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Showing posts with label The Five Levels. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Five Levels. Show all posts

Thursday, June 1, 2023

Volleyball Coaching Life-The Five Levels

In reading Joe Maddon’s Book, The Book of Joe, (Joe Maddon 2022), I was able to gain valuable insight into his rarified world of managing a professional baseball team. One thing that caught my attention was when Maddon wrote the chapter about professional baseball players and the differing attitudes that make up the levels of development for the players. It is Chapter 8: The Five Levels of Being a Professional. I am expanding on it, in the context of junior athletes and coaches.

My take is my own, I am not putting words in Joe Maddon’s voice. I am writing to figure out what I think about the subject. All interpretations and reasoning, as well as errors  are mine.

According to Maddon, he was contemplating the levels of the professional players after they have reached the major league level, these levels are results of the combination of the player’s variable emotional and maturity as they evolved through their stint in the big leagues. His epiphany came as he asked the question: “What am I seeing here? What are the big leagues about?” What each individual mentally adopts as the answer to his question places them on a defined level of emotional and maturity that are commensurate with their readiness to be a professional ball player.  He believes that there is an arc to a person’s growth when they arrive at the highest level of their profession. He categorized the different levels of evolution The Five Levels of Being a Professional:

·       Level One: Happy to be Here.

·       Level Two: Survival.

·       Level Three: I Belong Here.

·       Level Four: Make As Much Money as You can.

·       Level Five: All I Want to Do is Win.

I am renaming it more accurately as The Five Levels of Being a Developing Athlete, and The Five Levels of Being a Coach.

Characteristics of Each Level

Maddon levels are intended to identify those who have already reached the pinnacle of their careers, they are at the major league level. What goes without saying is that as each athlete stagnates in any one of the levels, they will inevitably stop advancing towards the last level, backtrack, and drop out of the major leagues.

I draw the parallel between Maddon’s chapter on those who have already reached the pinnacle of their sporting careers with developing players and coaches. Equivalently, there is a good possibility that the players and coaches can fall into a rut and stagnate on any one of the levels.

Coincidentally, Maddon’s levels can be roughly shoehorned into Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. (Figure 1 Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs)

·       Maddon’s Levels One: Happy to Be Here and Two: Survival being commensurate with the Safety level of Maslow.

·       Maddon’s Level Three: I Belong being commensurate with the Love/Belonging level of Maslow.

·       Maddon’s Level Four: Make As Much Money as Possible being commensurate with the Self-Esteem level of Maslow.

·       Maddon’s Level Five: I just want to Win being Commensurate with the Self-Actualization level of Maslow.

                                   

Figure 1 Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs

Level One: Happy to be Here.

As the name implies, the person feels overwhelmed; they can’t believe that they have achieved this level, even though this is what they have worked toward as a goal. They know that they have only managed to get their foot in the door. They are not sure how they fit into the grander schemes, and they are also not sure about how they can contribute to the group. On a positive note, they are not afraid of making mistakes because they are running on adrenaline and instinct. They also don’t know enough or are aware enough to feel that they are being judged.

As a Player

We have all had these kinds of players, those players who can’t believe they made the team, the ones that are willing to do anything because they cannot believe in their own good luck; many do attribute their presence to luck.

They can’t believe they belong, but at the same time they are too unaware of the larger scheme to question their status within the team or the organization.

The novelty will wear off as the novelty usually erodes quickly. Usually, their burgeoning confidence will take them to the next level.

As a Coach

The beginning coaches view their role  as both a mission and a torment. They understand their responsibilities to the players, and in many ways, they are fearful over how they could and would engage the players in practice, in games, and all that down time in between. If they are familiar with youth sports, they should also be in deathly fear of dealing with parents.

Those who had played organized sports will try to recall all the drills that they have ever done as a player and  work in futility to make sense of all the “Why?”, “How?”, and “What-if?” questions.

Those who are new to the sport are putting all their attention on amassing drills, tips, and any accumulated wisdom that they can find. They don’t question the veracity of what they have amassed. It is more valuable as a safety blanket, and a crutch to lean on while dealing with the vast and in their minds, unbridgeable chasm between existing knowledge and what they feel is necessary to do the job.

Neophyte coaches’ cycle through the first level as they become more comfortable. The routine of coaching will settle in and what was once new evolves into the routine and procedural.

Level Two: Survival.

Maddon warns that this is the most dangerous level, where the individuals begin to feel comfortable, but not completely comfortable. They still feel like they don’t belong; ironically, their focus is on how they can stay, but not on how they can be better, which is how they can stay. They overthink, over analyze, and overreact in response to their internal conversations, which revolves around how they can fake their way into staying.  You don’t always make it when you fake it.

As a Player

The player is now aware of and appreciates the position they are in. They like where they are, and they are focused on what they need to do to stay where they are.

This is the level where the imposter syndrome begins to creep in. Many will adopt the attitude and strategy of just treading water and staying alive while not daring to take chances and pushing themselves to get better.

They focus on doing the nots: not screwup, not calling attention to themselves, not daring to try new things because of the potential for failure, and are not willing to ask questions for fear of exposing themselves as frauds.

As Maddon points out, this is a dangerous level. This is where the player can easily and willingly get into a rut. The player’s reasoning is that it is safer to do what brought them to this point, never questioning or daring to do anything different from the tried and true; not realizing that this is the sure path to stagnation, regression, and getting left behind.

But, if the player realizes that staying the same is not a good strategy if they are desirous of another level of performance, if they dare to change and do more than survive, they will eventually get to the next level.

As a Coach

The coach has gotten over the initial adrenaline rush of being called a coach, or the immense responsibility of coaching, organizing, dealing with the players and parents, and has settled into a rhythm. They like it and they want to maintain the status quo. They want to do the familiar, they want to do what they have always done, because: why change if everything is copacetic. What they don’t realize is that people and teams are dynamic and fluid.

By choosing to not change, in the false belief that the worst thing that they can do is unnecessarily rock the boat, they are instead paving their own path to stagnation, regression, and getting left behind.

If the coach can progress emotionally towards a more mature outlook on what they are doing, they will progress to the next level.

Level Three: I Belong Here.

A Taoist quote: “When the student is ready, the teacher will appear.”  This is the level where the individual feels that they belong, they understand where they fit in the grand scheme of things, they understand how they can contribute, what their role is, and what is expected of them; more importantly, they understand that they can perform at the expected level. They no longer feel like impostors, although no one is ever completely freed from that shadow.

As a Player

The player has developed to be an all-around presence, they understand their game, their value to the team, they feel plugged into the team social dynamics, and they are comfortable with their roles on the team in both the sports and social milieus.

Many players will stay at this level because it is easy to be comfortable and satisfied. The next level seems like a natural development for most players, but their evolving into the next level is not guaranteed. It may also be that the player skips the next level and goes directly to the fifth level.

As a Coach

At this stage the coach is feeling comfortable with his own coaching style. He is pleased with his own philosophy, in terms of both coaching and team management. The difference between this level and the previous level is that the coach is relaxed enough to thing about their decisions critically and start to question his own decisions without fearing what other people may think. They become curious because they are not satisfied with what they already know and have the mental space to learn while also not having the fears that would prevent them from learning.

Level Four: Make As Much Money as You can Get as Much Recognition as Possible (Respect).

In a professional athletic context, making as much money is the bright shiny focus once they are assured that they belong, and they won’t lose their niche within the team.

In the non-monetary context, this is the level everyone is looking for esteem and respect; they are seeking to gain leverage by gaining in how others view them. One way to look translate this level is to equate monetary compensation with respect and esteem. 

The individuals at this level are confident and are assured about their abilities but now they are looking to gain recognition and approval from people other than themselves. They feel secure in their niche but need to be assured extrinsically through external rewards: money, opinions, and respect.

Their confidence derives from having achieved at a high level, their comfort with their place on the team is unassailable, and they understand their gifts well enough to be able to self-regulate.

As a Player

The player at this level closely straddles the line between confident and arrogant. Their performance is motivated by public praise and extrinsic attention rather than intrinsic desire for mastery.

This is particularly evident in those players who are being recruited for college. The motivation is extrinsic: that college scholarship. Their concern is less about the team and more about being seen by the right coach.  Winning and losing only matters if the individual is shining in a good public light.

The player’s behavior shifts its focus from being team centered to self-centered. The motivation is extrinsic and egocentric. Many players are stuck in this level, and often this is where they will stay never achieving level five.

As a Coach

The coach has evolved in ways that are similar to the player. They have achieved a level of excellence where they are self-assured and confident in their coaching abilities.

Win/loss records are a regular part of being a coach. Each coach is well aware of their own records. The difference in this level is that the coach is primarily motivated by their record because that is the most direct route to recognition, by their peers, players, and their bosses.

This focus on the extrinsic does affect the way they coach, but it takes the coach’s focus away from their players and the team. It places the coach’s own ego squarely in the middle of the radar, making recognition the center of their motivation. The motivation is extrinsic and egocentric.

One particular comment encapsulates this level of coach. This was said during a sideline harangue during a losing effort: YOU are making ME look bad.

Level Five: All I Want to Do is Win.

This level is the ultimate, it is the elusive nirvana, this is where the individual’s altruistic self  asserts their dominance. They are no longer just happy to be there. They don’t need to just survive, they are far from being uncomfortable in their roles, they know emphatically that they belong, and they don’t need anyone’s approval. They. Just. Want. To. Win.

This is where the magic happens in a team. Getting all the players to just want to win on the same page. They all are willingly sacrificing their personal glory and egotistical needs to just win. This is what the slogans come true: there is no I in team.

As a Player

The individuals are willing to do whatever it takes to win: for their teammates, their coaches, their friends, families, and for themselves. Because everything else in their hierarchy of needs has been met.

They are humble, because they know they cannot win by themselves, they want to win so their focus is on HOW to enable the team to win, they apply themselves towards improving themselves, their skill, their mental acuity, and their decision making; all to win. Indeed, they willingly subsume their own selfish and petty egotistical needs so that they can do whatever it takes, even to the detriment of their personal glory —i.e., the opposite of Level Four— to win.

As a Coach

Similarly, the coach has been freed of the ego, everything that they do as a coach is geared towards winning: all the technical, intellectual, and emotional aspects of being a leader are aligned with whatever it takes to win. Since they have proceeded through all of the other levels of development, they have those experiences to recall and act as scaffolding toward implementing what it takes to win.

The Environment

Getting all the players on a team at the same level is difficult, unless you are coaching a developmental team, where everyone is just happy to be there. It is because of this incongruency that the interpersonal relationships amongst the players are difficult to navigate.

The different levels of each individual frame of reference create a dynamic environment for the players to navigate. The blending of varying levels of skills, maturity levels, and knowledge is what makes coaching junior players difficult. A disparity in the levels is much more complex to manage than dealing with the varying skill levels, it is hitting driver: every difference between the players is amplified and exaggerated. Trying to manage the differing expectations from the level where the player resides is complex and has an infinite number of moving parts.

This is where the environment and culture must assert itself. The environment should be flexible and forgiving enough to accommodate all the players at the different levels. The culture, however, must be unified. The trick is for the coach to get all the players on the team to put their skin in this game, to buy into the culture completely, even as they occupy different levels of development.

Summary

When I first read Maddon’s Chapter 8, the varying levels struck me as the perfect categorization of the players on teams. I can identify the Happy-To-Be-Here player, the Survival player, the Confident player, the Look-At-Me player, and the I-just-want-to-win player. Each team that I have coached had each of the five levels of players in different ratios. Coaching some of these teams was more trying than others. I admit that I had mishandled the environment and culture for some of the teams. While others operated smoothly. I had never really thought about why these teams operated with the varying levels of successes in the player’s development level context until I read this chapter. To be clear, I understand how the fluctuating skill levels of the team members impact the team dynamics, I had not thought about what their mental development levels could impact the team dynamics.

Identifying these levels of players early on would have been helpful in helping me negotiate the trials and tribulations of coaching the teams. Of course, I didn’t think in these terms when I coached them. I know better now. At least I hope so.

References

Joe Maddon, Tom Verducci. The Book of Joe: Trying Not to Suck at Baseball and Life. New York: Hatchette Book Group, 2022.