6.
Expecting the Unexpected
It was 0800 hours on a bright summer’s day at the Royal Marines’ training camp just outside Exeter. The men in combat fatigues climbed into the waiting trucks outside the officers’ mess, but something wasn’t quite right. Granted, the men looked fit and healthy, but they were all sorts of shapes and sizes: some were well over six foot tall and built like the proverbial brick outhouse, while others were smaller, more wiry; there was something jarring about the contrast.
Once loaded, the trucks drove off, initially heading down the main road outside the camp before turning on to a country lane and then a dirt track. After a couple of miles down the winding track, the trucks pulled up at a disused quarry, where the men disembarked. As they did so, a bit of banter started about how hard and uncomfortable the seats were – how it was nothing like flying business class.
This was the England rugby union squad preparing for the 1999 World Cup: we were a long way from our five-star hotel in Surrey. The officers addressed us and explained that we were about to be put through a series of challenges designed to test our leadership, ability to work in a team and use our initiative in environments that would be both mentally and physically challenging. The sergeant major barked out our names, dividing us into eight groups of seven or eight, and then each group was marched out to their own part of the quarry.
My group spent the morning absorbed in a series of taxing tests. First, we had to carry four mortars plus ammunition to the top of the quarry and then assemble them so they were ready to fire. The equipment was extremely heavy and we had to work as a team to coordinate the best way to get it up the hill. Next was the dead man’s slide, a 300-foot ropeline which saw us glide some fifty feet over the treeline before landing in a clearing, hearts pounding and boyhood fantasies of action heroism being fulfilled, where we then had to arrange large tyres in size order on three fence posts. The catch? We weren’t allowed to touch the ground, so we had to walk on the tyres themselves and then manhandle them on to the posts.
After trudging back up the dusty rock path to the top of the quarry, our next task was to begin with us abseiling one by one down the cliff face, a good 150 feet by my reckoning. My turn came soon enough and, hooked on a line, I leaned back over the edge, my feet apart … and slowly let myself go. I was tentative at first, but I soon gained in confidence as I pushed away from the rock face, rappelling down quickly. What a rush!
When I reached the foot of the cliff a marine was waiting, butler-like, with a tray covered in a cloth. ‘You have ten seconds to remember these items,’ he said as he pulled away the cloth and started counting. With my heart still pounding and adrenaline flowing, I did my best to absorb the contents of the tray. He replaced the cloth, fastened me to a different line and signalled to the top of the cliff. ‘One, two, three, GO!’ he shouted.
If I’d thought going down was exciting, I hadn’t experienced anything yet. On the marine’s signal, three of my teammates at the top, all clipped to the same line, sprinted off down a path, hoisting me up at some speed. I practically bounced up the cliff face. At the top another marine handed me a pad and pencil and said, ‘You have twenty seconds to write down everything you saw on the tray down there.’ No pressure, then.
So the morning went on, with further challenges for us to navigate, as a combination of mental and physical fatigue and the pressure of having to make quick decisions in an unfamiliar environment weighed upon us. As we broke for lunch, using standard military rations and equipment, the quarry was ablaze with the flare of Primus stoves and the buzz of chatter as we all compared ‘war stories’. When a whistle blew, the whole atmosphere changed.
‘You all need to clear the quarry. The helicopters will pick you up in the field north of here in ten minutes. The helicopters will not wait, gentlemen.’ Mild panic set in – which way was north? – as we packed up our unfinished lunches and made for the field. We scrambled out of the quarry and through bushes and trees while two Sea King helicopters thundered overhead, the trees bending in their downdraft. When we finally reached the field, the helicopters were on the ground, their blades still turning, ready to take off. We ducked down as we approached them and boarded. Where next?
The answer was a Royal Navy air station, RNAS Yeovilton. We touched down and filed out of the helicopter and into a large hangar. We changed from our combat togs into jump suits and took our seats in a classroom. ‘Now,’ announced the instructor, ‘we are going to take you through the procedure when your helicopter has to ditch at sea.’
Thinking that this was going to be a theory session, the attention level was courteous at best, given the morning we’d all had. The gist of it was that, when a helicopter crash lands in the sea, the people on board who drown tend to be those who try to get out too early. The pressure of the water on the outside is much greater than that of the air pocket inside the helicopter, so when they force open the window or door, the pressure of the water rushing in pushes them back into the submerging cabin. The way to escape demands an incredible amount of self-discipline under the severest pressure of all: the risk of death. It is necessary to wait in the cabin while it fills with water, tilt your head back and take in large breaths of air, let the water rise, count to at least thirty – yes, thirty! – then swim through the gaps where the windows would have been.
It came as something of a surprise to learn that we’d be attempting this in an environment as close to real as possible. We were taken to a huge, deep pool, above which, suspended by a cable, was the cabin of a Lynx helicopter. ‘It’s about your own preparation,’ the instructor said. ‘When the pilot calls “ditch”, check for the nearest window and put your arm on the rail towards it, as this will tell you where it is when you’re underwater.’
At the side of the pool were four divers in full scuba gear carrying torches. We were divided into groups of six and my group was ordered into the helicopter cabin. I noted the railing and the nearest window. The crane lifted the cabin and the divers jumped into the pool. My heart was pounding by now, of course, in anticipation of what was to come, and, as we hung above the pool, those among the squad who couldn’t swim became extremely nervous indeed. The instructor shouted through his loudhailer one last time: ‘Remember to hold on. Wait for the water to rise and take a deep breath, count to thirty and follow your arm out the window.’
‘Ditch!’ The cabin dropped, thumping on to the water. We all let out involuntary gasps as we started to sink, the water coming into the cabin and starting to rise. Every man was concentrating on his own survival. As the water rose higher, I tilted my head back, took one last big breath and held it as the water covered our heads. I opened my eyes and looked at the window I needed to swim through … seventeen, eighteen, nineteen … The urge to bolt was almost overwhelming, but we held steady … twenty-six, twenty-seven, twenty-eight … The man next to me had not moved yet and I was suddenly struck by the fear that he couldn’t count to thirty … thirty-one, thirty-two, thirty-three … But then he turned to swim out of the window – and I wasn’t far behind. When we reached the surface we were greeted by a huge round of applause from the other groups – and an even bigger sense of relief to have made it out.
After the other groups had their turn, we were told that, in fact, when a helicopter ditches the cabin often capsizes because of the weight of the gyro on top of it. Still wet and not a little shaken from our initial dip, we were going in again. We all took the same seats in the cabin, where we at least felt confident of knowing where the nearest window was, only to be told: ‘Right, change seats!’ This time, I was right by the window and was certain that I at least knew how to count to thirty.
We thumped down on the water, bobbled for a second or two, then flipped over. We were now effectively sitting on the ceiling, upside down underwater and counting to thirty. My hand on the rail by the window was my only way out. When the time came, I twisted and turned a bit and eventually found my way through, followed by a couple of my teammates. This time when we surfaced the cheers were more heartfelt – it had taken us much longer. In one of the later groups, a frogman would have to rescue someone from the capsized cabin.
Finally, in our dripping, shaken condition we were dealt one last surprise: ‘Many operations are carried out at night, so it is imperative that we are prepared for these conditions.’ Now the torches the divers were carrying earlier made sense. In the cabin we again had to change seats – this time I was one away from the window – and then the lights went off. My eyes had barely had time to adjust to the dark when I heard the call, ‘Prepare to ditch!’ and down we went again.
Whoosh! We capsized once more and we were upside down in the dark trying to count to thirty. The disorientation in the dark was incredible: which way was up? I didn’t have a clue where I was, but I still had hold of the rail. However, I had managed to twist myself during the crash and my shoulder felt like it was going to pop. I was still counting – twenty-eight, twenty-nine, thirty – before I somehow managed to untwist myself and head for the window. Despite a couple of good, solid kicks to the head from the guy in front, I made it to the surface. The lights went on and the cheers came again. I was shaking from all the excitement as I pulled myself out of the pool. This was not what I had been expecting when I sat down for breakfast in the officers’ mess that morning.
Dislocated Expectations
Our day with the marines didn’t end there. As we boarded the trucks in anticipation of heading back for a cup of tea and a restful evening, we were instead dumped in the countryside five miles from the barracks and told to find our way home on foot without being spotted from the tarmac roads. By now grumbling had started. ‘What’s this got to do with rugby?’ muttered one. But then we realized that, with darkness encroaching, our priority had to be getting back. Plenty of people have got lost on Dartmoor and suffered from exposure.
It was an exhausted set of men who marched back into camp that night. Morale was still pretty good, with a bit of banter and singing to keep us going through our march, but we all bore the signs of those who’d had their expectations dashed one too many times: lunch unfinished as we were dragged off to the helicopters; a five-mile march instead of heading for home after feeling like we’d risked life and limb in the helicopter crash simulator.
And that, basically, was the point of the exercise: training based on dislocated expectations. Despite what the grumbling player said, dislocated expectations have absolutely everything to do with rugby – and indeed any pressure environment we enter into. While we can prepare to the best of our abilities to anticipate the behaviour required of us, and we can prepare for the environment itself, there are always going to be things we haven’t predicted. So how are we supposed to prepare for these? The armed forces is one of the best places to look to for inspiration.
The entire philosophy of the Royal Marines’ training is based on dislocated expectations. They can have the best intelligence available to them, but in a combat zone they can never be entirely sure exactly what they are going to be faced with. If a platoon climbs a cliff face and the haystack they could see from miles away turns out to be a tank, the soldiers have to deal with it and make new decisions based on an entirely different – dislocated – set of expectations.
In order to be able to improvise like this, to make effective decisions based on an always changing and unpredictable environment, the soldiers must be trained relentlessly in a similarly unpredictable manner. Our day with the marines gave us a glimpse into this: at no stage did we know what was coming next or have time to figure out how to best meet the challenge in front of us, and, through chatting with some of the marines throughout the day, we heard tales of the soldiers being woken in their bunks at 2 a.m. to go on surprise training manoeuvres, often in testing circumstances.
I had an illuminating conversation with one of the frogmen, who was a member of the Special Boat Service (SBS) – the naval equivalent of the SAS. He talked about the ‘state’ people get into for an operation and the difficulty involved in ‘coming down’ from a tour. What stayed with me most was the fact that a lot of covert operations get to the brink of execution before being called off at the last minute – far more than there were actual completed missions.
Think about that for a moment: putting in all that preparation, both mental and physical, readying yourself for a combat zone where you’d be making life-or-death decisions in unfamiliar parts of the world, the build-up of adrenaline, the taming of fear, accepting that you could be the one who pulls that trigger … and then being ordered to stand down at the last minute. How difficult must it be to prepare, knowing that you might not even be required to go through with it, but that any fraction of a percentage of complacency in your preparation could cost you your life, should the operation go ahead?
The equivalent might be for a bride on her wedding day to go through her pre-wedding nerves, get dressed with her friends and mother and then head to the church, pull up, take a deep breath, get out and walk towards the church doors, her bridesmaids carrying the train of her dress … only to receive a call telling her the wedding was off today. It might be on again the next day or the day after. She’d need to be ready.
The marines’ training is geared to prepare them to expect the unexpected, to produce a mindset that says, ‘Whatever the operation, however uncertain the circumstances, we can succeed here,’ and this was what we wanted to instil in the players and staff. An international rugby match is an unpredictable, hostile environment. We can scout the opposition, watch videos of previous matches and be as well prepared in terms of intelligence regarding our opponents as we like, but we can never know exactly what is going to happen on the field of play.
It’s the same in any of our lives. The interview or test you’re preparing for is a hostile environment, in which you will be pushed and tested to produce your best. You can have all the information in the world, but you can’t plan for exactly which questions you’ll be asked. Say you’re driving in Rome for the first time. You can get all the intel you like, everything from which side of the road to drive on to the design of their road signs to making a virtual journey using Street View, but you can’t plan for everything. You can’t plan for the actions of other drivers or pedestrians. And, when you follow your satnav to what looks like a dead end, with a queue of angry drivers honking their horns at you from behind, it is down to you as to whether you’re able to adjust to the dislocated expectations or have a meltdown behind the wheel in the hot Roman sun.
The challenge is to try to replicate the marines’ approach to preparation, so that we can make effective decisions under pressure when the environment we’re performing in provides circumstances we haven’t – and often couldn’t have – predicted. Like the marines, we wanted to produce players who could take this dislocation of expectation in their stride.
Of course, it isn’t just in the marines where a constant state of readiness and an ability to meet dislocated expectations in a controlled, effective manner in what could be an environment of violent chaos is required. It’s a prerequisite for those brave and committed souls working in the emergency services – for a policeman, fireman, doctor, nurse, paramedic, coastguard or ambulance driver who might suddenly have to deal with a terrible accident, a violent incident or even a terrorist attack. A nurse in an emergency department might be treating a sprained ankle one minute and a gunshot wound the next.
Dislocation is something we can all try to anticipate to ward off complacency: if we can emulate the marines and their constant state of readiness, then we can better prepare ourselves for the unforeseen moments and challenges life throws up. Our lives are nothing if not unpredictable, and while we can do our best to plan and prepare for specific pressure environments, sometimes pressure situations can come at us from nowhere: a phone call from a hospital; an impromptu call into your manager’s office at work; a letter out of the blue from a creditor. We can learn much from the marines and the emergency services with their calm, methodical, level-headed decision making that is required for such taxing moments.
At the time of the camp, we, the coaching staff, had been working with most of the players for about two years and we felt we knew them pretty well. Interestingly, when we asked the marines afterwards who out of the players they thought would perform when needed and who would not, the names they gave us proved over the next couple of months to be 100 per cent correct.
At the time of the Royal Marines experience, there was a feeling among the coaches and some of the players that the squad was getting a bit too precious, becoming overly concerned with things that weren’t relevant to winning a Test match. The details were starting to dictate the structure, rather than working to aid us in our overall aim. After this we started to look at things differently, with the simple overriding question: ‘Would this have cost us the Test match?’
Although this camp was undertaken as preparation for the 1999 World Cup, I felt it had a lasting impact on the culture of the squad, and that this contributed to our winning the competition in 2003. The organization of the squad by this stage had become much more performance orientated, with one of Clive Woodward’s great strengths being his ability to manage the political side of things himself so that the coaches could be left to do the coaching, something I valued very highly and didn’t fully appreciate until he left the England team. The attitude within the group shifted from ‘What are we allowed to do?’ to one of ‘We’ll do whatever it takes to get better.’
What we really wanted the players to take away from the marines is this ability to cope with the surprises and challenges that any unpredictable situation can bring about. This is a skill in itself, to be able to manage the environment effectively when it is at odds with your expectations, and it was a skill we were desperate to instil in the players, as we’d learned a lesson the hard way some four years previously at the 1995 Rugby World Cup.
The Jonah Factor
It was June 1995 in South Africa and we’d just beaten Australia in a tense quarter-final of the Rugby World Cup. Next up was New Zealand. At that time, rugby union was still an amateur sport, so I was present, but not part of the official team because, like most of the specialists accompanying the squad, I was deemed professional. In the amateur era, the role of the head coach – it was Jack Rowell then – was to ‘coach by consent’, playing second fiddle to the captain, who was the man ‘in charge’.
We started the week with a two-day break in Sun City to give the players some mental and physical recovery time after their exertions against Australia, so we flew from Cape Town to Johannesburg, made the coach journey to Sun City then came back for a couple of short sessions on the Wednesday and Thursday before flying back to Cape Town on Friday for the match on Saturday. (All this would be unthinkable by today’s standards of professionalism and detailed preparation.)
When Friday arrived, we returned to the Newlands Stadium in Cape Town, the venue for the game, for the traditional team run-through. The players divided into groups and began a series of passing routines that demonstrated their immaculate timing – a routine known as the Auckland Grid, which was fitting, given the nationality of our opponents. It was incredible to watch – it reminded me of the days of the formation motorbike riders of the Royal Signals in the Royal Tournament or an exhibition match by the Harlem Globetrotters – and the vibe the players were giving off was energy worth bottling. But something didn’t sit right. I remember turning to Jack and murmuring, ‘This is impressive, but is it really relevant?’ To which Jack just gave a resigned smile and a look that seemed to say, I agree, but this is what they like doing.
After a while the players were so impressed with the quality of their work that the captain, Will Carling, called out, ‘We’re ready, Jack.’ Most of the team trotted off the pitch and I stayed to work with Rob Andrew on his kicking before we too left the field, just as the New Zealand team arrived for their team run. I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall for their preparation.
I’d always wondered if there was a correlation between the degree of passion with which players sang their national anthem and successful match outcomes. England would have won easily that day if there was. Instead, twenty-year-old New Zealand winger Jonah Lomu – six foot five tall and weighing in at over eighteen stone – well and truly announced himself on the world stage, as he destroyed England almost single-handedly at times. The England players, rabbits in the headlights, simply found themselves playing in an environment that was unlike anything they had ever known.
Sometimes a performer does something so incredible that it transcends their discipline, and Lomu’s feats in that match belong in this bracket. Even if you aren’t a rugby fan, watching his highlights on YouTube is must-see car-crash TV. For his first try, Lomu brushed off two tackles before literally trampling over the unfortunate Mike Catt. The carnage was just beginning: Lomu would score four tries in the match and New Zealand would run out comfortable winners, 45–29, the match all but over at half-time.
Afterwards, England captain Will Carling would have to apologize for his post-match remarks in which he labelled Lomu a ‘freak’ – the description meant more as a compliment to his ability than anything unkind – and, to bring up car-crash TV once again, England winger Tony Underwood would go on to star alongside his nemesis in a Pizza Hut advertising campaign. (Pizza Hut made something of a theme out of using sportsmen who had failed to deliver under pressure: footballer Gareth Southgate – who missed a crucial penalty in England’s Euro ’96 semi-final exit to Germany – would go on to star in such an advert along with fellow penalty-missers Stuart Pearce and Chris Waddle.)
During the rugby match, England’s players were shell-shocked. A player of Lomu’s size should not have been able to run that fast, should he? And he certainly shouldn’t have been playing on the wing – a position for fast, slight-of-build players, surely? How were they expected to tackle him when his legs were the size of a normal person’s body?
But let’s take another look at this, through the prism not only of England’s inability to react to their dislocated expectations, but also of their failure to prepare fully for the environment. During the week there had been an eighteen-stone, lightning-quick elephant in the room. Other than a single mention during a team meeting, the New Zealander barely even warranted comment. There was no strategy put in place to account for a player with such unique talents, no practice devised to help the likes of poor Tony Underwood cope with him – and he certainly wasn’t alone in needing this practice. Underwood was unable to do anything that would even begin to replicate the environment he would face on match day.
Now, Jonah Lomu was a phenomenon at the peak of his powers, but could England have done anything differently? Lomu was not a kept secret. He didn’t explode from nowhere to devour England; he had played for New Zealand in the seven-a-side team prior to the World Cup, and indeed had starred throughout the tournament, notably against Ireland and later, in the quarter-final, Scotland, scoring tries that demonstrated his strength and speed. In short, the intel was there, but England chose not to act on it, instead preferring to adhere to the popular sports cliché of ‘concentrating on their own game rather than worrying about the opposition’. If Jack Rowell, rather than the players, had had complete control, would the situation have been different? I think so.
From a coach’s perspective, we could have had the players who would be facing up to him – Underwood and the rest of the backs – practise by having the biggest players in the squad running at them. Lomu’s legs were so big that the traditional method of going low when tackling was ineffective; his power was such that he simply ran through the arms of the tackler. But studying his previous matches would show that he ‘hands off’ opposing players, using his outstretched, non-ball carrying hand to brush them aside, so would grabbing his arm – a tactic used later by the diminutive and comparatively slight Australian George Gregan – and slowing him down this way so that other players could join in and topple the giant not have been a valid option?
The England match was arguably Lomu’s greatest ever game. In both the final that followed and the subsequent Tri Nations, he didn’t have quite the same dramatic impact. The reason? Other teams had noted his strengths and prepared fully to cope with him. There was no chance of any dislocation in their expectations.
This is the opposite case to the perils of using too much information described in Chapter 4. Here, ignoring relevant information proved to be a recipe for disaster, and is a mistake it is hard to imagine the Royal Marines making. The marines manage to marry the ability to respond to dislocated expectations with thorough preparation for their match environment. If the marines knew in advance that what looked like a haystack was, in fact, a tank, do you think they would wait until it started firing at them before they took action? Or would they use the intelligence to their advantage?
If we look at another, perhaps even more famous Jonah, the one who features in the Bible, we again see an example of a man who did not prepare for the opponent he was about to face: in this case, God. The biblical Jonah was swallowed by a whale, while for England, New Zealand’s Jonah was the whale: huge, dangerous – and hiding in plain sight because they chose not to prepare properly.*
The Interview
Emily is a young magazine journalist interviewing for her second job, having accrued a good deal of experience in her role at a small, independent publication before hitting a glass ceiling. She’s talented and ambitious and the role she’s interviewing for is with an industry-leading magazine whose editor-in-chief is famed as a maverick genius – and, as is often the case, something of a tyrant.
Before her first interview she was told that it would be with two of the magazine’s deputy editors and she prepared accordingly – researching the company history and latest publications, checking on the background of the people interviewing her, visualizing the interview environment and trying to prepare for any curve balls that might be thrown her way – with great success, as she achieved her goal, the second interview.
Now she’s sitting in the reception area, waiting for the same people who interviewed her the first time. She’s nervous but excited – her butterflies feel mobilized – and she’s quietly confident. She did some follow-up research for this interview, mainly just going through her notes from the first one, and she feels good and ready. The deputy editors come out to greet her, looking a little frazzled with the magazine’s deadline day looming, and they take her to the same interview room as last time … only to find it’s occupied.
‘Sorry, we really should have booked a meeting room – let’s try down here,’ one of them says. Emily is all smiles, unflappable. But they walk down the hall, try several more, and now the deputies seem a little concerned. ‘Er, sorry about this …’ one of them starts, until the infamous editor-in-chief walks past, ascertains the problem and, within moments, fixes it.
‘Let’s do it in my office,’ she says. ‘It would be useful for me to sit in on it anyway.’
So now the environment has suddenly shifted from the traditional sitting-across-the-meeting-table format of the first interview, to a new location with an additional participant. Emily is invited to take a seat on a suitably fashionable low-slung sofa, which is so low that she feels like she’s practically on the floor; the two deputies sit together on a similar sofa opposite and the editor-in-chief looms over all, her seat a couple of feet higher, as she wheels across in her state-of-the-art office chair. Emily can’t sit back in her sofa as she’d be practically horizontal, but sitting up isn’t exactly comfortable either: with no back support and her bum only a couple of inches from the floor, it’s like she’s squatting.
What soon also becomes clear is that the editor-in-chief isn’t ‘sitting in’ – she’s running this show. She starts bombarding Emily with questions – many of which are the same as those from the first interview, but because she has already answered these questions to the deputy editors she becomes self-conscious, changing her perfectly good original answers to appease the two who’ve heard it all before. And the dynamic has shifted markedly: while in her first interview she had the full attention of the deputy editors, now they seem more concerned with pleasing the editor-in-chief than with interviewing her – almost like they’re being interviewed too.
Emily is struggling to adapt, with the editor-in-chief, an imposing figure at the best of times, growing in stature by the second, taking on cartoonish proportions from her elevated position. Emily is starting to feel that the interview is getting away from her. Then it gets worse.
The editor-in-chief starts talking about her own history in magazine publishing, the stories she broke some ten, twenty years ago. She asks Emily her opinion on them … and Emily looks on, blankly. She hadn’t prepared for this: she didn’t do her research on the editor-in-chief. She had a certain amount of industry knowledge to fall back on, mainly information from her own brief time in magazines, but no specifics, not like she’s hearing now. Emily is feeling hot and bothered and now she’s panicking – this is not going well and all she wants is to get out of here with what little dignity she has left. At the end she gathers her things and leaves. She does not get the job.
Emily, like the England rugby team, was not prepared for the dislocated expectations she encountered. She met her own Jonah Lomu in the shape of the imposing editor-in-chief and she couldn’t cope with it. What could Emily have done differently? Well, turning up to an interview, even if you know it’s with two lieutenants, without doing your homework on the chief is what some would call a rookie mistake. She could also have spoken up and said she’d prefer to change seats. This takes confidence and, again, an ability to react promptly to dislocated expectations, but if the marines weren’t happy with their position in a combat zone, they’d change it. She also allowed her self-consciousness and the altered dynamic between the three interviewers to get the better of her, when she should have had faith in her original answers.
In pressure situations, when our perception narrows and our adrenaline is pumping, it is always best to tackle the biggest and most immediate threat in our environment. In Emily’s case it was the editor-in-chief and, given that she would have been the ultimate decision maker in any hiring and firing, she should have concentrated solely on impressing her, rather than being reluctant to repeat information in front of the two deputies.
Perhaps it’s too harsh to chastise Emily. She is young and relatively inexperienced, after all, just as the England rugby team were amateurs at the time they faced their own nemesis. What she must do is learn from the experience: use the intel at her disposal more effectively in future and be prepared to expect the unexpected. But how exactly can she, and we, do this?
Match Environment
Inspired by the marines’ approach to preparation – the continual reviewing of their training and selection processes, the use of intelligence to inform their preparations, their readiness and ability to perform when the environment is at odds with their expectations – I have devised a match environment matrix, along similar lines to the match behaviour matrix here.
Some of the entries also feature on the match behaviour matrix. Clearly there is some overlap between environment and behaviour, with the former having a strong impact on the latter. Simply put, behaviour is how someone responds when placed in a certain environment, and clearly the two overlap when it comes to preparing for a pressure event. That is why often the best way to prepare for the match behaviour is to recreate the match environment as closely as possible.
In some cases this environment is quite literally recreated. The team run in the stadium the day before a big game is a sacred rugby tradition. This is their match environment preparation, getting the players used to the environment in which they’ll be performing. And it’s a very valid aspect of preparation: orchestras have a run-through in the match environment before the big event, as do actors at a dress rehearsal. What’s missing is, of course, the crowd, and the added pressure it can bring.
What you do in this environment counts just as much as where you’re doing it. Those in the performing arts are better off in this respect: musicians can play their set from start to finish; actors can play their roles as if for real, a ‘one shot, one opportunity’ mentality. A sporting contest has to be plotted more towards the dynamic, chaotic and unpredictable side of the matrix in comparison. There is no script or score to follow, only skills to perfect. But a slick passing routine such as the Auckland Grid is hardly relevant preparation for stopping a speeding juggernaut like Lomu.
Effective opposition is vital. Consider the most public operation ever conducted by the SAS: the Iranian embassy siege in 1980, which culminated in the SAS storming the embassy, killing five of the six terrorists and rescuing twenty-three hostages. Unusually, much of the external action was broadcast live on TV by news crews. While sports performers expect to be performing in front of an audience, it was certainly a unique factor for the SAS to have to consider.
The SAS prepared, just like the orchestra or the actors or the sports team, by trying to recreate the environment in which they were to perform. Blueprints were studied, people with first-hand knowledge of the building consulted, details about the people in the building were obtained and a mock-up of the environment was constructed for them in which to practise clearing hostages from smoke-filled rooms. The difference between the SAS and the rugby team is that they had created the environment they would be working in, one that featured a hostile opposition, whereas the rugby team, although in the literal environment, barely touched on the conditions they would face come match day. And that wasn’t the only difference. Despite all their meticulous planning, things still went wrong for the SAS during their operation – a soldier accidentally broke a window, which alerted the terrorists; a fire started in the building – but they still prevailed because they were mentally prepared by their training to react accordingly. Fittingly for this particular operational environment, they didn’t allow themselves to be a hostage to their plan.
If we return to Emily and her interview, how could the matrix have helped her? We would say that, in ordinary circumstances, it would not be unreasonable for her to expect to at least be physically comfortable, but as we saw, she was in an uncomfortable position – practically squatting on a low-slung sofa with the editor-in-chief looming over her – which then had significant mental repercussions. In an interview we can expect things to be mentally taxing; it can be a stressful experience with no little pressure to perform. Emily’s mindset would be towards the anxiety side of the spectrum while she was preparing. But it is in the last few entries that the matrix might have best helped Emily, particularly in her ‘knowledge of opponent/situation’, the area where the rugby team also fell short. Emily could have done her homework on the editor-in-chief instead of just rereading her original notes and expecting the second interview to replicate the first. Continual readiness is a prerequisite of the interview experience, as an interview can be a chaotic event: the interviewee has little to no control over the script and therefore, like the rugby match, there aren’t always specific lines to rehearse. The interview is largely reactive, but interviewees must also be proactive in their approach, asking questions and displaying an interest in the company.
Emily will learn massively from her experience and, as her career progresses, each interview she attends will be the ultimate kind of match practice that will eventually prove successful. And even if she had done her research more effectively, short of raiding the magazine’s offices on a special-forces style reconnaissance mission, she could hardly have prepared for every eventuality.
The matrix is effectively the conditions we can plan for, because we can’t predict every aspect of every environment. Sometimes, even the best-laid plan will be thrown off course by dislocation, but being prepared for it is a skill in itself, and one that is usually only mastered from experience. In short, the only way to become used to dislocated expectations can be to have them dislocated a lot. The good – or perhaps not so good – news is that life will throw up plenty of opportunities to gain this experience.
Importing Knowledge
So far we have talked about preparing for the environment in which we’re to perform under pressure, but one thing this chapter – and indeed the aspects of the Pressure Principle so far discussed – should have made clear is that we can learn a great deal in our efforts to perform better under pressure by looking at the environments other people perform in. We’ve talked about the armed forces’ approach to pressure environments, and previously we’ve looked at examples ranging from skateboarders to dolphin trainers as well as in my own sports specialities, and I hope you have been able to translate this to your own match environment.
Much as we should treat preparation for dislocated expectations as a skill to be learned, we should likewise learn from the knowledge and techniques other people use in their own environments – in effect, to ‘import’ knowledge from other fields.
Henry Ford is famous for building the ‘motor car for the multitude’, thanks in no small part to the productive moving assembly line he pioneered. But Ford was inspired by another environment – the production lines in Chicago meat-packing plants – and history is littered with industries taking ideas from others. Businesses do it today, regularly importing people from different areas to give an outsider’s outlook. Sometimes these work, sometimes they don’t.
I don’t mean we should take ‘big’ ideas from industry into our own lives; rather, I’m talking about looking at your friends, family and colleagues and having an open enough mind to see whether you can ‘import’ any knowledge from the pressure environments in which they perform. Do you have a friend who has to work to a deadline, or who balances career and parenthood or finds time every morning to fit in an hour’s cycling as well as holding down two jobs? How do they manage their commitments? If you are able to keep an open mind, there is no doubt much to learn from those around you.
It might just be a little tip or technique you pick up. ‘No screens for an hour before bedtime,’ your friend might say about switching off at night. Perhaps doing the same yourself will give you a better night’s sleep and deliver a little gain when dealing with your own pressures.
I’ve often looked at sports other than those I coach in order to improve my knowledge and help give my own clients an advantage. I once coached a young winger from Northampton who struggled with his catching when the opposition kicked the ball high in the air towards him. I had spent some time in Australia studying the coaching of Australian Rules football and I got the lad and his fellow backs together to show them a video of the incredible overhead catches made in the Aussie game.
The players’ immediate response was one of disbelief that these Australian players could launch themselves towards a high ball with their shin on another player’s shoulder. But this is a bit like watching a ‘goal of the month’ compilation and assuming that every goal in football is a work of art. I then showed them a video of some of the practice sessions, with all the dropped catches and missed jumps as the players worked on their repair. Once they realized they didn’t have to get it right first time, the rugby players were more willing to give it a go.
One of the coaching staff put a large pad on his back like a turtle shell and the players would jump up and balance for a split second on one knee on the pad to catch the ball. The results were, inevitably, amusing to watch to start with, as players fell off, mistimed their jumps and sometimes missed the ball completely – all good repair – and none were laughing more than the players themselves. Suddenly, within the comical chaos, one player got it right, taking the catch perfectly, and, after much applause, the rest soon followed. That was the start of the process, and by the time the World Cup came around in 2003, thanks in no little part to his commitment to continually improving, that winger from Northampton had become one of the strongest overhead catchers in the game.
With the support from head coach Clive Woodward, I was able to introduce a process from Australian Rules to help turn a weakness into a strength. It is wise to continually keep an open mind and explore in other environments what we can learn to help ourselves.
Environmentally Friendly
What made all this possible was the more general environment, outside the specific match environment. I was working in a culture in which, under Woodward, anything we could try or introduce to improve performance on the field was welcomed. It was a culture that, unlike many organizations trapped in a cycle of repeating what they’ve always done without question, encouraged change and new ways of doing things. We weren’t afraid of failure in our approach – we would just try something else if it didn’t work and the players, as demonstrated by their good humour when they bounced off the pads while they tried and failed and tried again, were free to bring a childlike approach to their learning.
We also drew up a series of ‘teamship rules’ which addressed things like how people would like to be told if they’re selected for the team or not, how they should react when informed – particularly in regard to their behaviour towards their rival(s) for that spot – and common courtesy, such as agreeing to reply to texts or emails within twenty-four hours.
Selection can be an area in which environment is particularly important, and there are plenty of stories about footballers finding out they’ve been dropped from a squad via text, or managers discovering they’ve been fired on social media before they’ve even received the phone call. Anyone who has worked for a company in which redundancies are being made can probably empathize. Learning your fate is never pleasant, but it can be done in a sensitive and considerate style in the right environment.
Perhaps you’re lucky enough to work in a culture where importing new ideas is encouraged. Or you’re lucky enough to have a home environment that allows you to address the pressures you feel. As shown earlier, learning is achieved most effectively in an environment of strong encouragement, of celebrating success and with no fear or stigma attached to the idea of failure. Such moral support is vital if we are to produce our best in the match environment, and it is something most of us instinctively try to provide for our children so that they can deliver their best and effectively deal with pressure as they grow into adults.
It is useful to make this distinction because there are several different environments surrounding the event that we often need to navigate to produce our best. The marines have their practice environment and the combat environment, just as the rugby team did. Even Emily would have had her practice environment, whether that was sitting reading through her notes, going through the interview in her head or even doing a bit of role-play to prepare for the match-day environment of the interview itself.
To be most effective, practice environments should mimic the match as closely as possible. The marines used intel and preparation for the dislocation of their expectations to achieve this, but both Emily and the 1995 England rugby team failed to use their intel wisely. They weren’t prepared for the dislocation in their expectations and they suffered for it.