What's Your Moat?

The word "moat" derives from the French 'mote' or mound, meaning mound or castle on a hill. Ironically, the word describes what is surrounded, not what surrounds. 

In business, your trademark, brand, scale, and products and/or services define your moat. Coaching a team, what defines your moat, your sustainable competitive advantage? And moreover, what liability or "human misjudgments" could undermine your dominant position? 



Charlie Munger's landmark address asserts some of the latter possibilities. For instance, "incentive based bias" affects behavior over many domains. You might call that "cheating" but sometimes it's favoritism. Do you cut the Mayor's grandchild? Do you favor Pietra over Paula in tax policy when Pietra is your donor? Do you "reciprocate" in dealing with 'agents' for players. Or do you publicly overcommit to your community (Administration, fans) doing "whatever it takes" to succeed. 

Steven M.R. Covey shares the tree of trust in The Speed of Trust. Recent NCAA scandals have illuminated coaches with extreme competence but challenged integrity. Coaches who see everything somehow look the other way when it comes to acquiring and supervising their lifeblood, talent. The Gepettos of college hoop shrug when their charges go off to Pleasure Island, unaware that real boys can turn not only themselves but their fathers into donkeys. 

We build our moats with character and consistency. Brett Ledbetter (What Drives Winning) explains, "Rather than separating “who you are as a player” from “who you are as a person,” Ledbetter works hard to unite them because uniting them makes both the performances and the people better." First, high character players are the foundation of our moat.  



Quality teaching and constant learning widen the moat. The best coaches work constantly to improve themselves, to understand big ideas and translate them into their program. Programs use heart-rate monitoring to assess effort, computer programs to train alertness, mindfulness to expand attention, and alternative exercise like pilates to enhance athletes' flexibility. 

Continual self-reflection on strengths and weaknesses with actions to reinforce strengths and mitigate weakness maintain the moat. Self-reflection can involve film study, checklists, analytics measuring performance like points per possession, or mentoring where coaches use assistants or consultants for feedback. 

Control what we can control. We can't always get better players, but we can always help our players become better. That's our ultimate moat. 

Lagniappe: terrific thoughts from Coach Larry Jackson (Xavier Newsletter #70)