A razor is a rule of thumb. We’ve been over some on the New Wave Coach before. Here are 3 articles you might have not read.
Razor for Surgeon Use Only
Enter a new razor, and it starts with a paradox. Here is a recent tweet from Sahil Bloom:
The Surgeon Paradox is a concept I can’t stop thinking about. If you’re choosing between two surgeons of equal merit, you should choose the one who DOESN’T look the part, because they’ve had to overcome more to get to where they are. “Looking the part” is sometimes the worst indicator of competency. The one who doesn’t look the part has had to overcome much more to achieve its status than the one from central casting.
The razor is simple. If forced to choose between 2 equals… Choose the one that doesn’t look the part.
Does this apply to hockey hiring?
Yes.
Level 1 Coaches Build Their Coaching “Character” Faster
My resume when I interview doesn’t ‘look the part.’ And when you look into my Win-Loss record, I really don’t look the part to ‘advance’ in hockey.
Yet that is just the thing that should separate me and land me more offers, not less.
Confused?
It’s counter-intuitive for sure, but here is the argument based on the above razor.
Ever heard of Pep Guardiola?
Want to know what made this Level 1 Coach progress to the highest level? Starting his coaching career in low-level Spanish football. His first job out of coaching wasn’t Barcelona of the Spanish First Division La Liga. He wasn’t just gifted a job at Manchester City.
The Barcelona B-Team that he coached existed in the 4th division of Spanish Pro Football. Essentially, Pep Guardiola was a Tier 3 junior hockey coach like me.
What things didn’t he have in 4th-tier football? The same things I didn’t have coaching an expansion franchise in the USPHL… Resources.
I was the strength coach.
I was the physio.
I was the mental skills coach.
I was the individual skills coach.
I was the macro-level game model educator.
I was the hockey coach.
Sometimes I sold tickets during the warmup because the girls we hired were late.
And I recruited a team of players to a team with no brand.
When Pep was 3rd on the list of 3 candidates for the Barcelona A-Team job, one person knew of this razor. His name was Johan Cruyff.
And Pep beat out 2 who were ‘better on paper’ because Cruyff knew a Level 1 Coach had to build every skill set and overcame much more to just get in that mix of 3 final candidates.
You Can’t Be Here Because You Didn’t Win There…
Let’s go to a recruiting example. I’ve heard every quote under the sun about how unqualified I am to do anything at the next level…
How will you recruit professional players or D3 players if you struggled to recruit talent to your expansion tier 3 team?
Short answer, because your job here is easier.
Here’s the thing, you want to fill your staff with ‘winners’ but don’t understand that sometimes there are 2nd and 3rd-order effects to that.
Let’s say the other option in an interview process not named Drew Carlson is John Smith.
John is a 28-year-old who has been the assistant coach at UW Stevens Point for the last 2 years. If you’re not a hockey person, you can replace the school I just mentioned with any school or organization that is established and successful.
Who do you think is a better recruiter, me or him?
If all I had was Champion apparel and every player wanted to shop at Lululemon, and I still recruited a whole team, doesn’t that mean more than someone who can pick up the phone and sell Lululemon to people that are lining up for it?
John’s job is a cakewalk. My job was impossible and I got it done.
But you’ll hire John 12 times out of 8.
This doesn’t always catch up with you, and as the HC, you don’t always pay the price. But be mindful of when John is going to a ‘different level’ on the recruiting video game.
D3 studs get small-level D1 jobs pretty often. But if you could call anyone in your player Rolodex that wasn’t committed D1 and commit them to Stevens Point, that was the game on easy mode. If you become the assistant coach at Bentley in your next job which is difficult to recruit to for various reasons, your game just got bumped to ‘hard mode.’
That contrast kills you. Or the guy you work for.
Now as the HC, you’re going to bet your D1, HC job, and how your family eats on a ‘winning recruiter.’ But that winning recruiter was recruiting on easy mode. Was he being challenged to ‘sell a program?” No. He had a name brand.
Now at a small, unproven, and rebuilding school like Bentley for example, he will need to sell and he doesn’t have the skillset for it. He never had to learn it. Someone that built an expansion franchise out from the ground up may not have ‘won’ a ton of games because he had to sell shit as lemonade and get people to drink it.
Someone like me is the better recruiter because I’ve already recruited at the hardest place I’ll ever recruit at. My lowest level was the ‘hardest’ difficulty setting in contrast to the other coach’s first stop was ‘easier’ both in terms of recruiting and doing less with more resources. No way that guy was selling tickets and doesn’t have a physio on staff.
We need to invert again…
I didn’t get ‘the results’ so I don’t look the part for the ‘next job’. But if you invert your thinking like the razor states:
“Looking the part” is sometimes the worst indicator of competency. The one who doesn’t look the part has had to overcome much more to achieve its status than the one from central casting.
And that’s exactly why you should pick me.
Go on to Part 2 Here: