I am building a new team at Millfield School this year. This is a huge challenge for the coach, captain and the players who will make up that team.

Whilst I have worked individually with a couple of the players in the one to one programme, I am starting from scratch with 9 of the group. The brutal reality is that we have a 10 week period together to form a team and to work towards playing some really good cricket together.

With that, I was searching for a way to get a deeper understanding of the players within the squad so I "borrowed" a great trick from Olympian swimmer Euan Dale.

Euan coaches within our excellent swimming programme here at the School. Euan asks each athlete to write down 10 points to the question "Why do I swim?"

This exercise often reveals the inner workings of the person answering the question and thus provides the coach or captain with an invaluable insight into a powerful resource that is often untapped.

One of the first sheets I had emailed to me this week said:

1. Cricket is a great sport played by great people. I aim to be a great person one day.
2. I love competing and fighting with my mates to come out on top of a game.
3. I love winning, especially if I have worked towards something in my practice sessions and that "thing" helped us to win the game.
4. There is nothing better than taking a full length diving catch to change the direction of a game.
5. Because my two best mates in the world play alongside me.
6. I am called the "finisher" when I bat as I have been not out in winning situations a lot. A bit like MS Dhoni. That makes me feel proud!
7. I love the laughs and the jokes that we have in cricket. We have lots of time to do this as it’s a long game so we are well practised.
8. Cricket is a game of failure. We fail more often than we succeed as a batter or a bowler, so when I DO succeed then it feels amazing.
9. I like “ruining” the oppositions day!
10. Because I feel that the harder I work, the better I get. That is different from some of my classes at school.

So what does this tell us: How can we use this information?

It doesn't take much to extract a few consistencies that are linked to the individual motivations within this player:

1. Winning
2. People
3. Getting better/development
4. Fun

With this insight we can now tailor our words and intentions when trying to get the best out of him over the next 10 weeks or so. For example:

"If we practice hard then it gives us a better chance of winning"

"I want you to come up with a really fun and active warm up drill for next week's game. Would you do that for me?"

"I know that you have not scored runs in the past 3 games. You know you are working hard on your technique and at some point it will all drop in, you will make a match winning contribution for us and then think how that will make your team mates feel"

How simple is that as an exercise?

Totally brilliant too! Give it a go.