He answered with a percentage that made me sick…
“Coach, I think it’s pretty much 50-50 in there.”
What was the question that prompted this response?
I asked one of my team unit leaders:
What percentage of the team do you think I still ‘have’ in the room as of today? (It was December-ish)
Looking back, I think I lost some on Day 1…
Day 1 of training camp. AKA, the day when a coach makes what I know now to be a huge mistake.
They talk. A lot.
They tell. A lot.
They present. A lot.
Why is that an issue?
User experience… again.
It’s not for the players… It’s for you.
It makes you feel good. It’s important to you. And it makes you feel important.
And the players could give less than 1 fuck about you telling them how this culture is going to be different.
Why?
They want to see it.
Tell, tell, tell doesn’t sell, sell, sell.
Players don’t care what you say, they care what you’ll do.
So throw away that Powerpoint presentation or 6.
Training camp needs to be about showing, not telling.
How do I know?
I was the coach that presented a ton of, ‘this is how we are going to be different and better’ during training camp for 2 consecutive seasons. That was ‘important’ to go over from a coach’s perspective. It was important to tell them my way was going to be better.
What’s really important here is to note that this didn’t work.
And I watched my players have a mismatched level of ‘give a fuck’ compared to me in regards to how great the powerpoints were.
As they reduced their attention, I needed to learn a lesson in ‘reducing importance.’
Reducing Importance w/ Jon Cooper
Jon Cooper is a master in perspective taking… In his first season coaching in the AHL, he was tasked with coaching the Lightning rookies in Traverse City at the NHL Rookie Tournament. And it wasn’t his on-ice tactics that shocked everyone, it was his off-ice tactics:
Here’s a lesson from this…
If you look at things rationally, it’s inexcusable why they wouldn’t practice. Other coaches couldn’t believe they would waste their ice time. After all, this is NHL rookie camp. It’s ‘important’. Therefore you should take it ‘seriously.’
But when you understand life like Jon Cooper, you don’t take yourself, or even your job too seriously. He’s leaning into a superpower that only Level 1 Coaches get.
Level 1’s are playing with a ‘House Money’ cheat code.
More on that in Part 2…
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