Few of us
will go through our working lives without some form of appraisal from our
immediate supervisor. Such appraisals
usually take the form of an analysis of our previous performance (usually in
the past year) with some goal setting for the year to come factored in toward
the end. The tone of these meetings should be positive with the aim of
reminding ourselves what we do well whilst providing some guidance on areas
that we could do better at in the future.
The universality and success of such appraisal processes is in no small
part due to the excellent work undertaken by occupational psychologists and
human resource employees. What if,
however, our performance was open to scrutiny by the general public and those
with limited or no experience in a similar role; it is such appraisals be they
fair or otherwise that many of our countries top coaches are exposed to and the
topic of this blog.
A friend
recently sent me an article from Australia which took the surprising step of
questioning Wayne Bennett's status as a super coach (here is the link to the
article in the Sydney Morning Herald - http://bit.ly/SWKaR9). For those of you unfamiliar with your Rugby
League that is akin to questioning the status of Sir Alex Ferguson as one of
the UK's finest coaches; Wayne has enjoyed notable success at club, state and
international level. Whether or not you
agree with the findings of the article what it did do was attempt to bring some
much needed objectivity to the practise of assessing those in the role of head
coach. This is not a new thing, I was
lucky enough to hear a rather interesting talk earlier this year by an academic
who had developed an algorithm for determining when premiership clubs should
either part company or retain the services of their head coach. The model was developed based on the team's
previous performances, average points accrued and comparison to teams around
them. To the objectively minded
scientists amongst you this may seem like an appealing development however I am
unsure whether it would be received with such fervour amongst the coaching
community who would maintain that their influence cannot be measured in numbers
and figures. This is something of course
that intuitively makes sense, we all like to think that we bring expertise and
individuality to our posts above and beyond that which can be measured
statistically. Interestingly enough
however and in the field of economics where performance by numbers is key,
research which is highlighted in Daniel Kahneman's book 'thinking; fast and
slow' has shown that when the dealings of top hedge fund managers were analysed
statistically over a period of 5 years their performance was only marginally
better than might have been expected by chance.
Much of what we do can be analysed using statistics and quantitative
analysis, the question is whether this is a useful way of ascertaining
performance and in which fields it is most applicable.
Aspects
on which coaches were assessed in the article were numerous, some which you
would expect, for example relative success but also others which may not come
readily to mind when we think about expert coaches. One such area that was used to assess
performance was the impact that the coach had had on others around him, to put
it another way his mentoring impact.
This is not always something we rate highly on the roles and responsibilities
of a head coach however it certainly should be.
Coaching, as with any discipline, involves a myriad of skills that must
be developed over time with each coach given sufficient time to hone his
techniques and practise his decision making in a range of contexts and
situations. The opportunity to practise
however is only half the story and for practise and it's beneficial effects to
be realised what each and every coach needs is a feedback loop. Of course this can be driven internally by
self reflection however is undoubtedly facilitated when assisted by another
expert in the field. There have been a
number of examples from sports of coaches who have served an apprenticeship
before going on to achieve notable success in their own right. Michael McGuire worked underneath Craig
Bellamy at Melbourne Storm before going to lead a successful Super League
campaign at Wigan Warriors (incidentally it was under Wayne Bennett that Bellamy
enjoyed his tutelage). In a sport I am
currently involved in there is an extremely talented head coach who is ensuring
the long term success of the program by developing education resources for each
coach within the network. Examples of
similar practise in Soccer are difficult to find, true Alex Ferguson has
undoubtedly been a massive influence on a number of his ex players who have
gone onto to forge careers in management themselves, for example Steve Bruce
and Mark Hughes, however whether this was intended or by passive osmosis is open
to debate. Walter Smith and Ally McCoist
seemed to get things right in their development plan however it is a shame that
Rangers now find themselves competing in the third tier of Scottish football. Before writing this blog one of the managers
in the Premier league whom I felt was one of the best in the game was Arsene
Wenger of Arsenal. Despite an
exceptional record in developing players for the club it is difficult to see a
development plan at the club where Arsene is grooming a successor for his position. Fans and aficionados of the club may want to
prove me wrong here and I would be interested of hear your thoughts.
A further
point raised in the article is whether the coach has had more success than
might have been expected with the playing roster made available to him. This represents a major issue when it comes
to assessing coaches, do we want someone to develop talent with the proviso
that absolute success may not accompany it or do we want a winning team. As in school league tables teachers are not
judged on the individual improvement that they oversee, or delta change in
performance, rather they are judged on the end result. As a result teachers in schools who recruit a
generally higher level of intellect in their students will appear better than
those in schools where the academic credentials are much lower. Malcolm Gladwell addresses this point in a
story in his book 'what the dog saw' where he makes the supposition that you
are much better served attending a bad school with a good teacher than a good
school with a bad teacher. The English Premiership
will certainly be interesting this season given the recruitment of managers over
the summer. Both Brendan Rogers and Paul
Lambert enjoyed notable success last year with Swansea and Norwich respectively
in relative terms. Both did well in a
league where perhaps they were expected to struggle without any absolute
success, which seemed like a positive to their fans and stakeholders. This year however under their new employers,
Liverpool and Aston Villa, they will surely be expected to deliver results of a
different kind, time will tell whether the two skills sets share common
effectiveness in differing conditions.
Ultimately
each club must decide what their goals and aspirations are both for the short
and long term, employing a coaching (and administrative) staff deemed capable
of delivering agreed objectives. How
they appraise the success of their staff is an internal issue however I would
hope that with so many appointments subjected to trial by media and popular
opinion those who wish to voice their opinions look at the different areas a
coach contributes to a club or program before making their final
judgement. We all want success for the
teams we support however on close inspection of a number of coaches and sports
the impact that coaches have is often far greater than can be measured simply
by results. Developing a legacy of
expertise, best practise and coaching philosophy is crucial for long term
success, the development of which takes time, a commodity that is unfortunately
not always enjoyed by coaches operating at the sharp end of competitive
sport.
