June signals a hive of sporting activity for the UK, Wimbledon fortnight sees Andy Murray installed as 2nd favourite, the 20twenty world cup finals here in England, Northamptonshire will come to a stand-still with the exception of Jenson Button, England have all but confirmed a spot in the World Cup finals and the British and Irish Lions will be facing World Champions South African in Rugby Union. There has often been lots of links between how we can compare sporting success to business success and vice versa, as an avid sportsman, and sports fan, along with being an L&D professional, I often look at the two with interest. Rugby is a sport I play and follow closely, and the two biggest successes in recent years have been a World Cup victory for England in 2003, and a series win for the British & Irish Lions in South Africa in 1997, and I see a number of L&D comparisons. Sir Clive Woodward, Head Coach of the successful 2003 England side was a pioneer in the coaching world, which is in some part due to his prior success in business. Woodward’s coaching style was as close to a ‘blended learning’ approach as possible, meticulously looking at every element of success, not just the physical and tactical elements of the game. Woodward employed psychologists; he worked on team-building, even used referees to work with his teams as well as creating clear visions and goals, in his autobiography Woodward admits he isn’t the greatest ‘coach’ in the classical sense world but his style bought the greatest of successes. Woodward, however could not build on his success as he went on to lead the British and Irish Lions in 2005 to failure in New Zealand, which takes us back to 1997, the last successful Lions team, victorious in South Africa. A documentary following the tour gave an insight into a very different coaching style by Ian McGeechan and Fran Cotton, who created a side that was taken to the edge physically, to the point that squad members were taking lumps out of each other. A no-nonsense approach, combined with a sense of fun (and a few beers) and some amazing tactical nouse bought success, which from a L&D perspective makes perfect sense – training that has transferable practical skills that is enjoyed by delegates is exactly what many L&D practitioners strive to create. Maybe sports coaches need to focus on one of the L&D basics, ‘consider your audience’ – a style with one team or player, as we know won’t always work with another… How important is coaching and training for sport? In the sporting world you don’t have to look far to see the difference an inspirational leader as head coach can make. In football, some managers create success on a shoestring, whilst others fail on a multi-million pound budget. Andy Murray changed his coach at the end of 2007, his win-lose record at majors went from 14-9 to 19-6, and a tournament record that went from 26-18 to 41-11. Even in a simple coaching role, England’s cricket team went from the having the most feared bowling attack in the world, to an attack that could bowl one of the weakest sides in the world follow the departure of bowling coach Troy Cooley. The big difference I see in the world of development across sport and business is the level of investment. When the going gets tough, businesses often cast an eye on the training function and look at reducing investment in learning interventions in order to cut costs. When a sports team struggles, it seeks new coaching staff, new ideas and greater investment in this area, and may I say, so do many smart businesses, however many more business crudely cut back. Let’s hope business leaders can learn this from our sporting counterparts. Saying that, the key to success is, and probably always will to be, to select and invest appropriately, not easy as Mike Ashley will tell you as he has successfully invested Newcastle Utd to relegation. Business leaders can certainly learn as much about the mistakes as they can from the successes by drawing comparisons from sport