Byron Kalies

First appeared in ‘CIO’ (U.K.)

Look at the top sports managers. With a few exceptions they all have a similar profile. They weren’t the best players at their sports but they have performed at a high level and have a good understanding of the pressures involved.

If you consider the 1966 England World Cup winning team, only one player, Jack Charlton, has had any success as a manager. All of today’s top Premiership managers: Jose Murinho; Alex Ferguson; Arsene Wenger and Rafael Benitez were all – without being at all disrespectful – journeymen professionals. So was this year’s Italian World Cup winning team manager, Marcello Lippi.

This phenomenon isn’t confined to football. Tiger Woods’ golf coaches – Hank Haney and Butch Harmon – were professionals with no major wins. Tony Roche, Roger Federer’s coach, was a competent tennis pro but won just the one major title. What this seems to imply is that there is a huge difference between the skillset required to play a game and one needed to manage a team of players.

In sport this seems blatantly obvious yet this logic is frequently ignored, often with disastrous results. Look no further than Paul Gascoigne.

You would expect business to have more sense. However there seems to be a flawed logic that often forces this same, potentially dangerous, mistake.

Here’s how it goes. Someone performs particularly well in a specific job function and there’s no system for rewarding these outstanding individuals, so the only option to retain them seems to be to promote them.
As I was told by a leading civil service economist: “I added up some hard sums and got promoted. I added up even harder sums and got promoted. I added up some incredibly hard sums and they gave me 120 staff to manage.”

Holding on to the past

It’s hardly any wonder that new managers face a particularly difficult time at the beginning of their new role. Any new job is stressful. With this particular career move they have to ‘unlearn’ the old skills and start learning new skills – often with their old peers. The danger for many new managers is that they try to cling to the past – put in long hours and still get involved with the day-to-day, hands on work. After all, this is why they were promoted. This is their ‘comfort zone’. In footballing terms they become ‘player-managers’. They and their staff get confused as to their role and responsibilities. Are they the boss or still one of them?

However, there comes a time when they need to define their role. There just isn’t enough time to do everything and they need to get others to do the work for them. This can be incredibly difficult for managers to cope with. They know how they would do it so letting someone else do it differently can be incredibly frustrating.

Learning to adapt to this lack of ‘hands on’ involvement is very difficult, as managers have to learn to give up control and trust people. There aren’t enough hours in the day for you to do everything or check everything. The only option is to take a deep breath and let it go.

This doesn’t mean anarchy. Managers and staff need to have sensible discussion and agree outputs, time frames and parameters. Both parties should be absolutely clear about where the boundaries are and what support is available.

The lucky few

There are exceptions. The Franz Beckenbauers, Jack Charltons and Ruud Gullits who seem to have all the footballing skills, plus incredible interpersonal skills and ‘something special’. No doubt this also applies to some individuals in businesses.

But for the majority companies need to offer alternatives. For instance, give people the training and opportunity to look at management before they are thrown into it. Or even more radically – give them a three-month trial.

Frequently, programmers or economists don’t want promotion – just the recognition for doing a good job. It may be the case of just building in some financial rewards.

The alternative is being stuck in a cycle of: recruit and train specialist – specialist performs well – promote specialist to manager – specialist struggles as manager – specialist leaves the company. Recruit and train specialist… and so on…. and so on…

What this seems to imply is that there is a huge difference between the skillset required to play a game and one needed manage a team of players.

First appeared in ‘Today’s Golfer’(U.S.A.)

You make your way through the heather and mistletoe onto the 18th tee. It’s an enchanting, but daunting par three. You ease your way through the rowan bushes, hazel and willow trees to get a panoramic view of the whole arcane course from this elevated promontory. You smell the rosemary and cinnamon as the sun starts to fade on what has been a perfect autumn afternoon. Below you the horseshoe lake in front of the green glimmers as the setting suns rays play across the surface. The crickets chirp languidly as you shield your eyes to gaze down onto the crisp emerald putting surface and see a circle of your golfing fraternity performing the ‘lining up of the putt’ ceremony.

They alternate, criss-crossing the viridescent dance floor in a succession of ritualistic choreographed patterns handed down from generation to generation. It’s like watching some ancient gavotte or floral dance as they take their turns with their putters, bow to the flag and move slowly, gracefully around the green stepping nimbly over invisible lines. Slowly they reach the climax of the ceremony and you faintly hear a set of orchestrated incantations and hexes; “eyes over the ball”, “eyes over the ball”, “accelerate the clubhead”, “accelerate the clubhead”, “never up, never in”, “never up, never in”.

As the gentle breeze carries the last cry of the congregation into the light of the waiting clubhouse you make a mistake; you start to think.

You’ve had a decent round and you know you really should be enjoying this. Your swing’s been excellent for the seventeen holes so far. You’ve putting solidly all afternoon up to this point. So, why is it then that all you can think about is the passage in ‘The Right Stuff’ where Alan Shephard is waiting for lift off on the Apollo moon mission. He’s not thinking about the excitement, or even the danger of 7.5 million tons of thrust being generated beneath him. All he’s thinking as he lies waiting for lift off is “Please, Dear God, don’t let me mess this up. Please, Dear God, don’t let me mess this up.” (I paraphrase).

You take a deep breath and repeat this mantra to Jesus, Mary, Buddha, Parsvanatha, Tyche, Hectate, Dagda, Ganesh, Confucious, Allah and your Guardian Angel. There are two scenarios playing in your mind. In the first scenario you hit your 6 iron a mile in the air and it drops like a stone eight feet past the flag, bounces once and spins back to crawls slowly down the green inching toward the flag. It seems to be going in but suddenly stops. “Bad luck” you hear. In the second scenario you clear the pond by an inch. It bounces forward onto the green then spins back slowly, slowly into the enticing, alluring, watery hell. “Oh bad luck” you still hear.

But it’s not really bad luck, is it? Many would argue that it’s karma. This would teach that similar actions will lead to similar results; Buddhists would say, “Good actions lead to happy states”; Wiccans would tell you, “The harm you do returns to you threefold”; The Beatles would sing, “The love you make is equal to the love you take”; Confusians would pronounce, “What you do not want done to you, do not do to others.”; and many Christians would chip in (excuse the pun) with “What goes around, comes around”.

One of the few people who would disagree with this assessment would be Richard Dawkins. Richard Dawkins is not a big fan of luck, or God for that matter. He’s the ultimate “You make your own luck in this world“type of guy. Richard, should he be on the eighteenth tee with you would encourage you to spend less time praying to Fudo, Fortuna, Bastet and Saint Andrew, and more time considering the club/ball interaction where the energy of the club is transferred to the ball by the mass of the clubhead + the velocity (speed + direction) of the swing and the ball’s flight through the air in terms of the angle of the shot (taking into account the air pressure as it leaves the club (not forgetting, hopefully, the resultant change in pressure (and temperature)) and travels over land, water and land again before gently dropping on the putting surface).

Now you hear the voices of the modern days gurus, “Stay in the zone”, “Visualise”, “Take one shot at a time”, “Stay in the moment”, “Be of the game not in the game”. Oh no this is getting confusing. Stop. Relax. Breathe. Be positive. Calm. Seek Nirvana.

You breathe. You place the ball on the tee peg and step back. You pick up some grass and throw it into the air, yet have no idea where it comes down. You’re operating on automatic now. You take a few perfect practice swings touch the lucky rabbit’s foot in your pocket and step forward to take the shot.

The next thing you know it’s on the green, three feet from the hole. You have no idea how it got there. Your mind has been a total blank. Tiger Woods could have stepped up to you, taken your club, hit the ball and walked away and you would not have known. In fact you wouldn’t really care. All you can see now is your ball on the green.

After your partners have hit you walk nonchalantly down the path trying to pretend that you do this sort of thing every day. As you step onto the green and repair your pitch mark you notice that the putt’s a little downhill, and instead of three feet it’s grown to six feet. You make a mistake. You start to think.

First appeared in ‘Golf Today’ (U.S.A.)

1. Looking Good .v. Getting the Job done

There’s a concept I’ve recently come across in the training room that helps to explain a fair amount of my inability to break 80 with any regularity (I’m currently playing off 14). I learnt this pearl of wisdom attending on a training course run by a psychologist. He was talking to us (a group of trainers, consultants, personnel folk) about management, and more specifically the relationship managers have with staff, customers, etc… In his words (and Freud’s) “It’s all about relationships”. He discussed how the quality of the relationship you have with a client is a measure of the effectiveness with which you do business with them. Which is interesting enough. The particularly relevant aspect to this for me (and my consistency in golf - remember the golf) was the question he asked us about our relationship with our clients;

“What are you committed to? Are you committed to looking good or are you committed to getting the job done?” For me this translates as “Why do I choose a pitching wedge from 3 feet off the green rather than use a putter?” I know a putter will get me closer on 8 out of 10 occasions yet somehow it doesn’t feel right. I feel that I should use a wedge. There’s a pressure on me, a macho, male thing about having to copy the professionals. I can see it in the faces of all my playing partners - they all feel the same. They’d rather lose a hole going for that ‘tiny gap between the trees and fading it around the corner’ shot than adopt the sensible ‘just chip it back on the fairway’ route. Now I know (I’ve come to terms with this at least) that I’m never going to win the Open. I also know that I get a great deal of pleasure by shooting a low score and lowering my handicap. Yet I still can’t quite get that putter out. It’s the same on some tees. I’ll automatically reach for a driver when all the logic in my head is screaming “3 iron! 3 iron!”.

So having attending the training course next time I’m on the edge of a par 5 in 2 I’m going to reach for a putter, lag it up and tap in for a birdie……. well, maybe as long as none of my regular playing partners are watching.

**

2. You’ve got To Hit Someone before You’ll Work on That Hook

You know what it’s like - your swing isn’t quite working. It’s reasonable most of the time, not quite bad enough for you to get a lesson and change it, so you just carry on. Perhaps it’s developed a hook. So you start compensating and begin aiming further and further right, until you’re practically aiming at your playing partners on the tee.

So, what to do? I’ll tell you what I did. I found myself in a similar situation to the one I described above. My swing worked for most shots - had a slight ‘fade’ occasionally and a major ‘fade’ (or slice as it’s also called) on the odd occasion. One day I was delivering some change management training for some senior executives and it suddenly struck me - This would work for me, I thought.

The particular theory I was dealing with concerned change and dissatisfaction. Basically it was saying that before people change they need to be dissatisfied with the current state of affairs. This seems so obvious when you think about it. Yet, in a management context this was new to me. I’d been weaned on various models of change dealing with vision, planning, critical path analysis, etc. etc. but never addressed this.

For the change process to kick off the dissatisfaction needs be real and significant. Thinking of it in golfing terms real and significant dissatisfaction may equate to…. being sued for hitting someone behind you, an embarrassing 10 on your card, or general laughter at the annual ‘members and guests’ tournament.

The road to Damascus‘ moment I had when I was teaching this model made it clear that I should actually do something before any of those dreaded disasters kicked in. It moved this thought from the back of my mind “yes, I know I really should do something at some stage”, to the front of my mind and I thought “I’ll just do it. It’ll make me happier. It’s something I’ve been putting off for a while so I’ll see if this really works”. It felt so much better taking control. I booked the lessons. Now let’s see what happens….

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3. You Need a Vision

Reading biographies of great leaders a number of common traits appear. Most have overcome some major adversity in their lives and they all seem to be able to inspire people with their vision. This vision needn’t be political, revolutionary or ‘visionary’ in the “To put a man on the moon by the end of the decade”, sense. However it should be personal. Most leaders are very aware of themselves and know exactly where they want to get to. Having never been one to think of my life in terms of getting anywhere I was intrigued and thought how I could apply it.

I’ve been playing off a handicap of 14 (give or take 2 or 3) for quite a while now and I’m comfortable with this. I would quite like to get better but it seems a lot of effort to me. However my research has told me I needed to articulate my vision. After a few days thinking I came up with something Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time-Bound (SMART) - “get a single figure handicap by Christmas”(some of my colleagues may argue with the achievable aspect however).

The realistic part is important. “Winning the open” may not be that realistic if you’re 98 years old and playing off 28. Similarly “to get better” although laudable isn’t something that would be particularly inspiring or would you ever be able to really know when you’ve achieved it.

Having set my vision the next part was to define the first steps. This aspect comes from a great illustration of achieving a vision where the vision is a beacon in the distance and you are a boat. You, the boat, can’t sail straight for the beacon as so many other factors get in the way - wind, waves, weather, etc. You need to tack. So, it’s reasonable to define the first steps and then define the next steps. This works nicely as it takes the stress out of having the whole process mapped out. Well, that’s the analogy anyway. I decided that the first steps needed to be to book some lessons.

Plan the first steps and see where they take you. Then plan the next steps. If you can build in small wins, small milestones along the way so much the better. For me it was straightforward, well the planning was straightforward anyway - “let’s get to 12 in 2 months”. It may not work, but at least I feel happier having some control and something to aim at.

**

4. Comfort

To change anything, or to learn anything (which is essentially change anyway) is uncomfortable. There are a number of well-worn phrases that people trot out to remind you of this - “If you’re not churning, you’re not learning” - thanks a lot.

A useful model I came across with this one is the Comfort Zone model. On the inside is the Comfort Zone. The donut next ring is the Discomfort Zone and the Learning Zone is around the outside. It does remind you that it’s uncomfortable to learn anything new. It means that to get to the Learning Zone you have to get through the Discomfort Zone. There are no short cuts or tunnels. However it does give you hope that there is light at the end of the tunnel.

So, to the lesson. It was uncomfortable. I turned up alongside the fearless youngsters and brand new starters and felt very out of place. I’d been trapped in that comfort zone for too long. My grip was comfortable. My stance was comfortable yet they were so wrong. I knew if I held the club this way I could more or less guarantee it would be straight - not very long but straight. Now I’m being told to discard all those comfortable feelings and start again. It really did feel uncomfortable and tempting to go back to the old way.

I learnt that there are no short cuts or secret passages across the discomfort zone. We all know that. We know that all the teaching aids, special balls, magic golf clubs don’t work - or at least they don’t work on their own. We’ve all seen (or bought) that expensive set of aluminium, alloy, enhanced, cavity-backed, nickel platted, NASA designed golf set and stood next to a 12 year old with basically a long metal stick and seen them hit their tee shot thirty yards further than us.

What did help me though was some wise words I had picked up from a colleague a long time ago about this stress and anxiety.

“Anxiety isn’t pain” he assured me ” It’s the anticipation of pain.”

True enough. The most anxious and stressful times for me has been the waiting for something to start - the dentists, the job interview, waiting by the first tee. Once the event kicks off the stress diminishes a great deal.

“The trick”, he continued, “is to live in the here and now”(he was a bit of an old hippie), but very true. If you concentrate on what you’re doing before a stressful event; eating, preparing, practising, and try to concentrate fully on that you’ll save yourself a fair amount of stress.

So I’m taking the lessons. I’m staying in the ‘here and now’ and things are starting to improve. Not as quickly as I’d like, of course and I do feel that I’m living most of my life in the discomfort zone but… in a perverse way I’m starting to enjoy it.

First appeared in ‘Basketball Sense’ (U.S.A.)

The most important aspect of any coaching is establishing the initial relationship and defining how you will work together. This will, of course, vary a great deal according to the relationship the coach has with the player. It will depend on the precise nature of the coaching and it will depend on the level of skill you have as a communicator and instructor. Whatever the context for the coaching however the following structure will help ensure the coaching process is carried out as effectively as possible;

When a coaching situation goes wrong it takes a lot of time and a lot of energy to regain the trust. If the relationship has broken down the damage can be permanent. Frequently the reason this happens is because both parties have different objectives from the situation. These objectives or goals needn’t be identical but they must be agreed and complimentary. For instance, as a coach Maurice Cheek’s goal will be for his team to win. Allen Iverson may have a personal target to score 30 points per game. Both objectives are complementary – unless it gets to the stage where Iverson tries to score at the expense of the rest of the team. Here we have different agendas and the coaching relationship is almost certain to fail unless the objectives are re-aligned.

When a coaching contract is set up, whether it’s formal or informal, it really does pay dividends to go through a strict process. This process will seem too structured, laboured and painstakingly slow at the beginning. It will take a fair amount of time initially but when you get into the habit it’ll save you so much time and anxiety that you’ll wonder how you survived before. Like most good habits the more you use it the easier it becomes and it will save so much time in the longer term.

A great amount of time and effort can be lost in the coaching process because the parties haven’t had a meaningful discussion. Both parties involved need to have effective ‘wanted and needed’, and ‘willing and able’ conversations. This is the key to a successful coaching relationship. Each person needs to establish exactly what output they want from the situation, by when, by whom and where the responsibilities lie.

Skilled coaches need to learn to handle this part of the conversation extremely effectively. They learn how to communicate skilfully by talking and listening and ’staying in the conversation’ until they are totally sure of the goal. This can be difficult. How often have you been introduced to someone and not caught their name? Do you ask them to repeat it? How often? A skilled communicator will ask for as long as it takes - we all know the problems if we don’t do this - We spend the rest of the evening avoiding the person, or feeling embarrassed when we talk to them. This can go on for weeks. I’ve known people that didn’t catch someone’s name the first day at the office and as the weeks have gone by have become too embarrassed to ever ask them. A skilled coach is willing to ‘stay in the conversation’ even though they may feel uncomfortable. They may be tempted to back off and say “I understand” before they absolutely do, but will hang in there until it’s crystal clear.

The wanted and needed conversation allows the coach to establish what the player truly needs, not just wants. The player may want to be better at everything – don’t we all. The coach needs to establish exactly what needs to happen for that to be possible, or get the player to set more achievable goals. It’s a skilful and subtle conversation. It forces the player to be precise and focused. There needed to be a great deal of skilful communication to tease this out. This starts with lots of open questions. These questions move from the general aspects to the specifics and will help engage the other in taking responsibility. A side-effect of this process is that it helps build and strengthen the relationship. The questioning process may start with ………….

“How do you feel your career is progressing?”

“What are the most serious challenges you face?”

“Are there any particular problems you need to overcome?”

“What will happen if those problems aren’t addressed?”

“What do you need to do?”

“How can I help?”

Obviously it won’t be as simple as asking six questions. This is the start. These are the types of questions the coach is aiming to get some understanding about. It’s a two-way communication process. The coach asks questions and listens to the replies. Invariably what the player needs doesn’t match with what they think they want initially. The coach needs to keep questioning and listening until what the player wants and needs completely overlap. At the end of the conversation the coach needs to be as specific as possible about the problem and ensure the player is clear about the problem and what they truly want and need. Now there is something tangible to work with.

The next part of the discussion is about the coach’s willingness and ability to meet that request - a “Willing and Able Conversation.” The coach needs to honestly ask themselves whether they are willing and able to meet the request. They need to consider whether they have the necessary skills, knowledge, attributes to make it work. If they haven’t, then say so and try to work out a way to still help - suggest others, look at different approaches, but again they need to ’stay in the conversation’. The really skilled coaches don’t stop and walk away until they are absolutely 100% sure they know what’s expected of them. They have learnt from experience that unless this happens the coaching won’t work as effectively as it could. Skilled coaches know that the ‘problem solving fairy’ won’t miraculously appear and sort things out when the problems are ignored. The problems just stay there and grow and grow. It’s a bit like the washing up you meant to do yesterday, or the day before - it won’t wash out. It’ll just get a little harder to deal with each day. Coaches need to have those difficult conversations as soon as they arise – before they arise even.

So, the best coaches deal with these problems as they arise. They stay in the conversation until they’re happy and the player’s happy. This all seems so clear and sensible I know, but it can be difficult. The good thing though is that it does get easier. The more you do it - the easier it gets.