Category: Blog
LIFE LESSONS FROM BASKETBALL
Yesterday my daughter played her first ever basketball match and she played a blinder! I was able to channel all my competitiveness and enthusiasm for the game through her without having to move a muscle or expend a kilojoule!
As she pelted up and down the court, defending to the death, and finding space to shoot baskets on the attack, I swelled and swelled with maternal pride! The crowning moment came when she had been fouled and had to take a free shot. She looked consternated, balanced the ball awkwardly in one hand (not two, as any basketballer would tell you to do), did a sort of grunting heave ho……
And the ball sailed neatly straight into the basket!
While I was watching all this, my coaching brain was turning all the attributes I watched her display, into lessons I need to learn for myself!
1. BE PREPARED
She got up at 7am this morning in order to practise her flute before we went, and she made sure she had her kit clean and ready the night before.
‘FAILING TO PLAN IS PLANNING TO FAIL’
LIFE LESSON
By thinking ahead, being clear about her goals, and fully prepared, she was able to fully enjoy the day.
2. BE FLEXIBLE
Basketball switches at lightning speed from defence to attack and back again. Both are equally important in winning a game. The first game I watched (not my daughter’s team), they managed to get the ball and attack, but however many times they got to the scoring end of the pitch, they just couldn’t seem to find the basket! Your team needs shooters to win a game. However, my daughter is a demon in defence, and even though she is new to the game, and hasn’t fully mastered dribbling at speed, or shooting on the move, she marked her man as though he were Peter Pan and she his shadow. Peter Pan happened to be one of the most dangerous players on the field, but once she glued herself to him, he was almost out of the game.
LIFE LESSON
Know when to attack and create space to make an opening and seize the opportunities available to you, and when to defend your territory. Be flexible to switch between the two.
3.BE WILLING TO TRY, MAKE MISTAKES, AND POSSIBLY MAKE A FOOL OF YOURSELF
In practise sessions, I noticed that my daughter was not really willing to have a go at shooting, as she didn’t believe she was any good at it. Whenever she received the ball, her instinct was to get rid of it as fast as she could! But when it came to the match, her competitive instinct came to the fore, and she was willing to take the risk, and take the shot. She scored a significant number of baskets!
LIFE LESSON
‘If you want to succeed, double your failure rate’. CEO, IBM
That’s right, double your failure rate! That really does mean failing twice as often as you have doing up to now. We learn by doing, by taking risks, showing up and trying. It applies to all of life, not just shooting baskets!
4.LEARN HOW TO MAXIMISE AND UTILISE THE SKILLS OF YOUR WHOLE TEAM.
My daughter and her friend were the novices on the team. I have noticed in practise, that the more experienced players often don’t pass to them, as they want to win – even though they are only practising with their own potential team mates! How can anyone learn unless they are given the ball to try something? And how does it help you win matches if you are only utilising half your team?
Some of the good players weren’t at the match, and so in the first game, my daughter and her friend, who are both tall, freed themselves to be near the basket, were passed balls by their team mates, and shot some useful baskets. So those who were good at dribbling, dribbled and those who were tall, but less good at dribbling, shot! Good use of resources.
In the last game, don’t know what had happened, but I heard one of the older students comment that they weren’t being passed the ball, and I noticed that they had gone from utilising the whole team to passing between the experienced players, but guess what? It was the only match they lost! And it only took a couple of players to have lost their oomph, for the defence to breakdown, and for them to go from leading to losing in three minutes!
LIFE LESSON
‘You are only as strong as the weakest link.’
When working in a team, take time to build the skills of the whole team. Play and work smart – play to people’s strengths and look out for the skills and qualities of each team member.
5.AGGRESSION AND COMPETITIVENESS CAN BE USEFUL, BUT ONLY IF THEY ARE UNDER YOUR CONTROL, AND NOT CONTROLLING YOU!
Basketball is one of those sports where there is a fair amount of on-court gamesmanship. And according to many sources, many other sports including tennis, require that you display sportsmanship. Assertiveness is definitely an advantage, but competitiveness and a spot of aggression can come in handy when someone is trying to steal the ball from you! But control is the key! It is the difference between a brilliant block and a foul – between saving a few points or giving them away on a plate. And if my memory serves me correctly, sometimes one just needs to stand still because if you are in the way but not moving, I don’t think it is possible to foul, but it is sometimes possible to prevent a shot being taken.
LIFE LESSON
Self control is the key to harnessing competitiveness, assertiveness and even aggression to use them for achieving our goals. Lose control and we can lose the game!
6. KEEP YOUR EYES OPEN TO SEE OBSTACLES, OPPORTUNITIES & HELP AVAILABLE ALONG THE WAY
When you have made a brilliant steal and are making a break for the far end of the court, it is sometimes easy to be so focused that you don’t see the obstacles (the opposition) or the help (your team- mate standing under the basket) available. Sometimes sheer determination or the thrill of going for glory means we miss the help available AND the basket! Sometimes it’s better to be the person who made the brilliant pass that set up the basket, rather than the person who hogged the ball and missed the points!
LIFE LESSON
When working or playing in the team, often the WIN-WIN situation is the one where we accept the skills and help of others in the team and go for the overall win, rather than going for solo glory and more probable downfall.
Learning from nature
As I rock hopped along a river bank, looking for a short cut across to the hill on the far side, I was reminded of how hard I find it to trust my footing on uneven rocks, and how that tends to make me look at my feet, and move very gingerly, taking time to test my footing on each rock.
While that sounds a sensible approach, in practice, it doesn’t work very well! One of the most helpful aspects of moving across uneven and potentially wobbly surfaces, is forward motion. That forward motion counteracts the potential for overbalancing when stepping on a rock which is either slippery or insecure. However, it takes some courage to commit to that forward motion, and more importantly, takes the use of our peripheral vision.
Walter Carrington, a pupil of FM Alexander, and famous teacher of the Alexander Technique, used to say that where the eyes lead, the body follows. When the eyes fix and focus on a single object, the body tends to tense, and if that object is on the ground, the body tends to lose any upward or forward energy. It follows then, that if the ground proves insecure, the body is not well placed to deal with the vitally necessary adjustments.
With the use of peripheral vision, which takes in the broader landscape, the body remains flexible, upright, and alert, and well placed for dealing with unexpected crises. I often do an interesting experiment with clients regarding the use of peripheral vision. I stand behind them as close as possible with my arms out to the front on either side of their head. Asking them to look ahead, and not move their eyes, I slowly move my hands apart, asking them to let me know when they can no longer see my hands. Usually my hands are almost 180 degrees to their head before they are unable to see them! That means, that without moving our eyes AT ALL, we have the facility to see everything in the hemisphere in front of us! How many of us actually use that facility?
Applying it to rock hopping, or to walking in general, I find it fascinating that most people walking on uneven ground watch the ground immediately in front of their feet. I would invite you to experiment with walking looking ahead of you, and consciously engaging peripheral vision, this time in the vertical plane, so that you are allowing your eyes to take in what’s ahead, but also everywhere from your feet forward. The brain is easily able to process all this information, and I think you may be pleasantly surprised at how easily you are able to navigate difficult terrain, and to make any adjustments necessary to compensate for loose rocks and uneven ground!
I have memories of my time in Africa when a boyfriend and I had gone on his off-road motorbike up into the hills and had encountered basically a road of boulders. I was terrified, clinging onto him, and making him inch forward at snail’s pace. Eventually he lost control of the bike, being unable to hold its weight at such a slow pace, and we came a cropper (fortunately not serious!). Being very bright, he proceeded to explain to me the physics of why I really needed to let him get some speed, and reluctantly I agreed. Suffice to say we completed the rest of the journey without mishap!
From the coaching perspective, it is also useful to remember to keep looking ahead, while taking in your surroundings, and not to get bogged down in difficult circumstances. It is important to remain flexible, both in mind and body, and to realise that although something can seem frightening and unsafe, that moving forward with care and flexibility can get us through times and situations that at first sight can seem insurmountable.
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This Business of Coaching
In the film ‘You’ve got Mail’, the character Joe Fox of Fox Books goes to visit Kathleen Kelly of the Independent Book Store ‘The Shop Around the Corner’, to tell her that forcing her to close her store was ‘not Personal, it was Business’. Her reply ran something along these lines: ‘What do you mean it was not personal? It was personal to me. And whatever anything else is, it ought to BEGIN by being personal.’
The World of Business likes to think of itself as being very Left Brain focussed – analytical, detailed. However, recent Neuroscience suggests that our world is focussing too much on the Left Brain, and ignoring the Right Brain at its peril – losing the bigger picture, creativity and spontaneity. It also suggests that rather than decision making being a critical, analytical process, our decisions are most often driven by emotion, thereby giving some explanation as to why a judge listening to a difficult case, is far more likely to return a positive verdict after lunch, when his hunger is satisfied, than he is before lunch when his hunger is dictating how his brain is focussed.
While many companies claim to award contracts on the basis of variables such as pricing and skill sets, the truth may often be that they felt more comfortable and relaxed with one set of providers than another, even if, on paper, their bid was less palatable than some of those rejected.
In the Business of Coaching, various labels are now bandied about, such as ‘Business Coaching, Executive Coaching, Performance Coaching’. I would argue that these are merely labels, and that the principles of coaching remain the same whether dealing with a High Flying Business Executive who is dealing with multi-faceted business issues, or a mother who wants to know how to motivate her children to help clean the house!
Every Business Executive is as much a person as is a mother who has chosen to stay at home to support her children, or student who is dealing with the challenges of moving from home to University, or office worker who doesn’t know how to deal with a co-worker whom he finds irritating.
A business decision made by an Executive who feels threatened or under pressure, could be very different from made by that same person if he/she was feeling confident and supported – both in home life and business. This fact underlines the value of coaching, be it labelled ‘Executive’, ‘Performance’, ‘Business’ or simply ‘Coaching’.
The process of coaching seeks to assist the client or coachee, to be able to work through issues and ‘problems’ (or opportunities, if you are feeling positive and optimistic), to be able to operate from a place of quiet self assurance and confidence,which enables him/her to make decisions that will be most appropriate and useful for him/herself, rather than making decisions that will make him/her feel safe and better about him/herself, but ones which perhaps do not benefit the business that he/she is in.
Daniel Goleman, in his book Emotional Intelligence, notes that really good leaders often have a lower IQ than their team, but score highly on EQ (Emotional Intelligence).
Characteristics of Emotional Intelligence are:*
- Self Awareness: the ability to realistically ‘see’ ourselves and be aware of our goals, beliefs, values, drivers, ‘rules’ (our ‘oughts’ and ‘shoulds’) and our self-talk (both positive and negative)
- Self-regulation: trustworthiness, integrity, confidence, walks the talk
- Motivation: self and others, optimistic, inspirational, passionate
- Empathy: awareness of others’ feelings, needs and concerns
- Social Skills: strong listening and & communication skills, manages conflict, centred, trusts others and ‘open’.
* copyright: D.Barnard, www.relationaldynamics1st.co.uk
Businesses are beginning to recognise the value of a Coaching style of leadership, which usually reflects high emotional intelligence. Coaching assists in the development of Emotional Intelligence, as defined above and can enable Executives to manage more effectively, and Managers to develop more efficient, empowered and happier teams.
This of course, does no harm to the bottom line!