Today's Coaching Lesson

It has been a while now since I have coached at any level of sports. I did most of my coaching at an early age and learned a lot. As the years go past I find myself remembering certain aspects about my former life. One such thing came up during a recent soccer game that my daughter was playing.

I noticed that the opposing coach was putting forth a real presence on the sideline. Even before the game the coach was giving direction to our coaches as well as the referees. I assumed that perhaps they were in charge of the league, but I really do not know. What I do know is that this person stood out, and it made me pay attention to her actions the rest of the afternoon. More specifically than her actions, it made me pay attention to her words.

She was a screamer, always yelling to her team. From the opening whistle until the end of the match, she always had something to say, and she said it loud. She never said anything bad to her team, it was always some type of direction or positive encouragement.

What’s wrong with that? Well, let me help you understand, using lessons I learned while coaching.

Never yell directions to your players while they are playing

When your players are playing, let them play. It is fine to yell encouragement (after all, that is what it means to coach someone), but stick to things like “nice job there” and stay away from things like “move six inches to your left”. Most sports have a period of time where it is fine to give detailed instructions to a player while they are playing. Essentially, anytime where the player can focus on you and not the game at that moment. In basketball, this is usually when your point guard is bringing the ball up the floor.

If you are constantly yelling directions to your players and distracting them from actually playing, your team’s performance will suffer for one of two reasons. Either they lose their focus and make a mistake, or they tune you out in an attempt to focus and make the mistake of not doing what you are saying. In the case for this soccer coach she was constantly yelling “don’t bunch”, which is common for young players to do; they form a bunch around the ball instead of maintaining their space.

What happened here was that the coach kept yelling “don’t bunch”, and more than once her players would then run away from the ball, allowing our team to easily move forward and get a shot on goal. I do not feel we had the better team, but we ended up winning 3-0 and it was not even that close. Their performance suffered because their coach was a distraction.

Now imagine if this was your manager. The constant directions would be called micromanaging. Does anyone feel that micromanaging helps them perform their jobs better? Sure, some people need more supervision than others, but not to the point that you need to be reminded about every last detail during the day.

As a coach, what should you be doing instead? What I would do is talk to the players on the bench and point out the mistakes being made and explain why they were mistakes and what should be done instead. Then I would substitute in a new player, replacing the player that made the mistakes, and explain it to them as well. Their removal was not a punishment for making a mistake, it was always so we could make adjustments. This way I did not distract them while on the floor, I let my players play and trusted they would do the right things.

Never waste time on what just happened

Most sports offer a timeout of some kind (except for rugby) with the idea that you can talk to your team for a very brief period of time. And even if there is no real timeout in your sport you most likely have a halftime. The point here is that your time is brief and you need to use it efficiently. In basketball you get one minute for a timeout. After 45 seconds your team was to break from the bench, and after the full minute your team was to be back on the floor and ready to play.

Therefore, spending any time at all talking about the past was pointless. You cannot change what has happened in the past. It is done. What you can do, however, is provide leadership and direction for what will happen next. Instead of telling your forwards that they haven’t gotten any rebounds all night you tell them to make certain they get better position underneath the basket in order to have the opportunity for a rebound. Always have your team focused on what is going to happen next.

I used to love coaching against people that would yell at their team during a timeout and then spend about five seconds on what they were going to do next when they got back on the floor. Their teams always seemed to be swimming uphill and my team would be able to execute against them easily. See, most sports are about action and reaction. This is very true in basketball. So, if I had my team ready to react better to their actions, and the other team was still confused about what actions to be taking, then we would always seem to be a half-step ahead.

Same thing where you work. Is there a need to perform a root cause analysis on issues? Absolutely, but would you perform such analysis while the issue was till happening? Or do you conduct your analysis afterwards? If I was unhappy with something I saw on the floor then I would spend the next day at practice going over whatever adjustments were necessary. Sure, you try to make adjustments when you can, but for them to be most effective you need to spend some time on them in practice as well.

Never embarrass a player

This is actually a hard one to follow, but quite important. The trick is to put yourself in their shoes for a moment.

I always promised my team at the beginning of the year that I would never do anything to embarrass them in front of everyone. So if they made a mistake on the floor, I would not bring attention to it by yelling at them. The player knew it was a mistake, I knew it was a mistake, the fans probably know it was a mistake, so what good does it do to yell and scream at them while they are on the floor or when they come back to the sideline. A wise man once said “praise publicly, criticize privately”, and that is exactly what I tried to follow.

There was one time that I broke my own rule. I had a player simply go the absolute wrong way on a designed play. During a quick break in the action I yelled their full name followed by “GET OVER HERE”. In the short amount of time while that player sprinted to me I immediately knew I screwed up by calling attention to him in front of a few hundred people. When he got to me I talked very softly and said something like “hey, you know you are supposed to go left right? I need you to remember little things like that otherwise it is hard for me to keep you on the floor, help me out, OK?”

Nobody heard me but the player, which was good because I wanted it to seem like it is something minor. Perhaps we were only talking strategy and not about how miserable he screwed up moments ago. I did my best to cover up my own mistake.

Can you imagine having your boss yell at you or talk poorly about you in front of others in the office? Neither can I. That’s because as a professional you should expect to be treated with a certain amount of respect. And you should do the same for the players on your team.

I felt a little bad for the soccer team that day because I knew they could do better with a little more organization and a little less distractions. I am not saying that coach is a bad person, just that they did not coach very well that day. And I did not step into coaching doing everything right on the first day, either. I had to learn my lessons over about a dozen years of coaching. Same thing with my work as a DBA. Nobody in our field knows everything, we all need a little coaching from time to time. It’s just best to find someone that can coach you without all the screaming and distractions.