Plug Into People

Mike Smith remembers when the computer was introduced to coaching.

“It was going to allow coaches to not have to spend long hours breaking down game video,” he recalls. “It was going to make our jobs easier and less time consuming because of the ability to quickly evaluate and analyze data as we looked for tendencies in our opponents. Coaches were no longer going to have to work 16-to-18 hours during the season.”

The value of any technology — whether it’s the printing press, the assembly line, or the personal computer — is that it creates time efficiency, allowing people to do better work; more human work.

“Technology definitely reduced the time we devoted to the analysis of opponents' tendencies,” Smith says, “but it did not reduce the time that coaches were working."

A couple of decades removed from the introduction of technology into coaching, we’re still working 16-to-18 hours during the season. Any time efficiency gained has merely been redeployed into even more technology…creating even more work.

There is perhaps no greater depiction of this than the fact that ‘Get out from behind your laptop’ is a widespread phrase in professional sports. We now need to remind coaches to stop using their computer and actually go and coach someone.

“The technology that is meant to help us can harm us if we let it,” Smith writes. “We have so many ways that we can communicate with one another, but unfortunately we are connecting less meaningfully.”

Smith is cautious to point out that he is not anti-technology, and I want to do the same. (I am, after all, a technologist by trade).

However, just like we all need the odd reminder not to lay in bed mindlessly scrolling through social media, we all need the occasional reminder about what it is that we’re doing here.

1. Coaching is an exchange of humanity
   What separates coaching from a recipe is that part of me is included in the messaging. You receive humanity and guidance, rather than a checklist of what to do.
   

2. The aim is to be tech-enhanced, not tech-directed
   Technology is supposed to amplify the human experience, not take over the entire human existence. There is a tipping point to be aware of.

Technology was supposed to eliminate mechanical work so that we could use our time on human dynamics (or better yet: rest, recovery, and rejuvenation). It’s difficult to make an argument for it having achieved this goal.

We can change that narrative by simply remembering that no amount of technology can replace human connection.

As Mike Smith reminds us: “The key is to agree on ways and times to unplug from technology and plug into each other.”