Talent Development Environments

First posted 12/01/2015

Updated 14/03/2021

Since reading the Talent Code a few years ago I have been interested in the idea in this book that talent development environments exist. To prepare for a recent meeting I was having on this topic with a club I went back and re-read some of the books in my library and did a bit of research on what the 'academic' literature was suggesting could be the 'talent development environment recipe'. I find it useful to write these ideas down as part of the process of coming to understand them and in this post I share the summary of my reading. This is what I summarise as the 'recipe' from what I have read on the topic:

1. Look for a club that is athlete/player-centred as it will develop the person as well as the player

Character assessment is often used to find the player to fit the club at the semi-elite and elite level.

It is about getting the 'right; type of person into the club. The player to look for is self-motivated: that is, the degree of determination and persistence in pursuing one’s ambition: if you like, the players ‘drive’ to develop their game. Sometimes, I hear this referred to as how 'coachable' or 'teachable' a player is.

“the ultimate factors accounting for achievement are likely to be the unique personal and behavioural dispositions which the individual; brings to the actual performance” (Kane, 1986, p.191)

I have heard also heard the character assessment piece referred to as the 'no dickheads' policy when applied to recruitment or drafting to academy programs or elite sport pathways. From some of my conversations with talent scouts, one of the things that has changed since I did some scouting work in the early 1990s is this character assessment piece and it increasingly includes the family environment and not just the player.

2. Look for a coach that develops the tactical and technical fundamentals forming the basis for player talent

Unless you are working in junior sport, you are looking for a youth player with a strong 'fundamental' movement skill foundation upon which more sophisticated and demanding movement models can be built. In junior sport, you are focused on building, developing and extending those fundamentals and players confidence in their 'fundamentals'.

“talent emerges with the right experience” Martindale, R. J. J., Collins, D., & Abraham, A. (2007). Effective talent development: The elite coach perspective within UK sport. Journal of Applied Sports Psychology, 19, 187–206.

3. Look for a coach that creates learning environments to foster, enrich, promote potential

The practice environment is a learning environment. That sport coach 'as educator' builds on: 

-          Volume of practice: in particular representative ‘play’ and game based practice as part of an overall focus on deliberate practice where the coach is a designer of a learning environment.

-          Quality of coaching characterised by deliberate efforts to change aspects of performance rather than execution of mechanical movement routines.

-          Avoiding ‘automaticity’ and developing functionally adaptive movement models responsive to the situational dynamics of the performance environment.

-          Focusing on player potential not performance with young players.

-          Building the brain for performance: a) develop perception-cognitive skills (ability to detect patterns of play); b)perception-action coupling (movement response matches the situated need of the performance in context) c) develop ‘action plan profiles’ and ‘current event’ profiles that enable players to generate appropriate strategic decisions ~ that is, develop players decision making and anticipation skills.

-          Further developing individual player strengths (Their  ‘weapon’) and developing weaknesses into capabilities through clear articulation of short, medium and long term-goals with players.

-          Practice history profiling to develop individualised training interventions

-          Individual player biomechanical profiling of movement skill fundamentals .

-          Youth Squads focussing on developing player potential and not on winning.

-          Ongoing/continuous development opportunities includes player goal setting/review/reinforcement as part of the process of developing clear expectations for improvement.

-          Systematic processes of influencing and utilising as many people as possible. For example, education of parents, support staff and coaches, including practical coaching education and supporting coach education. 

There is "considerable evidence demonstrating that both early specialization and early diversification can lead to expertise development. However, the contrasting views of deliberate practice and deliberate play do not provide a sufficient spectrum of different learning activities for talent development." Coutinho P, Mesquita I, Fonseca AM. Talent development in sport: A critical review of pathways to expert performance. International Journal of Sports Science & Coaching. 2016;11(2):279-293.

4       4. Club culture can nourish talent 

      If club culture:

- Foregrounds player ownership of responsibility for their own development and performance as they grow as athletes and people.

- Systematically uses role models to influence positive player development

- Provides opportunities for as many players as possible, understanding the need for opportunities and patience with late developers

If you don't like Google Scholar searching for academic papers on the topic of talent development in sport, in my opinion, these books do a reasonable job of summarising the research in more of a 'story telling way' for the general reader:

• Talent Code: Daniel Coyle
• Talent is Over Rated: Geoff Colvin
• Bounce: Matthew Syed 
• Practice to learn: Play to win: Mark Guadagnoli
• Talent development: A practitioners guide: Dave Collins & Aine MacNamara

Talent development and secondary/high school physical education

Talent development should also be of concern for secondary/high school physical education. By this age, 'sport' is not only a recreation or leisure activity for ongoing active and healthy living. For the talented and potentially talented, by adolescence sport may be a viable vocational pathway. I believe physical education needs to give consideration to the differentiation of student need and interest in secondary/high school PE, as shown in Cote et al 2007 model. 

Côté, J., Baker, J., & Abernethy, B. (2007). Practice and play in the 

                            development of sport expertise. In R. Eklund & G. Tenenbaum (Eds.), 

                            Handbook of sport psychology (3rd ed., pp. 184-202). Hoboken, NJ: 

                            Wiley.

A good read on talent development in PE is Bailey & Morely (2006) Towards a model of talent development in physical education. Sport Education and Society, 11(3) 211-230. I recommend reading Richard Bailey's 2012 blog on PE and Talent Development  here. In general, it is my experience that #physed chats on social media and as I get around visiting schools that physical education faculty/department policies mostly lack clarity on how to provide for (what in the 1990's was called) 'gifted and talented' students. A recent systematic review on this topic by Prieto-Ayuso and colleagues (2020) suggested that this lack of clarity is evident globally.

In summary, I understand that a talent development environment will progressively introduce the volume of practice through quality of coaching necessary for deliberate practice and purposeful play, it will address the gap between the potential of the player and what it is they can become, and recognise that while there are some people with the innate 'drive' to succeed others will need an 'external agent' like a club coach and/or supportive club environment to assist them to activate their potential into its possibilities.