Mikhail and I have an advantage over many people in the game of hockey.
A superpower of sorts.
What is it?
We started at the beginning of the coaching video game. We started on Level 1, with no cheat codes or power-ups.
And I know what you’re thinking, “Guys, that’s how everyone starts a video game, how can starting at the first level be a superpower?”
The advantage lies in the fact that regular video games and the ‘coaching’ video game are slightly different. In hockey, many coaches start their game on Level 20. They start the game with cheat codes:
High-Level Player Boost
Last Name Power Boost
Network Effects Bonus
And we aren’t hating on that, it’s the reality of this video game. We have our own advantage over the people that start ahead of us. Where most would get discouraged, we lean into our power.
See, coaches that start the game at level 1 get a superpower that most don’t even acknowledge. Pun fully intended here, we are about to open your eyes to something…
We have character vision.
Insert Bold Claim:
A Tier 3 expansion franchise HC and a Tier 3 assistant turned D3 assistant doesn’t have a ton of value to coaches in the middle of the bell curve, let's call them Level 20 Coaches. Yet some of the best in the game have connected with both of us. We will refer to them as Level 50 Coaches. In this video game, you start the game based on where you ended your playing career, but you only progress to the next level by treating people with respect. This is why there are still many high-level coaches stuck on the same level they started at.
However, the best people in our game are the people that don’t notice levels at all:
Let’s tell some stories and add value along the way…
Lesson 1: Everyone’s a ‘Good Guy’ when you can do something for them
I (Drew) spent 3 days in a USHL coaching office a few years ago. And this is when I started paying attention to something that kept coming up when I talked to coaches who were ‘above me.’
Each time I asked the USHL coach about a coach I had encountered, his answer was always the same. “He is a great guy.”
Yet, those same people he experienced as great guys:
Laughed me off the phone while talking down to me the entire conversation
Told me I couldn’t coach at the next highest level from the one I was at
To the USHL coach, they were all ‘great guys.’
Because he started his coaching career on level 20. He was as valuable to them as they were to him.
I experienced the same people differently because I started on level 1.
The principle at work is as follows: Positionality Impacts Perception (related teaching of principle below)
In Lesson 2, Mikhail shares a similar experience.
Lesson 2: If This, Then That. The “Love is Conditional”
Although I’ve been coaching in college for 3 years now, the last year saw a significant uptick in how often I was contacted with regards to recruiting. From advisors to coaches, even friends and acquaintances reaching out about potential players. On top of this, my interactions went from initiated by me to brought to me. Did I get that much better as a coach in one year to explain this difference? I suppose that’s possible, but unlikely. And even if I did, the majority of these people reaching out would never know that - most of them did not know me before reaching out anyway.
What changed was the logo on the jacket I’m wearing, and the reputation that follows it. Where I currently coach, people know about the rigorous academics the world over. With that academic reputation comes a strong desire to have the opportunity to play hockey for the university. As a result, prep school and junior coaches, advisors and friends do not hesitate to reach out on behalf of players interested in the program here.
As a disclaimer: this is great for us and completely understandable, it is their job or responsibility as coach/advisor/friend/family member. It also helps us as coaches make sure that we are finding/recruiting players who are in fact interested in what we have to offer.
The “dark” side of this is that some of the people reaching out were people who did not have the time of day to answer me before, or just never reached out with any sort of advanced legwork like they do now. Whether their non-response was because my tactics of making contact weren’t effective or because the players simply weren’t interested, I guess we’ll never know. But at the very least, a response of “sorry, ___ is not interested in your program” is a pretty simple and respectful thing to do. The point is not that I am salty they never got back to me, just that there is a marked difference between the treatment and responses I got based on only one (obvious) variable changing.
This is what brings us to the lesson that Simon Sinek has masterfully exemplified with the styrofoam cup. It’s meant for the position you hold, not you. The treatment, call it lack of response, I used to get was not necessarily personal - it was meant for the person holding that position. And now, the proactive contact and responses are meant for the position I hold - not necessarily for me personally. To me, this is an important lesson in understanding both how and why people treat others based on the perceived value they provide.
Lesson 3: Learn Perspective Taking
What Mikhail and I experienced and observed is nothing short of unbelievable. It doesn’t have to be this way. Even if you’re a Level 20 Coach, you don’t have to treat those below you at best transactionally and at worst, disrespectfully. The answer to being better lies in perspective-taking:
If the ceramic cup has always been for you, if you’ve always coached at a ‘relevant’ level of hockey, you’ve never seen the real side of anyone.
But you’ve seen the ‘best side’ of everyone.
A coach who starts the game on level 20 has affordances that the level 1 coach does not. The Level 20 coach can be a dick to anyone below him and not suffer ‘immediate’ consequences. On the flip side, everyone below a Level 20 coach instantly respects this person at first glance and even those ahead of him can benefit from where he is at in the coaching video game.
The Level 20 coach can do something for the Level 50 coach. Where the Level 20 coach misses is thinking the Level 1 Coach is not valuable to them.
But the Level 50 Coach knows that certain Level 1 Coaches are valuable. They see the high-velocity potential in some Level 1 Coaches.
They find high-velocity people like Heather Fleck did…
Lesson 4: Mental Model- Heather Fleck Person ID
Heather Fleck is a heck of a talent spotter and in our videogame analogy, she’d be a Level 50 coach. Here’s a bit from a twincities.com article by Andy Greder that will help us with our mental model of how to operate like a standup person in our game:
Heather was working at Ziegler Automotive Group in Kalamazoo, Mich., when P.J. received his first head coaching job at Western Michigan in 2013. She heard him speak at a sponsorship event at 8 o’clock one morning and thought what so many Minnesotans have when they first saw P.J. open his mouth.
“ ‘Who is this guy? And why is he yelling at us?’ ” Heather recalled. She sensed his personality was genuine in more candid moments but didn’t yet know him on a personal level. She had been divorced for a few years when a mutual friend tried to set them up. It was a nonstarter.
P.J. was coming off a dismal 1-11 record in his first season in the Mid-American Conference and was going through a divorce. As Heather heard from their mutual friend: “P.J. is like, ‘I cannot handle any more rejection. I’m not doing it.’ ”
Heather was like, well, fine: “No way am I asking out a 1-11 divorced head coach.” But then she did. “I literally went to his office one day and told him to get in the car.”
They traveled 50 miles north to Rose’s, a lakeside restaurant in Grand Rapids. “At that point, we weren’t super public,” Heather said. “That was our safe zone.”
Heather said she helped P.J. through his divorce, and P.J. said one of the first gifts he got her was a Superwoman T-shirt. They wed in Hawaii in February 2016.
Fleck won eight games in consecutive years in 2014-15, and his on-field success spiked to 13 wins and a MAC championship in 2016. They fell short in a Cotton Bowl loss to Wisconsin on Jan. 2, a Monday.
Fleck, who had plans with Heather to build a house on Gull Lake outside Kalamazoo, was going to sign a 10-year contract at Western Michigan that Tuesday. That’s when Gophers athletics director Mark Coyle called. They interviewed on Wednesday, were offered the job on Thursday and arrived in Minnesota on Friday.
As the Flecks’ deliberations on the job stretched to 3:30 a.m. one morning, Heather asked P.J.: “Does it scare the hell out of you?”
“Yes.”
“Then we go,” replied Heather
So what did Heather do so well that coaches who are currently ignoring others can learn from?
She spotted a ‘sleeping giant.’ Where many people wouldn’t connect with a 1-11 coach from a ‘small school’, Heather went where most wouldn’t and did the opposite. She gave the ‘down and out’, and definitely has a styrofoam cup guy a shot before his rise to ceramic cup status. She was an early investor in him. Here are the 2 things we can apply:
She saw ‘person’ when others saw ‘logo and record’
She saw future potential when others saw current perception and value
Applying the Model:
Level 50 coaches don’t miss up-and-coming coaching talent because they simply don’t ignore it. Coaches might be wise to use what we call the ‘6-minute rule.’ Heather went bold and gave him a few hours on the first date. Take at least 6 minutes to talk to a young coach on the phone. In that time, you’ll learn what Heather learned about P.J. Genuine, authentic, and competent.
If they check those boxes, you can keep chatting with them, if they don’t, you’re free to hang up the phone. You might be talking with a high-velocity coach like P.J. Fleck. High-Velocity people have that ‘it’ factor, they check the boxes and you get a feeling they could go places in the future. Like from 1-11 at a mid-major to the Head Coach of a mainstay in the Big 10 conference.
Half-Life of the Ceramic Cup
The half-life of the ceramic cup is 0 minutes. When you no longer hold the position, most people will forget you have any value.
That can stop today. With a commitment to being less transactional and less finite-minded.
Seeing people’s value in what can you do for me now can be replaced with what will these same folks be doing later? Switching your perspective might have you meeting a high-velocity coach that can really add value to what you’re doing.
One last thing…
You move up in this game because someone else pulls you up. You advance for 3 reasons:
Your last name
Your winning record
Your competence
Level 20 Coaches hire for the first two reasons. Level 50 coaches find the high-velocity coaches in the weeds and pull them ‘out of nowhere’. But it’s not really out of nowhere, you just have to know where to look.
P.S. If you got some value out of this, please share it with someone.
This has been a collaboration with Mikhail Bryan. Connect with him here.
If you liked this one, we also work together on a new podcast relating to this concept. Check out the Level 1 Coach:
Bonus Lesson Here:
My other collab with Mikhail:
Bonus Thought: https://twitter.com/drewcarlsonhp/status/1647187668051034112?s=20