of him booking a table at a local pub over the phone but talking to an AI agent. The booking process was polite, super efficient, and really effective with confirmation emails and texts. It pointed to a new future where technology takes mundane tasks like taking bookings over the phone away from humans, leaving humans free to do more creative and interactive tasks that only humans can do. This got me to thinking about how much advancement has happened in my lifetime. One of my earliest memories of technology was when we had a Grandstand games console as kids. I was probably six or seven at the time. People might remember the game called Pong - it had a series of games where you had a device with a wheel on top that you twisted to move a bar up and down on your TV screen. This would deflect a ball back and forth in a rudimentary tennis-type game, which you could play in doubles or singles mode.

I lived abroad as a child and we travelled across the globe, often stopping in Hong Kong. Each time we visited, there was something new to see in their bewildering world of electronics. They had everything, but what I always wanted was the latest gaming console. In the early days, there was the Game & Watch, which had LCD Donkey Kong and other built-in games in handheld consoles.

Before that, we had the ZX81 or ZX80 Spectrum, which was this tiny keyboard that used cassette tapes to load games. The loading process took forever and made this distinctive noise that everyone remembers. Often it wouldn't work, and I'll never forget the most disappointing two words you could hear as a child after waiting 15 minutes for a game to load: "Syntax Error."

Then came things like the Commodore 64, and I remember convincing my parents we needed a Commodore Amiga, which was probably the earliest decent PC at the time. I sold them on it by emphasising its word processor capabilities and home office potential, but really, I wanted it for the games. The games were on disks that only took about three minutes to load, which seemed amazing at the time.

This was before email became widespread and before mobile phones were common. I grew up with the first mass-produced mobile phones, like the Nokia 5110 with its ability to send texts. I never understood texting at first - why would you want to send written messages when you could talk to people? Turns out people often prefer to communicate that way rather than actually talk to each other.

As mobile phones became increasingly smart, I started with HTC before moving to iPhone. I remember getting an iPod Touch before the iPhone came out. I was already familiar with iPods - I had an iPod Mini - but the iPod Touch was different. I remember being in a pub, showing people how you could use gestures to zoom in and out. We all just seemed to go "whoa" - it felt like holding the future in my hand. About six months to a year later, the iPhone came out and revolutionised touch-sensitive devices.

Before that, everyone wanted a keyboard on their device - Blackberry was the device to have. Then Apple came along, put the keyboard on the screen with touch sensitivity, and completely transformed the technology landscape.

The internet became massive, e-commerce grew, and social media emerged. We've seen Web3 evolve, creating cryptocurrencies and all sorts of new innovations. Now we're seeing the evolution of AI, which is growing not just in terms of applications and tools, but also in the range of platforms and the speed at which they're improving.

Looking at the world of sport and leisure, I've been really enjoying working with Ollie. He is someone who really energises me as he is a genuine pioneer in the area of technology and innovation. We share a common goal of wanting to work at the edge of the possible and we constantly ideate about how we can make physical activity more accessible to people by embracing these technologies. We're working on projects to assist physical activity providers to make sense of the incredible pace of change and take advantage of the advancements in a safe, effective and ethical way.

Historically, the world of sport and physical activity has been slow to embrace new technologies and this means that the contribution sport and physical activity makes to areas like health and education is limited. For example, currently a personal trainer requires clients to sign a PAR-Q (Physical Activity Readiness Questionnaire) to assess their fitness levels and health status for insurance purposes. This is a labour-intensive process, but the digital world could create a digital PAR-Q, almost like a passport that would be regularly updated and interface with digital health records. This would make it easier for both practitioners and participants while improving safety and service quality. Likewise, I still find it amazing that if a primary school headteacher wants to find a coach that has training in specific sports or activities and training in working with children with specific needs...there is no way of doing this. It is easier to book a hotel room in Kuala Lumpur than it is to find a coach that can deliver dance and dodgeball to children with ADHD.

These are just a couple of simple examples, but it shows how technology could remove barriers to things like social prescribing and help GPs feel more confident about prescribing physical activity for people who need it, whether for mental health, social-emotional wellbeing, physical health, or weight loss or the sector could mobilise to ensure that sport is provided in schools safely and with high quality.

The speed of technological progress is fascinating, and I don't think we've even seen the tip of the tip of the iceberg in terms of possibilities for sport and physical activity. It's a really exciting place to be. I would love to hear your ideas for how technology could enhance sports development...what are your challenges and pain points...what would help?

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- While we are on the subject of technology...here are a few tools that I use on a daily basis to help me with my work and to speed up the content production process. I hope that they might help you... I use the voicenotes app on my phone to record podcasts while I am walking with Flo. It has a built in transcription feature which I copy and then paste into Claude.AI. I ask Claude to take out the umms and ahhs and clean up the grammar and superfluous language but keep close to the original words. I then copy that into my website and I have a blog post... I take the blog post and paste it into an awesome platform called 'Blaze' that will take any piece of content and turn it into a months worth of content in minutes. I can also take these posts and turn them into slides decks at the touch of a button using 'Gamma'. Gamma is an absolute game changer in terms of the time it saves me. I can take an idea or an outline have it turned into a slide deck in minutes. I really hope that these help you too. (full disclosure...I do get a small affiliate commission from anyone who signs up to these tools so if you do like them and sign up then you would be helping me to produce more content...it's kind of a win win!)