Mark Lane was the Head Coach of the World Cup winning England Women's Cricket Team. You could forgive Mark for having a swagger or a certain arrogance that comes from being the best in the world, but nothing could be further from the truth. You are unlikely to find a more engaging, honest and straight forward individual.
Mark was kind enough to get up early in the morning to give a talk to a group of talent coaches as part of a 'Talent Coach Breakfast Club' and here are a few of my notes from the day...
The Journey so far...
Mark's journey as a coach is not typical for an international coach, he played minor county and county 2nd XI cricket and then began coaching part time once he retired alongside his job as a builder. He was offered a job running one of the new indoor cricket schools that were popping up throughout the UK (where he started working with players like Claire Taylor on a one to one basis!)before being offered a chance to be the assistant coach of the Kenyan national team (important lessons learnt about dealing with different types of people with different agendas here!). When he returned to the UK he started working as a community coach on the ECBs 'Chance to Shine' programme (49% increase in the number of girls playing Cricket as a result of this programme - Mark was very proud to tell us) before receiving a phone call from the England management out of the blue asking if he could step in for another coach and be with the team in Australia in 3 days time. As Mark tells it "There I was with my balls and bibs and cones in a school and 3 days later I was at the SCG with the girls for the Ashes - it was literally from playground to test arena" (the ECB motto).
Coaching Philosophy
Creating the performance environment is central to Mark's philosophy of coaching. He wants to develop culture within the team based on the following principles:
Mark pointed out that a big part of his development as a coach was to improve his ability to relate to people and understand what makes them tick. A lot of the development provided by the ECB has focussed on this area and personality profiling and management techniques are fairly central to their development programme. Mark has worked extensively on his communication style and his ability to get through to players with different personality types.
An example of this was when Mark asked Claire Taylor what she wanted to do during practice and he said that she really wanted to read her book. He told her that is that was the way she could best prepare then she could do so. "It raised eyebrows at the time and there were a few funny looks but now we have trust and openness and shared values so now we can have optional training sessions and no-one bats an eyelid" Mark points out.
One of the major techniques used in this process is a review that is also used by the men's team coaches ("it's great being able to share ideas with Andy Flower"). This review process is based around 4 questions:
"I am the best sports psychologist these girls can have" Mark says, "and my sports psych often tells me that". Mark outlines that much of his work is about preparing players for the emotional and mental demands of performing at the highest level under pressure. There is still room for the psychologist to work with players on areas of personal development but when it comes to preparation to play that is entirely his domain, as he outlines "my psych is great but he can be a bit fluffy for me, I am all about the here and now and I like it to be real world".
To illustrate this Mark wants to make sure that the players are mentally tough and uses a variety of techniques to help build the correct mindset, they include:
Mark was kind enough to get up early in the morning to give a talk to a group of talent coaches as part of a 'Talent Coach Breakfast Club' and here are a few of my notes from the day...
The Journey so far...
Mark's journey as a coach is not typical for an international coach, he played minor county and county 2nd XI cricket and then began coaching part time once he retired alongside his job as a builder. He was offered a job running one of the new indoor cricket schools that were popping up throughout the UK (where he started working with players like Claire Taylor on a one to one basis!)before being offered a chance to be the assistant coach of the Kenyan national team (important lessons learnt about dealing with different types of people with different agendas here!). When he returned to the UK he started working as a community coach on the ECBs 'Chance to Shine' programme (49% increase in the number of girls playing Cricket as a result of this programme - Mark was very proud to tell us) before receiving a phone call from the England management out of the blue asking if he could step in for another coach and be with the team in Australia in 3 days time. As Mark tells it "There I was with my balls and bibs and cones in a school and 3 days later I was at the SCG with the girls for the Ashes - it was literally from playground to test arena" (the ECB motto).
Coaching Philosophy
Creating the performance environment is central to Mark's philosophy of coaching. He wants to develop culture within the team based on the following principles:
- Open and Honest
- Challenge each other to be better
- Accountability
- Know your role
- Enjoy what we do
- Trust
(A good book on this subject is 'The 5 Dysfunctions of a Team' by Patrick Lencioni. Thanks to Craig Keegan the England Under 21s Women's Hockey Coach for recommending it for me).
Knowing the player and individualising coaching
Mark pointed out that a big part of his development as a coach was to improve his ability to relate to people and understand what makes them tick. A lot of the development provided by the ECB has focussed on this area and personality profiling and management techniques are fairly central to their development programme. Mark has worked extensively on his communication style and his ability to get through to players with different personality types.
An example of this was when Mark asked Claire Taylor what she wanted to do during practice and he said that she really wanted to read her book. He told her that is that was the way she could best prepare then she could do so. "It raised eyebrows at the time and there were a few funny looks but now we have trust and openness and shared values so now we can have optional training sessions and no-one bats an eyelid" Mark points out.
One of the major techniques used in this process is a review that is also used by the men's team coaches ("it's great being able to share ideas with Andy Flower"). This review process is based around 4 questions:
- What have you learned?
- What went well?
- Areas for improvement
- What ifs
"I am the best sports psychologist these girls can have" Mark says, "and my sports psych often tells me that". Mark outlines that much of his work is about preparing players for the emotional and mental demands of performing at the highest level under pressure. There is still room for the psychologist to work with players on areas of personal development but when it comes to preparation to play that is entirely his domain, as he outlines "my psych is great but he can be a bit fluffy for me, I am all about the here and now and I like it to be real world".
To illustrate this Mark wants to make sure that the players are mentally tough and uses a variety of techniques to help build the correct mindset, they include:
- Getting the players to sing in front of each other. This was done as a way to create trust and openness but also as a way to show the players how to cope with being out of their comfort zone.
- Consequence training - making as many sessions as possible have a consequence. One example was the '5 point net session' where players can stay in the nets as long as they haven't got 5 points (1 for the ball beating the bat, 3 for getting out, 1 for not showing enough intent).
- Playing against male players or playing with male players in men's teams.
Continuous improvement
Mark explained that he wants the players to examine their performances and continuously improve, he explained that in the past they had 2 or 3 key players and the rest would rely on them. He challenged the girls on this and told them that they needed to step up. One admitted that she had never scored a 50 for England and so he asked her what she was doing playing for England. The same girl has now scored multiple hundreds and is the best finisher in the world.
Mark has also made sure the times when the team has not been successful have been opportunities to learn. After one unsuccessful series they agreed that that needed to be tougher, and to be able to take criticism from one another. This can only be done when the culture is right and still requires work and careful management.
Consistency = belief = confidence
One of the ways in which Mark can evaluate the programme is by measuring the confidence levels of the team. The work put in by the players has brought about good performances on a regular basis, which has imbued the players with faith in their abilities. "We now have a healthy arrogance", he suggests. I asked if he measures the women's programme against the men's programme or there is a quiet rivalry. I flicker of a smile comes across his lips but the answer is more straightforward than I had hoped, "the men have had great success and so have we....their world is different to ours but I like to think that we can stand on our own two feet".
Preparation and taking chances
In sport we prepare ourselves for the contest and then we go out there and try and take our chance. This is a perfect metaphor for Mark's career to date... work hard and become as good as you can be at whatever level you are working at. If you get a chance, be prepared to drop everything and go for it...and give it your all.
The quotes in this post are not exact verbatim transcripts of Mark's words as I couldn't scribble that fast. Instead I am paraphrasing Mark's words to give a flavour of how he thinks.
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