Earlier this week, Henry Abbott linked to an article by Lang Whitaker about Atlanta’s Head Coach Mike Woodson. The article describes a scene that we rarely see (team meeting at the hotel on the morning of a game), but is an essential aspect of coaching, especially at higher levels.
This team has a chance to do something special if you believe in each other. If you feel like what we’re trying to do on the court isn’t going to work, speak up! I have zero ego as a coach, none. If you think you see something that’s going to work better than what we’re trying to do, speak up! Say something to me!
I take this approach though many coaches will not. I want my players to feel comfortable making decisions and making the play that they think is best. I want to run things that are comfortable for them. I have no problem discussing (arguing) with a player about something and I don’t hold a grudge. That would be silly. Coaching is not about job preservation: it’s about getting the most out of a group of players. Too many coaches seem to make adversaries of their own players.
But what I’m telling you guys is that if you guys will just consistently do what we’re asking you to do on defense, we’ll win games. I don’t give a s— about the offense; you guys can score more than enough points to win games. The offense isn’t the problem. But you have to get stops on defense, and if you’ll listen to what we’re telling you, I promise you’ll get stops. The s— works, okay? The s— works, but you guys just have to have the pride and the heart to buy into it and do what we’re asking you to do every time down the court. …
It’s not the X’s and the O’s, but the Jimmy’s and the Joe’s. I forgot who said that. However, in my league, coaches yell out play after play, but their players cannot shoot, dribble or pass. They play multiple defenses and none works. We run the same offense against man and zone, and it works becuse the players believe that it will work. I hear other teams telling their coach that “this play isn’t working” and they are right; however, it’s generally not the scheme, but the way they run the play. If they bought into the scheme, they would be fine. Seriously, we run a middle pick-and-roll against 2-3-zones and it works. Almost anything works if you have players who believe and players who can pass, shoot and dribble.
After a win against the Mavericks, the following transpires in the locker room:
“Guys, great win,” Woodson rasped. “Remember what I said? You can win playing defense! We struggled with the offense but your defense was terrific.”
“The s— works!” blurted out [rookie Jeff] Teague, cracking up the entire room.
“That’s right, it does, it works,” Woodson said, smiling. “Alright guys, let’s get home. You’ve got tomorrow off, and then we’ll come back in on Monday and get back to work. No more let ups, guys!”
“No excuses!” yelled [Al] Horford.
“No sir, no excuses, guys,” Woodson said. “Oh, and guys, today is Josh Smith’s birthday. Jeff Teague, get up here and sing Happy Birthday, rook.”
For some reasons, coaches often seem to think that humor is bad and that basketball should be a solemn experience. Why? A coach showing a sense of humor is humanizing and players develop a better relationship with the coach than one who stands aloof. It’s basketball. It’s a game. Players and coaches should have fun.
In this excerpt, Woodson shows a willingness to communicate openly with his team without ego, empowers his team to come to him with ideas, creates a sense of belief in their system and uses humor to relate to the players and develop a better bond.
In The Way of Adventure, Jeff Salz writes about his adventure travels throughout the world and the lessons that he learned and conveys to companies through his public speaking engagements. In one chapter, he talks about Servant Leadership and growing invisible as a leader:
Leaders of successful expeditions gradually stop taking the lead and start sharing both responsibility and credit. Having given their best effort and having faith in the overall process, they gradually melt into the group so that a newcomer might not spot the leader right away.
People often criticize Phil Jackson, saying that Kobe Bryant is really the coach of the Lakers and Jackson does not really do anything. Before Rick Adelman was let go in Sacramento, people said the same things: Adelman did not stalk the sidelines and bark orders all game, so people believed that he was not coaching.
Coaches like Adelman and Jackson trust the process. They teach and prepare players during practice and trust the process during games. They empower their players and allow players to play through mistakes.
Lao-tzu, the Chinese philosopher-sage of the sixth century B.C., described a leader who is acclaimed by the public as being not so good. A good leader is one who people hardly know exists. According to Lao-tzu, under the guidance of a great leader, when the job is done, people say only, “We did this ourselves.”
Sounds like Jackson, Adelman, Jerry Sloan and some others.
What ultimately is the role of the coach? Is it to teach plays? Is it to win games? Is it to teach children to follow directions to pay attention to an authority figure? Is it to keep children in shape?
When we imagine an athlete, what do we imagine? What do we want young athletes to be?
In an article titled “Why Business Leaders Should Act More like Artists,” John Maeda argues that artists have three key attributes which business leaders should follow:
Artists constantly collaborate.
Artists are talented communicators.
Artists learn how to learn together.
Athletes and coaches can learn from artists in these respects as well, as collaboration, communication and learning are important to the team environment and individual improvement.
Maeda writes:
When interviewed recently about the differences in her education at Brown and at RISD [Rhode Island School of Design], one student who is getting a dual degree from both institutions said, “At RISD there’s a lot of learning from your peers. Brown (in the classes I’ve taken so far anyway) is about listening and note-taking in class.”
A typical team is more like Brown with the coach talking and players listening. Great coaches, however, create environments that are more like RISD. Rather than talking, they listen to their players. They engage players in a conversation. They empower players to make decisions and take some control over their environment. They learn from their players.
Through this empowerment approach, they increase the collaboration between players and between the coach and players, improve the communication between coach and player and create more varied learning experiences.
To use this approach, one tool is to ask players for their thoughts before you offer your insight, especially in a post-practice or post-game situation. Also, a coach may ask the players what play they want to run or what defense they feel most comfortable playing rather than always making the decisions for the players.
In the summer of 2002, I worked the Stanford University women’s basketball camp. In 2002, the And1 Mix-Tapes were nearing the height of their popularity. At the camp, a couple girls saw me messing around and doing some ball-handling tricks during the first break. One girl – a 14-year-old from Anchorage, Alaska – asked if I could teach her how to do the slip-and-slide, a move from the Mix-Tapes. I said that I could, but she had to learn to dribble better first.
At lunch for the rest of the week, we sprinted to the cafeteria, hurried through a sandwich and spent the remainder of the break on the outdoor, asphalt court working on ball handling drills. While the other players sat in the air-conditioned dorms and the coaches went to Starbucks, she spent 45 minutes doing extra drills.
I made a deal with her: if she did the drills, I would teach her the slip-and-slide. The slip-and-slide is not a move that she would use in a game, but she wanted to impress the boys back home. When the other players and coaches walked up to the court for the start of the afternoon sessions, they saw her rolling on the ground while dribbling the ball, trying to master the slip-and-slide.
The coaches rolled their eyes. Nothing drew a coach’s ire from 2001-2003 quite like the And1 Mix-Tapes, as coaches believed that the tapes embodied everything wrong with the American player. Most coaches blamed the tapes for everything from unmotivated players (“they just want to do tricks”) to poor shooting (“they have no fundamentals”).
Some players could not believe this girl, as she finished lunch dirty and sweaty, with the asphalt all over her hands and legs, while they returned from their dorm with fresh make-up and a spotless white tee. However, a couple players asked if they could join. By week’s end, four or five girls were hurrying through lunch and skipping their break so they could practice their dribbling.
A Whole New Mind author Dan Pink argues in his TED (Technology, Education and Design) speech that “there is a mismatch between what science knows and what business does” in terms of incentives, bonuses and motivation.
He provides several economic studies (based on the Candle Problem) and argues persuasively against the “carrot and the stick” approach to motivation. Instead, he shows that people perform better when intrinsically motivated and offers a new model for motivation based on “autonomy, mastery and purpose.”
Pink’s presentation focuses on business motivation, management and the creative class, as he advocates for a new world order based on right-brain thinking: the subtitle of A Whole New Mind is “Why right-brainers will rule the world.” However, his argument easily lends itself to coaching and youth sports.
At the Stanford camp, as with most camps, stations represent the bulk of the instruction and non-game time, and fall into two categories: boring/poorly taught or recreational with little relevance (the Stanford camp is notorious for the numerous cheers that players master as well as time-wasters like “Land-Sea-Air”).
For instance, I worked another camp where an instructor spent one hour lecturing, demonstrating and drilling the first step on a closeout (when a defender plays help defense and then runs to his man when he receives the pass). The players never worked against a live defender. Instead, they spent one hour running back and forth from Point A to Point B as if they always would start and end in the same spot and not have to react to an offensive player who could shoot, drive left or drive right. The coaches praised the session as “fundamental” and “great teaching,” while I and many of the 13 and 14-year-old players were bored.
Many coaches assume that players learn best through these repetitive drills which break the game into almost unrecognizable segments only to return to 5v5 scrimmages with minimal transfer from the drill to the games. When the skills fail to transfer, coaches blame the players for not listening, lack of concentration or lack of effort.
Rarely does a coach examine the teaching methods and question why the players fail to understand or transfer the skill from one setting to the next.
While there are several variables, Pink explains that people have the “urge to direct our own lives; desire to get better and better at something that matters; and yearning to do what we do in the service of something larger than ourselves.”
The same mismatch that Pink sees between science and business happens in coaching too. We live in a world of external rewards. However, people learn best when intrinsically motivated: in an environment of autonomy, mastery and purpose. At the camp, the girl asked me to help her (autonomy); she wanted to learn something new (mastery); and she had a goal that was important to her (purpose).
Often in coaching, especially when we organize drills that are far from the actual game, we fail to motivate the player intrinsically, so coaches fall back to the “carrot-and-stick” approach: “work harder or you’ll run!” The purpose is no longer intrinsically motivating (avoiding punishment), and the coach focuses on outcomes, not the learning or improvement.
In the studies cited by Pink, external rewards improved performance on mechanical tasks. Therefore, in a drill like the closeout drill, the fear of running improved performance in terms of more hustle and less talking from the players.
However, on cognitive tasks, or tasks requiring creative thinking, higher external rewards hurt performance. The ball handling drills involved a creative element, and more importantly, their transfer to a game requires cognitive skills, as the player uses the dribble to create a pass or shot and must evaluate options while dribbling.
The reward system works for many coaches who stress order and structure; for instance, a basketball coach who runs a continuity offense and just wants the players to run the offense or a soccer coach who just wants his fullbacks to boot the ball down field as far as possible rather than playing the ball out of the back.
However, this reward system fails to motivate in situations where developing independent and critical thinking is important.
Most invasive games (soccer, lacrosse, basketball, field hockey, water polo, etc.) require critical thinking skills, flexibility and creativity. These games involve movement, perceptual and cognitive elements, while other sports like swimming or running involve primarily movement elements. Using the “carrot-and-stick” approach is not the best way to develop skills and players in these sports.
Instead, players need some control over their learning. This does not mean that coaches cede control to the players. However, asking players questions and empowering players to make decisions builds intrinsic motivation. For instance, at practice the other day, I asked the players what they thought of the drill and whether we should continue or move to something else.
I often ask players which drills they like and do not like, and I spend more time on those they enjoy. If they enjoy what they are doing, they will work harder and improve more than if they are forced to do drills they dislike. The challenge for a coach is to devise drills that the players enjoy which teach the skills and game concepts that he knows are important to their development and success.
Coaching is not a matter of giving into the players and their desires. However, the coach and players should work together; the players should not view the coach as an antagonistic force. When players and coaches communicate (in both directions), they work together for the same goals. When this communication breaks down or the coach ignores the players, players see the coach more as the person taking the inherent fun out of playing rather than a guide trying to improve one’s skills to enhance the enjoyment of the game.
At its core, we play sports to have fun, and a coach’s role is to enhance the enjoyment of the activity and to develop skills that allow the players to continue playing. When coaches focus on these roles, they ignore the “carrot-and-stick” approach and move to a more empowering approach which builds the players’ intrinsic motivation, often eliminating the need for discipline.
I did not have to motivate the young Alaskan. She chose to work out during her break and do extra drills because the goal had meaning to her; she felt that she was improving and learning something new; and she had some control over her environment.
Chris Ballard penned an article titled “The Hoops Whisperer” in the October 26, 2009 Sports Illustrated about basketball trainer Idan Ravin. In it, Ballard writes:
“Failure to understand a player’s psyche is a flaw Ravin sees in the disciplinarian style of some coaches. Rather than empowering a player, they strip him of his authority. ‘At the end of the workout, I’ll give players the option to run,’ explains Ravin. ‘I’ll say, I think you’ve got more in you, but it’s your choice.’ They’ll always run if you present the option in a fair way. And then when they’re done, I’ll say, I’m impressed with you. I think you have half a tank of gas left. I think it’d be great if you did another one. And they’ll say, ‘Really?’ And they’ll do it. Players want to be part of the process.”
Now, Ravin works with NBA players, and coaching children differs. However, young players will often surprise you. Last week, with 15 minutes left in practice, I asked the team what they thought they needed to practice. Two girls said, “Running. We get too tired in the drills.”
Players run much harder when they choose the extra conditioning than if they view it as punishment.
The best coaches really understand their players and their psyches. Ballard’s article portrays Ravin’s ability to read and understand his players even though he has no significant playing experience. The ability to read and understand players is often more important than one’s knowledge or experience.
The old axiom is true: “They don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.” Empowering players and showing concern for players beyond their ability to help the coach win games shows the players that you care.
