Not too long ago I had the opportunity to watch the practice of a very successful basketball coach. One thing that struck me was her relentless emphasis on the negative. It seemed that every other time she spoke it was to point out what her players were doing wrong. After the practice I asked why she felt this approach, stressing the negatives, was the right way to get her players to reach their potential. Her response, “It works.”
Coach Bobby Knight was a famous (some would say infamous) college basketball coach that seemed to take this same “eliminate the negative” approach to teaching his athletes. I have to admit, I am a big Coach Knight fan and have been since first reading John Feinstein's book A Season on the Brink. Despite not always agreeing with his antics (often described as BK Theater), I saw Coach Knight’s passion for coaching as admirable. Not too many people know that Coach Knight was more than just a great basketball coach; he was a theorist as well. His most famous hypothesis was The Ass-to-Brain Theory. The basic principle is this, “When a player’s ass gets put on the bench, a message goes straight to the brain saying, get me off of here!”
It may be controversial and even a little counter intuitive, but a growing body of research supports the idea that it is more important to eliminate the negative than it is to accentuate the positive. Of course, every coach should try to do both. Yet, great coaches understand they have limited time, resources, and athlete attention so they must often choose what behaviors to tackle first and hardest. Good coaches focus more and more on eliminating the negatives.
The landmark paper in this area was written by Roy Baumeister and colleagues entitled Bad is Stronger than Good. They reviewed a huge collection of legitimate peer-reviewed studies to show that negative habits, experiences, information, and negative people have a much deeper impact than positive ones. This is a rather large and daunting study to read, but if you decide to look it over, the insights into the behavioral sciences are well worth it.
Allow me to provide an example that may bring some clarity. Imagine you are coaching a basketball team. One of your players is an above average shooter but she struggles with her left handed dribbling. Do you focus on her shooting, giving her extra shoot-around time and designing plays that get her the ball, or do you focus on improving her dribbling skills? The research suggest that even small amounts of improvement in her dribbling will bring a bigger and longer lasting impact for her and the overall team, than any improvement in her shooting ability.
This categorical gain is seen in the area of relationships as well. For example, a study that looked at marriages found: unless positive interactions outnumber negative interactions by five to one, odds are the relationship will fail. The implication for us as coaches is unnerving. If you have a bad interaction with a player, attempting to follow it up with a positive one (or two, three, or four) might do you no good. It seems the key is to not have the negative interaction in the first place. It’s not about more smiles, it’s about fewer outbursts. And, as we all know, that’s a lot easier said than done.
So what should you do as a coach? The research is pretty clear, you will get more bang for your buck if you focus on eliminating negatives. This includes eliminating the worst kinds of team members. Research by Will Felps estimated that a team with just one “bad apple” will suffer a performance disadvantage of 30% to 40% compared to teams with no bad apples. I mentioned earlier this topic is somewhat controversial, and this is the difficult part. By refusing to tolerate the negatives (bad apples, inappropriate behaviors, bad habits, etc.) it is likely you will be seen as an ass too. Yet, another study by Charles O'Reilly and Barton Weitz showed how leaders of the most productive groups confronted problems directly and quickly, issued more warnings and punishments, and promptly fired employees when warnings didn’t eliminate the negative behaviors. It seems that “doing the dirty work” is a job great leaders accept.
You may not enjoy playing the heavy, but doing it is a necessity. In the immortal words of another basketball genius, John Wooden once said, “One of the greatest motivating things that a coach has is the bench. They all love to play, all of them. You sit them on the bench, and they come around pretty good.” Sounds like the Ass-to-Brain Theory to me.
Baumeister, R. F., Bratslavsky, E., Finkenauer, C., & Vohs, K. D. (2001). Bad is stronger than good. Review of general psychology, 5(4), 323.
Fredrickson, B.L. & Losada, M.F. (2005). Positive Affect and the Complex Dynamics of Human Flourishing. American Psychologist, 60(7), 678-686.
O’Reilly, C. & Weitz, B.A. (1980). Managing Marginal Employees: The Use of Warnings and Dismissals. Administrative Science Quarterly, 25(3).
Very interesting topic I would say. And to which I would mostly agree. Players are driven by the bench to a massive extent and "the bench" can act as a huge motivator for players. I find that quite fascinating, such a simple thing can be used a an extreme motivator tool. Quite funny when you think about it.
ReplyDeletePlayers are very driven mentally. I would say most of sport is mental. The Ass-To-Brain theory is just one example of how mental these games are. While a player can have some strengths and some weaknesses, I would agree that improving the weaknesses would be more important. I would say not only would it benefit the team more at is said in this article, but it would benefit them more as a player, and very mentally too. What I mean by this is that if a player improves his strength, sure that's good but mentally the player already know that is their strength and the mental side of things doesn't change very much, plus the weakness is still a lingering factor. While if a player improves their weakness, this can lead to a massive increase in self confidence as a player would feel more comfortable with the weakness and feel more positive about their game. While it would influence them as well being that they could get to a point where they feel like their weakness isn't really a weakness anymore. Not to mention when the team sees this of how it would motivate the team as well. I think this could make huge impacts on players.
However, I still think the strengths need to be addressed as well otherwise a players strength wont be as much of a strength anymore. Kind of common sense but I would agree that improving the weakness is much more beneficial.
Having said all this, the article talks about how focusing on the negatives is much more beneficial. Which I would agree with, but to an extent. If a player is always being told to work on or improve their weaknesses, it can cause some doubt in the players mind. This is because the player may think that they are not using their strength and only their weakness, and therefore lose confidence in their entire game. I think a player still needs to feel comfortable and work on what they do best to, as it gives them confidence and makes them feel good for lets say upcoming games ahead. For example a basketball player has a game coming up and they have great shooting skills but average left hand dribbling skills. If the player only practices the dribbling, they may be slightly more prepared for the game the next day, but more often than not the players will make mistakes in their practice as it is not their strongest component and become less confident. Where as of the player practiced their shots, they would feel good and ready for the game the next day because they would feel confident in their ability. And maybe touching on the dribbling would be good as well, just not focusing on it. However, I do still think focusing on the dribbling in the long run would be better lets say during the off season as again it would be more beneficial for the team and for them as an individual.
So, overall I would agree with the general concept of why focusing on improving the negatives is better than just improving the strengths. But I think the time and place play big factors in this and depending on this I think it could hinder a players confidence if something is practiced at the wrong time. And overall I think along the way players need that positive reinforcement to stay motivated. Otherwise their self confidence is bound to drop. But in the long run improving a players weakness I think can become the deciding factor between winning and losing in any given game.
Tom C