In this season in the Swiss pro-league (12 teams) already 5 coaches got fired out of ongoing contracts. Classic mistakes, I believe. Wrong decisions, based on a reflex we also can notice in economy, in everyday’s life and even if we are self-critical enough we have to admit that we step into this trap again and again by ourselves.
In the meantime we do know that changing the coach in the middle- and longterm doesn’t bring measurable positive effects. Thank’s to the according scientific studies from NA universities who did prove this and showed clear results. Still, it’s a nearly unchangeable theses, that a coach-change very likely has a positive effect in the short-term. This is a classical so called „regression to the average error“.
We always have expectations into a hockey-team because all teams have a certain theoretical potential. It absolutely doesn’t matter whether this team is a bad, an average or a good team. Throughout a full season every team will face periods of time with not fulfilling, fulfilling and more than fulfilling expectations and potential. E.g. you have potential-wise an average team and start the season with a period of not fulfilling the expectations. In addition one of your key-players is injured. It’s likely that this team will find itself pretty soon at the bottom in the rankings. It’s a common reflex that you change the coach in such a situation. What happens then, especially if at the same time the injured key-player comes back? The sooner or later your team will find itself in a phase of fulfilling expectations or even overachieving and - right you are - your team will have better results, your team climb in the standing in a direction you did expect from the very beginning. Owner and GM are happy with their decision to change the coach because everybody thinks you play better now because of the new coach. A fatal error, it’s the before mentioned „regression to the average-error“. It’s just normal that an average team who plays bad the sooner or later plays average and sometimes even better than that. It doesn’t matter whether you change the coach or not. Actually it does matter because to fire a coach out of an ongoing contract costs a lot of unnecessary money.
I give you some examples from life to underline my thesis. You play golf with a certain handicap, so you know your normal level of playing. Always when you play bad you take a golf-lesson with your teacher and after this lesson you play better. You think it’s because of the lesson what is most likely wrong. Please take once in a while a gold-lesson after you overachieved your level in playing and tell me then the immediate result after this lesson... you most likely will play just on your normal level or even underachieving – because it’s just natural not to compete always on the best level you can. If you are chronically in pain in your back you notice that the pain is sometimes as always, sometimes a little bit better and sometimes worse. If it’s worse you go to your doctor to get some treatments and after that – right you are – you feel most probably better, but maybe not because of the treatment, it’s because of being very likely that you feel better anyway the sooner or later – it’s once again the „regression to the average-effect“.
The basics of the “regression to the average-mirror” is the human yearning of being able to control and influence everything. We do believe that for at least 95% of all problems on this planet to have the right answer and solution. The truth is that we probably know much less than we think. Ice-Hockey is a perfect stage for this human behavior: If the power-play is not working we practice the power-play. If the goalie is playing worse than expected we hire a goalie-coach und if we think that the problem is causing from mental-weakness we will hire a mental-coach. For everything and always the coaches, the media, the crowd and the owners have an answer. If a coach would be honest for once and tell the media that he doesn’t have an answer to this or that problem – what actually would honor him – he would be in big danger of getting sacked. Especially the power-play thesis is a good one in my eyes: Througout a full season there are times when the powerplay is working really well, there are times when it’s working just average and times when the power-play really is bad… and all this exactly with the same power-play-strategy, the same players and the same coach und not related to practicing powerplay or not.
Please do think twice about my maybe not so common “wisdoms” before you throw them away. Please check in a self-critical way the lasting effect of so called “right” decisions.
Coming back to our hockey-teams. Of course you have to change coaches from time to time. You have to find the best possible coach for now and for the future. Also this recruiting is very important in a hockey-team. But changing the coach during an ongoing contract is in 90% of all cases the wrong decision in my eyes. It leads not to better results, we just think so if we are not self-critical enough.
Thomas Roost / 24th March 2011
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