Building to last

In the three seasons that Sean Dyche has been manager of Burnley he’s seen his side promoted twice. But his focus has not been on scorelines alone. Dyche is building solid foundations on and off the pitch, finds Sue McKellar.

People won’t follow you because you tell them to; they’ll do it because they want to. On meeting Sean Dyche amidst the rubble that will soon become Burnley’s new training facility, it’s clear to see why the club is right behind him. His enthusiasm and can-do attitude are infectious and he has that valuable skill of being highly articulate and confident while also warm and entirely down to earth.

But while Burnley is where Dyche has found his feet, it is not where his management journey started. His first opportunity to manage, after calling time on his 20-year playing career, came at Watford, who he had played for only a few years before. After several seasons as under-18s coach and development coach he became assistant manager in 2009 and, having already completed his coaching badges while a player, he took his UEFA Pro-Licence. Then, when the manager’s position became available in 2011, Dyche was promoted to the top job.

FROM THE BOTTOM UP

Having been through Watford’s development system as a player and then worked his way up through its ranks as a coach Dyche had enough insider insight for it to feel like a natural progression.

“My path into management gave me five great years of learning,” he says. “When Aidy Boothroyd appointed me as youth team manager I was doing everything – helping to educate the players, driving the minibus at 6am in the morning to get to a game, putting together the coaching schedule, working at the Harefield Academy, which has a close partnership with Watford – I was working mad hours and covering lots of different bases and I loved it.

“I learned how to coach from the bottom up and gained a solid base of knowledge and you need that in any industry,” he says. “A friend of mine is a restaurateur and his advice on how to progress in his business is much the same; start at the beginning, wash the pans, work front of house, work in the kitchen and learn the ropes.”

Even so, Dyche admits that nothing can really prepare you for management and no allowances are made for youth or inexperience. “In those early days in the job it’s a steep learning curve and you get judged very quickly,” he says. “When I took over at Watford it had just had to sell some of its most important players and so, 13 games later, having lost seven of those games, we were fourth from bottom. I was already being judged a failure by some. Reality bites, but you have to keep believing in your abilities and in your staff. I reassured everyone that we were doing the right things and we started building.”

Following a couple of important loan signings by Dyche, results began to improve and the all-important feel-good factor returned to the club. Impressively, after losing just seven matches from the next 33, Watford finished a respectable 11th in the table.

HARSH REALITIES

It was to be an important period in the young manager’s career, but unfortunately a short one, as the season’s end brought a change in ownership for Watford and a subsequent change in management. However, Dyche’s response was to be pragmatic and philosophical rather than disappointed.

“People lose their jobs in business all the time, including my dad in the steel industry and my brother at various points in his career, so I wasn’t about to start feeling sorry for myself,” he says. “I’m a realist and I know things like this happen in every walk of life and often to people who aren’t as fortunate as me.”

Faced with being out of work for the first time since he was 16 Dyche saw the positives, making the most of the time to relax and find some perspective. “I spent valuable time with the family, did some charity work, played golf and opened my eyes to the world outside of football, which I’d been immersed in for so many years. Essentially I gave myself some head space.”

After a short hiatus, which included working with the England U21 squad at the invitation of Stuart Pearce, Dyche was appointed Burnley manager when Eddie Howe left the Lancashire side to return to Bournemouth.

REACHING OUT

In his interview for the role of Burnley manager Dyche gave an in-depth PowerPoint presentation that impressed the board so much many suspected he’d delivered it numerous times before. In reality it was his first ever interview.

“I put what I’d learned on the LMA diploma together with my football and management knowledge and created something that clearly worked well from a business perspective,” he says. “I looked at the club from various angles – how I thought people outside the club viewed it, its feel and culture, and also what I imagined it was like on the inside – and then I looked at how I thought it could change for the better.”

Dyche saw, for example, how important it would be to strengthen the connection between the team, the manager and the people of the town and to realign the culture of the club with those people. He also advocated having open lines of communication and reaching out within the club to garner people’s views on how things were at the club and what might be ripe for change.

“When I first started at Burnley I distributed a confidential questionnaire to the players, asking them to be brutally honest so that we’d all know where we stood,” Dyche says. “I made it very clear that they didn’t have to say anything but that this wasn’t an opportunity that would come around very often.”

After the feedback had been collated, he and his team sifted through what was non-negotiable and what they might be able to address. “It then takes time to implement changes, starting with presenting to the group what you plan to do,” says Dyche.

“You can’t assume that people will understand or take on board your ideas automatically, so it’s important to find a common thread that will unite your team members and give them something to believe in.”

For some people a sense of belonging, a ‘kissing-the-badge’ mentality, is a strong enough motivating force, but others need more encouragement to engage and align with the culture and ethos of an organisation.

“Some people resist out of fear, embarrassment or worry, so you need to focus on addressing those three things,” says Dyche. “You lead a bit, they follow a bit and you see where it takes you. You may have people who simply won’t engage, the ‘sappers’, and they need to go,” he adds. “Then it’s a case of how many energisers you can find to carry the team members who sit somewhere in the middle.”

Clarity about what you plan to do and what you expect from everyone is also key, he adds, especially for new recruits or when undergoing change. “I can remember how important that clarity was to me even as a youth team player at Nottingham Forest under manager Brian Clough,” he says. “Everyone understood how the team was expected to play. Conversely, I can remember playing for managers who made things overwhelmingly complicated by giving too much information and confusing messages. My approach as a manager has therefore always been to give the players clear information in a way that they can easily understand it, to act with honesty and authenticity and to lead by example.”

GROUNDWORK

At the same time as strengthening the culture within Burnley, Dyche has also had one eye on building for the future, in a very literal sense. In his early days with the club, instead of investing all of the finances at his disposal on expanding his squad he recognised that while players can bring short-term results, sustainable success comes from improving a club’s very foundations.

“I could see that improvements were needed to the club’s training facilities and stadium and, thanks to the support of the board, the council and the local people, that new infrastructure is now well underway,” he says.

With the business plan and finances already in place, work was able to start on the project as soon as planning permission was granted, using local trade wherever possible to support the local economy. Once finished in late spring 2017, Burnley’s players and support staff will have at their disposal the full gamut of state-of-the-art training facilities, from a physiotherapy suite, analysis equipment and an underheated pitch to a high-spec office for the coaching and development staff.

“It will also be integral to our continued youth development,” adds Dyche, explaining that the academy and first team areas will be separate to create an environment of aspiration. “The same thinking went into the layout of the pitches,” he explains, “so young players start off furthest away and then move closer towards the first-team pitches as they progress through the ranks.”

UPS AND DOWNS

After his first season with Burnley and a record one for the club, it won promotion to the Premier League, from which it had been absent for four years.

“It caught everyone by surprise,” says Dyche. “We had a fantastic run of results, even though we had some serious injuries, and momentum just started to build to the point that you could almost feel it in the air. During some of the big matches towards the end of that campaign there were times when I should have been really nervous, but instead I felt calm because there was an inevitability about us winning promotion.”

Dyche credits the success of that season to a mix of youth and experience in the team and to the success of the club’s coaches and medical staff in preparing the players mentally and physically. “We only had two centre forwards all season, but it’s testament to the skill of the backroom team and medical staff that they remained fit throughout,” he says.

Confidence started to build in the club and that momentum was an important driving force behind Burnley’s first promotion to the Premier League. But Dyche says it was even more of a factor in the second promotion, in the 2015/16 season.

This time, though, the whole campaign had a very different, more business-like feel as it followed relegation back to the Championship. “We had to recover emotionally from the disappointment of relegation and the subsequent loss of some of our talisman players,” says Dyche, “and we had to reinvent our approach, but do so without losing the strong identity that had served us so well before.”

Faced with a reduced budget and a tough Championship competition Dyche knew he would need to be strategic, focus on the side’s strengths and allow everyone time to adjust. “The mood was good over the pre-season and the players worked hard, but when the new season started it was clear that they were subdued and would need to get used to playing in the Championship again,” he says.

“As the manager you have to believe that the cloud will lift, and it did. Then the results began to improve, the players started to enjoy the feeling of winning again and it galvanised the team.”

A DESIRE TO NURTURE

Now back in the top flight Dyche faces the challenges of competing in a field where the disparity in finances between teams can be enormous. But he recognises that while money can be incredibly powerful it’s far from all important.

“Leicester’s achievement didn’t come out of nowhere,” he says. “The owners have shown real commitment to the club and have invested heavily and strategically to develop it. It’s a great story and gives us belief that if you have a plan and give it time to take effect it can produce results.”

With the long view always in mind Dyche is committed to helping each individual within the club work on their strengths and weaknesses. While he says he’s always been driven by a desire to win, he also takes a lot of pleasure in helping people to develop. “It’s a great feeling when you help someone and get nothing in return,” he says. “It’s not about getting a pat on the back; it’s about the satisfaction you get from giving help. That’s what I want to do, honestly and authentically.”

He does this, in part, by sharing his own experiences as a player with his team so that they can learn from his mistakes. “As a player I would let a bad experience eat away at me, because I was afraid of letting people down,” he says. “I don’t want my players to feel like that. I try to help them maintain some perspective, learn from a bad result and then move on.”

In the same vein, Dyche is not one for singling out players for criticism or name calling in front of the group, because to do so, he says, would simply be to let off steam rather than helping the players. “I can be tough when the situation calls for it, but my priority is to help the players improve and do so without eroding their confidence or trust,” he says. “After all, when you have the bond of trust you have a chance of achieving anything.”