Alchemy: Title Changes Energy
From Player Development to Something More Powerful
An assistant coach has shared with me that he’s ‘made up names’ for game-like drills he wants to run. The thought process being, the main obstacle as an assistant is that it has to pass whatever ‘filter’ the HC needs it to pass to sign off on it.
He employs a bit of alchemy. Instead of saying he ‘made the drill up by watching the game film and then working backwards to a game-like activity’… Which is blasphemy for some hockey coaches… He says, “This is the ‘Medicine Hat OZP Game.”
That immediately drops the hesitation of the HC to test it out. It’s no longer flagged for, ‘my young assistant made this up’ and is instead given the status of, ‘a WHL team does this’… Just by naming it on the front end with a recognizable brand.
Now it’s an entirely different conversation if that is all it takes to get your ideas to be tested, BUT IT WORKS in his context and it helps the players at the end of the day. Beautiful alchemy.
I tell you all that to allow Rory Sutherland to tell you this…
"What you call things affects how people behave."
The theory?
Player Learning Guide = Power
To me this is subtle; it’s implicit, player-driven. A guide on the side. An environment creator. A condition creator from off-stage to allow the player to shine.
Player Development Coach = Force
This title just sounds more explicit. I ‘the coach’ will be the driver of your success.
Heck, my college coach insisted we called him, “Coach.” There were not other options in how to address him. What does it say when you want to be referred to by title alone?
The words we use inform consciously or subconsciously, here’s something we love to do as coaches that is ‘in the game’… Break things down… (click to watch):
As a ‘coach’ we want to break things down and doing so makes us feel important and needed. The assumption is that because ‘he’s a kid’, he must not know what he’s doing, and I, ‘the adult’, should step in and show him. But instead of just ‘showing’ him by hitting your driver and shutting up… You talk, a lot. You internally cue. You fill their head.
Their swing gets worse… But ‘oh, goody’ as the Force Coach salivates, ‘more things I can fix’.
What’s in a Name?
“Oh, whats in a name?”
-Timon, Lion King
What’s in a name? Seriously, a name change is gonna solve this?
Potentially yes, so it’s worth a shot… We know it won’t affect the Force teams doing it ‘the way it’s always been done’. But it will give the ‘Power’ teams a better chance of landing a quality match… Maybe the next Adam Nicholas (StrideEnvy post author below):
Said a little more left of center…
If what you call things affects how people behave, may it also affect the type of people you attract to a job?
Let’s say a team like Pittsburgh, Chicago, Tampa, or Montreal wants to find the next Adam Nicholas, who didn’t play in the NHL and has carved a path from the basement. Level 1. A person who has craft knowledge, not just network effects from his pro career.
Someone who has a grasp of what the CLA is, someone who is going to do it more as a guide and less as a traditional ‘coach’ will be okay with taking a job with the Pittsburgh Penguins that Kyle Dubas hypothetically re-titles for my article:
Player learning guide
An In-Powered Coach has no shame meeting someone in an elevator and when he’s asked what his profession is, saying, “I’m a player learning guide.”
You know who doesn’t want that gig?
A Force person calibrating below 200 wouldn’t be caught saying that. So maybe they won’t apply for the job. Status-seeking people want status-sounding jobs. If it doesn’t pass the elevator test, maybe they don’t apply at all. An In-Powered job from an In-Powered team will repel the Force humans.
Then maybe your entire applicant pool is full of competent, humble and great people.
If there is no Force in your applicant pool, you eliminate the disastrous downside of hiring poorly. You avoid the worst-case scenario by creating conditions to filter it out on the front-end.
Maybe it’s nothing, but maybe it’s not nothing…
