Monday, June 12, 2023

Coaching Analogies - Plying Your Craft

Analogies are modeled from the Greek analogia meaning equivalency. 

John Pollack wrote an excellent book, Shortcut, about the power of analogies. He mentioned the tortured analogy above, showing a sailor rigging a fix for a wayward boom. He explains how analogies are "convenient shorthand to distill complex but common ideas, and communicate them quickly." 

No day passes when analogies don't flutter into our paths like insects or falling leaves. A myriad of analogies apply to coaches, wearing many hats.  

CEO. Preside over the organization, production, and delivery of products and services. Imagine the best or worst CEO and become more like the best and less like the worst. 

Mad scientist. The court is our laboratory. Coaches experiment with different drills and strategies. An action confronts us. We tinker with and enhance it with different spacing or timing. Put our program under the microscope to assess the hypotheses and experiments.   

Chef. A Michelin 3-star chef combines ingredients - salt, fat, acid, and heat - to create unique flavor profiles. And she subjects each dish to a precise time and temperature. Coaches do the same, with enough but not too much intensity. 

Hedge fund manager. Add value to provide above market returns (alpha). Balance risk and reward. Acquire undervalued assets and move on from or manage underperforming ones. 

Farmer. All cuts of meat are not the same. Grass-fed, hormone-free animals who developed 'marbling' slowly are different and better. 

Storyteller. Author or director...the job is to advance the story. Drive the narrative forward in sometimes unexpected, credible, concrete, and emotional ways. 


Editor. Parrot Ron Howard. "The film is made in the editing room." Watch films with great editing like Raiders of the Lost Ark or Parasite and appreciate the craft. Spot flaws in our thinking, coaching, and writing. And "kill your darlings," editing out the trivial or unrelated.  

Thief? Beg, borrow, or steal? Relate Ted Lasso to the Wizard of Oz. A hero from Kansas supplies flawed characters with heart, brain, and courage. 

Detective. What's wrong with this picture? Find the clues present or ask what's missing that might establish the villain. 

Life coach. Pygmalion became the model for My Fair Lady. Coaches help transform ordinary into extraordinary, good into great. 

Conductor. The conductor gets everyone on the same page, in tune, at the proper sequence and tempo. 

Architect. Design blends form and function to create working beauty. Frank Gehry's Bilbao Guggenheim Museum is exceptional. 

General. The general deploys troops to achieve intermediate steps en route to a successful end state. Be General Suvorov, The General Who Never Lost. "Always forward." 

Economist. Economics is about the allocation of limited resources. Coaches divide minutes, role, recognition. 

Grandmaster. "At the end of the day, the game of chess is about decision-making." - Garry Kasparov  Chess masters learn classic offenses and defenses, creativity, foresight, and minimizing errors. They "chunk the board" understanding how pieces interact in space. 

Lagniappe. 

 

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