The Game.
Seven years ago I was working with Gareth Southgate, the then England manager, prior to the 2018 World Cup.
I was 26. Early in my coaching career and eager to prove myself.
Gareth asked me what session I had planned.I pulled a folded piece of paper from my pocket - scribbled drawings, tactical patterns, complex progressions.
He smirked. Then he pulled an equally crumpled piece of paper from his pocket with similar drawings.
"I was thinking the same" he said.
We had planned the same session. The same drill on paper. But watching Gareth execute it taught me something I couldn't have learned any other way.
It wasn't about the complexity of the session - It was about how he delivered it.
The execution was world-class.
When I questioned him afterward, Gareth said something I've never forgotten:
"It's not about the complexity of the session, it’s the ability to simplify the outcomes."
My belief was always the higher-level the coach = the more complex the session. More intricate patterns; more tactical layers, more variables to manage.
Surely complexity equals competence?
Gareth showed me that the best coaches, the ones leading national teams and winning tournaments, master simplicity. They take complex information and distill it into clarity.
They don't withhold complexity to appear smart, but absorb it, process it, and translate it so their players can execute under pressure.
That's the skill.
The Analysis.
As an entrepreneur, visionary, leader, you're constantly managing complexity, market dynamics, financial models, competitive threats, team structures and shareholder expectations.
The information is vast and the variables are infinite. The temptation is to share all of it, to show your team how much you know, how hard you're working and how strategic you're being.
But complexity without clarity breeds chaos.
Elon Musk once said that:
“Possibly the most common error of a smart engineer is to optimise a thing that should not exist”.
The best business leaders, like the best coaches, simplify.
They create clear structures; define roles with precision, they implement processes that drive intended outcomes, and crucially, they adapt in the moment when the plan meets reality.
Your job isn't to design the most sophisticated strategy. It's to translate that strategy so clearly that your team can execute it seamlessly under pressure.
The Reflection.
Where in your business are you adding complexity that your team doesn't need?
Identify one area where you've layered complexity, and ask yourself:
What would this look like if I simplified the outcome?"
Best.
Daniel Holloway
Founder, Sport of Business
P.S. Know someone building a business who thinks like an athlete? Forward this to them. The best performances are by those who understand the game.