The Old Vs The New Coaching Model
By Randy Lane
Rutgers’ basketball coach Mike Rice was fired earlier this week when he was caught on video berating players, physically shoving them and using gay slurs. See the video here.
Athletic Director Tim Pernetti resigned as a result of the situation as well.
The Old Coaching Model: Radio program directors and consultants have not physically abused talent… to my knowledge. However, it has been a common practice for programmers and consultants to primarily focus on negatives and to a lesser degree berates talent for their shortcomings. This outdated style of coaching is a recipe for not getting the most creativity and productivity out of talent. It causes resistance, resentment and unnecessary conflict.
Mike Rice had a losing record at Rutgers. More proof that bullying and berating doesn’t work in sports and certainly not in radio.
The New Coaching Model: Is a collaborative process that unlocks a person’s and show’s creative potential. As a program/brand director, you are a coach, facilitator and master interviewer who helps bring out the strengths of talent. This method focuses on asking the right questions combined with an honest, matter of fact and ego preserving way of giving feedback so the talent has ownership of their growth.
The relationship between the coach and talent is ideally a partnership based on trust and honesty, of openness and safety, and of minimal pressure. Creative people thrive best in an environment where they are encouraged to try new ideas and not be yelled at if it doesn’t work. Self-esteem is the life blood of creative personalities, and if that is suppressed or diminished so is the person, the performance and often results in stress and eventually burnout.
Our approach to coaching talent was inspired by my coaching mentor Timothy Gallwey (Inner Game of Tennis). Check him out here. John Wooden and Phil Jackson were the two most successful coaches in college and pro basketball history. They both took a collaborative and individualized approach to help players and teams reach peak performance rather than beating them up to get them to perform.
