Anthony Landale

Marcus is a football coach for kids and he’s recently just done some great FED work with me. In our last session he told a story that demonstrates that this leadership stuff doesn’t only make a difference in the workplace. It can transform situations outside of work too.

The coaching problem that Marcus was facing was that the main striker on his team just wasn’t scoring. In fact he hadn’t scored a goal since February. Marcus is a straight talking man and had given the lad quite a few ‘gee-ups’ but nothing had worked and he felt that the whole team was suffering.

Now it was pre-season training, and Marcus remembered from our FED sessions how important it is to engage people. With this in mind he decided to try a different approach. He asked one of the other Dads to work with the team while he took the young striker off for a 1:1 coaching session. Despite the summer break Marcus could see the problem was still there. The lad was ‘down’. But this time instead of giving him a pep talk he just started to ask a few questions. Was there anything bothering him? And was there anything he could do to help?

And then it all poured out. The lad knew exactly what the problem was. It was his boots, he said. His Dad had bought him these ‘Wayne Rooney’ Adidas boots which were really expensive. But they didn’t fit. He could hardly run with them on let alone shoot. But his Dad was so proud of the boots he didn’t feel he could tell him that they were too tight.

After that it was simple. Marcus reassured the lad and together they went to talk to the boy’s father. Not surprisingly he was horrified and acted quickly to rectify the situation.

“In the next game the boy was inspired and scored a hat trick” said Marcus. “And we have a rule that if anyone scores three they get the match ball. So I had to pay £15 out of my own pocket to get a replacement.” But as he laughed at this unexpected conclusion it was clear just how pleased Marcus was – not only about the results he was now getting but about the transformational impact he’d had on the boy’s life.

Leadership nudge: In what part of your life are you not getting the results you want? Could you have a different conversation? What question could you ask to open that conversation?

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