The Craft of Coaching

Coaching is one of the most worthwhile pursuits.

But too often, we focus on the wrong things.

In athletic coaching, all our education and time is spent on designing better workouts, figuring out the perfect sets and reps for an adaptation, and the X’s and O’s of a game plan. In teaching, we increasingly see school districts spend their time searching for the magical curriculum that will solve all their problems and boost test scores. In corporate leadership, we search for the perfect operating system or the protocol that will help us to sell more widgets.

We treat coaching as if it’s a prescription. But it’s not. Steve was fortunate to be part of a panel with NBA champion Shane Battier, author David Epstein, 9-time Olympic medalist Ryan Murphy, and MIT Sloan professor Shira Springer. We spent an hour discussing what matters for performance at the mecca of sports analytics. And where did we end?

All of the data and processes are fascinating and important, but you’ve still got to connect with the human sitting across from you, and figure out how to get them to change their shot or mindset or approach or whatever it is you’re working toward.

Early in my (Steve’s) coaching career, I was convinced it was all about the workouts. If I could just figure out the perfect training plan for the athlete sitting across from me, everything else would take care of itself. It didn’t work like that. I quickly realized I had to coach humans.

Former football coach Pete Carroll had a similar revelation. As outlined in a ​wonderful article​ by Wright Thompson about Steve Kerr:

“How are you gonna coach your team?” Carroll said.

“What offense are we gonna run?” Said Kerr.

“That stuff doesn’t matter,” Carroll said.

“What do you mean?” replied Kerr.

So Carroll told him his theory of coaching. His main job was to decide what emotions he wanted his players to feel every day and then foster an environment that created those emotions. What’s practice gonna feel like? What’s the vibe?

Coaching is a craft. It’s about creating a philosophy that helps you make the biggest impact on the people you work with. So with that in mind, Steve put together 33 coaching principles he’s collected over the years. Consider it a cheat sheet to coaching philosophy.

1. Coach from dependence to independence. Coaching is about making your own job somewhat obsolete. Works towards having your athlete be more self-sufficient, with the coach’s role transitioning towards mentor and partnership.
2. Coaching comes from conversation. And most of that is observing and listening. The athlete tells you everything you need to know…if you’re paying attention.
3. Caring comes first. If the person you are coaching knows you don’t care, the perfect plan won’t matter. The old saying “They don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care” is absolutely true.
4. Standards without warmth make people fragile. Warmth without standards leaves people lost. You need both.
5. Be opposite the moment. When they’re frantic, be calm. When they’re flat, bring intensity. Your job as the leader isn’t to amplify the room. It’s to counterbalance it.
6. “Coach the athlete you have. Not the one you wish you had.” The football coach, Robert Collins, said this. Don’t fit the athlete to your preferred template. Adjust the template to whoever’s in front of you.
7. The story someone tells themselves runs the show. Coach the story. Knowledge doesn’t change behavior. Story does. “It’s hard to outperform your self-concept.
8. You can’t want it more than they do. The day you start trying to is the day you’ve lost the room. Your job is to set the conditions for your athlete (or students, or people) to want it most.
9. Emotions are contagious. Pay attention to which ones you’re spreading. You are the thermostat, not the thermometer. You’re changing the room temp.
10. Challenge, not threaten. We do our best when we’re stretched, not when our worth is on the line. Hard things land differently when failing doesn’t mean you’re worthless. Stretch the challenge. Keep someone’s self-worth out of it.
11. People perform best when they feel valued as a person and not just an athlete, that they belong, and when they’re performing out of joy instead of fear. Joy is a performance enhancer.
12. Reward what you preach. If you say process and only celebrate outcomes, the brain gets the second message. What is honored will be cultivated.
13. Action is the antidote to anxiety. One purposeful step convinces the brain that the situation is manageable. Don’t wrestle the entire monster. Break it down, point at the work, and start moving.
14. Confidence is quiet. Insecurity is loud. Arrogance sits on insecurity. Confidence sits on evidence. The brashest voice in any room is usually the one most afraid of being found out. Real confidence comes from earned experience. Do the work.
15. What gets your attention becomes important. Choose wisely.
16. Teach the inner critic to coach. Acceptance of the inner critic drains its power. Fighting it amplifies it. Give it a useful job and direction.
17. The athletes who feel safe take more risks. The ones who don’t, hide.
18. Ego kills sync. It crowds out the signals that lead to connection.
19. Always stay in learning mode. Be curious. “Once you stop learning about your athletes, you’ve stopped coaching.” Brother Colm O’Connell
20. Having fun is a performance enhancer. We forget that it’s still supposed to be fun, even for the best of the best.
21. Explain the why. The why is half the workout.
22. Skills come from struggle. Don’t overcoach or step in too early. Rescue people too soon, and they don’t retain what they almost figured out. Productive failure beats premature help.
23. Empower agency. We perform best when we feel autonomy, like we’re contributors who make a difference. It’s why micromanaging kills motivation.
24. Plant seeds constantly. (And water them.) Any coach, teacher, or parent will tell you of the kid who told them years later that they finally get it. We can’t force understanding. Just keep cultivating the space for it to grow.
25. Work with people to define their version of success. Don’t import a definition that gets in the way of the person you’re trying to help someone become. The borrowed definition almost always fails the person who’s actually in front of you.
26. Lower the bar, raise the floor. Too often, we focus on those rare days when everything aligns. You can’t control when those show up. Focus on raising your floor, making the average days better.
27. If someone only succeeds with you, you’ve failed. The goal is to give people autonomy and agency. To teach them how to do the thing, and then ultimately let them go.
28. The first person you have to coach is yourself. Don’t ignore your own needs and what you can get better at. It’s easy to get into coaching mode where you’re always focused on helping others. Take care of your own needs, and have a support system that allows you to do the job over the long haul.
29. Teach, don’t just train. Too often, we get stuck in prescriptive mode. Remember, you are fundamentally changing the person in front of you.
30. Prior success only buys you time. Then you have to earn it again. No one really cares what you’ve done in the past; they care about how you’re going to help them now.
31. Coaching is pattern recognition. We pick up patterns when we pay attention. Build a database deep enough that you can see what an athlete is showing you. Then trust it.
32. Be in love with an idea, just don’t marry it. Don’t become the person who swears by a single diet for everyone. Every system eventually fails, and if you’ve tied your identity to it, then you go down with the ship.
33. The car ride home is the most important part. After a hard event or a bad workout, the brain is super sensitive. What you say in those minutes lasts longer than anything you said in practice all season. Be thoughtful.

-Steve