How should staff communicate with their Sporting Director?
Written by
Training Ground Guru
January 17, 2025
A Sporting Director at an elite club can easily be overseeing a football department of more than 100 staff.
That’s why the final question from the audience to our Sporting Director panel at TGG Live was such a good one: “You have various departments coming to you with their ideas. What suggestions do you have for communicating with you clearly and gaining your attention?”
The panel, composed of Liam Sweeting from MK Dons, Ben Knapper of Norwich City and Kevin Thelwell of Everton, moderated by Matt Roberts, the Broadcaster and Chief Executive of Scunthorpe United, gave interesting answers, which you can watch and read below.
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Liam Sweeting: One thing I would say is giving a heads up is good. There’s neuroscience behind this – people need time to connect the dots. If you just come with something out of the blue, it’s very difficult then for us to process that amongst everything else.
But if you say, ‘Look, I could really do with some time to discuss x, y, z’ and then we do that in two days’ time, I’ve already had time to connect the dots and we’ll have a much more rich discussion.
Ben Knapper: I’m the same, I need time to get into the right headspace to discuss a certain thing, so I’ve had time to process it and bounce it around in my own mind first. So that’s definitely a good one.
The other one for me is to demonstrate that an idea or topic has got lateral components as well, so not just come in with an idea that’s specific to that one department and also quite siloed, but to frame the discussion around, even if it’s an idea in one specific function or area of the business, how that can have lateral impact as well. That’s something that always gets my attention more.
Kevin Thelwell: From my perspective, there are three or four different ways really. The first thing I did at Everton was to set up a governance cycle, so a regular schedule of meetings with individuals, to allow them to talk specifically about not only their programme and their plan but also about themselves.
We have a regular heads of department meeting on a fortnightly basis, where we’re sitting down for at least 90 minutes, talking about big issues within the organisation. I’ve already talked about temperature checking, dropping in to get around departments, even just to walk in with a coffee and sit down and chat for two or three minutes.
Left to right: Matt Roberts, Liam Sweeting, Kevin Thelwell and Ben Knapper
And also being a bit clearer about what ideas there are and what difference those ideas make to the success of the organisation. When I first joined Everton, they had a very clear vision, which was get back amongst the elite. The reality then is it’s about the workforce, the individuals within the building, and getting them started on a plan to try and pull all that together and take us forwards.
I like to operate a very flat structure. I like the idea that if something’s important to you, you just come and share it, the door’s always open. If it’s important to you, it has to be important to me. Hopefully that allows us to build opportunities where we get to trust each other and get to understand we’re there to help each other. We’re stronger together, effectively.
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