I met with Coach Vern Simmons from St. Paul Johnson High School last week. During our almost two hour visit, one of the best things Coach Simmons said to me was that discipline is black and white - there is no grey. This is something I really needed to hear, and love the idea of.
The bottom line, Coach Simmons said, is either the player did it or he didn't. He closed out or he didn't. He sprinted or he didn't. He is playing hard or he isn't. He is being respectful or he isn't. He is being a good teammate or he isn't. There is no gray area here, it's a all or nothing type thing. I think when you approach discipline in this way, it becomes more effective. It also gets you away form falling into choosing certainty over clarity. As a coach you want to be certain he isn't playing hard before you get on him, but the truth is if you think he isn't playing hard he's probably is not.
Friday, October 29, 2010
The Five Temptations of a CEO
I know I haven't updated in a while, but I'm trying to get back into the swing of things with this - I need to start doing it more. I know no one reads, but it's a good place for me to keep my thoughts!
A few weeks ago, after reading "The Five Dysfunctions of a Team" I read another book by Lencioni titled "The Five Temptations of a CEO" and it was great. Lencioni has a bunch of different business books that translate really well to coaching, I would urge coaches to read his work. The book centers around the idea that CEO (or coaches for that matter) have some temptations they fall into as high status leaders. They do these things for a variety of reasons, but all of them negatively impact their ability to be good leaders. I think these translate very well to coaching, I know I was guilty of a few of these last year and after reading the book hopefully I am able to put them behind me. And I think that's the point - be honest with yourself on these and then work hard to overcome them. Below I will go over each of the five temptations and what he talks about in relation to those five temptations.
1. Choosing Invulnerability Over Trust
So many times as coaches we want to appear invulnerable to our players, and try to portray the idea that we don't have faults. But players are smarter than that and see through it, at that point we just come off as insecure and over macho which doesn't really work well when you are trying to lead your players. I think it's far more productive to take time once in a while to show them you are not perfect, that you aren't better/stronger than everyone, that you are human. So if this is a temptation for you, take some time this season to let them know when you made a mistake and to show them your human side. This is one of the temptations that I can say I don't have a problem with.
2. Choosing Harmony Over Conflict
As coaches and leaders, we feel that if there is harmony everything is fine, but that isn't always true. Sometimes harmony is just thin a cover for big issues that will boil over and ruin your team at some point during the season. This idea that conflict is good is a common theme with Lencioni in his writing. If teams learn how to have good, productive, healthy conflict they can put everything out on the table, there is no backstabbing and such. So as a leader instead of pushing the conflict to the side you have to let it happen, and sometimes even entice it to emerge. Because if you have immediate and healthy conflict small issues don't simmer and grow into big problems down the road.
3. Choosing Certainty Over Clarity
As leaders we want to make sure we are making the "right" decision, and sometimes that fear of making the wrong decision paralyses us so much that we don't make a clear decision and that doesn't allow us to hold people accountable. Sometimes, as coaches we need to just make a decision and live or die by that decision. In doing that, it allows us to hold our players accountable and have our players understand what is going on. So as coaches make a decision, stick with it, and back it 100%. Sometimes I fall into this category.
4. Choosing Popularity Over Accountability
Sometimes, as coaches, we worry that holding guys accountable to everything will make them dislike us and not play for us. This is a trap that I somehow fell into last year and it shames me to admit it. I was so worried that the guys would rebel that I didn't hold them accountable as much as should have been done. We as coaches need to have more of a black and white mentality when it comes to holding people accountable - this is something that I am actually going to mention in my next post here. But I do think you need to work on accountability over all else. It lends to your credibility and makes you a great leader.
5. Choosing Status over Results
In the current state of athletics, coaches loose their jobs quite regularly. I think this makes us all a little bit gun shy to make the moves and do the things we need to do to have a great basketball program. We worry if we institute rule X or follow through with discipline Y that we are going to lose our jobs. I did last year and it was the worst mistake of my career!! It was my first year of head coaching, I was told I had one year to prove I could do it, and was so worried that if I did the things that needed to be done I might not be around next year. That ultimately lead to me having a hard year because I was too worried about losing my job. You have to get the mentality that you are going to do your best, do what needs to be done, and if that's not good enough then it's not. But when you worry about getting fired, you're going to get yourself fired anyway (luckily I wasn't).
So in conclusion, we all fall into some of these temptations sometimes as coaches and there is nothing wrong with that as long as we recognize what we are doing and fix the situation. I wish I would have read this book last year, it really would have helped with some things during my season.
A few weeks ago, after reading "The Five Dysfunctions of a Team" I read another book by Lencioni titled "The Five Temptations of a CEO" and it was great. Lencioni has a bunch of different business books that translate really well to coaching, I would urge coaches to read his work. The book centers around the idea that CEO (or coaches for that matter) have some temptations they fall into as high status leaders. They do these things for a variety of reasons, but all of them negatively impact their ability to be good leaders. I think these translate very well to coaching, I know I was guilty of a few of these last year and after reading the book hopefully I am able to put them behind me. And I think that's the point - be honest with yourself on these and then work hard to overcome them. Below I will go over each of the five temptations and what he talks about in relation to those five temptations.
1. Choosing Invulnerability Over Trust
So many times as coaches we want to appear invulnerable to our players, and try to portray the idea that we don't have faults. But players are smarter than that and see through it, at that point we just come off as insecure and over macho which doesn't really work well when you are trying to lead your players. I think it's far more productive to take time once in a while to show them you are not perfect, that you aren't better/stronger than everyone, that you are human. So if this is a temptation for you, take some time this season to let them know when you made a mistake and to show them your human side. This is one of the temptations that I can say I don't have a problem with.
2. Choosing Harmony Over Conflict
As coaches and leaders, we feel that if there is harmony everything is fine, but that isn't always true. Sometimes harmony is just thin a cover for big issues that will boil over and ruin your team at some point during the season. This idea that conflict is good is a common theme with Lencioni in his writing. If teams learn how to have good, productive, healthy conflict they can put everything out on the table, there is no backstabbing and such. So as a leader instead of pushing the conflict to the side you have to let it happen, and sometimes even entice it to emerge. Because if you have immediate and healthy conflict small issues don't simmer and grow into big problems down the road.
3. Choosing Certainty Over Clarity
As leaders we want to make sure we are making the "right" decision, and sometimes that fear of making the wrong decision paralyses us so much that we don't make a clear decision and that doesn't allow us to hold people accountable. Sometimes, as coaches we need to just make a decision and live or die by that decision. In doing that, it allows us to hold our players accountable and have our players understand what is going on. So as coaches make a decision, stick with it, and back it 100%. Sometimes I fall into this category.
4. Choosing Popularity Over Accountability
Sometimes, as coaches, we worry that holding guys accountable to everything will make them dislike us and not play for us. This is a trap that I somehow fell into last year and it shames me to admit it. I was so worried that the guys would rebel that I didn't hold them accountable as much as should have been done. We as coaches need to have more of a black and white mentality when it comes to holding people accountable - this is something that I am actually going to mention in my next post here. But I do think you need to work on accountability over all else. It lends to your credibility and makes you a great leader.
5. Choosing Status over Results
In the current state of athletics, coaches loose their jobs quite regularly. I think this makes us all a little bit gun shy to make the moves and do the things we need to do to have a great basketball program. We worry if we institute rule X or follow through with discipline Y that we are going to lose our jobs. I did last year and it was the worst mistake of my career!! It was my first year of head coaching, I was told I had one year to prove I could do it, and was so worried that if I did the things that needed to be done I might not be around next year. That ultimately lead to me having a hard year because I was too worried about losing my job. You have to get the mentality that you are going to do your best, do what needs to be done, and if that's not good enough then it's not. But when you worry about getting fired, you're going to get yourself fired anyway (luckily I wasn't).
So in conclusion, we all fall into some of these temptations sometimes as coaches and there is nothing wrong with that as long as we recognize what we are doing and fix the situation. I wish I would have read this book last year, it really would have helped with some things during my season.
Saturday, September 11, 2010
The Five Dysfunctons of a Team - A MUST READ
Just got done reading "The Five Dysfunctions of a Team" by Patrick Lencioni and it's a MUST READ FOR EVERY COACH. This book is written buy a guy in the business world, but it really applies to coaches as well. I was at Barnes and Noble last night with the wife getting a book for the mother in law's birthday. I was randomly picking up books and I stumbled upon this one. I started flipping through it and started to notice some similarities between the five dysfunctions and things I noticed with last year's team. I bought it yesterday and read it all today - it's only 216 pages. It's changed the way I'm going to approach program/team building from now on. If I'd had it last year probably wouldn't have been 1-21 and if we were, it was have been a little more positive experience - the foundation would have been better set for following years.
The book centers around the five things that poor teams have: absence of trust, fear of conflict, lack of commitment, avoidance of accountability, and inattention to results. Most of the book is rapped up in a fictional story about a new CEO taking over a company and having to fix some dysfunctional behaviors - behaviors I think we see on a yearly basis on our own basketball teams. Now it's fictional, but it comes from the author's experiences with real live business teams. The nice thing is that it isn't completely perfect - there is some dissension at first, some hostility, and some of the people on this CEOs staff end up leaving and being pushed out because they were not toeing the line. It also shows how the fictional CEO handles the early criticisms of her staff, just as we might face some resistance early in the year.
The end of the book goes into detail about the five dysfunctions and also lays out some ideas for how to deal with fixing each step and all steps together. The approach is that all five of these are linked and depend on other dysfunctions, it comes at it from a complete approach.
Once again, I highly recommend this book for every basketball coach who wants to be better at team building next season or who wants to completely turn the culture around in their program. I am definately using it if I ever get the chance to be a head coach again!
Update:
Thanks to "CoachN" from the Xs and Os message board for adding that Coach Eric Musselman had previously talked about the book on his blog. I would look there as well if you are interested, as Coach Musselman is a far better writer than I!
The book centers around the five things that poor teams have: absence of trust, fear of conflict, lack of commitment, avoidance of accountability, and inattention to results. Most of the book is rapped up in a fictional story about a new CEO taking over a company and having to fix some dysfunctional behaviors - behaviors I think we see on a yearly basis on our own basketball teams. Now it's fictional, but it comes from the author's experiences with real live business teams. The nice thing is that it isn't completely perfect - there is some dissension at first, some hostility, and some of the people on this CEOs staff end up leaving and being pushed out because they were not toeing the line. It also shows how the fictional CEO handles the early criticisms of her staff, just as we might face some resistance early in the year.
The end of the book goes into detail about the five dysfunctions and also lays out some ideas for how to deal with fixing each step and all steps together. The approach is that all five of these are linked and depend on other dysfunctions, it comes at it from a complete approach.
Once again, I highly recommend this book for every basketball coach who wants to be better at team building next season or who wants to completely turn the culture around in their program. I am definately using it if I ever get the chance to be a head coach again!
Update:
Thanks to "CoachN" from the Xs and Os message board for adding that Coach Eric Musselman had previously talked about the book on his blog. I would look there as well if you are interested, as Coach Musselman is a far better writer than I!
Sunday, August 29, 2010
Offense for "Dumb Players"
Time after time in talking to coaches and reading message boards I hear the theme of - you can only run that offense if you have smart players. I hear this said about the princeton, motion, read and react, dribble drive motion, etc. But really, is there a good offense for "dumb players"??
Lets think about this critically - if you players are not smart it's going to be hard to run a set play offense. They have to remember where to go and know what to do when things break down. The flex offense is useless of you can't react to being denied on the reversals and you can't properly read the screens. The Swing offense works, but again, if it doesn't go perfectly dumb players don't know how to fix it. So what offense works if you have players that are not smart?? What do you do?
In my opinion you can run any offense, if your players are smart it will look like a million bucks, if they are not then it's going to be more of a struggle. I think motion based offenses are harder to run without the IQ, but I think they help build IQ and they get better as the year goes. I am the first to admit I am bias however. On the other hand I do think that using a continuity offense can help the players that are not as savvy, but at the same time a player with poor IQ will still struggle when the offense breaks down or the defense starts to cheat the continuity, what are your thoughts?
Lets think about this critically - if you players are not smart it's going to be hard to run a set play offense. They have to remember where to go and know what to do when things break down. The flex offense is useless of you can't react to being denied on the reversals and you can't properly read the screens. The Swing offense works, but again, if it doesn't go perfectly dumb players don't know how to fix it. So what offense works if you have players that are not smart?? What do you do?
In my opinion you can run any offense, if your players are smart it will look like a million bucks, if they are not then it's going to be more of a struggle. I think motion based offenses are harder to run without the IQ, but I think they help build IQ and they get better as the year goes. I am the first to admit I am bias however. On the other hand I do think that using a continuity offense can help the players that are not as savvy, but at the same time a player with poor IQ will still struggle when the offense breaks down or the defense starts to cheat the continuity, what are your thoughts?
Watching the WNBA
I'm sitting here watching the New York and Indiana play in the WNBA playoffs tonight and I think more boys high school coaches, especially those at small schools should be watching the WNBA for ideas on the Xs and Os of the game.
Most high school guys coaches would scoff at the notion of watching the WNBA, but think about it for a second. Most high school coaches, especially those at the small high schools don't have athletes that are any better than the ones in the WNBA. We don't have guys who can run a backdoor lob for a dunk or hit a three coming off a screen over a defender. The WNBA coaches have some great plays that can be utilized when you don't have these kinds of athletic players.
Most high school coaches can't wait to get their hands on the latest college and NBA play books but you couldn't give them a WNBA one for free. Why?? What is so different about the WNBA? Watch a game once, I mean really watch. They have some GREAT SETS to get backdoor plays, get shooters wide open off screens, etc. They are plays and ideas that frankly most high school coaches, who's players play below the rim, could use and do well with. So when you are flipping through the channels next time and come upon a game, take the time to watch and really study what these teams do - us as high school coaches are really missing out on some good Xs and Os by passing up WNBA play - further more, what other live basketball are you going to watch on TV this summer?
Most high school guys coaches would scoff at the notion of watching the WNBA, but think about it for a second. Most high school coaches, especially those at the small high schools don't have athletes that are any better than the ones in the WNBA. We don't have guys who can run a backdoor lob for a dunk or hit a three coming off a screen over a defender. The WNBA coaches have some great plays that can be utilized when you don't have these kinds of athletic players.
Most high school coaches can't wait to get their hands on the latest college and NBA play books but you couldn't give them a WNBA one for free. Why?? What is so different about the WNBA? Watch a game once, I mean really watch. They have some GREAT SETS to get backdoor plays, get shooters wide open off screens, etc. They are plays and ideas that frankly most high school coaches, who's players play below the rim, could use and do well with. So when you are flipping through the channels next time and come upon a game, take the time to watch and really study what these teams do - us as high school coaches are really missing out on some good Xs and Os by passing up WNBA play - further more, what other live basketball are you going to watch on TV this summer?
Thursday, August 26, 2010
Drill of the Week: De La Salle 2 Chair Series
Coach Dave Thorson from De La Salle high school in Minneapolis is one of the better teachers of the game of basketball that I've seen. This is a drill that is standard in a lot of the development workouts that I do with players. It's a great way to build quick hands and ballhandling skills. I also like the fact that it's game like, it has a finishing element to it, and players seem to like it.
The drill is very simple, all you need is a ball, basket, and two chairs - garbage cans - boxes -etc. You can run this drill from the point or the wings. I would mix it up for fun. I will explain how it works from the top of the key to keep things simple.
Set one chair up at the top of they key, the other one just inside the free throw line. As players get better at the drill move the second chair farther out and closer to the top of the key. The closer the chairs are, the quicker and better your players have to be.
The gist of the drill is that a player dribbles up to the first chair, makes a move, dribbles to the second, makes a second move and finishes at the rim. I like players to come up with their own finished and to mix them up - regular lay ups, reverse lay ups, middle floaters, middle power lay ups, two foot jump stops, etc. After a certain amount of time (1-3 minutes, I like 2 min) you change the drill so they come to the first chair, make a double move, make a single move on the second and finish. After another 1-3 minutes, it's one move on the first chair, two moves on the second. After another 1-3 minutes it's double moves on both chairs. Again, have the players mix up their finishes. It's also important to mix up their moves on the chairs. If they come up and do the same move over and over it doesn't give the same benefit of being spontaneous and coming up with different combinations and moves.
The drill is very simple, all you need is a ball, basket, and two chairs - garbage cans - boxes -etc. You can run this drill from the point or the wings. I would mix it up for fun. I will explain how it works from the top of the key to keep things simple.
Set one chair up at the top of they key, the other one just inside the free throw line. As players get better at the drill move the second chair farther out and closer to the top of the key. The closer the chairs are, the quicker and better your players have to be.
The gist of the drill is that a player dribbles up to the first chair, makes a move, dribbles to the second, makes a second move and finishes at the rim. I like players to come up with their own finished and to mix them up - regular lay ups, reverse lay ups, middle floaters, middle power lay ups, two foot jump stops, etc. After a certain amount of time (1-3 minutes, I like 2 min) you change the drill so they come to the first chair, make a double move, make a single move on the second and finish. After another 1-3 minutes, it's one move on the first chair, two moves on the second. After another 1-3 minutes it's double moves on both chairs. Again, have the players mix up their finishes. It's also important to mix up their moves on the chairs. If they come up and do the same move over and over it doesn't give the same benefit of being spontaneous and coming up with different combinations and moves.
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
"Dialing In" Your Game
Just wanted to share a quick mental imagery thought I used with a player the other day. As a player you need to be able to "dial in your focus" to whatever task is at hand. I explained it to the player that your focus is like dialing in your favorite radio station - not the easy digital type, but the old school type where you had to line up the line with the station. Many times you can hear the station, but it's not clear it's fuzzy and sometimes you can also hear another station. In order to really hear your station you need to be tuned exactly in - it needs to be perfect. This is how I explained mental concentration to the player - you might be concentrating on what you are doing but in your head you are thinking of other things as well - your girl, your friends, your life, your favorite song, etc. If you are doing this you really are not perfectly tuned in. You are getting static and other stations as well. So when you are playing basketball, before you play, you need to "tune yourself in" and put the dial squarely on basketball and the task you are performing. Great players have the ability to tune themselves in, average and poor players play with static and other stations playing in their head. It's really a simple analogy, but one that I think will resonate with players to help them imagine the level of focus they need to succeed.
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