DOES THE COACH TREAT EVERYONE EQUALLY?
By Jorge Araújo
Former professional basketball coach
Today’s topic has been the subject of much debate. Should coaches treat everyone equally?
It’s up to the coach to treat everyone fairly, but never everyone equally. And the reason is simple. How can everyone be treated equally if some are committed and serve the team, abide by collective rules and care about their teammates, while others don’t? There has to be a distinction and recognition for those who deserve it most, compared to those who systematically try to put their individual interests above the collective ones.
Authority recognized rather than imposed.
Discipline on the part of the players, appealing to their participation and responsibility. Involving the players in the team’s objectives, making the natural ambitions and expectations of each individual compatible with the collective interest.
Encourage creativity, fight the fear of making mistakes.
It’s up to the coach to encourage the players’ creativity, give them space to make mistakes and reflect on the errors they make. Improve their skills by learning to do, by doing. Never forget that being creative must not mean a loss of efficiency or disrespect for the principles and rules that should guide the collective life of teams. Creativity is, above all, being able to innovate while maintaining the effectiveness required for results and the expected performance.
Leading players to work as a team is another challenge of enormous complexity and demand.
The main goal of every human being is to assert themselves individually and only then (if they are mobilized to do so!) will they be able to focus on collective interests. This illustrates how difficult it is to try to perfect personal and technical interactions between individuals whose particular goals are often far from compatible.
“What’s in it for me?” the players asked me. A central question! I had to convince them that through the team and its collective success, each of them had something significant to gain. I had to get them to internalize that by contributing individually to the whole being greater than the sum of the parts, they would get the positive return they were looking for. How could I achieve this? By mobilizing individual will to serve the collective. If their respective motivation never abandons them, in defense of their individual interests, then I would have to be able to ensure that, if the team achieved its goals, each player gained something significant from it. If each player was so sensitive to the fact that they had to gain something every time they gave themselves to the team, it was up to me to be able to adjust to the differences they showed, to see my authority recognized rather than imposed, and to have a clear vision of what I wanted to achieve individually and collectively at every moment in the life of the teams I managed. I had to adapt and manage to leverage the constant motivational ebbs and flows caused by the players’ selfishness, in the search for a fundamental cohesion of processes and a necessary social relationship and collective identification. A synchronization of collective and individual movements and a clear definition and coordination of tasks for each player. Deep social and affective bonds, fostering cooperation and mutual help that is without risk.
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A clear alignment of all the players in the service of the collective objectives to be achieved and strong feelings of pride in belonging to the team. All the players I met (naturally some more than others!) struggled between asserting themselves individually and the pleasure of being part of a team with which they felt involved. Which, in addition to what has already been said, leads me to conclude that this apparent contradiction is one of the most exciting aspects of being a coach.
On the one hand, we have to accept the human selfishness of the players, and on the other, we strive to build a team that complements them and gives them enough space to assert themselves individually.
Among the players who worked with me, the ones who made the difference for the better were those who knew precisely how to use the team and its results as an opportunity for affirmation and personal development.
The behavioral skills of these players and the way they related to others were attributes that distinguished them in the way they contributed to the team without ever allowing themselves to be totally diluted in the collective interest.
They were mature, secure, confident, concerned about others, always able to establish bonds of trust with everyone around them.
They managed their emotions well under pressure and made a positive contribution to developing team dynamics in order to increase their effectiveness. They had a constant positive attitude and had a strong influence on the team.
And do you know what else was interesting about these players? They had all received profound positive influences through their family and school upbringing, the training their coaches had subjected them to as youngsters, and the motivation and leadership they had received in different circumstances of their lives.
In collective terms, where have I seen differences in terms of the teams with which I’ve achieved success?
Their different personalities complemented and completed each other. They had affinities that enabled them to act in common, almost always functioning in a perfect symbiosis between being focused on the tasks and common objectives to be achieved and, at the same time, establishing strong bonds of social interrelationship. They showed above-average levels of cohesion and provided diversified responses to the natural difficulties imposed by confronting reality.
Training and preparing winning teams has naturally been one of my goals over the years. And in order to achieve this, I realized at a certain point that I was required to have extremely demanding skills.
A clear vision of the model of play, team, player and preparation that you should be pursuing. Knowing where to go and what goals to achieve. Mobilizing will and complementing individual and collective objectives. Bringing the players together through recognized technical and behavioral competence. Know how to be and know how to be.
Without giving up on being clear and firm in explaining the guiding principles for the functioning of the teams he worked with, the players had to be able to responsibly take ownership of these principles and creatively assume their responses to each of the complex situations they encountered.
Being a coach has required me to make a profound change in my behavior. It’s the players who play, not the coach, which is why I had to make it my main goal to ensure that the players were autonomous and capable of self-discipline, self-motivation and self-preparation!
The real “secret” of the success I was pursuing needed the support of a space of knowledge and intervention that would set me apart from the players and managers. And that’s what I pursued from a certain point onwards.
Just as I’ve learned over the years that there is no apparent contradiction between a coach’s need to legitimize and value his role and the gradual realization he acquires over time that his team’s performance, in a sense, improves the less the players need him! My personal and professional affirmation has necessarily come through the personal and professional affirmation of those who have worked with me, and the fact that each of the members of the team has become more adult, responsible and capable of making decisions has never called my leadership into question, quite the opposite!
