‘Think growth mindset’: Heimir Hallgrímsson tweaking preparations for Ireland Austria clash

Résumé détaillé

A question we pondered in the early stages of Heimir Hallgrímsson’s Ireland reign: how would the Icelander’s cool and remorseless logic react with the spasms of wild emotion that…

A question we pondered in the early stages of Heimir Hallgrímsson’s Ireland reign: how would the Icelander’s cool and remorseless logic react with the spasms of wild emotion that often envelop his team?

This tension was tested beyond all reasonable demand around the Israel games last month, but Hallgrímsson’s rational and analytical worldview seems to have escaped largely unscathed.

Speaking in Linz on Friday, Hallgrímsson explained he has challenged each of the various departments involved with the international squad to do something different for this camp. This is partly to relegate the Israel ordeal to history, but also to challenge everyone to improve.

The players assembled a day later than usual; the team meeting schedule has been changed; a new coach, Pete Shuttleworth, is with the squad; and branding around the team hotel has been moved around.

Hallgrímsson said the changes have extended to media engagements, which have been reduced, while long-established content embargoes have been removed. (We note this because ancient Aztec tribes did not afford their gods the same level of holy respect and observance that newspaper journalists invest in The Embargo.)

“We want to challenge everybody in the camp to think, ‘growth mindset’,” he said. “We should always challenge ourselves to improve our working environment. These guys deserve that their environment is improving. That is how everyone should be: players, staff, coaches ... media.”

With that final word, Hallgrímsson showed there is still some vestigial emotion from last month, left sitting in his solution for moving on like limescale grit in a cup of tea. Where previous Irish managers have become angry at the media, Hallgrímsson is just disappointed.

He is also unlike many of his successors in so openly subscribing to the growth mindset mantra, which was popularised in the 1970s by American psychologist Carol Dweck.

The enthusiastic reception Dweck’s theory received in the United States perhaps owed to the fact it…

Début de l'article, extrait de The Irish Times. Pour lire la suite, ouvrez l'article chez le média.