Coaching: Knowing When It's Bad, Five Examples

"You always worry that what you're doing is rubbish." - Salman Rushdie

In his MasterClass, Salman Rushdie shares a chapter, "All Writing Is Rewriting." That's how I feel about coaching, a process of growth, learning, and revision. Rushdie adds that revision means distinguishing between creative and critical eyes and knowing what needs removal and what needs addition. 

In another MasterClass Dan Brown says, "the difference between good writers and bad writers is good writers know when they're bad." He shares that he had written 150 pages of a novel and trashed it...because it was bad.

Coaching shares similarities, although bad coaching tends to be transitory, replaced. Start by sharing exemplary structure and use the mental model of inversion. "Invert always invert." 

1. "A well-oiled machine." Use an analogy. We know one when we see one. Newman Stewart describes such an organization.

• Specifications
• Components
• Maintenance
• Mechanic 
• Execution "What works, works." 

The inverse lacks clarity of mission, talent, preparation, coaching, and execution. When we see a team play and wonder what their offensive and defensive plan is, we see breakdowns at multiple levels. "What are they trying to do?"

2. "Excellence is our only agenda" reads the sign in the women's locker room of UNC soccer. Anson Dorrance has produced teams full of stars (like Mia Hamm), who blended talent to win over twenty championships. Individual agendas can't outweigh team goals. Less successful teams have stars "hijack" the process. Coach Gregg Popovich counsels, "get over yourself." 

3. Culture club. Steve Kerr emphasizes mindset, mentors, and culture to fashion his teams. Getting everyone on the same page is harder than it sounds. Doc Rivers, profiled in Netflix's brilliant series, "The Playbook," sold the 2008 Celtics on UBUNTU. Ubuntu mirrors shared experience and shared meaning. "I am because we are." At the highest levels, culture separates champions from others. But nobody wins without talent. Rarely, "the Bronx Zoo", teams with bad culture win despite themselves. Coaching children, it's hard to know what happens behind the scenes. 

4. "Do well what you do a lot." Excellent teams have an identity of knowing who they are and do what they do well. Struggling teams depart what they do well. The 2019 Celtics led the NBA in defense against three-point shots. They're seventeenth in 2020-2021. My last team couldn't contain the ball which pressured the help leading to rotation issues and layups or open perimeter shots. It wasn't until we changed to a hybrid defense that we could compete. 

5. "Do your job." Although it's a team game, strong teams win individual battles. Although many associate Bill Belichick with the 'do you job' mantra, Bill Walsh and the 49ers emphasized this long before. Bad teams fail at the details of transition defense, defensive rebounding, and defending the pick-and-roll. 

Many of the worst NBA teams are at the bottom of transition defense stats. 

Summary: Use inversion to know when it's bad. 

• Disorganization
• Individual agendas
• Bad culture
• Failing at key tasks
• Not doing your job

Lagniappe. Cancel culture. I semi-understand it. Apologies for the harsh language.

Cancel culture is ostracism, exclusion, blackballing. Few topics arouse more emotion than cancel culture. Donald Sterling got cancelled for his racism. Mark Jackson seems to be cancelled. The lesson for all of us is that freedom of speech isn't freedom from consequences. 

Lagniappe 2. Player development. "Every day is player development day."