Practice Is Everything: Learning how the Seahawks Practice

3 R’s – NOT WHAT YOU DO, HOW YOU DO IT

*Martens, “Successful Coaching”, 3rd Edition, Human Kinetics, 2004
Traditional Approach – playing the game only after practicing the basic technical and tactical skills.
Games Approach – it teaches athletes AND staff, how to play the game commonly seen in sandlot play. Goal is to create game like situations with everything you do – develop quality game reps.

#1R – HOW you RUN it
COMMUNICATION – KEY TO TEACHING – “saying nothing means something”
1. Do not underestimate your staff and players ability to learn
2. Focus on how they best receive and learn information
3. Adjust your way of presenting-teaching to meet their needs
4. Create practice opportunities both mentally and physically to maximize their learning
Example: use Sonic Tempo (1 word calls) for drill names-reads-reps – “Rocket-Laker” Drill

#2R – HOW you REP it
REP FORMULA
24 positive rehearsals needed for quality execution (4 verts formula: 5 recs X 25 reps each x 50% completion percentage per attempt = 250 reps of 4 verts pass play for Qb to fully begin to execute well)
Think about it – you as the coach and the players need tons of opportunities to make tough decisions – create as many as possible every time you are together.
Examples: design drills to be game like (“Rocket-Laker Read Game” – Core Tactical Drill)

#3R – HOW you REACT
TECHNICAL versus TACTICAL TEACHING – difference is providing decision making with everything you do.
Learning is a relatively permanent improvement in performance as a result of practice.

Technical Skills (defined) – the specific procedures to move one’s body to perform the task that needs to be accomplished.
Technical skills Today: Experts used to think that athletes learned technical skills by developing mental blueprints through repeated practice of the tasks. Because high complex techniques of sport actually consist of many different responses of a similar type – the concept of learning through mental blueprints has been debunked. Today, scientist believe that athletes learn complex skills by abstracting key pieces of information from each performance to create rules about how to perform in the future. The athletes are then developing motor programs (a complex set of rules, that, when called into action, permits the athlete to produce a movement). So, one of our responsibilities, then, as a coach is to help the athletes develop good motor programs – our technical skills (specific techniques involved the sport).

Tactical Skills (defined) – problem solving skills that are based on three elements (tactical triangle).
Tactical Triangle: From a tactical perspective, think of a sport contest as a series of problems to be solved by you (the coach – HC + assistants) and the players – these 3 elements are involved:
1. Reading the play or situation
2. Acquiring the knowledge needed to make an appropriate tactical decision
3. Applying one’s decision-making skills to the problem
So, the key is to first identify the most important tactical decisions-skills needed to be successful. Next, make sure to create both for the coaches and the players as many practice opportunities (reps) involving these core tactical skills to accelerate their development – decision skills.
Example: 5 min blocks-periods / game situation always / up tempo / sub individual vs stop team
Example: use “freeze-replay” and ask question rather than give answer + player reflection

COMMUNICATION FRAMEWORK
*Heath and Heath, “Made to Stick”, 2007

For your ideas, concepts and the programs vision to stick – be useful – lasting, you must make the audience:

1. Pay Attention UNEXPECTED
2. Understand and remember it CONCRETE
3. Agree & Believe CREDIBLE
4. Care EMOTIONAL
5. Be able to ACT on it STORY

Use SUCCESS principles / checklist as a substitute for the framework above – it’s advantage is that it’s more tangible and less subject to the Curse of Knowledge.

So, rather than guess about whether people will understand our ideas, we should ask,
“Is it Concrete?” Rather than speculate about whether people will care, we should ask,
“Is it Emotional? Does it force people to put on an Analytical hat or allow them to feel empathy?”

By the way, “Simple” is not on the list above because it’s mainly about the answering
Stage – honing in on the core of your message and making it as compact as possible.

Let’s look at some common symptoms of communication problems and how we can respond to them (pages 248-249)

#1 – Problems getting people to pay attention to a message
SYMPTOM: “No one is listening to me” or “They seem bored – they hear this stuff all the time.”
SOLUTION: Surprise them by breaking their guessing machines – tell them something that is uncommon sense (the lead is, There will be no school next Thursday!)

#2 – Problems getting people to understand and remember
SYMPTOM: “They always nod their heads when I explain it to them, but it never seems to translate into action.”
SOLUTION: Make the message simpler and use concrete language. Use what people already know as a way to make your intentions clearer. Have people grapple with specific examples rather than concepts.

#3 – Problems getting people to believe you or agree
SYMPTOM: “They’re not buying it.”
SOLUTION: Find the telling details for your message – use fewer authorities
SYMPTOM: “they quibble with everything I say” or “I spend time arguing with them about this.”
SOLUTION: Move them away from stats-facts toward meaningful examples –get them into creating.

#4 – Problems getting people to care
SYMPTOM: “They are so apathetic” or “No one seems fired up about this.”
SOLUTION: People care more about individuals than they do about abstractions. Tap into their sense of their own identities or their self-interests.

#5 – Problems getting people to act
SYMPTOM: “Everyone nods their heads and then nothing happens.”
SOLUTION: Inspire them with a Challenge plot story (Jared-subway / David and Goliath) – Proverb
*Make sure your message is SIMPLE and CONCRETE enough to be useful

STICKY ADVICE *Heath and Heath, “Made to Stick”, Random House, 2008

TALKING THAT STICKS (p. 253)
A strategy is, at its core, a guide to behavior… A good strategy drives actions that produce success…they must DRIVE ACTION.

BARRIER 1: The Curse of Knowledge – it afflicts leaders when they try to communicate a strategy to the rest of the organization. Leaders can thwart the Curse of Knowledge by “translating” their strategies into CONCRETE language. A good strategy should guide behavior, and a story can work better in this role than the standard technical speak.

BARRIER 2: Decision Paralysis – most people in an organization aren’t in charge of formulating strategy; they just have to understand the strategy and use it to make decisions. The mere existence of choice…seems to paralyze us in making decisions. How can strategy liberate employees from decision paralysis? When people are able to talk about strategy, they’re more likely to make good decisions than when strategy exists only as a set of rules. In any entrepreneurial organization, there’s a natural tension between efficiency and experimentation. Innovation requires experimentation and freedom, and it necessarily involves dead ends and wasted time errors – all in which, in turn, will reduce efficiency (thus – ripe for decision paralysis). The term “muckers” is a strategy statement masquerading as a nickname. It makes it clear that, given the tough choice between efficiency and experimentation, you choose experimentation. Why? Because, you’re a mucker… Muckers muck – this is precisely the organizations capability that will make it successful. Talking strategy in a thoughtful way can relieve the burden of decision paralysis.

BARRIER 3: Lack of Common Language – Strategy is often articulated in a way that makes it hard for employees to talk back to leaders. If everyone in your organization has the same understanding of its strategy, people can disagree constructively. As an analogy, if you’re playing darts and your friend consistently aims too high, you can give useful feedback. But it’s the obvious location of the bull’s-eye that makes your comment possible. What if you and your friend don’t agree on where it is? In that case, your communication will be unproductive and irritating for both of you – and if you were playing “business-sports” rather than darts, the person with more power would win the discussion. A common strategic language allows everyone to contribute.

MAKING STRATEGIES STICK – 3 PRINCIPLES:
1. Be Concrete: the beauty of concrete language – language that is specific and sensory – is that everyone understands your message in a similar way.
2. Say Something Unexpected: If a strategy is common sense, don’t waste your time communicating it. It’s critical though, for leaders to identify the uncommon sense in their strategies. What’s new about your strategy? What’s different?
3. Tell Stories: A good story is better than an abstract strategy statement. “nothing means something” tells you all you need to know about why how to simplify offense with No-Huddle Communication.

AVOID INERT STRATEGIES: “strategy should guide behavior”
Conventional wisdom is that leaders should spend a lot of their time presenting and discussing strategy. Repetition-repetition-repetition again and again until it sinks in. Problem is, repetition doesn’t prevent the Curse of Knowledge or encourage two-way communication. Rather, treat strategy as a 2 step process:
Step 1 – determine the right strategy
Step 2 – communicate it in a way that allows it to become part of the organizations vocabulary

TEACHING THAT STICKS (p. 266)

As a teacher-coach, you’re on the front lines of stickiness. Every single day, you go to work and try to make ideas stick. Let’s face it, your mission is not easy. How can you reach staff, students, players, parents?

Use the 7 traits of stickiness (SUCCESS), one by one, and show how a little focused effort can make almost any idea sticker.

Simple – find the core and share the core

Unexpected – get their attention and hold their interest

Concrete – help people understand and remember + find a common ground at a shared level of understanding

Credible – help people believe by using convincing details.
1. Make statistics accessible and tangible
2. Find an example that makes sense to everyone
3. Use testable credentials – “Try before you buy”
4. Fill the emotional tank – tap into what makes an emotional impact to your audience

Emotional – make people care by using the power of association and appealing to their self-interest or identity

Story – get people to act, stories as simulation, tell people HOW to act. Stories as inspiration – give people ENERGY to act

Sell – Close the deal by putting it all together + make it stickier then everything else

UNSTICKING AN IDEA (p. 281)

How do I unstick a sticky idea? There is no Goo Gone for ideas. Sticky ideas stick. There’s no magic sticky incantation that will make us divert our attention to alternative energy, or some other worthy topic. Here is a story about McDonalds that is a promising lead to solving this problem.

For decades in the 60-70’s McDonald’s fought rumors that it used earthworms as filler in burgers. At first, the company tried to unstick the idea. In 1978, McDonald’s officials had denounced the rumors as “completely unfounded and unsubstantiated.” Guess which idea was sticker: “earthworms in your meat patties” or “unfounded and unsubstantiated”? By 1992, Ray Kroc, McDonald’s most famous CEO, had come up with a better approach. He said, “We couldn’t afford to grind worms into meat. Hamburger costs a dollar and a half a pound, and night crawlers cost six dollars!” Notice the elements of credibility (dollars per pound) and unexpectedness (We can’t afford to serve you earthworms).

First – be realistic. It takes time, sticky ideas endure.

So, our advice is simple. Fight sticky ideas with stickier ideas and/or sticky ACTIONS.