Former RAF test pilot reveals how Arsenal and McLaren make better decisions

A former RAF test pilot working with Arsenal and McLaren has revealed how lessons from military aviation are helping elite sporting teams improve their decision-making.

Steve Durcan, an operational performance consultant for Arsenal and McLaren's Formula 1 team, said even highly skilled teams could struggle if people received too much information or were unclear about what it meant.

Speaking to High Performance Speakers Agency, he said his work focused on ensuring the right information reached the right person at the right time.

“That's about empowering our team to provide enough of the right information at the right time to the right person to make the right decision,” he said.

“It's a lot of hard work to get that right and lead us to a position where we can communicate and build that effective picture to make good decisions from.”

Durcan's background as a fighter pilot, test pilot and instructor has shaped his approach. In aviation, understanding a situation and responding effectively can have consequences far beyond the sporting arena.

He believes communication is a skill that organisations often take for granted.

“In reality, at least in my experience, most of us, and I would stick my hand up and include me within that, are very poor communicators,” he said.

He argued that businesses and sporting teams should treat communication as a discipline that can be practised and improved.

At McLaren, he said, clarity, brevity and agreed standards were important in helping people understand information and act on it.

Receiving too much information could be as damaging as not having enough.

“We can end up in a situation where we receive so much information that it's difficult to actually execute our task, bombarded by all of those kind of simultaneous inputs,” he said.

Durcan said his experience in Formula 1 had also highlighted the importance of turning technical performance into results.

A fast car alone does not guarantee success. Strategy decisions, communication and the ability to execute plans during a race weekend can all influence the outcome.

He believes similar principles apply in football, where better processes and decisions can help teams make the most of their capabilities.

However, introducing changes requires more than simply having a good idea.

“An opinion offered without evidence is unlikely to get you very far,” Durcan said.

Working with head coaches in football and a team principal in Formula 1 had reinforced the need to explain the problem clearly and provide evidence for a proposed solution.

Even when people agree that a change is needed, he said, progress is not always immediate.

“Once we all agree on something, it doesn't necessarily mean that we're going to change immediately,” he said.

In aviation, the consequences of leaving a problem unresolved can create a strong incentive to act. In other environments, Durcan said, he sometimes needed to revisit an idea and find a different way to explain it.

He draws on his experience as an instructor to recognise when an explanation has not worked and adapt his approach to help people understand.

Despite the differences between military flying, Formula 1 and football, Durcan said many of the lessons about teamwork and performance were consistent.

“Those lessons always seem to be the same between those environments,” he said.