Learners & Confirmers

In my first book, Where Others Won’t, I called Ralph Krueger the most interesting man in the world.

He’s coached the Edmonton Oilers and Buffalo Sabres in the NHL…

Coached Switzerland for 11 years…

Won a gold medal as part of Canada’s staff at the Sochi Olympics…

Become chairman of Southampton Football Club in the Premier League…

Written a book (in German)…

Been an active member of the World Economic Forum…

And is now back in football as chairman of Austria Vienna.

A couple of years ago, I got to meet Ralph when we both spoke at the Premier League Coaching Summit in London.

Over dinner, Ralph told me something that I’ve never forgotten. He said that while he was coaching Switzerland, he’d only show two types of clips to his team:

Learners and Confirmers.

Learners were anything where there was teaching required.

Confirmers were anything that reinforced the picture they wanted to see.

“That’s all I ever showed,” he told me.

But more than just appreciating the clever use of rhyming language, I was most impressed by what Ralph said to me next:

“The objective was really to get the words into their self-talk, so when a player mishit a slap shot he could say to himself ‘that’s a learner…’ and move on to his next task.”

It was the same with confirmers.

To me, this small detail is the craftsmanship that head coaches must strive towards. One small naming convention that allows gameplay, video analysis, psychology, and culture to overlap and intersect.

The craft of coaching — and indeed what this newsletter is all about — is about recognizing how the four craft areas overlap and interconnect. Nothing happens in isolation, or has an isolated effect on our environment.

And beyond merely recognizing the interconnected nature of our coaching environment, we must begin to develop and demonstrate embedded skills that respond to this complex system.

We don’t need a sport psychology department, we need sport psychology embedded in our practice design. We don’t need more culture meetings, we need culture embedded in our meetings. We don’t need to spend so much time worrying about the competition, we need competition embedded in the fabric of our entire organization.

An update on my advertising strategy

A couple of weeks ago, I started including ads in my newsletters and wrote a short note to you about why.

I’ve now included ads in two posts and the newsletter has made $80 from those — that will pay for roughly 4 new books and can start to get me towards my goal of posting a couple of times per week. So, thank you!

PS: This post doesn’t include an ad because the advertiser was kind of bogus and was offering a package that amounted to $6. Not worth my time, nor yours.