Force Dominates, Power Unites
Lessons from the Tao, Hawkins and the best and worst rated coaches in the NFL
Hey Drew, what’s your favorite verse in the Tao Te Ching?
17.
So much wisdom in 11 lines.
Force is loud. Everyone will know who the Force Coach is because, like someone who does Crossfit or is Vegan, they’ll tell you within 4 seconds.
You’ll also know the Force Coach by their low grades from players after the season.
You might also know the Force Coach by their double-chin but that’s one for a different day.
The difference between McDaniel and McDaniels is 1 letter. It’s almost undetectable…
Power is undetectable to others. “The people are hardly aware that he exists.”
Power is Mike McDaniel getting mistaken for an ‘I.T. Guy’ on the Dolphins, not their Head Coach.
Power is being able to ‘teach’ 350-pound offensive lineman valuable technique as a 5-foot-something, 160-pound soaking wet, I.T.-looking nerd from 2017-2020 as the 49ers running game coach.
Unlike the 1 letter difference in last name, the difference between one of the highest-rated coaches in the league. Mike McDaniel. And the worst-rated coach in the league. Josh McDaniels…
Is very, very detectable.
Catch what Hawkins says:
Force can only dominate. Power has the capacity to unite.
Why did the Raiders hate playing for a coach with a massive pedigree, who won championships with Bill Belichick. Who is a QB development ‘genius’.
Because it doesn’t matter if you’re any of that if 53 players don’t want to play for you. Because you operate in Force.
The 2nd bullet point is any coach’s downfall and was the main reason Josh McDaniels was fired in favor of In-Powered Coach, Antonio Pierce.
Poor level of trust and respect for players
If you don’t have respect for a group, you won’t get respect from the group… (See politics)
A Force Coach doesn’t trust because trust calibrates above 200 and the Force Coach does not. Trust isn’t a truth tenant in his world because it is not a truth in his world.
A Force Coach demands you respect him and his ‘authority’ but the energy doesn’t flow both ways. The Coach is ‘above’ the players in a Force Coach hierarchy.
Because an In-Powered Coach calibrates above 200 and is integrous, the trust flows as smoothly as the 2nd section of the 17th verse from the Tao:
If you don’t trust the people, you make them untrustworthy.
Plain, simple, and right in the face… If you don’t trust them, they don’t trust you.
This is why McDaniel is highly rated by players and McDaniels is dead last.
If you study the Raiders after an In-Powered Coach took over for the Force Coach, this was the first thing Antonio Pierce addressed.
AP says in his podcast appearance on The Pivot, that he’s ‘not much of a talker’.
He’s more of a do-er. Let’s close on the last line of that verse speaking to the new way to coach successfully. Where being respected, loved, and being an environment creator in the background is more important than being the macho man coach who is seen but not being heard… The players have tuned it out…
The Master doesn’t talk, he acts. When his work is done, the people say, “Amazing, we did it all by ourselves!”
To learn more about the ins and outs of Power vs. Force Coaching, get the course: