Leadership in Coaching: The Issue of Motivation and Potential.

So I was doing some reading on homilies and sermons and came across a story quite relevant for coaching.

There was a famous Italian artist a century ago. He was sitting in a cafe enjoying the weather when an old man came up and asked him if the artist would look at some drawings and sketches and tell the old man if they were any good.

Why not? The artist looked at them all, each in turn. They weren’t good–but the artist was a man of integrity…what to do? Do you tell the man nice things or tell the truth? The artist decided he must tell the old man the truth. So he did. The old man was disappointed but not surprised.

The artist figured that was that, but the old man then asked for one more favor–would the artist please look at a different set of drawings, things composed by a young art student. Given the letdown he’d just given the old man, the artist agreed and took a look. To his surprise, the pictures were excellent–a bit raw but with incredible potential. These sketches were the work of someone who, in time, would be a master. He told the old man that–and that he would be willing to mentor the promising young student at no charge.

The old man shed a tear, moved. The artist wondered, “Is this the work of your son?” “No,” the old man answered. “I did them fifty years ago. I wish I had heard praise then. I wouldn’t have given up on myself.”

***

It’s a rather sad story in the end–an old man who gave up on a dream and never achieved the potential he dreamed of. Yes–you could make snarky comments about all he had to do was keep trying, that success is about self-motivation. Feel free. But…

This is really about the failure of the adults around that kid with artistic potential. No one said a positive word, no one offered encouragement–and all it took was one word.

Think about how you coach. Are your words and comments mostly critical towards your players? How often do you say “Don’t do ______” rather than “Let’s try _____________ instead?” Do you roll eyes at “bad” mistakes, do you raise your voice? Do you react to something negative with your own negativity?

—to be clear, I’m not innocent of this. It is FREAKING HARD to change. I listened to a presentation by Harjiv Singh (Performance Scientist, Orlando Magic) and John Speraw (US Men’s Olympic VB Coach) about how the words we choose as coaches affect our practices, the science, the data. I totally understood and I KNOW they are correct…and still I find myself falling back into old habits and telling players “Don’t X” and “Don’t Y”, or talking too long for them to efficiently process everything.

I think, though, I get the issue of encouragement right most of the time–only way to know for sure would be to get comments from players who have played for me.

Maybe it comes back to something I had mentioned to me when I was learning to teach–first and foremost, make sure you ‘do no harm.’ Of course, teachers struggle with that, too. But with the story above–that’s not enough, obviously. The old man didn’t talk about others around him being negative–he talks about not having received a positive word or bit of encouragement. That’s different.

So really–shouldn’t we, as coaches, make a conscious effort at each practice to say something positive and encouraging to each individual athlete? That does NOT mean lie to an athlete, but there are ways to help a kid who isn’t executing well and even kids who are slacking off. If you’ve got 120 minutes of practice and a dozen kids–think about how much time you have to interact, to comment even as they are busy playing!

What about competition? Singh/Speraw note that focusing on technique in matches doesn’t work and often decreases athletic performance. Instead, matches are for tactical comments, things important in the moment…but even then, isn’t that a great place for positive feedback whether it is generic “Nice hustle” or “Way to talk” or something specific–“Great job seeing the block and tooling it” or “Nice choices on who you are setting, you’re running the offense well.”

I just know that at the end of the line–next time once it’s for real and not something reversible due to medical stuff, I don’t want to be responsible for hampering a young person’s potential. If it turns out they like basketball, lacrosse, or theater enough that they give up VB–great…it’s never bad to lose someone to a greater passion! But I ABSOLUTELY DON’T want to drive a kid away…not just from VB but possibly from sports or group activities. Nope, nope, nope.

So–keep the old man with the poor art in mind. See the kid he once was, the one with unlimited potential…and actively work to help develop it. One kid at a time–that’s how we make the world a better place.