SPEAKER_01 0:08

Hello and welcome back to Slice of Pie, where the Pie is the psychologically informed environment, and the mission is an ongoing journey to try and understand what that looks like from sport to business, music to the military, to many different types of environment. Now you may have noticed another long hiatus between episodes. It's been a bit of a whirlwind year, a change of jobs, a baby, the final furlong of my sport and exercise psychology stage 2 programme through the British Psychological Society, all fairly time consuming and leaving a lot less bandwidth for the podcast. So those are my excuses and I'm sticking to them. The good news is though, I'm happy to share after submitting my last competency paperwork and passing my Viva, I'm now awaiting my final certificate and paperwork to come through, and after which I will be able to register with the BPS, the British Psychological Society, as a chartered psychologist. It's been an eight-year journey, first with my distance learning masters through Staffordshire, and then five years of supervised practice through the British Psychological Society QSEP programme qualification for support and exercise psychology. And it's really hugely satisfying to complete that journey, and that's one that I will look back on with a lot of pride. Now, having the qualification now in the rearview mirror, I've had a little bit more time to dig back into the Slice of Pie recordings, and this one is the second part of the Jamie Barker interview recorded over lockdown, but focusing on some of Jamie's experiences in the Olympics and Paralympic sport, in professional football and in the military. So lots of evergreen stories and reflections to tuck into despite the three-year-old recording. As a reminder, Jamie is the former chair of the British Psychological Society's Division of Sport and Exercise Psychology and Pracademic with over 20 years of consulting, lecturing, research, presenting, and working in all manner of domains from Premier League football and academy cricket to supporting the British Paralympics team in Rio and working in sport to business to the military and many other performance environments. Jamie is also the author of multiple books, including The Psychology of Soccer, More Than Just a Game, which came out in 2020 in partnership with Joe Dixon, Richard Fairwell, and Ian Mitchell. He's a cracking guest, and I hope you enjoy the second half of our interview. So let's dive straight into it with Dr. Jamie Barker.

Interview

SPEAKER_01 2:37

Okay, so talking about the benefit of working with different people and putting them in the spotlight, working in different environments, let's pivot now and talk about your experiences in para sport. In particular, let's talk about the Rio Olympics. That must have been some experience to go through flying out there to support the team for an Olympic Games.

SPEAKER_00 3:00

Yeah, yeah, brilliant experience at a personal level for sure. And kind of when you you know, when I got involved in sports psychology, one of the things was you know to either work with the England cricket team, to work with Manchester United, or to go to a Paralympics or an Olympics, and I've thankfully ticked one of those off. Um Yeah, it was never I got started working with the group in 2014, and our aspiration was to qualify for the paras. And then as you get closer to the event, you know, there are things around accreditation that can only take so many staff and so forth. So it becomes quite political as to who will get on the flight and who won't, and who will go into the village and so forth. But to cut a story short, I was I was thought of enough by the group that my contributions and the work that Matt Slater and I had done with the group was valuable enough to warrant that I would travel with the team to Rio. And for a period of that, of while we were there, I was in the village as well. Um, and then again through accreditation, I then had to move out of the village. It certainly challenged a lot of the things that we'd done as a group, and and I was reflecting on this last night, Pete, because of the questions you'd sent through in preparation, and you know, I was trying to recall the journey and things like that. And ultimately, you know, when you get there, you know, the food hall is the size of probably what two aircraft hangars. It's oh it's open 24 hours a day, seven days a week. There's a McDonald's on on the village, there's Coca-Cola and ice creams on tap. So it really challenges some of the things that you know you as a group have been working on around elite professionalism and so forth, when there are these things that could actually spiral you out of control. You know, there are games hubs where people can go and play PlayStation and so forth up until the early hours. And you know, when you're talking about preparation and recovery, you know, they don't always tick those boxes. And I think for any athlete going into that environment, if they've not done it before, obviously it's going to be like walking kid in a sweet shop. You know, there's lots of temptation, there's lots of things, and we weren't going into that without that information. We we've got a lot of experience of people that have been to para games before, so we were fully aware, but but but as we know that awareness doesn't always lead to positive behaviour, and you know, it it did become difficult, you know, at certain situations to get people to stay in their rooms, you know, um to not over-indulge on power aid or Coca-Cola or you know, because it was just so readily available. So you certainly, you know, in what you build up, this is the the best environment, you know, the second biggest multi-event sporting event in the world. And you know, there are some things that challenge that that view for sure. There are lots of other barriers as well and challenges that you have to deal with, you know, logistics, getting to and from the events. You know, we were playing at the Diadora Stadium, which was from memory around about 20 kilometers away from the village and trying to get through the rush hour in Rio traffic, you know, of course, meant that we were arriving at the stadium probably earlier than we needed to. The pitch had had uh, I believe show jumping and um rugby sevens on.

SPEAKER_01 6:24

Two of the two of the most ideal sports to uh set up a football football game. Great.

SPEAKER_00 6:30

So so they they they've been taking place during the Olympics, so then you know, we were then tasked with playing cerebral palsy football on you know a pitch that had had those events on, and I will say, you know, it's generally okay, but it could have been better. It certainly wasn't what we played on at St George's Park and at Bishop Abbey, where they're almost like snooker tables, and but what we did in our preparation as well was we did play on dodgy pitches in preparation, you know, we didn't just continue to practice on the on the snooker tables because we knew that conditions weren't going to be as perfect as what we'd seen. Uh but uh you know, and then there's so many other dynamics that you've got as well. So in the GB house the or the GB hotel uh sorry tower block that we had where you've got all the other athletes. One thing that happens is there's a daily medal board. So every day you've got updates of athletes winning medals, and the press and the media are doing interviews with athletes with medals around their neck. And of course, because we were playing a tournament, in effect, no medals are given out for us until the end. So you've got a cumulative effect of games before you can compete for a medal. So every day we'd walk back in and we'd see people with medals, and of course, that that's something that you can't really prepare or protect people from, how they perceive that. Um, and you know, you've got all those reminders that you're here to medal, that you know, this is all about medals, and you know what? We're winning a lot of medals as a GB group, and therefore that that can weigh down on people, I think. And um again, whilst we've had conversations around that, it's still difficult to prepare people, certainly if they've never been in that environment before. But a wonderful experience, you know, and the way in which we framed it was you know, this is a learning opportunity. We're never going to you know, this is something that doesn't matter how much money you've got, you can never buy, you know, this experience. And we will be better people, we'll be we will be better athletes for this experience, win, lose, or draw. And that was a mantra that we took with us because we knew that we weren't favourites for a medal. But we thought that if things went away, we had a chance. And therefore, rather than just talk about, well, we've got to finish third or fourth, we we went for more of a an ideology, if you like, around well, what do we want to be known for? What do we want our Paralympics to be about? And it was about growth, it was about learning, it was about relationships, um, it was about friendships, it was about being excellent as well, it was about those values. It wasn't about winning all the time. Um, because you just seemed a bit of a, well, that's what we're there for, that's what everyone's there for. You know, everyone's there to win.

SPEAKER_01 9:29

It's almost an obvious goal, isn't it? That kind of goes without goes without saying, doesn't really add much, um doesn't add much meaning or function by repeating that. Whereas creating something bigger, you know, being becoming better people to learn, to grow, you know, what do we want to be known for? What do we want to come back with higher than that is is something that I suppose adds another layer of of meaning to the journey.

SPEAKER_00 9:55

Definitely. And I and I think it helped to promote enjoyment as well and an element of fun without taking our eye off stuff. It was just we were going to be there to have to enjoy the experience. Uh and that meant we were still gonna be elite and professional, but we were gonna enjoy it as much as we could within the boundaries of what we could operate in. We we used um what one of the things that a couple of players came up with, and some of the people might be familiar with this, is Jim Telfer's quite famous speech that he gave the about this is your Everest of very few people. Yeah, very few people get to go to Everest, and that was something that resonated a lot with the guys, with the group at the time, and a few of the senior players really like that. So we spoke about that, you know, this is our Everest, and very few people get to go to Everest. And even if we don't get to the top of it, you know, we're going to enjoy the experience of going to base camp or going to camp one or wherever it is, and and using that as kind of a bit of a metaphor for the journey that that we were on. And and interestingly, you know, we we probably things didn't go our way. Um, we we finished maybe where we expected to finish, probably. But the the big reflection for that was that uh 12 months later when we went to the World Championships, you know, we finished fourth, which was the highest that we'd ever finished and a major tournament. And a lot of the work that we did in Rio definitely prepared us and shaped us for how we dealt with the challenges in Argentina in 2017. And you know, I saw a lot of growth in the group, there was a lot of maturity because of the experience of Rio and playing in front of you know what, 27,000 people in the stadium against Brazil for the first game in an audience worldwide of probably several hundred thousand, if not more. So there was a lot that we gained from that, and and you know, in our mindset of how we plan stuff, the Olympics, the Paralympics, sorry, was probably not the period where we expected to peak, we expected to be peaked at 2017, which is exactly what we did. So wonderful experience, a lot of friendships, a lot of great times, but it is challenging, and in terms of what I did practically, you know, I remember an experienced practitioner said to me, if you go to a major event and you feel like a a tourist, then you've done a good job. And I kind of had days where I did feel like a tourist because the stuff that we'd done in preparation was being followed through. Bits I'd be doing it would be in and around the changing room and and delivering messages. There would be some one-to-one work, there would be work with coaches, but generally it was reinforcement. In fact, probably the biggest focus of my work was dealing with the players who weren't starting.

SPEAKER_01 12:47

Oh, right, okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:48

Um weren't getting game time and their frustration around that. That was probably where the biggest focus of my work was. So you know, that idea of being the tourist doesn't probably sit well with people all the time. It makes a lot of sense because what you don't want to be doing at the major event is wholesale change, and you don't want to be changed, you know, being inconsistent as well. We spoke a lot about being consistent with how we were at home with with taking that to Rio and not doing things differently because athletes and other people would pick up on that and it could be a source of stress. So I was very conscious that I needed to remain consistent as a practitioner and the things that we'd done had prepared as well. But but yeah, not looking just because it's the big event, all of a sudden you do stuff differently. That's not what the literature tells us. The literature tells us about those events that you are consistent. Obviously, if there is a a crisis intervention, a crisis moment, whatever that is, then you have to get your hands dirty and you deal with that. But generally you are supporting the things that if you've done your prep well, um, should put you in good stead. Um so I did have days where I did feel like I was I was a tourist, but that's that okay with me because lots of people have told me that that was alright.

SPEAKER_01 14:12

Yeah, well, I think any anyone who's listening to this and follows you on social media would be um familiar with the uh the Man United chat, um overlooking the uh it might be overlooking the Copa Copacabana. Uh it is, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Um, I mean it's a it's a wonderful, wonderful story that and it it's you know it's it's great to know that all that that work that you guys put in pay dividends in the year after in in Argentina. I was just wondering in terms of some of your your other experiences, cricket, Premier League football, uh the RAF, whether there are any commonalities across environments that you've you've kind of noticed throughout the years, or or maybe you're like other guests like Mark Jones that have come on the podcast, uh you know, have spotted them, but maybe you're in the the camp where you're actually quite apprehensive about trying to too quickly apply commonalities across environments.

SPEAKER_00 15:12

Yeah, I'm always cautious of going, well, this is what we do in sport, therefore that's what you should do in business or the military. Certainly more so within the work I've done in military. I'm I'm very conscious and around, well, this is what we know about elite sport, so here's some of the ideas that you should do. And by the way, when we play sport, nobody really dies. So, you know, it feels a bit patronizing to go into a military environment and yeah, start talking about those things. But the way in which we have presented stuff to those groups is uh here are some of the things that we know or learnt about elite sport, and can we have a conversation about whether you do these things or how they might be applicable or just even does this make sense to you in your world? Because I don't know your world like you do. So can you share with me your expertise about the REF, about elite military forces, and can we have some conversation there? Because you know, there might be areas of similarity, but there also might be areas where we can work together to develop some strategies, and I think that's the way in which we've tried to operate. I'm not necessarily somebody who falls into this idea that business needs to learn from sport. You know, I think business can learn from sport and from sport psychology. I'm not sure it always needs to. I think it could be the other way around that sport psychology could learn from business, you know. So I think what one has to be considerate of the contextual information that resides in these different domains and how they are unique and how they won't translate. But maybe there are common themes, there are some common themes across across those environments. And probably one of the things that I do see as a commonality is the idea of identity and the power that identity has on the influence of organizations and how groups operate and formulate, and that seems to be a fairly consistent thread across the work that I've done in that in those settings. Um, I think, for example, the military do the identity thing really, really well, in so much that you know there is a strong reason why people join those reasons often then develop connections, very strong connections, very strong relationships, um, which then lead to very powerful and influential behaviors, which might be around effort, support, you know, performance. So I think there are some really good things in those environments. The cost of that is that sometimes the identity is so strong and so powerful that it can lead to some of the things that we spoke about earlier, you know, burnout, ill-being, mental health issues, which sometimes those environments haven't always supported because they've been seen as potentially negative or an area of weakness. So I think identity is something pretty powerful that cuts across those environments. I mean, some stuff we've done in the Premier League recently as with a Premier League team has really manifested from identity and you know, having conversation about you know what, why do people come to this club? What what attracts them? What what is the club about? And it's been pretty obvious that that is it that isn't always that clear, or if it is, it's certainly not conveyed to staff to players, and therefore, when you get a disjointed or an haphazard team performance, it it's because people are playing maybe for individual motives that they've all got their different reasons for playing, and there isn't one common thread that's bringing them all together. And and I think you know, when we talk about identity, you know, certainly Manchester United. I remember, you know, 12 months ago there was lots of stuff united have lost their identity, and I think sometimes it is becoming a bit like the word resilience, it's like everybody thinks they know what it is, okay, and I think we have to be a bit cautious with that. When we talk about identity, we are talking about our cultures, but we are talking about the reasons why people are part of that group and what the organizational values and systems and structures are, and it isn't just a case of well, let's just create an identity, it's a lot more common, you know. If it was that easy, everybody would do it, they'd do it really well. And it's not just as well, which is which is one of my big bugbears. Well, the all blacks do this really well, so let's just copy what the all blacks do.

SPEAKER_01 19:41

Because sweep the sheds, sweep the sheds, and we'll be uh we'll be a tight-ned team.

SPEAKER_00 19:46

Yeah, sweep the sheds, no kids, you know, all that sort of stuff, and we'll be okay. It's like, well, not really, because the all blacks is wrapped up in Maori culture. There is a lot of identity, cultural values that feed into that, and not everybody is like that because they're unique. So, therefore, yes, there are lessons, there are things we can take, but but we just have to be mindful of how that transfers across. And I think that talks to you why your your earlier point around, you know, are there three themes and similarities? Yes, there are things that we can go into those environments with, but I think we have to do we have to get the contextual knowledge first, and we have to use the expertise within those environments as practitioners to understand what is presently going on, and that could take quite a bit, that can take quite a lot of time. The observation, the reflections, the meetings, you know, you're data gathering all the time there, but you're really trying to understand the operational structures, you know, how is information communicated? Maybe information isn't communicated, but what are the pathways? You know, are there opportunities for debate? Are there opportunities to have input into vision and values of an organization? So I think that'd be one thing that I kind of see, but also try to work out quite a lot.

SPEAKER_01 21:03

Yeah, the interesting thing potentially about identity and how it can kind of apply across um environments is you're not saying it's it applies in a specific way. You're saying from research and theory, we know that identity and the way that groups play into that identity and whether there's a common meaning and these types of things tend to play a role. But let's use that theory or research-based framework to dive in and get really good contextual information about a business or a sport or the military. And and the more that I kind of speak to people on the podcast, so these are the types of things that tend to apply. So when I spoke to Mustafa Saka about resilience, he talked about his kind of challenge and support frame two by two framework. And he's saying this framework we can kind of use in any organization. It's a really nice tool to get people to think about what the big challenges might be in this environment and then how we can support people. But that's going to be very different in the military versus a business versus a Premier League football team.

SPEAKER_02 22:05

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 22:06

But it's the kind of underpinning theory or the knowledge that we have in psychology that we can then use and make it contextual to those environments.

SPEAKER_00 22:14

Definitely. And I think one of the challenges with identity, and because of the popularity of the word within the mass media, is that it's always top-down. So it the hierarchy develops an identity for the club. Whereas what we try to say is, well, no, no, that's kind of goes against what identity is, because identity is a shared process for it to be effective. Because if you share the process, what you do is you develop connections, understanding, relationships, all the maybe the softer social psychological aspects that might be perceived as a little bit fluffy, but actually we know that are really, really powerful in terms of driving group dynamics and group behaviour. So, you know, if you think take a Premier League club, if you're trying to develop a culture and identity, what might happen is well, the board develops that and then they impose that then on the staff and the players, and you say, Well, you know, being part of this club is about X, Y, and Z. And players and staff go, hang on a minute, that's not why I joined this club for. Has anybody asked me? And when we've done stuff where we have almost a convergence between hierarchy, if you think of it in that way, and the lower levels, as it were, if we think of a hierarchical structure of players and staff, and you get input, you know, so what do you think this is about? What do you want the group to be about? Then all of a sudden those words start to have meaning and uh and a sense of relevance. And interestingly, listening to Dean Smith um yesterday after uh Aston Villa Aston Villa stayed up. Um he said, you know, we did some work in Minneanapolis last year, and we came up with a number of key words, and I think he said relentless, prepared. And there was a third one. Uh he might have said resilient, actually. But but he he said we spent a whole day working on what what we wanted to be as a group.

SPEAKER_01 24:05

Interesting.

SPEAKER_00 24:06

And and I thought, yeah, that's a that's a guy who probably gets this. It's not a case of the coaching staff coming up with what do we want our group to be, and we're going to tell the players. It's like, well, let's actually get input around how we want to be and how we want to operate. And I think what we're starting to see now is a recognition that those things are really important within sport. I mean, you know, researchers, you know, Alex Haslam, Steve Riker, etc., have been promoting these ideas outside of sport for many, many years. But I think in sport we're now starting to see, well not starting to see, but we're seeing more of it and more really great literature come out and talk about the influence or power of identity on behaviors, on um you know, things like well-being, things like resilience, um, burnout, and and so forth. So um yeah, that that would be one area for for consideration, I think.

SPEAKER_01 25:03

Yeah, it's interesting that idea of the kind of the top-down I've heard it being called values engineering um before in a kind of fairly derogatory way. I've I've also seen this. There's a classic thing that gets shared on on my Twitter and LinkedIn bubbles quite often, which is someone's put up the the five values of a company and it's like respect, trustworthiness, you know, all of your classics.

SPEAKER_02 25:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:28

What what's this company? And people are going, oh, is it John Lewis, etc., etc. And it was it was Enron. Right. Fame famously was such a kind of a corrupt and awful company that uh they had to change um uh auditing laws um in uh in America um in order to catch companies like that. But it is it's it's just emblematic, isn't it, that actually, you know, we can pick words on a chart quite easily, but anything that's done easily doesn't tend to apply that well. Whereas if you go through a let's say a more rigorous process where you're asking people about what they might be, and then also how they might be, you know, actions, they're not just words on a on a chart, that they become part of our culture, part of our our day in, day out, week in, week out behaviour. That's when potentially they can be a bit bit more useful, I suppose.

SPEAKER_00 26:19

Yeah, and just probably a final point on that is that you know, even Dean Smith's comment around, oh, we had a day on it, you know, it I'd like to think it was a bit more than a day, because our our experience would tell us that these things can take months to get right and to get delivered properly. You know, so you so you go from a point of where you maybe have a blank canvas to then where you've got a situation where maybe players are going out and getting information from the wider group, bringing that back, you're synthesizing that, you're then challenging it, you're then filtering, you're then thinking about how you then cascade those messages. And when we did the stuff with the GB squad, Matt and I, you know, I remember the coach saying, So what when are we gonna see some change? And we'd only done we'd only done two sessions, and it was like that need for immediacy was very, very clear, but we had to levy that and say, Well, these things are pretty challenging to do, but also to change behaviour is even more difficult to do. So this is gonna take a bit of time, and you know, it was probably around about three months into that work, if not longer, where we started to drip feed these messages into the group so they started to appear the you know, that the language was being conveyed and those things because we've gone through a very rigorous process of getting them right for the group and having the group's involvement. And you know, Matt's written a fantastic book on togetherness, which which talks a lot about those those ideas and and the things that we did. So I won't steal his thunder anymore.

SPEAKER_01 27:57

Well, the the the second part of the Matt Slater and Chris Hartley interview would be out in that a month or so. So we'll we'll hear more more from Matt on Togetherness. But you I think you you're bang on there. I think there's there's some really interesting uh little sign sound bites in terms of the process not being necessarily something that can be solved quite quickly, but something that can can take a bit of time. But also, I think there was something in there around setting expectations with your your team or your coaches or your management, your board, around when they might start to see changes and what that might look like. So I think there's a nice nice bit of that expectations in there as well. Well, look, Jamie, thanks so much for for giving up your time. We're getting to the the the end of the podcast now. We absolutely have to make a few minutes available to ask the question. You're not going to get away with it. Um ask the question that um I ask everyone on the podcast, which is around the title of the podcast, The Pi, the psychologically informed environment.

SPEAKER_00 29:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:01

Maybe another opportunity for you to report back on some of the commonalities you've seen across environment. What does a psychologically informed environment look look like from your perspective?

SPEAKER_00 29:11

Yeah, I think it's a great, first of all, I think it's a great question, Pete. And when partly the reason why I'm fascinated with the podcast is is that question in itself. But um, for me, and recent experience was would would talk to this as well. Psychologically informed environment is around safety, trust, confidentiality. I think there's a there's a big thing around ethics. Some of our ethical practices have have been and continue to be challenged, and therefore it's very difficult then, I think, to get athletes to be vulnerable to even engage with psychological services because of you know, maybe trust isn't there, and therefore they and not trust by us as practitioners, but maybe trust in the organization. So there's a general fear of well, where does it data go in this organization? How is it used? Is it going to be used against me? I suppose more broadly it relates to messaging leadership, are leaders promoting or talking about psychology and not in perhaps you know a jargonistic way, but are they recognizing the value of psychology? But also, yeah, from both perspectives, both the negative and the positive. So are they are they regularly having conversations around well-being and performance from a psych perspective? Or is there opportunities for people to have those conversations? So I think if I take the seat, the the para football example and and across the power squads within the FA, I think there are, I'd like to think that they are psychologically informed environments, and therefore athletes can feel safe and staff can feel safe to have conversations about those things. And they won't feel as though I'm being viewed negatively because I'm having a conversation with the psych or I don't want to show that side of me.

SPEAKER_01 31:10

It's not a big brother thing.

SPEAKER_00 31:12

No, and also the idea that just because I have a conversation with the psych doesn't mean I'm nuts or I'm weak or I'm not very good. It's actually I'm having those conversations because I want to improve, I want to be a better version, I want to enhance. But there might be situations where I'm not great and I'm not feeling myself and I feel comfortable asking about that and finding out more. So I think if the number, you know, not necessarily using this as a marker of effectiveness, but over time, what we've started to see within those groups is people have conversations around their mental health. You know, what that has led to has in some cases been referrals for mental health services. And the feedback that we've often had is I feel comfortable talking about these things. It's something I've known that has been there, but now I feel like I can talk about these things in this environment because I feel safe and I know I'll be supported. And I think that's because we've tried to make psychology just an open, you know, it's just there, it's visible. It could be just through having somebody there, but it just could be, you know, trying to normalize that, you know. Do you know what? We don't walk around in white coats and carry clipboards. You know, we are pretty normal people who do psychology. We are there to support and we are there to develop human human beings. So I'm not sure if I'm necessarily answering your question, Pete, but because my my head's swirling with lots of things, but but I think it it is around those things, you know, vulnerability, trust, integrity. So I think for me that a lot of the ethical things, you know, recent work would tell us we've got to have those processes in place for this to be considered a psychologically informed environment. At a more specific level, how is psychology influenced, for example, and the day-to-day training of athletes as well, or the day-to-day training of military personnel? So is there a psychological element to this task or this training session? And and that comes through working with coaches and increasing coach awareness and you know that that odd adage of where you you work through the coach to deliver the message. Is there is there a psychological focus of the training session today? If so, what is it? And have we had conversations around what that is, how are we going to do it, but also how we're going to evaluate whether it was successful or not from a side perspective. And then conveying that information to the to the athletes and players. So do they know as well the psychological challenge or situation they were faced with? But I think they're some of the things that the idea of of pie um speak to when when I think about it.

SPEAKER_01 33:55

Yeah, I I really like it, and and I think it's it's refreshing to hear a couple of ingredients that you're introducing here that have not necessarily been or may have been acknowledged in the previous discussions on the podcast, but maybe not highlighted to the extent, particularly around confidentiality and ethics, which I think is quite interesting. What I'm hearing is this is how I'm summarising it anyway in my head, and tell me if I'm wrong. There's a few key themes, ingredients around safety, which can encompass trust and confidentiality in our own ethics. The way that leadership and the organization also messages that, which I think chimes with some kind of research. I think we have uh across a different uh variety of environments where actually if the support is there, but it's not being told to athletes, or it's not being messaged to athletes or to employees that it's there, actually that can fall by the way the wayside. So actually, that communication, that messaging piece is really important. And also the normalization that it is is something that we're free to talk about. And you know, I'm just reflecting on, you know, actually psychologically informed. I think these these elements here are kind of maybe affecting whether something, an environment has psychology in it. So there is psychology in the environment, there might be a psych in there, but maybe he's not being, or she is not being used, versus an environment where there's psychology and it's useful. Because you might have an environment where there is psychology there, but there isn't really a perception of safety and trust. I might speak to this person, but I'm worried that it's going to be reported back to the board. Yeah. Maybe it's seen as a bolt-on. Maybe the leadership don't really aren't overtly supporting it and the messaging isn't there. Versus where psychology is really useful, and maybe this is the psychologically, psychologically informed environment. The safety is there, it is messaged, it's embodied by leadership, and therefore it's also normalized. It's happening through the coaches, so it's not just one person's job. I suppose that that's what I was hearing from your from your reflections.

SPEAKER_00 35:59

No, that's that's a wonderful summary, and far more eloquent than than than how I probably tried to get it across. But no, I'd completely agree with that. And you know, that idea that you know you might have a psychologist there, but the environment might not be psychologically informed is it resonates a lot. You know, the site can often be seen as the bolt on, but there's no safety for the athletes to engage in that service. You know, where does that safety come from? I think it comes from messaging, hierarchical, thinking about a hierarchical structure, you know, endorsement from senior people, endorsement of trust, integrity, professionalism, ethics. And I think when we can get to that stage, that's where we we end up where we're an increased engagement in service and a wider acceptance of psychology within within a particular environment or domain.

SPEAKER_01 36:51

I like that word, endorsement and acceptance. I like that. Well, look, Jamie, there's been a few podcasts where the discussion has been so interesting and so varied, I've had to end up cutting it into two. I think this is going to be one of them. Um, so thank you so much for for spending the time to share your your insights and your experiences from all of those different environments. Um, I'm sure people who listen to the episodes will find it really, really useful. So thanks for that. Before we finish, though, where can people keep up to date with what you're doing? What are the uh where are the key places, what are the key things they should be picking up um in order to keep up with with Jamie Barker?

SPEAKER_00 37:30

Yeah, I'm always loath to to give out my Twitter handle just because I I tend to go through this Manchester United uh tirade of stuff. But that that I've I've reconciled some of that recently. So so they they can certainly follow me on on Twitter in terms of the work that we're that we're doing around the RAF, you know, following the the university webpage, um, my university webpage, you know, we'll have outputs that that we're developing there. We in the short well in the next few months we'll be um releasing some press material or press release around uh some work we're doing with uh RAF veterans at Loughfree University. We we've just managed to secure some funding to support some veterans and talk very much based around some of the ideas that I've spoken to today.

SPEAKER_01 38:16

Oh, brilliant.

SPEAKER_00 38:17

Around identity and social support and um and social resilience is how we're calling it to support that group. So, you know, if people are interested, they're more than welcome to contact me directly, or or also Craig White, who is a PhD student and a serving wing commander within the RAF, uh, who's coordinating and driving that project. Yeah, and also on LinkedIn as well, I guess. You know, that that's where um he's sharing quite a few of the news stories and and and things that um that are going on. So yeah, they're probably the three main three main outlets social media, uh well, i.e. Twitter, LinkedIn, university web pages, I guess.

SPEAKER_01 38:55

Great stuff. Um the RAF stuff sounds fascinating. So look forward to to seeing that when it comes out. Um, I'll put all of these links in the podcast description uh as per usual, so it's uh nice and easy for people to to find that info. But that I suppose that's it. Thank you again so much um for coming on and uh best of luck with uh the rest of 2020.

SPEAKER_00 39:16

Yeah, no, thanks, Pete, and um thanks for thanks for the invitation and uh you know thanks for giving me the opportunity to certainly reflect. I think you know, thinking about the conversation this morning, you know, that first bit in some ways felt quite self-indulgent, and I hope it doesn't come across like that. But you you certainly challenged me to reflect on my practice and processes that I've gone through. And hopefully um listeners will will take something from that in terms of you know, maybe the choices they make and and and their career options. So hopefully that'll be useful. But yeah, thanks again. I think I think as I've said to you, I think it's a great podcast. I think the people that you have on have been fantastic and the stuff you're trying to do is great. So thanks again for the invitation.

SPEAKER_01 39:57

Great stuff, much appreciated. Okay, thanks very much, Jamie.

Full time reflection

SPEAKER_01 40:02

Hi again. I hope you enjoyed this episode with Jamie Barker. I did have to chuckle editing this the other day, noting Jamie's reference to Dean Smith as Aston Villa manager. Aston Villa have since parted ways with him and also Stephen Gerard are now on their third manager, Unaite Emery, since we recorded this. So you can kind of consider this recording um is three Aston Villa managers old. Now, whilst three years old and three years delayed in publishing, I hope you'll agree that there's lots of evergreen content in here to benefit from. I really enjoyed the reflections from the Paralympics and in particular the thought around anticipating all of the host of changes that will take place when you enter a new or alien environment, from travel time and pitch quality down to small details like the food haul and Special Olympics temptations. I also liked the higher order values that were present for the team and asking the question, what do we actually want to be known for, regardless of the result? Their team wanted to be known for things like growth, learning and friendship. It was also interesting to hear how after the Olympics, a year later, the team finished fourth at the World Championships, which was their highest ever place. So did the Olympics prepare them for this next challenge? It's certainly possible the experience and learning prepared the team for this challenge, and I also find this reflecting backwards quite interesting in itself, the idea that further down the line we can kind of see victories or defeats, wins, failures, and challenges as part of a wider story. So in time, setbacks might be seen as learning experiences that contributed to subsequent successes. It reminds me of the Netflix show You Losers, which you have to take a look at if you haven't. There are some fantastic stories of how losses and failures have led to unexpected new journeys, new possibilities, and new careers. So definitely a show to check out if you haven't seen it. Now, before we leave, just a couple more updates. You might have heard in today's episode the mention of the second part of Matt Slater and Chris Hartley's interview. Now the good news is that episode is already published, and there'll be a link in the description to go straight to that episode if you're interested to find out more. There is also a link to the RAF work that Jamie and colleagues at Loughborough have been working on, so check that out if you're interested to find out more about that work. So that's it for this time. Thanks again for listening, and hopefully, not another year before the next episode. Have a good one.