It’s not about the shark.
Take home message
FOCUS ON THE PROBLEM, SEE THE PROBLEM. WANT A SOLUTION, THINK SOLUTIONS.
For Coaches
Focus your session and cues on what you “do want”. Not what you “don’t want”.
For Athletes
Take the 30,000 foot view and broaden your perspectives for solutions.
This semester I have enjoyed being involved in co-delivering a skill acquisition-strength and conditioning 3rd year unit at university. It has made me appreciate the journey of becoming a coach, to realise where I was over 20 years ago. I believe it is important for experienced coaches to be able to help the next generation of coaches. As with most teaching-learning experiences I find it a two way street. I am able to teach the students and share my experiences, but I also find that their youthful questions and challenges continue to remind me of practices I may have forgotten or ways I need to improve. If they cannot understand what I’m trying to teach them, it is because of me, not them, and how I’m teaching and that I need to do better. Just like coaching.
In one lesson, a young student was attempting to teach 6 of her fellow classmates a tennis session. She had 10 minutes to take her classmates through a training session she has prepared. One problem - she only bought with her one tennis racquet. She finished her session in a matter of minutes, in a slight fluster, claiming she was unable to do the rest of the session due to a lack of equipment. These classes are practical, but in the sense of the coaching, not the skill execution of her athletes (they were not being marked on their tennis ability, she was being marked on her coaching). These are classes revolve around how to coach - she was being assessed. In essence, it was not about the achievement of her 6 ‘tennis players’ (her fellow students), but her ability to conduct a training session as a coach.
Image: Gerald Schombs via Unsplash
Her predicament reminded me of a book titled, “It’s Not About the Shark”, a book that discusses the way to solve problems by not focusing on the problem. The title, ‘It’s Not About the Shark” is in reference to the classic 1975 move, Jaws. I tried to tell the story to her - unfortunately, she had not seen Jaws (that’s another story, but seriously, she had not seen “Jaws”. Probably seen “The Meg”, but not “Jaws”! Kids, huh?!)
Anyway, luckily, her classmates had. For the younger folk reading, back in “the old days”, before computer generated images, movies used scale models, machines and puppets. In 1975, they had a mechanical shark for the movie. The problem was, the mechanical shark was terrible. It’s synthetic skin deteriorated in the water, the salt water corroded the metal skeleton and it just looked… fake. Completely fake and very unscary. And it was expensive. Very expensive. A significant portion of the movie’s budget was spent on a shark that they could not use. So instead of trying to show a bad shark, and make a terrible movie they went a different way - you barely see the shark. The result, an academy award winning movie where viewers are terrified by floating barrels and a few chords of a cello.
The lesson for the this young student was to look beyond the lack of tennis racquets and see options. She had plenty of equipment (10 tennis balls, cones and floor space) to structure a session of change of direction, reaction, positioning and movement patterns using that equipment. She could only see the problems and not the solutions.
One of the main lessons I have tried to teach the students this semester is that things will go wrong. That is why we plan. So that by planning we can consider what contingencies might be required. But above all else, remain calm. Being flustered does not help problem solving. A stressed mind is a contained mind.
Coaches and athletes alike need to see beyond the limitations and current problems and think solutions. Whether it is a lack of equipment, not enough players at training, or part of the ground / court unavailable, success revolves around working through problems.
Focus on the problem, see the problem. It’s not about the problem. It is about the solution. Focus on that.
[you can listen to an interview about the book here: https://readtoleadpodcast.com/episodes-archive/, type “Niven”]
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Thanks again. BA.