How bad are bad haircuts? They can ruin the next 2 weeks of your life until your hair grows back enough to get it fixed…
I have a bad haircut story, but she cut my hair great…
It was about my user experience.
It was the fourth time getting my hair cut in Lee’s Summit, Missouri.
I walked in, and saw Brooklyn. (the girl who cuts my hair)
And she looked at me and she said, who are you?
I paused, blinked a few times, and checked to make sure I was conscious.
And during that huge pause…
One of the guys that worked there said, “It's Drew. Hey, Drew.”
I greeted the guy who doesn't cut my hair.
The one that has a whole book of clients and none of them are named Drew Carlson.
Yet, he knew it was me.
And the girl that cut my hair didn't.
Safe to say that was the last time she cut my hair.
Fast forward one month later, I got my hair cut again at a new barber in town.
I fill out the online form, put my name and time in and send it.
I get a reminder email and text message the day before.
And I walked in today and something noteworthy happened…
I was greeted by my barber, his name's Chris, who'd never met me before.
And as I walked in the door, he said, “Hey, Drew, how's it going?”
He knew based on the time that I showed up that I was Drew, and he greeted me by name.
See the difference?
Now, you might be asking yourself, what does changing barbers have anything to do with effective leadership?
Great question.
Great coaching has a lot to do with anti-goals.
It's easier to say don't do X than define what great looks like.
Here's another anti-goal for coaches:
Don't do anything to make them think that you're an idiot.
‘Them’, in this case, is your players.
Them, in my case, was being a haircutting client.
If you're the leader, most players are assuming positive intent just as I was with Brooklyn…
This means when you walk into the room for the very first time, they assume you're competent.
They assume you're going to add value.
They assume you're going to be a good coach.
They assume you're going to relate well.
They assume that you might as well be Pep Guardiola.
And bit by bit, trust either gets compounded and they have more and more evidence to think that you're a good coach or…
Trust negatively compounds or dissolves and with each interaction, each misstep, they have more and more evidence to suggest that you suck at coaching.
And trust between player and coach can evaporate quickly.
And in recent years, we've seen a trend that it's evaporating faster than ever.
There's an old Caribbean proverb that trust is built at the rate of the growth of a coconut tree, but trust evaporates at the speed of a dropping coconut.
Run a meeting too long and make players late for class once and you might be okay.
Make a habit of your meetings running too long and you're going to dissolve trust between you and your players.
Break the momentum of practice once over-explaining a drill and you'll be forgiven.
Do this over the course of seven months and your players are going to check out in month two.
Don't do anything that makes them think you're an idiot.
Forgetting someone's name that you've met four times and is a client on your books gives me a reason to think you're an idiot.
It dissolved trust and I immediately went to look for another barber.
Your players are me in this situation.
And they might not have the freedom to go to another barber if they're playing youth hockey…
They can't ask for a trade.
They can't ask to be released.
They might be stuck with you, but it doesn't mean they have to listen to you.
To avoid this… Don’t give them a reason to think you’re an idiot.