On Winning(2)
Part 2: Coaching
The job is to inspire guys to want to make sacrifices, and not see them as sacrifices.
-Anonymous
I had the good fortune of meeting Jon Gordon last year, the guru on leadership, performance and culture (maybe you’ve read one of his books). He was promoting a new book on coaching and was conducting 1 on 1 question and answer sessions. I was excited to get a moment with him because he claims to know exactly what makes a coach successful. He’s spent enough time in thought about leadership and success that he can accurately predict someone’s leadership performance. We briefly talked about the coaches he has met and spent significant time with. I asked him who currently impressed him during his numerous visits and interviews. He commented on Dabo Sweeney, claiming he has left quite an impression on him.
I asked him why.
He said Dabo wasn’t really a coach. But rather a connector masquerading as a football coach. Dabo had the unique ability to connect to the human spirit. He builds quality unique human relationships that are unparalleled which in turn brings young men from all walks of life to do things together they could’ve never accomplished alone on and off the field. I then had to ask if he’d met Nick Saban, because in the world of college football, you can’t tell the story of it without mentioning Saban. Gordon mentioned that although Saban is very impressive himself, his methodology is centered around excellence and performance, not connection. Therefore, Saban would not be able to tap into every player at their most human level. Which means, as successful as he is, was not connecting deeply enough beyond the surface to uncover the true potential of them as people. I was fascinated by his answer because he spoke with so much conviction. He went on to tell a story about how Dabo mentioned to the Board at Clemson that his one demand was that no one benchmark the school’s success against any other football program (like Alabama) but rather create its own internal standard and measure themselves against that. He didn’t want to compare his program to the metrics that have been set by Notre Dame, or USC or Florida State. His aim was that Clemson hold themselves accountable by only their self created ideals.
I then asked him who he was most impressed by; perhaps someone that isn’t a household name. Without hesitation, he said the coach he was most excited about was Brian Flores. In his words, Flores was the “most impressive young coach I'd ever come across”. Not because he knew football better than everyone else, but rather because he knew people better than everyone else. The fact that he knew how to extract the most out of each person, coupled with his football acumen would make a combination for success.
Coaching is job that is unlike many occupations. It's a blend between mentor, chief strategist, and teacher. You're asked to expedite maturity, build unique habits, eliminate mistakes, and obviously lead a team to victory. It stands alone as a profession because it's unlike any pupil-teacher relationship there is. Here you are watching individuals battle (sometimes with themselves, sometimes among themselves, sometimes with the opponent), yet you are critiquing these individuals in the most un-intimate way. Because of it’s entertainment value, the games have been made into pageantry at every level. Where else is one asked to perform through competition in a high stakes manner in front of spectators near and far?
The archetype of a coach is also unusual. Some might go as far as saying they have a few “screws loose”. At the youth and collegiate level, you're entrusting your psychological livelihood in the everyday decisions of young, burgeoning men and women. Therefore their actions in competition aren't nearly as important as their actions within non-competitive (social, academic etc..) settings. Although each sport requires more across the spectrum of intervention - football, in which every play is preceded by a stoppage whereby the next play is manufactured by a mastermind, leaving football players to do less cerebral work than would a soccer (aka football) team who has minimal intervention (no timeouts, and limited substitutions) - in every sport and at every level coaches must prepare their team for all possibilities. There needs to be some level of technical ability, tactical ability, charisma, leadership skills and the ability to galvanize.
Because of these rare requirements and abilities, naturally the path to becoming one is extremely unplanned. Of course, due to the influx of tremendous amounts of capital we have recently witnessed this profession produce generational wealth for some coaches. In other words, what we are currently witnessing is a great deal of supply (coaches) and an ever increasing need for demand (winning). When an exorbitant amount of dollars are generated, you tend to see big data, and highly skilled professionals enter into the realm. The result is an injection of incredibly savvy individuals whose skills would once be valuable perhaps at a hedge fund or a fortune 500 company now in the business of sports. Therefore, a great deal of those who coach decide to do so purely because the industry handsomely rewards the profession. There is nothing wrong with this phenomenon, but it does beg the question of what coaches are in the business of coaching as opposed to coaching for business .
The whole ecosystem of college athletics revolves solely around the axis of the head coach. There is no better proxy for a program’s success than figuring out who is coaching. They have more power over a university than a Warren Buffet has over Berkshire Hathaway. Once hired, they decide who they employ, what the culture is, who they engage in partnerships with etc…
What truly escapes me, and the capital allocators in the world of college sports is what exactly ensures a coach is destined for success? Jon Gordon seems to have figured it out, but it’s still inconclusive to me. Thus far here’s what I’ve determined:
The coach is left with constant tradeoffs to decide on. Measuring the temperature of the game while trying to perfectly allocate the right types of commodities on the field in that will potentially generate 1 score better than the opposition.
I believe that a coach will always be subject to the talent level of their team. This is a clear prerequisite as it is the most coveted asset in the world of competition. If one is blessed to acquire the right talent at the right positions, what else is there? Clearly, there must be a desire to win competitions. This should go without saying. However it is often overlooked why coaches want to win. Coaches usually like winning for one or a combination of reasons:
They enjoy beating others.
They have a hatred or fear of losing.
They enjoy improvement by simply continually outdoing themselves.
The drive to win is almost never the reason a coach becomes a successful winner though. Even with all of the necessary leadership attributes, the charisma, the intimate domain knowledge and the requisite talent I still think championship level coaches, without fail, possess two more unique qualities.
The first quality is that they possess a unique level of discernment. A big misconception is that coaches teach players. But the best coaches actually learn from the players more. They are constantly studying, learning, and adapting. Almost like an interpreter trying to understand how the team, collectively, expresses themselves. Through that information processing they inform and communicate a refined and customized message to their team that will guide them to know exactly what to do, say and feel.
Which brings me to perhaps the most pivotal quality. A coach must be a master story teller. They must be able to narrate their season. They wisely make their players the subjects in this story they are living out. Each player who believes in that story, acts as the protagonist. They constantly remind themselves that this is our season, our team, and our accomplishments waiting to be had by us. The story telling part is a psychological revolution needed to combat the constant setbacks, adversity and internal doubt that might plague a season. It gives everyone a collective purpose; regardless if they are competing or not, their sole purpose is to live out the story they believe they are in. This is a key skill not because it contributes to winning but rather because it contributes unification. “Winning” the game or the season is basically a figment of our collective imagination. The real coach, as Jon Gordon eluded to, alchemizes a group of individuals into a unit. Whether they win, or lose, it’s the story they are told that keeps them moving forward. So that well after the competition, they are still a unit. This is what moves the each person forward; the sport forward, humanity forward.