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Hey Coach,
One of the things I believed for a long time as a coach was that getting better results usually required doing more.
If recruiting wasn't going well, contact more recruits. If we weren't prepared enough, watch more film. If something wasn't getting done, spend more time on it.
More effort felt like the obvious answer.
I'm not sure it usually is anymore.
I recently heard the story of W. Edwards Deming, an American statistician whose ideas about improving quality were largely ignored by American companies in the 1950s. Japan listened.
One of the principles associated with that work was Kaizen—continuous, small improvement.
Instead of only looking for the huge breakthrough, look closely at the individual steps that produce the result and ask:
Where could we make this just a little better?
That made me think about coaching.
Where Is Your Leverage?
Let's say you want more recruits to visit campus.
The natural reaction might be, We need to contact more recruits.
Maybe.
But what if the problem isn't at the top of your recruiting funnel?
What if 100 recruits are responding, 40 are getting on the phone with you, but only five are visiting?
I'd spend less time figuring out how to contact another 100 recruits and more time studying those 40 conversations.
What are your best recruiters asking that others aren't? When are you introducing the visit? Are you actually asking recruits what would make a visit worthwhile? Are you giving them a clear next step?
A small improvement in that one part of your process could produce a much bigger result than simply doing more recruiting.
That's leverage.
And once I started thinking about it that way, I could see it everywhere in a coach's day.
Maybe practice doesn't need another 30 minutes. Your transitions between drills need to get five minutes better.
Maybe you don't need another staff meeting. You need to end the one you already have with clearer ownership.
Maybe you don't need to spend more time watching film. You need a better way to capture what you're looking for while you're watching it.
Maybe your assistants don't need more reminders. They need a checklist for the thing you keep reminding them about.
Maybe you don't need another hour in your day.
You need to make one of the hours you're already spending work better.
Study What's Already Working
There's another part of the Deming story that caught my attention.
Instead of assuming everyone needed to completely reinvent how they worked, they studied what the best performers were already doing and looked for ways to spread those improvements.
We don't do enough of that in coaching.
If one assistant consistently gets recruits to respond, study their messages.
If one type of campus visit keeps producing commitments, figure out why.
If your Tuesday practices consistently run better than Thursdays, what's different?
If you had one week this fall when you actually got your work done and left the office at a reasonable time, don't call it a lucky week. Study it.
What did you do differently?
There's probably something there worth repeating.
Find Your One Inch
So here's what I'd encourage you to do this week.
Don't ask:
How can I get more done?
Ask:
“Where could one small improvement make everything after it easier or better?”
Find one.
Change it.
See what happens.
Then improve it again.
That's the part of Kaizen I think matters for us as coaches. You don't have to overhaul your program every Monday morning.
You just have to keep noticing where you're wasting effort, where something keeps getting stuck, and where a small improvement could create a bigger result.
Over the course of a season, those inches start adding up.
And maybe the next level you're trying to reach doesn't require you to work harder to get there.
Maybe you just need more leverage from the work you're already doing.
Win the Day.
Mandy Green
Helping coaches win at work without losing at home.
If you'd like to book a free 30 minute strategy call with me, book your call here: https://calendly.com/busy-coach
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