How does a good environment develop talent?

Reading Time: 4 Minutes

What to Expect:

• An overview of talent development environments

• 2 models of talent development

• A snapshot of helpful/unhelpful environments

Since the NBA All-Star Game and Adam Silver's comments about shutting down G-League Ignite, there's been a wide discussion about the benefits of drafting European players and how their approach to skill development leads to greater success in the NBA.

At a foundational level, the main difference between the way we approach talent development in the US and how it's approached in Europe is the talent development environment. If we're going to overhaul the G-League in the wake of the NIL and try to make US talent better, we have to do more than just encourage players to go to college.

We have to understand what makes a development environment facilitative of building elite skills and what is debilitative of that same process. Though we might default to identifying good performance outcomes like wins and losses as a sign of a good environment, the reality is these outcomes don't always neatly correlate to long-term human development and success in a career.

Anyone who has been around sports for some time and worked in multiple settings has experienced environments that lift them and those that tear them down. In the last several years, we've seen news story after story about problematic or downright harmful environments across a range of sports. These environments not only limit performance but cause long-term harm to athletes who may never have the opportunity to reach their full potential. And of course, this same parallel exists in other performance environments, from medical schools to business board rooms. Failing to appreciate the impact of an environment on human health and performance means failing to help those same people reach their full potential.

To create these healthy, high-performing environments, we need to focus both on personal development and the goals of the team or program. The two aren't mutually exclusive. 

Let's take a look at what we know leads to enhancing well-being, personal development, and performance over the long term.

Models of Long-Term Talent Development 

Whether you're trying to build a business or a sports program, you're trying to create a culture that leads to:

• The development of relevant skills

• Progressively greater improvement 

• Optimal teamwork 

• Sustained excellence over time

At the intersection of these four concepts is the idea that creating a high-performance culture means creating a culture where people can grow and ultimately thrive, in the context of a larger team goal.

One model (Martindale et al., 2005) put forth to do just that suggests that a good environment for developing talent includes five key features:

1. A focus on long-term goals and methods that support that focus.

2. A coherent cultural message and support that backs it up.

3. A focus on development rather than current performance and status. 

4. Individualized, tailored development programming. 

5. An integrated and systemic approach to building talent. 

A second model put forth by former podcast guest Kristoffer Henrisken (2010a) suggests that a good environment for talent development includes:

1. Macro and micro factors, on and off the field, ranging from the support of family to the larger sports environment in which the team is located 

2. Preconditions, like organizational commitment and finances 

3. Processes, like the quality of training 

4. Outcomes, like individual and team development

What both of these models suggest is that the right environment is a combination of organizational conditions, like financial support and who's in charge; team conditions, like who's employed in the organization and what influence they have; and processes, like what the organization focuses on and chooses to target in training and development (e.g., making the team vs. getting better).  

Understanding good (and not-so-good) talent development environments

When we're exploring what makes for an optimal environment, what we're looking for are environments that support an athlete's personal and sports development as well as their health and well-being. This idea is born out of the concept that sports environments can help or hinder performance and seriously impact an athlete's overall well-being.

Anyone who's ever competed and been a part of a good (or not-so-good) environment knows just how much that can make a difference in how you feel, how good you get, and whether or not you want to continue.

Environments that account for well-being and personal development alongside sports development are termed "holistic" - and are what we should all be striving for in any high-performance space.

Hauser, Harwood, Honer, O'Conner, and Wachsmuth (2023) identified 4 key features that make a difference in an athlete's holistic development:

1. Preconditions of the sport environment

2. Organizational culture

3. Integration between sport and non-sport life

4. Holistic preparation for life in and out of sport

Of course, an organization is not likely to be all good or all bad, but can have features of both good and bad environments.

Here's a visual representation of what works and what hinders performance in talent development environments:

In this diagram, what has a plus underneath it is a good or helpful feature, and a minus indicates unhelpful.

What's important to note here is that the best talent development environments promote flourishing, in and out of sport. The idea that you can have one without the other is BS, and in fact, the two work together synergistically to keep athletes engaged and connected to their long-term goals if done right.

In these environments, athletes are motivated to improve their current skills and to strive for long-term development goals, while having their basic psychological needs met. This type of environment also encourages the development of skills that will support personal growth over the athlete's lifespan, like taking responsibility for their development and growth and learning how to engage effectively in relationships and teamwork. 

In stark contrast, problematic environments take a myopic view squarely on sports development. Anyone who has worked tirelessly on one thing while ignoring the other aspects of their life knows that, eventually, this catches up to you. Athletes are no different - in these environments, stress goes up and psychological needs satisfaction goes down. Over time, this leads to burnout or physical injury and eventual disengagement with sport, as well as a failure to climb through the ranks.

There are other consequences to building environments like this that stand in contrast to what we'd hope for. Athletes in dysfunctional environments tend to end up more extrinsically motivated and focused on short-term success because of how they're being evaluated. As a result, they miss opportunities to build the skills they need to succeed over the long haul. As sport gets more challenging, this narrow focus also makes adversity more disruptive and difficult to cope with. The result is unhappy, underdeveloped athletes. 

The bright side of this research, though, is that these environments can be created. They don't simply exist with no ability to be molded. They're shaped by the people and processes in place and can be made better (or worse) with some deliberate action.

In the coming editions, we'll explore the principles of creating a great environment and what you can do to develop your talent.

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