5/14/2012
Say you're seven and up at bat for your first baseball game of the year. You're wearing your still-white baseball pants, a fresh red jersey, new cleats, and a Cardinals cap. Your first at-bat against the provincial champions, you hit a single. The next boy up swings and sends the ball to right field. As you reach second base, Dadcoach voices shout at you from all directions: "Go to third!!!" "Stay at second!!!" "Keep going!!!" "STOP!"You stay on second and get tagged out at third on the next play. The third base Dadcoach doesn't hesitate to lecture you about how you should have run. You leave the field -- head low, shoulders drooped. Charlie Brown.
Have you ever felt that way?
I watched this happen in real time the other night and talked to my son about it afterwards. Really what I wanted to talk about was the unforgivable temper of the third-base Dadcoach who seriously needs an anger management class. But instead what I got was a management lesson.
Me: "So I heard Nick's dad yelling at you when you didn't run to third base."
Jackson: "Yeah, it was so confusing. Everyone was shouting different things. I didn't know what I was supposed to do."
A lightbulb went off and I realized there were five lessons from Little League for any manager:
1. Keep feedback to one "voice." Players, and employees, need one coherent directive, or "voice," to guide them. When multiple managers are involved, everyone needs to be on the same page. Minor disagreements are okay but 180-degree differences are, at best, confusing. At worst, paralyzing.
2. Coaching in the moment. Coaching is for before and after play, not during. When someone is trying to perform, coaching them in the moment, "hotlining" the studio, etc. is rarely effective. The person will get in their "head" rather than staying fully present in the moment. Our rule of thumb: Only hotline the studio if the facts are wrong or the license is in jeopardy.
3. Control your emotions. When you have to talk to someone about their performance, first take stock of your personal emotional state (another reason why coaching "in the moment" can be a bad idea -- your emotions have most likely been triggered). Calm, unemotional feedback is easier to take in. It's trite but I wouldn't quote it if it didn't hold true: "Never let 'em see you sweat."
4. Never start a sentence that can be finished with "...you idiot." "You should have run to third..." sounds a lot like "You should have run to third...you idiot." [This by the way is a great rule of thumb for marriages too.]
5. Future-based feedback keeps a person's ego intact and give them something actionable to focus on, rather than dwelling on a mistake they can't fix. "Next time, try it this way?" or "What do you think you can do differently?" is better than "What were you thinking?" any day.
Thankfully, another coach approached Jackson at the bench afterwards, smiled and said: "Hey Jackson, next time you're coming around second, make sure you know where the ball is so you can make the best play, cool? Good job, buddy." Jackson sat up a little taller.
Angela Perelli is a SVP at the The Randy Lane Company (www.randylane.net).She can be reached at angela@randylane.net
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