Being in the role of coach, like with any position of leadership responsible for a group of people comes with the requirement and expectation of having to make decisions, some of which can be very tough. Coaches at all levels are constantly required to make decisions that will affect their players, who is selected to the team, who starts, who play, what system does the team use, what is the tactical game plan and so many more.
Each time an individual is forced to make a decision, it opens them up to second guessing and the reality is that the quality of the decision will often be judged on the outcome and sometimes ( and especially in coaching sports) the actual execution of the actions dictated by the decisions are out of our hands. Only a fool with tell himself that he ( or she) has never made a mistake or bad decisions. In 27 years of coaching, I have probably made thousands of decisions, good one that turned out badly, bad ones that turned out great anyways, decisions that had no impact either way and of course, decisions that worked out great. just like I planned and others that turned out to be a disaster. Most people hate making decisions. Why is that? They over complicate it. Fear of picking the wrong option leads to a period of limbo where nothing gets done and the issue seems to grow bigger and bigger. That kind of procrastination is something I’ve been through myself on occasion and I've seen people take what should be an easily and straight-forward decision and turn it into an impossible one—all out of fear. The reality is that if you are afraid of making decisions or worry about trying to find a decision that will please everyone, then coaching or any form of leadership is definitely not for you. As a coach, you will always get second guessed, even when your decision turns out to be the right one and the results achieved meet or exceed expectations. In the reality of teams sports, the biggest issues are always around playing time, who dresses, who starts and who gets into the game. Every member of a team wants to play, as a coach you want that. However as a coach, it is your role to decide who gets in the field and who doesn't. And when someone doesn't play, sometimes it will be easier for them to blame on it your decision and not make an honest assessment of themselves. As a coach, your decisions can only be made with the information that is at your disposal at the time what your need to make them. Your decisions will be judged often on the outcome and as a decision maker you can't always take for granted that just because things worked out that you made a great decision, sometimes you get lucky and things for out but you should always be ready to analyze decisions. Conversely, sometimes based on the facts in front of you, you will make a great decision that simply won't work out. This shouldn't stop you from make a similar decision in a somewhat similar situation. Here are some things I’ve learned that about making tough decisions better and faster. Have a clear vision on your objectives As a decision maker, know yourself and have a clear vision of what you are looking to accomplish whether it is a short term goal or part of a bigger plan. The real reason someone might be unable to make up his mind is that none of the apparent options are really within the plan you have set out. However, sometimes making a decision might be having to choose from a list of not ideal options by selecting the one with the the "lowest risk" or the least not ideal. However not making a decision is not an option. You can only deal with what what is under your control, and sometimes that means choosing between option 1 or 2. Just because neither is perfect, doesn't mean you can spend time looking around for #3. However, anytime you are called to make a decision, don't worry about potential outcomes, focus on the reasoning behind which decision might be best. As long as you are consistent in your thought process, transparent with those affected by the decision and open to learning from the decision once you see the outcome, your role as a leader will be respected by most ( unfortunately the age old axiom comes into play, you can never make everyone happy). Don't second guess your decision after making it Once you identify what you really want, you’ll need to quiet the voices in your head. Once you have made the decision, sell it, explain it and move forward. If the players under your responsibility feel that you are hesitant, then they might have doubts and not buy in. When as a coach, you rely on assistants to provide their thoughts in a decisions, it is ok that they disagree with you, in fact, you want assistant coaches that push you to reflect on your decisions. However once the final decision is reached, you must address it to the players as a united group of coaches. If you find out that an assistant coach is undermining your leadership by sharing concerns he or she might have, you must deal with this right away. Doing something is better than doing nothing. This is true 99% of the time. People can be paralyzed by their inability to take a stance on a situation and make the decisions. Through the course of a season that are constantly decisions needing to be made, some are bigger than others. However, knowing when to intervene and make these decisions can often prevent problems from getting out of hand or manageable. In a team environment, there are things that won't work themselves out on their own. For example, if you have unhappy players, who are undermining your plans, who are complaining and setting a negative atmosphere around the team, you have to be ready to step and and address it. You may have to intercede by suspending or cutting players, but if you do and do so in a thought out fair manner, the players who have bought into your objectives will support you. Doing nothing, might make those who are giving you their best question your leadership. Practice being decisive If you’re chronically indecisive, build that decision-making muscle by starting small. Give yourself 30 seconds to decide to make small decisions. Follow through on those decisions, analyze the outcome and then learn from them. Then work up to bigger things. Get comfortable making decisions in a timely manner and accept that often the right decision, the best decision is still going to disappoint some people. Does this give you anxiety? Ask yourself what the worst-case scenario is if you pick wrong. I think you might just see that making coaching decisions is not life or death for most people. An important part of making coaching decisions is the ability to react quickly, to see what might not be working and yup, you guessed it, make a decision to adjust on the fly. No one makes perfect decisions 100% of the time.With the number of decisions we make on a regular basis, some are going to make out, some less so. We date the wrong people, we stay in a job longer than we should, we order the wrong dessert, pick a wrong movie to go watch etc. But action works in your favor, while inaction never does. When you delay making a decision because you’re afraid of messing up, nothing changes. But when you’re proactive, you’re choosing to move ahead—and that’s one of the best decisions you can make. Now this whole post has been about the theory of decision making so let me finish off sharing about what was probably the most significant decision I made early in my coaching career and how it turned out. In my first full year as head coach, we had identified that we need to upgrade at the goalie position in order to challenge for provincials. We went out a signed what many considered the best goalie in the province. She had a great start to the season and we were playing well. Half what through the summer, he got injured and was unable and we called up the goalie from the reserve team. She had a run of great games as we won 5 straight. We were playing the 4 time defending provincial champions in a Quebec Cup (basically provincial cup to qualify for nationals) and three days before the game, our #1 goalie declared herself fit to play. She hadn't been around much and hadn't trained with the team, not to mention the team had gotten very confident with the backup goalie behind them. I now found myself having to decide between choosing to play the goalie we had recruited specifically to get us to nationals but who hadn't trained or played for 5 weeks, or the young rookie that was on a great form of games. For 3 days, I went back and forth trying to weight the pros and cons of starting one over the other. I tried to think about every possible reaction to the decisions, how would the players react, would our #1 be game ready after having done nothing for over a month, would I lose the team by being disloyal to the goalie that had given us such a great run of games. In discussion with the team captain, I jokingly made a comment " if only I could find a way to play both of them". She quickly replied " Is there a rule that says you can't ?" Well, it was like the light switch went on. I met with the team and told them I had decided that I was confident in both goalies and that as such, our young goalie would start the game to set the tone. That no matter what happened in that first 45 minutes, I would switch goalies at half time to put in our experience goalie in crunch time. Outcome: the game went to a shoot out and our experience, recruited goalie stopped 3 PKs and we won. We went on to win provincials and qualify for nationals. Did I make the right decision? It had a lot of people taking, but the team bought it, they respected me for taking a stand and explaining the logic behind it and of course the result worked out, so maybe HELL YA lol
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AuthorAfter many years of coaching at various levels and with different teams, I thought I would share some of my experiences and thoughts about coaching. Archives
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