The outcome for the Young Athletic Performance (LTAD) coach is clear. Fitter, Faster, Stronger. The incentive is to keep your job, show competence, and develop the child in front of you into an athlete.
It’s pretty simple.
“Show me the incentive, and I’ll show you the outcome” – Charlie Munger.
For those arguing for a more holistic approach to youth sports performance, a delayed focus on the numbers means the outcome is a little further away. And that’s ok, because no one wins gold at the Olympics at 12, right?
It is ok, isn’t it? I mean, you can wait, can’t you?
Hard not to imagine that the development coach is simply hiding the fact that they aren’t very good. You might tell me that you are doing all the right things, but really, aren’t you just underperforming? If the outcome is a well-rounded athlete able to adjust to the ever-changing demands, then what’s the incentive?
On what basis are you keeping your job? How do you demonstrate your competency since I can’t measure change? And, you are asking me to wait until my child is an adult to see the fruits of your labour.
I’m struggling to see the incentive, and I’ll have to wait for the outcome. Who said that? It wasn’t Charlie Munger, that’s for sure.
Of course, the argument is that what looks like incompetence is, in fact, expertise. That selling out can look an awful lot like success, and success can look an awful lot like failure. The well-drilled U-12’s team, who can’t pass a ball without the coach telling them what to do next – yes, they win, but only because the coach is playing fantasy football.
So how do you know?
The risk for the youth sports performance coach is clear – don’t get the results at the end of the season, and you could be out of a job.
And for the development coach, the risk is nowhere to be seen; it’s so far in the future, we’ll have all moved on by the time it comes around.
What to do?
For the performance coach, you can dial down the risk and lift the horizon by tracking injury and drop-out rates.
And for the development coach, you can bring the outcome forward in the form of learning stories. Not the coach’s assessment of competencies, but the athlete’s own journey of learning. A feedback loop that makes development visible.
Perhaps, you can see that when you consider risk, reward, incentive, and outcome, you no longer have a performance coach and a development coach. You have what Charlie Munger knew better than anyone—the ability to see past making a quick buck today.