Give less advice

Coach Gregg Popovich running a timeout for the San Antonio Spurs

Imagine that coach watching the game. Naturally, he can see many things he could advise individuals and the group to do, to change, to stop doing.

However, the best coaches do one thing consistently in such situations, they:

give less advice

To illustrate this, a lesson learned from my own experience as a basketball coach running time outs.

Coming late to the game (as I grew late as a teenager), by the time I went to University I was totally passionate about basketball. It came above all other interests and I pursued that passion for six years alongside first my university studies then my chartered accountancy apprenticeship.

Now, after I graduated from university I was clearly no longer eligible to play for the university team, so I moved to play for a club in the city, where I was fortunate to play under a really good coach and learn from them. Shortly after that, I went back to the university and was asked to coach the team, as well as be “player-coach” in league matches where I was still able to be eligible.

I love the leadership tenet “coach, don’t play”, learning this at that young age (22) when i started to coach. You can try to be a player-coach, but you can simply see SO much more when you…