http://slooowdown.wordpress.com/2012/02 ... oldme-com/
Toppy, that website provides a great discussion of the book "How We Decide." The book is high on the list of thought changing influences in my life.
Rational thinking. And thinking that comes from intuition, that can be accessed in a milli-second, in an emergency, without conscious thought, and represents the totality of your experience (gut feeling when well applied). We tend to underrate intuition. After reading that book, I have great respect for it.
Yogi Berra was asked what he thought about while hitting. "You can't think and hit at the same time." LOL I truly believe some athletes interfere with their athletic instincts by thinking too much. They need to get deeper, to a more instinctive level. Automatic.
Re hiring a football coach ...
When someone works for you, you have all you need to know about their qualifications. And of course familiarity can make for a comfortable, and less than excellent, choice. Many proteges reflect their mentor, for better or worse, and do not make great hires. Sound familiar? Without naming names?
And of course, a truly outstanding assistant, as with Bill Walsh designing offences for Paul Brown, can be denied the top job, for a number of reasons. A threat to one's own sense of self. Jealousy? Whatever ...
Humans move in fits and starts, with lots of mistakes. That is another lesson from that book. Do not deny your mistakes. Learn from them.
With football, it seems to me that the game is so visible, the way a team plays. The coach is visible on the sidelines. The decisions are visible. The leadership is visible. The way the team plays reflects on the coach. I recall a friend saying that he could see exactly what I was doing with my team. Another noted hard my team worked. I took those compliments to heart, as lifetime rewards. Or in basketball, a respected colleague saying: "They (the opponent) couldn't handle your press." Along with my flaws as a coach, what do those things say about me as a coach? I knew exactly what I wanted from the players, and the players knew exactly what I wanted, and they delivered. Hard work was extremely inportant to me as a coach, and the players bought in. I had a concept of a press, and could teach it to my players, and they could run it. Pretty obvious in watching the play.
I think in hiring a new coach, one can glean pretty much all you need to know just by watching his team play. This is harder in business. The decisions are not as visible. The leadership is not as visible in many cases. (Although in retrospect one can see the brilliance of Steve Jobs' vision).
Want to drive a car? Pass the driver's test. Want to hire a musician? Based on an interview? No. Want to select a football player in a draft, as with the Ottawa RedBlacks? Well, they didn't get to interview the guys. But IMO they had plenty of information to make good choices.
A point I am making is that in football it seems to me the interview process is an empty sham. It proves nothing. It does little or nothing to find you a good coach. Look at the example presented by South Pender, the Cleveland Browns. The management believed in the interview process. The applicants hit home runs in the interviews. And what did they get? Duds.
I have great respect for Jim Popp. But even his record is spotted. He hired Marc Trestman. Great. Earlier he hired Don Matthews. Kind of a no brainer, obvious selection. Then he hired Dan Hawkins. Ouch.
For Head Coach, I would say look for the best results from candidates as OC or DC. Look at their previous performance as coaches. Look for the effort of the players. Look for the attitude of the players. Look for the character of the team. Look for resilience. How the candidate does in an interview is irrelevant, it seems to me. Just a getting to know you session. If you do not have an opportunity to judge the candidate's performance, you are in the dark. Trial runs (probationary periods) give a pretty good view of a candidate. One cannot really do that with a football coach. Although one could say that Hawkins failed his trial, and was fired early.
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Some things lend themselves to intuition. Lehrer's book gives the example of a TV director. He watches countless applicants for a role. Suddenly he sees one guy, who does not even know the lines, as they were just handed to him, and the director knows instinctively that he is the guy. How? Years of experience. And the director might not even be able to verbalize exactly what it was that made it clear, but he knew. That is beyond a rational decision.
Room for both, a need for both: the rational and the more emotional, the intuitive.
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Just IMO ...
John Madden's Team Policies: Be on time. Pay attention. Play like hell on game day.
Jimmy Johnson's Game Keys: Protect the ball. Make plays.
Walter Payton's Advice to Kids: Play hard. Play fair. Have fun.