What’s one thing Tom Brady, LeBron James, and Michael Jordan have in common? Coachability.

7 years ago

The power of coachability

I’m going to start out with a premise: talent notwithstanding, the greatness of a team depends in equal parts on how good the coach is at coaching and how good the players are at being coached. We all like to think that the greatness of a coach is the primary factor in team success, and it is a big one, but it doesn’t matter how great a coach is if the players don’t possess coachability.

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For this reason, great coaches surround themselves with coachable players sometimes even passing on those with more talent. At the same time, the greatest players are the ones most willing to be coached – and this quality multiplies their talent. A team of coachable players will almost always outperform and beat a team made up of just talent.

Now again, this doesn’t mean that you can just gather together a group of no-talent players who want to learn and put them up against a group of NBA all-star divas and hope for a victory, but what else explains the incredible success of the New England Patriots in this era of equal talent distribution? I suggest that it is great coaching along with the willingness of those players to be coached.

The importance of coachability

Why is coach-ability such a huge factor? A few reasons:

1. Coachable players make the team better.

To a certain extent, team sports diminish the talent of lone individuals. Of course, great players with extreme talent can carry teams far, but even some of the most talented players need more than their skills for the team to succeed. (Look at LeBron in Cleveland the first time, Michael Jordan in the early years, and tons of first round drafted quarterbacks – Josh Freeman, Jamarcus Russel, Vince Young, Ryan Leaf, Matt Leinart – the list goes on)

2. Coachable players tap into talent beyond themselves.

Coachable players recognize the fact that they don’t know it all and they have a lot more to learn. This attitude enables them to utilize the knowledge and talent of other people – their coaches – to make themselves better.

3. Coachable players contribute to and improve team culture.

Coaches will tell you how vital the “environment” is inside the locker room. And some coaches will place great leaders and guys who are coachable on their team to intentionally create and maintain a positive locker room. The attitude of coach-ability contributes to a positive team culture. A closed mind, a negative attitude is a cancer.

What is coachability?

So, what does it mean to be “coachable?”

1. Hard work.

Being coachable means working hard at your craft. Being coachable means working hard at what your coach instructs you to do. It means starting early and staying late. When coaches talk about some of the best players, you probably will hear them say something like “she’s the first one in the gym and the last one to leave practice.”

Hard work helps the player to be better particularly when that player implements what the coach is teaching. It’s hours in the film room studying their craft. It’s hours in the gym working on strength. It’s hours on the field or court, working on mechanics.

In talking about Tom Brady, Bill Belichick said this “Tom works very hard. He wasn’t all that good when we got him. He mechanically wasn’t anywhere near where it eventually has ended up. Nobody’s worked harder than Tom. He’s trained hard. He’s worked hard on his throwing mechanics. He’s earned everything that he’s achieved. It wasn’t always there.”

That’s how you go from a sixth-round draft pick to the best quarterback of all time. But hard work needs to be focused on the things that matter.

2. A desire to learn.

Coachable people want to learn. That’s what makes them coachable. They aren’t “know-it-alls” but recognize that they get better by learning whatever they can from whoever they can. Great coaches possess an immense amount of knowledge about their area of expertise, and smart players recognize that this treasure of riches sits waiting to be unearthed if only they would reach for it. The great players are dedicated students.

Phil Handy is one of the assistant coaches for the Cleveland Cavaliers. Listen to what he has to say about one of the greatest basketball players of all-time, LeBron James.

“LeBron James is the ultimate professional and is just a dream for people like me because, despite being the best player in the game, he remains very coachable. You would expect guys like that to be hard [to coach], but he knows the game, is a student of the game, studies, wants to be challenged, and he wants to be coached. Every day he strives to be better than the day before.

When asked about his best skill, Michael Jordan said this: “My best skill was that I was coachable. I was a sponge and aggressive to learn.” In that quote, Michael uses an interesting phrase: “aggressive to learn.” I like that because it speaks not about the difficulty or what some might consider the drudgery of learning, but the fact that someone has such a desire to learn that they soak up everything they can about their area of focus. Being coachable means being aggressive to learn.

3. Positivity.

Coachable players recognize that mentally, you need to be positive. It’s easy when things are going in the wrong direction to lose hope. It’s easy when a team isn’t winning for players to adopt a negative attitude and when that happens, the downward spiral just accelerates.

But great players can pull their teams out of that by being positive. Serena and Venus Williams have won more than 20 titles together in doubles matches. But listen to what Serena said during one match when they were losing pretty bad. Listen to her positivity:

“Listen [Venus], I don’t care what you do on your side of the court, but I’m not going to miss on my side. We will not lose this match.” Now that’s positivity.

Looking at the obstacles that seem insurmountable and deciding to be positive requires incredible confidence and mental fortitude. The greatest players think that way. They seem to have an uncanny belief that they can turn it around and pull out a victory.

In his book, The Mental Game of Golf: A Guide to Peak Performance, Patrick Cohn says this about the difference between positive thinking players and negative thinking players:

“Negative thinkers color positive events in a self-destructive manner, focusing only on what went wrong or should have or could have been better….Positive thinkers focus on what went well and how they can become better.”

And Tom Kite, said this “If you’re going to succeed, you have to feed off the positives.”

4. An openness to new alternatives.

Sometimes, players get stuck. They plateau. And many times that’s due to their success. When someone does something a certain way – train, practice, study, work out, etc. – and that results in success, the tendency we have is to do it again the same way in hopes of replicating that success. The fact is, however, that what got you there once may not be what can get you there again.

Yes, success not only brings glory and happiness for a time, but it also can cause some false beliefs. We might start to think that if we do everything the same, the results will turn out the same. That’s not reality. The greatest players and coaches recognize this and are always open to new methods, new tactics, new strategies, and new ways of doing things.

Coachable players have an unquenchable thirst to get better, and this results in an openness to new things that may help them to accomplish their ultimate goal. Lynn Swan, the great Pittsburgh Steelers wide receiver, famously told how ballet improved his performance on the field as a football player. Not only did Swann have to remain coachable to his NFL head coach, but his openness to the idea of ballet necessitated being coached by a dance instructor.

Conclusion

This entire article I’ve talked about coachability in relation to sports teams, but it applies to any team. In business, we all know the “players” who are coachable – those who want to learn and who want to help the team succeed – and we all know those who aren’t.

In business, great teams are made up of coachable players, those people who recognize their deficiencies and instead of hiding those or trying to minimize them, they face them and bring them before a knowledgeable coach who can help them to get better and grow.

Your success in business directly relates to your willingness to be coached by others. Being coachable makes you better, it makes your team better, and it improves your team culture. So ask yourself, how coachable are you?