Find the root cause

My professor told us a story to reflect the pitfalls to accepting a skill acquisition stance.

A basketball team lost an important middle of the season game against their rivals. The coach believed a big part of it was the ability to make free-throws under pressure. He didn't understand why and chalked it up to the desire to win and a "Championship Mindset".

The next day at practice he was telling their consultant.

"We missed nearly all of our free-throws last night."

"Today we're running suicides until we never do that again."

......

The consultant responded with

"Maybe we should work on our free-throws."

.....

The story sounds silly but reflects a lot of avoidance getting to the root problem. Why not just work on the skill? Sometimes there are circumstances or emotions blinding the real process of thinking through a problem.

In an example like this you may read it and go wow that's stupid who would do this?

But really... How many times do we use exercise as punishment with our athletes rather than deducing the root cause of whatever might've happened? What about long/endless practice because we didn't perform well at a meet?

If you're thinking that probably never happens. 1) Evaluate yourself and/or 2) You're probably a logical thinker. There's lots of not so good ones as well.

Logical thinking is easily pushed to the side to achieve our own emotional agendas. That is why great leaders and coaches can overcome their emotions and do what their team needs, present the emotion their team needs. They are not half heartedly thinking through this but know exactly what they need to do because the see the weakness and come up with the solution.

How many times would you say about yourself or any athlete: “They’re just terrible at picking their stuff up”, “They’re just not good at butterfly”, “We just suck at paying attention”.

I think that all these things have a root cause.

If they are not paying attention maybe you haven’t said anything to get their attention. Not through force but through inspiration will they pay attention to you.

Not good at changing gear or picking stuff up. They probably don’t have a good idea of why they should do that or that there is a sense of urgency. What do they have to be urgent about? What inspiration have you brought to them and show them why the care?

Part of being a good coach is being a good teacher. Showing some athletes the path forward and showing others why they should care about the path!

There is always a skill to improve on. If you’ve been saying the same excuse about your team for more than 6 months. Then it’s not them but it’s you. I think in 2025 its time for more teams and coaches to recognize the impact they have and recognize that every reaction has a root cause. Don’t react but address the root cause.