Don’t Hate Me, But You’re Likely Not An Olympic Athlete, And As A Coach, You’re Likely Not Training Them
A long time ago, I was a better-than mediocre bicycle racer (I was in the boundary between the middle third and top third). An Olympics was coming up, and I had time and money, and so I decided to see how good I could get if I trained full-time.
The answer was better, but not nearly good enough. I’m not an Olympic athlete.
Today, I ride bicycles and motorcycles for fun, and every year I try and take a motorcycle class – usually one held at a racetrack.
This is Marc Marquez, arguably the world’s best motorcycle racer:
This is me:
Other than public embracing my inner Average Guy, what’s my point?
Well, in reading what most of the Agile and Lean coaches I know write here, I’m wondering if we’re in the grip of a collective fantasy. We think we’re all coaching at the Olympic Training Center in Boulder, or trackside at Jerez.
Respectfully – to all of us and to the folks we try and help – we’re not.
We are, the vast majority of us, in the business of helping average organizations get better. There’s no shame or dishonor in that. In fact, in my value system, it’s kind of the best thing anyone can do. Why? Because most people and organizations are in that middle third, and if we can get good at moving them toward or even into the top third, we’ll impact a whole lot of folks and deliver a whole ton of value. And isn’t that what we’re in this game for?
Why does this matter?
Because this is how Marc Marquez trains:
And this is how I train:
What would happen if Marc Marquez’ trainer got stuck with me for a month? Well, either they’d dumb down what they were doing to the point of being meaningless, or else they’d push me so hard I’d quit.
My coach at our local gym is amazing. She designs workouts that challenge a group of people ranging from my sorry self to a young woman who is a serious Crossfit competitor at a regional level. And those workouts push each of us hard enough to improve us and yet don’t destroy our enjoyment or hurt us so we stop coming.
We set out agile practices that are the equivalent of the fitness models on Instagram, and then when we bolt these into average organizations we’re stunned that they don’t stick.
I want to suggest an alternative path. Let’s be the neighborhood gym coach who pulls average people in to fitness, and helps them build a habit of being fit and improving. Because if we can improve the agility of average organizations and set up processes that set them on a journey of continuous improvement toward ‘organizational fitness’ I’ve got to believe they would be better off than with five rounds of disruptive and unproductive ‘shock transformations’ no matter how well the ideas behind the transformations stand up in conference panels.
I’m interested in building a cookbook for doing this. I’d love to hear from folks who’d be interested in testing the recipes, or – even better – helping me write some of them.