Jonathon O'Neill
[email protected]Chicago, Illinois
Talks and workshops

Start from what coaches actually do.

Most of my week belongs to Chicago City. Alongside it, I give talks and run workshops for coaches and clubs, and I'm always glad to compare notes on developing players.

Chicago City coaches in a group photo with Raymond Verheijen at a coach education day
Chicago City coaches with Raymond Verheijen, July 2025.CHI
01Workshop

Four Pillars in Practice.

Coach education sticks when it starts from the coach's own sessions. In this workshop, coaches guessed their ball rolling time at anywhere from 58 to 90 per cent. Few had timed it, and the ones who had came in lower.

From there it moves from the number to the method: time the stoppages, agree what counts, and know when less ball rolling time is the right call. The same approach runs through the other three pillars.

The four pillars
02Workshop

The Player in the Game.

A follow-up on child development: what the research on working memory, Piaget, Erikson and development windows supports, and where it runs out. Every idea ends in a question coaches can take into their next session.

See the slides Download the deck
03Workshop

Team culture: a value lasts when a routine carries it.

As a club grows, culture stops travelling by proximity. It has to travel through routines a new staff member can see in their first week.

The workshops follow Vanessa Urch Druskat's research in The Emotionally Intelligent Team. A short snapshot survey comes first. Leadership goes through the process before any staff group, the most senior voice in every room speaks last, and each team writes its own norms. A reassessment closes the cycle.

Routine 1

Understand team members

A standing check-in, and the norms the team says matter most.

Routine 2

Demonstrate caring

Two or three care norms with a time and a place.

Routine 3

Address unacceptable behaviour

The team's own line, the alternatives it prefers, and how feedback is given.

Routine 4

Codify

What the team actually adopted, written down, with owners.

04Talk

One game model, youngest team to oldest.

A talk built on the method: CDE, the four moments, and team and individual intentions, and how a club teaches one way of playing so a player moving up already speaks the language.

The method
05Talk

Performance, potential and interference.

The equation behind my coaching and HeadCoach, for coaches, parents and staff: what interferes with a player's potential, which of it can be trained, and where to start on Monday.

Watch the story
Contact

Bring a workshop or talk to your club.

Tell me who the room is, what they are working on and what you would like them to leave with. Email is the quickest way to reach me.

[email protected]