Volleyball Coaching Life-Criticism

I received this today in my email from The Daily Stoic (https://dailystoic.com/), a daily email newsletter that remind us about the lessons from the Stoics.

There is a certain archetype that is as old as literature and history themselves. One of the first times we see it in the West is with Cassandra in the Greek tragedies. She has the power to see into the future but no one listens to her. Then we have Demosthenes, whose warnings against the rise of Phillip (Alexander the Great’s father) are so incessant that everyone hates him for it. Later on, in Rome, Cato the Elder—Cato’s grandfather—was such a frequent (and ultimately prescient) critic and hawk when it came to Carthage, that he would play the same role. In fact, he would end every speech he gave, no matter the topic, no matter the occasion, with Carthago delenda est (“Carthage must be destroyed”).

His grandson, Cato—the towering Stoic—would develop a similar reputation as a kind of obstinate truth-teller, even when it was inconvenient, even when it disturbed the peace, even when it made enemies, even when he was exhausted or knew he would be ignored.

In all these cases, people just wanted them to let.it.go. Why do you have to be so annoying? Why can’t you be more strategic? Don’t you see you’re just pissing people off?

All of which was legitimate criticism. Perhaps with a bit more tact and better awareness, these important messages could have been heard earlier or more receptively. Cato the Elder and Cato and Demosthenes seemed to almost be trying to alienate people with the way they spoke and hammered their message.

But it’s important to understand the distinction between how you say something and how often you say it. Tone is one thing (to always be considered), timing is something else. “Waiting for the right moment.” “Trying to figure out the best way to say it.” “Not wanting to turn people off.” Those are timing issues that, more often than not, we lean on as excuses for avoiding one of the hardest things to do in the world: speaking an unpopular truth. Warning people about a reality they’d rather not deal with.

Cicero, a contemporary of Cato (and an admirer of his grandfather), would quote this line of poetry:

“Indulgence gets us friends

But truth gets us hatred.”

If we tell ourselves that our main job is to be a good messenger, we risk compromising our message. We end up leaving out important or unpleasant parts of the message, rounding off its sharp edges in the pursuit of fitting in instead of standing out so our message may be heard. We can end up going along to get along...even if the conclusions that come out of that are wrong.

But if our job is to tell the truth—no matter what, no matter who it upsets or how unpopular it makes us—and we are committed to doing this as long as we have an ounce of blood in our bodies? Then no pesky considerations or compromises can stop us. And, hopefully, we can wake people up—as Winston Churchill did about Nazism—before it’s too late.

This struck a chord because this is in essence what we do as coaches on a daily basis. No matter how we try to communicate with our players and parents, it all boils down to delivering the news, good or bad, and you cannot sugarcoat the message to soften the sting of the truth. Many successful coaches are blunt to a fault, and their players, past and present, revere them for their honesty, no matter how much it hurts.

Some coaches can lessen the immediate blow while cushioning the criticism in pillowy softness; they are obfuscating the real truth, while some coaches have been somewhat successful with that tactic at that moment; in the end, they will have to tell the truth while looking the player in the eyes.

Others will use timing to soften the blow, as the Daily Stoic note points out, timing is something we: lean on as excuses for avoiding one of the hardest things to do in the world: speaking an unpopular truth. Warning people about a reality they’d rather not deal with.

It is never easy to tell someone that they are not working hard enough, that their effort is just not up to your standards when they probably never had a frame of reference that was as strict as your expectations. The initial reaction, whether they are mature or not, whether they are experienced or not is to react defensively and then say try to rebut your criticism. Eventually, you hope, they will come around to your understanding and that defensiveness can turn into something positive.

This is especially challenging when you are not dealing with adults, because at least adults will have been through the drill before, at least you hope so. You also hope that adults will have maturity on their side. They can understand that your intent isn’t to attack but to correct, to get their attention, to make them better. At least you assume that they have the maturity.

But since we are dealing with teenagers who’s purpose in life is to rebel and resist, the question is not whether we should differ in how we speak to young players as compared to how we speak to adults; the question is HOW we should translate our message in order to effectively deliver the entire essence of the message as we try to declaw the negative emotions for the youngsters even as we try not to put spin on the truth or that the message delivered is not misunderstood by the receiver.

In IMPACT class, we always talk about the praise sandwich. We pile on the praise for something the player excels at doing at the beginning and the end of our conversation and we sandwich the criticism in between, cushioning the blow so that they will at least acknowledge and absorb the message. I have always felt funny about doing that, but I have always used it early in my coaching experience. I have given the benefit of the doubt to my players, thinking that they can see right through my tactic and they were forming a hard shell against this tactic. I don’t know how it helped the medicine go down, but it made me feel less awkward. I have tried many things, I have gone the technical route, telling them all the things that they will need to do to get better, hoping that I can disguise the sting. I have tried to be the hard-ass coach who just care about the results and not about the human player, that didn’t work.

It wasn’t until I adopted the mien of the truth teller that the Daily Stoic described that I became better at communicating criticism to my players. Once I realized that I can not strip away the pain with out watering down the message, the task actually became easier. The difference is that I don’t give my players a head fake about how well they are doing in the other aspects of the game. The difference is that I give them a vote of confidence to show them that I have confidence in them and in their ability to learn, to get better. I try to demonstrate what a growth mindset should feel like coming from a coach. I don’t reassure them that they are doing fine, I don’t praise them when they aren’t getting it. I do praise them, overly praise them, when they get it right, or show hints at getting it.  

This week has been a whirlwind for me as my beloved St. Louis Blues won the Stanley Cup. As I was digging through the copious amount of press coverage of the team online, I found this little nugget. This was written early in the playoffs, when Vladimir Tarasenko, the Blues high priced scorer was struggling, and the team sorely needed his contribution. Interim head coach Craig Berube, a tough guy if there ever was one, said this:

"Vladi has to work without the puck a lot harder," Berube said. "And he will. And he's got to get more involved. You can't just wait for things to happen. Especially in the playoffs. You've got to go get it. You've got to go make it yourself. It's about working. It's about working with your line."

Did you notice the nuance? Berube was out in public, he wasn’t praising in public and criticizing in private. He told the truth, in public. He didn’t make it personal, he didn’t go after Tarasenko, because he needed the guy to produce. The nuance is right after the initial criticism: And he will. That was it. In those three little words, he sent a message to Tarasenko: “Hey buddy we need you, we can’t do this without you; you have done this a bunch of times before and I know you can do it again; I know you are trying to do your best, but we need more; I believe in you.”

All of that in three little words. All in a reverse praise sandwich. He went from criticizing to praising to criticizing again.

If you are to believe those in the Blues organization, Berube’s no nonsense communications is a great part of what got them to turn the season around, from being in last place on January 3 to raising the Stanley Cup on June 13. He tells them what they need to hear not what they want to hear, he says it professionally but simply, and he shows them that he has faith in them, no matter what.

Let’s Go Blues!!!