Parallels between Athletic Coaching and People Performance:An Exploration of Shared Concepts

Parallels between Athletic Coaching and People Performance: An Exploration of Shared Concepts A white paper published by The Forum, aff iliated with

Northwestern University

The concept of applying “coaching” techniques to human resource management has been a recurring theme within business leadership ranks for a number of years, coinciding with the movement away from the traditional employer/employee relationships of the past toward more collaborative “team” approaches in the hopes that it would increase organizational productivity. In this paper, The Forum’s Academic Director, Dr. Frank Mulhern of Northwestern University, examines the key dimensions of successful athletic team coaching in light of the people performance concepts studied and advocated by The Forum. The goal of this work is to provide today’s business leaders with some pragmatic insights for

taining personal relationships between players and their coach.

Technical expertise about a sport and in-game decision-making

are not nearly as important as a coach’s ability to build and

maintain close personal relationships with players and leverage those relationships into athletic performance. A commitment to

people requires creating a culture of trust and transparency and a strong desire to make players happy. Tommy Lasorda, former

Manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers, noted that “contented players perform better.”

Listed below are key dimensions of successful coaching that

reflect common aspects of people performance. We discuss each of them with regard to their relevance to the personal relationship between a player and a coach and the connections of the concepts to The Forum.

advancing people performance within their own organizations.

Know the whole person: The best coaches do not limit their

T

he Forum advocates a people-first approach to

managing, motivating and engaging employees.

This paper investigates the prospect that people-

oriented aspects of athletic coaching may have some parallels to

management, and may offer some insights for advancing people performance. The importance of focusing on people in athletics

was highlighted by Bill Walsh, the famed coach of the Super Bowl-winning San Francisco 49ers, who told Harvard Business

Review that the teams that are most successful are those that “demonstrate the greatest commitment to their people.”

The literature on coaching establishes that the single most

important aspect of successful coaching is building and main-

interest in players to athletics. Good coaches get to know the

whole person and maintain a genuine interest in all aspects of the player’s life. Personally knowing players goes well beyond understanding a player’s physical and mental ability and extends

to a coach’s genuine interest in a player’s personal well-being.

Doing so creates trust and friendship, leading to a meaningful personal relationship. The Forum places a similar emphasis on the social and interpersonal aspects of work — that is, the idea

that work can’t be isolated and treated as a separate aspect of an employee’s life, as The Forum advocates with the concept of employee enrichment — a true concern for all aspects of an employee’s life.

the

A culture of respect: Good

coaches create environments

where all players respect all

other players and coaches.

This, too, reflects the people performance emphasis on

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interpersonal

relationships

among workers. A culture of respect is required for players to be mentally prepared

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to receive instruction, advice and constructive criticism from

coaches. Several successful coaches have noted that a lack of respect completely undermines the ability to coach. What

makes respect a challenging concept is that it is an intangible

should not be excessive or disingenuous — players can see through such communications and become discouraged.

Pride and a sense of belonging: Vince Lombardi stated that,

concept that is difficult to define and measure. However it

“Individualized commitment to a group effort is what makes

be restored. An emphasis on respect aligns with The Forum’s

tion work.” Good coaches instill a strong sense of pride in the

is obvious when it is lacking and, when it’s lost, it can rarely

people-first approach in that it inherently embodies respect for other people.

Individual attention: Good coaches provide personalized

attention to players as individuals. While this is facilitated by

the fewness of the players, it is crucial for coaches to be able to motivate and instruct players. This aspect builds on a coach’s

efforts to get to know players personally (as noted above). It is important that the individualized attention not just be about aspects that relate to athletic performance. Good coaches give

a team work, a company work, a society work, and a civilizateam and what it stands for (a city, school, etc.). Coaches need

to help players feel a strong sense of belonging to something

that is very meaningful. Pride, particularly a deep pride that is shared among players, elevates the importance of the sport

and leads to greater intensity. The idea of a sense of belonging closely relates to employee engagement and the meaningful-

ness of work — a concept discussed at some length in The Forum leadership paper in 2009.

Responsiveness to needs: Good coaches are highly respon-

individualized attention about all aspects of a player’s life.

sive to the needs of individual players and the team as a whole.

understand individual player’s feelings and emotions and

think about people performance. Management as a profes-

Since players are motivated in different ways, coaches must

incorporate that understanding into specific communications.

Importantly, this dimension of coaching reveals that there is no

template or formula for optimal coaching, or, more generally, optimal ways for interacting with people. Coaches regularly eschew the idea that they have some secret process or practice

and credit their team’s success to the players and the relationships they have with each other and the coaches.

Superior communication: Closely related to individual

attention is the need for immensely effective communication.

Without exception, great coaches are great communicators.

In many cases, great communication means explaining things

This is a very important concept that may add to how we

sion features an approach that management is something that

managers do to employees. A responsive approach reverses that orientation and makes the manager responsive to the employees. This seems to relate to the servant leader concept as well as the idea The Forum set forth in the end of the leadership

paper about the need for organizations to borrow the consumer insight concept from Marketing and develop “employee

insight” to guide managerial practices. Coaches seem to do this

in a more fundamental way as represented by John Wooden’s statement, “Make sure that team members know they are working with you, not for you.”

to players so they understand why coaches make the decisions

Summary

coach’s decisions, they feel a lack of respect and may lessen

performance. Businesses have long invited successful coaches

information to players, in both practice and games, which

inspiration and leadership. This paper has drawn out the

they do. In contrast, when players do not understand their their level of trust. A major aspect of coaching is conveying improves the performance of individuals and the team.

Coaches must create an environment for that information to be properly received, understood and acted upon. The key

people-related aspect here is that the information only has

value because of the trust, respect and commitment the coach has engendered overall.

An additional aspect of communication is the expression

appreciation to players. While appreciation can serve as a means of encouragement, coaches caution that appreciation

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to be speakers, and their emphasis has mostly been on

concepts in coaching that reflect the people-first approach

of The Forum, and relate to people performance. Coaching

is inherently people-first. While coaches need some technical expertise in the game, their success is far more driven by

people-related skills than anything else. Perhaps most impor-

tantly, excellence in coaching results from what we might call “player enrichment” — a sports equivalent of employee enrichment, as developed in The Forum leadership paper. Players

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of appreciation. Coaches go to great lengths to express direct

There are many parallels between coaching and people

perform best when an organization supports all aspects of a player’s life. CCN

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