Step from our comfort zone and welcome Creative Tuesday. Understand that Aerosmith's weekly Dare to Suck meetings are always a possibility (ninety percent bad ideas but an occasional megahit like Dude Looks Like a Lady).
When Bob Iger campaigned to be Disney CEO, he prioritized three goals:
1) Leverage the Disney creative platform.
2) Use technology well for the business and people.
3) Expand the global reach of Disney products.
Let’s grow our creative base (add value) using all available tools. Teach and entertain. Find new ways to send clear messages to players. (Click to listen.) Sometimes they tire of hearing OUR voice.
List many possibilities and then focus on our top priorities (the Buffett 25-5 approach).
Sometimes our communication needs improvement. It's not a game show. But it could be. But half the battle is getting people focused.
Make flashcards. For example, Pick-and-roll Defense. On the front, show a generic pick-and-roll setup. On the back, list how you want your team to defend the high pick-and-roll (e.g. hedge/fake trap-trap-switch). Design twelve questions for essentials (one for each player) and assign each player to present a two-minute talk on one (e.g. on a Zoom meeting). Force "deeper learning" and teaching.
Analyze a screenshot, Xs and Os frames, whatever you want. Ask players what they see or what they think will happen next. Use their imagination. It's similar to asking someone to describe a penny. There's looking and there's seeing.
Show a brief video. What do they see? Why does the action work or not? Was it good offense, bad defense, or some of both? We have lots of video from prior seasons, good and bad.
Assign Homework. Ask each player to find a brief teaching video (less than four minutes) to share with the group. Have them share the video, why they chose it, and what they learned.
Teach the process of learning. If basketball is a mental game, should we not teach players to learn?
- Socratic Method (during medical 'rounds' this was affectionately known as pimp the chimps). Medical students are "wedges" (man's simplest tools).
- EDIR5 (explain, demonstrate, imitate, repeat x 5
- Feynman Technique (name, define, research, simplify)
- Pomodoro technique - some pro teams use it and give cellphone breaks
- Self-testing - read and study material, then self-test. Rote memory is not the best way.
Mental models. Mental models apply filters to information and decision-making. What could possibly go wrong (premortem examination)?
Analogies. Great thinkers often use analogies. Johannes Kepler was a master of analogy. "Life is like a box of chocolates." This is not a personal strength.The Triple Lindy. https://t.co/fb0RvgGqr9— MikeFarb (@mikefarb1) July 6, 2020
We could explain persistence as a river cutting a canyon through rock. Coach Bob Knight was The General. What are we?
Lagniappe: Here's a preview of a future piece, with the AI RIP (Iverson).
