You should change my mind

The Power of Surprise

Michael Rousell gives a Tedx Talk detailing the power of surprise, with much of the presentation centered around how surprise can potentially create belief change or belief confirmation. Here is an example he gives to introduce the idea:

“... think about Samantha. Samantha used to think that her shyness was a weakness. That is, until one day when her swim coach named her captain of the swim team. He told the team, ‘She may be shy, but when she talks, you are going to want to listen.’ Since that surprise comment, she now feels quietly powerful.”

Humans are very rarely aware of their beliefs, why they have them, how to change them, and how they impact our own lives.

Another example given by Michael includes a female character who felt “ungraceful and odd looking”. This was her current belief until one day she overheard her aunt describing her as “exotic looking”. Suddenly, this woman’s worldview has changed, and she now embraces her differences.

The stories and ideas here lead us to a few different conclusions. First, our words and actions are incredibly powerful. Samantha lived with the idea of shyness being a weakness. Samantha didn’t do anything to explicitly reframe that belief, quite the opposite, as someone else provided a strong stimulus for change. Now, who is to say Samantha wasn’t getting conflicting signals before that, but the signals lacked enough strength to reach a critical belief threshold. Michael remarks, these comments and ideas “may not result in immediate change.” They act to sow different beliefs, over time developing into a powerful reinterpretation of the self and the world.

Beliefs and Biases

The next idea worth considering is the ethereal nature of beliefs. They exist, they drive behavior, they influence many of our interactions with the self and others, but they can’t be pinned down or driven into conscious awareness. This reinforces the need for metacognition or thinking about thinking. Instead of being a passive participant in the world, question beliefs, question the emotional responses to different situations, think about decision making and why people do what they do.

What is not being said is that our automatic responses are “bad” or entirely flawed. They aren’t, otherwise, they likely would have been selected against during our evolutionary lifespan. Confirmation bias (the act of seeking out confirming information for specific beliefs), availability bias (overestimating the likelihood of an event because of an ability to recall many of those events in memory), recency bias (favoring recent events over past events), all have a place. It’s just that those biases have more limited utility than we give them credit for. 

This information leads us to seriously consider the language used when discussing aspects of someone’s beliefs. You never know what kind of positive impact you could have on someone you care about.

“You are a confabulatory creature by nature. You are always explaining to yourself the motivations for your actions and the causes to the effects in your life, and you make them up without realizing it when you don't know the answers. Over time, these explanations become your idea of who you are and your place in the world. They are your self... You are a story you tell yourself.” - David McRaney

Where talent becomes achievement

Inspired by a conversation with a previously close friend, they mentioned a changing interest, more recently finding the field of physics something they would have wanted to pursue during their undergrad. The only reservation lies in the present, the belief their math skills wouldn’t be up to the challenge. The person I'm talking about also happened to play sports at a very high level, graduated with a degree in one of the other hard sciences, and is, more or less, an intelligent and very hard-working person. My question to them, or maybe statement is a better word, was, “wouldn’t you just do the work to succeed?”

This sounds like an obvious question to some, and maybe an untasteful question to others. On the one hand, all of the previous evidence (i.e., achievements) indicates a drive to do whatever it takes to reach their goals. On the other hand, who is to say what someone could or couldn’t do?

The Science of Human Achievement

There’s a paper that has seemed to fly under the radar, at least amongst my peer group. The lead author is Angela Duckworth, and the topic is human achievement. Basically, the researchers were inspired by Newtonian classical mechanics, suggesting that distance traveled acts as a metaphor for human achievement.

“... just as distance is the multiplicative product of speed and time, achievement is the multiplicative product of skill and effort. And, finally, with effort, not only does achievement increase, so, too, does skill, since skill is the multiplicative product of talent and effort.” (Duckworth, Eichstaedt, & Ungar, 2015)

Achievement is defined as the movement from a starting point to a desired end. The variables creating achievement are skill and effort. Skill is composed of talent and effort, so effort plays into this process twice. So, what does all of this mean? From our starting point we have talent, “defined as the rate at which skill is acquired with effort”, and effort. Then, talent and effort create skill. When skill is introduced to effort, we get achievement. Let me paint that out a bit more obviously:

Talent = the rate of change in skill, per unit effort

 Skill = talent · effort

Achievement = skill · effort

As you can easily tell, effort is far more important than talent in this understanding of human achievement. Effort and talent create skill, then skill and effort create achievement. Effort influences skill and achievement. Talent is a latent potential; effort is the realizing force. 

You could understand my surprise when my friend said they would have a hard time with a physics major given their less-than-ideal math skills. Maybe an initial starting point wouldn’t suggest success, but effort heavily influences that over the long run. And in this example, effort isn’t deficient.

The science of the coach-athlete relationship

Introduction

Athletes of all sports rely on an individual coach or a team of coaches to help prepare them for different levels of competition. The ability to perform with, or as, the best in sport can require decades of preparation, all guided by those with a finely developed expertise. Although straightforward, it is not as simple as pairing up the most talented to create the best outcome. Athletes and coaches bring different personality profiles, life experiences, preferences, and needs to the relationship. The interaction of these differences can create a long lasting, productive relationship or it can create a large amount of difficulty, friction, and resentment.

The coach-athlete relationship has received much attention in the scientific literature over the last few decades, with most of the research involving Dr. Sophia Jowett of Loughborough University. Her work has culminated in a model, the 3+1Cs, to understand and measure the quality of a coach-athlete relationship. This matters because it allows coaches, sport psychologists, and scientists to measure and compare the qualities of these dyads (i.e., the smallest social unit - two people), providing information for those who want to improve or replicate them. The specific model discussed in this article is called the 3+1Cs, with the Cs referencing closeness, complementarity, commitment, and co-orientation.

Starting Strong

Broadly speaking, a relationship is a lasting situation in which the people’s thoughts, feelings, and cognitions become interconnected (Jowett, 2005). The need for social connection is a powerful feature of our existence, with effective relationships creating self-efficacy, expanding cognitive abilities, promoting optimal performance, human flourishing, facilitating happiness, mental health, subjective well-being, socio-emotional and cognitive development, and self-esteem (LaVoi, 2007). An inability to form or maintain effective relationships can lead to emotional problems, and maladaptive, neurotic and destructive behaviors and negatively alter life pathways and developmental trajectories at critical timepoints (LaVoi, 2007). 

In sport, an athlete’s success hinges on their preparation, typically created and managed by the coach. The process of coach involvement occurs across a variety of timelines, including a few days up to a few decades. Kendrick Farris and Kyle Pierce are a notable example, with the American duo collaborating for three Olympic games, including Kendrick’s development preceding the first games. Other non-primary coaches may get touch points for camps, workshops, and short stints, but generally, we see the coach-athlete relationship spanning longer periods of time, as performance is an organic outgrowth of extended preparatory periods. 

The relationship an athlete creates with their coach is ultimately the key that opens the door to current or future success. There are many other relationships created during a sporting career, but very few hold more importance than the coach-athlete relationship. Depending on who you ask and what the level of competition is, success can be defined in a myriad of ways, ranging from championships or titles won to positive changes in the athlete’s physiology (i.e., greater force production, faster sprint times, improved skill acquisition). For higher levels of performance, this is the case, but common measures of success do not always create effective relationships, those extending beyond the practice field.

Parsing Out Success and Effectiveness

Coaching effectiveness can be thought of as the impact on the person, measured by the degree of positive growth and development, not solely defined by changes in physical mastery (Jowett, 2005). This form of coaching has undertones of empathy, honesty, support, mutual liking, acceptance, caring, and positive regard (Jowett, 2005). On the other hand, ineffectiveness in coaching is highlighted by a lack of care and interest, proximity, a power imbalance, deceit, and exploitation (Jowett, 2005). 

The distinction here between coaching success and effectiveness is necessary to differentiate the quality of the coach-athlete relationship. Overwhelmingly, the relationship can be effective, but unsuccessful, and still be beneficial over the long run. Although, that’s not to say that coaching success doesn’t matter, but it can fall short and still provide value to the dyad. Whereas coaching success, void of effectiveness, can be detrimental and restrict people from finding greater meaning in life. 

“Overall, an effective (successful or unsuccessful) coach-athlete relationship is a helping relationship where the coach intelligently uses his/her ‘power’ and has the intention to promote the growth, development, maturity and functioning of his/her athletes over and beyond performance success.” (Jowett, 2005)

The 3+1Cs

Being able to define, measure, and purposefully change the components of a relationship is of the utmost importance. Without those abilities, most relationships develop according to the needs, wants, and actions of the individuals involved. This is less likely to create a situation where both individuals thrive and are able to work towards optimal functioning, especially so in a sports setting. 

Jowett, through her research, created a conceptual model of the coach-athlete dyad, emphasizing four constructs (e.g., closeness, commitment, complementarity, and co-orientation). These constructs run in parallel with our previous definition of a relationship, where the people involved are interconnected through their thoughts, feelings, and cognitions. A thorough understanding of the constructs can allow for their appreciation, application, and adjustment.

Closeness

The first construct is closeness, defined here as a mutual liking, trust, and respect for one another (Jowett, 2007). Closeness encapsulates the affective component of a relationship, and, at its highest level, showcases a bond akin to a mother/father figure or close friend (Jowett & Clark-Carter, 2006). Relationships without closeness display distrust, disrespect, and dislike (Jowett & Clark-Carter, 2006). As far as what creates a feeling of closeness, work done by LaVoi (2007) showed that, by far, communication is the most salient dimension in a close relationship. To create a close relationship, emphasize communication on and off the playing field.

“In short, ‘communication affects and is affected by the coach-athlete relationship’ [41, p.11] and, for the purpose of this study, it appears as if communication affects and is affected by perceptions of closeness.” (LaVoi, 2007)

Commitment 

Commitment, as a construct, is defined as the long-term orientation to the relationship undertaken by the coach and athlete, including thoughts of attachment and intention to maintain the relationship over time, despite ups and downs (Jowett, 2007; Jowett, 2017). This is contrasted to relationships lacking in commitment, expressed in distance, unfriendliness, and detachment (Jowett, 2017). In sport, you are bound to face many difficulties which challenge both the coach and the athlete (e.g., injury, repeated failure, mental hurdles). Commitment acts as the driver through those challenging times, warranting the energy and effort to push forward.

Behaviors that seem to reflect and drive commitment include the tendency to think in terms of “we, us, our”, the drive to accommodate disappointing behavior instead of retaliating, and the urge to perceive a particular relationship as being better than other coach-athlete relationships (Jowett, 2007). Coaches and athletes in more committed relationships are likely to use motivational strategies to stay invested in the dyad (i.e., providing reasons to stay in the current relationship), along with assurance that their partner can count on them (Davis, Jowett & Tafvelin, 2019). Commitment can be improved through the development and reinforcement of the dyad, seeing each other as a person you would be willing to fight for despite ups and downs in performance or related situations (e.g., injury). 

Complementarity

Complementarity is a construct centered around the interaction between the coach and athlete that are co-operative and effective, guided by behavioral properties such as being responsive, friendly, and willing (Jowett, 2005). The behaviors displayed through this construct are reciprocal in terms of control and affiliation (i.e., assigning and executing on responsibilities, creating a training environment that is supportive) (Jowett & Clark-Carter, 2006). Although, actions reflective of more or less complementarity can indicate the degree to which a member contributes to the relationship (e.g., taking resources, but not providing them) (Jowett, 2007). 

Work by Jowett and Meek (2000) examined the coach-athlete relationship dynamic of four married couples, who also form coach-athlete dyads. The results, particularly those examining complementarity, showed higher and more general second-order factors relating to the relationship. For the studied couples, the interpersonal behaviors reflected that of a director and follower, sustaining order in the procedures and task-oriented environment (Jowett & Meek, 2000). The second-order factors referred to “helping transactions”, initiating a cascade where influence is needed, wanted, and then supplied (Jowett & Meek, 2000). This highlights the ways that coaches can complement athletes (e.g., supplying inspiration that is deeply desired) or that athletes can complement coaches (e.g., executing on instructions).

To improve complementarity, find what the other person needs, wants, and provides. Those opportunities and values can be fulfilled, enhancing the quality of the relationship.

“The following quotation is representative of how the majority of athletes perceived the inspirational side of their coach: ‘He gives me the courage that I can accomplish the unthinkable. His way of asking and supporting, with such confidence, alters what I thought unachievable to achievable.’” (Jowett & Meek, 2000)

Co-orientation

This construct refers to the degree of similarity between the coach and athlete, from an assumed perspective, an actual perspective, and an empathetic understanding (Jowett, 2007). The dimensions also assume a direct and meta perspective, reflecting how the coach and athlete feel about their self-perceptions and meta-perceptions (e.g., ‘my coach trusts me’ is a meta-perception of closeness) (Jowett & Clark-Carter, 2006). Here are direction and meta perspectives of the three dimensions:

Assumed similarity, direct and meta perspective (Jowett, 2007):

A: I respect my coach. / A: My coach respects me. 

C: I respect my athlete. / C: My athlete respects me.

Actual similarity, direct perspective (Jowett, 2007):

C: I like my athlete. / A: I like my coach.

Empathetic understanding, direct and meta perspective (Jowett, 2007):

C: I trust my athlete. / A: My coach trusts me.

A: I trust my coach. / C: My athlete trusts me.

A = Athlete, C = Coach

These particular dimensions contribute to the depth of interdependence the relationship expresses. Dyads expressing similarity from each dimension highlight high levels of potential interdependence, whereas with low levels of similarity, there is likely to be low interdependence (Jowett, 2007). 

Relationships expressing high degrees of similarity and understanding are likely to experience higher levels of relationship satisfaction (Jowett & Clark-Carter, 2006). Whereas the inverse holds, and lower levels of similarity and understanding facilitate an ineffective relationship when conflict, disagreement, and false impressions arise (Jowett & Clark-Carter, 2006). The creation and maintenance of co-orientation starts with an appreciation for what the individual wants, and an alignment between that and the partner’s needs, wants, and hopes. 

“These studies also suggest that a single person’s experiences and perceptions are in some sense social and that individual perceivers are capable of creating potential for relationship change (for better or worse) based on their personal experiences and perceptions.

(Jowett & Clark-Carter, 2006)

Summary

The purpose of this article is to expose coaches and athletes to the constructs underpinning all coach-athlete dyads. Relationships, particularly those in sport, rely on an ability to interpret and anticipate the other person’s thoughts, feelings, and perceptions. Four constructs put forth by Jowett (2005), closeness, commitment, complementarity, and co-orientation, provide an avenue to develop, diagnose, repair, and/or replicate relationships. The degree to which these constructs are realized, provide a platform for both sporting success and effectiveness. An inability to understand and act on this information can be limiting, just as an inability to assume a meta perspective can leave both parties in a state of confusion (e.g., “I don’t think the coach likes me”). The proper care for and development of these constructs have the potential to create a cycle of sporting and personal flourishing.

References

Davis, L., Jowett, S., Tafvelin, S. (2019) Communication Strategies: The Fuel for Quality Coach-Athlete Relationships and Athlete Satisfaction. Frontiers in Psychology, 10, 2156.

Jowett, S. (2005). On Enhancing and Repairing the Coach-Athlete Relationship, in: Jowett, S. and Jones, M., eds., The Psychology of Coaching (pp. 14-26). British Psychological Society, Leicester.

Jowett, S. (2007). Interdependence Analysis and the 3+1Cs in the Coach-Athlete Relationship. In S. Jowett & D. Lavallee (Eds.), Social Psychology in Sport (pp. 15–27). Human Kinetics.

Jowett, S. (2017). Coaching effectiveness: the coach-athlete relationship at its heart. Current Opinion in Psychology, 16, 154-158.

Jowett, S., Clark-Carter, D. (2006). Perceptions of empathic accuracy and assumed similarity in the coach–athlete relationship. British Journal of Social Psychology, 45, 617-637.

LaVoi, N. M. (2007). Expanding the interpersonal dimension: Closeness in the coach-athlete relationship. International Journal of Sports Science and Coaching, 2(4), 497-512.

Rhind, D., Jowett, S. (2010). Relationship Maintenance Strategies in the Coach-Athlete Relationship: The Development of the COMPASS Model, Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, 22, 106-121.

Good work

Have you ever been told that you should be happier about your accomplishments or that you tried, and that’s what matters? I’m sure we are all nodding in agreement. This sentiment is generally accompanied by a hollow narrative, similar to the feeling of practicing what you are bad at (i.e., math problems, abstract thinking) and trying to convince yourself that you should be enjoying it. Angela Duckworth’s notoriety has largely come from the unearthing of the concept grit. Grit is the quality of bringing passion and perseverance over a lengthy span of time, focused on a small number of pursuits. Good work thrives on both of those qualities.

Passion does not in the slightest imply complete and utter enjoyment, just as not all accomplishments deserve the label good work. According to Ryan Doris, the philosophizing bodybuilder, good work is when you do something that impresses the self. Whether it is writing, sketching, lifting, or even generating ideas, good work can be mined from many sources. It is mostly related to a mindset, not so much the task itself:

“... live with trying really hard at everything… just be in a perpetual state of ‘is this good?’”

Then, as these acts of good work are stacked upon one another, really only then can you be at peace with your body of achievements. Similar to the idea of flow, when you bring skill to a challenging task and become fully immersed to the point of losing yourself for a brief period of time, there is a return like no other. Good work embodies a spirit, an attitude, a sense of direction, one that can be applied indiscriminately.

The achievements that stick out, creating such a deep sense of accomplishment that it’s hard to forget the memory, that’s what we should be chasing and it’s also what we should set as our standard. Showing up is not good work. Turning in something because it’s done is not good work. Success is not good work. Good work is doing everything with the intent of finishing and feeling deeply and profoundly impressed. 

“When was the last time that you actually impressed yourself?

That’s what I aim to do in my work.” - Ryan Doris

As you finish reading this article, I'm sure you are connecting dots from good work to mastery to deliberate practice, and everywhere in between. This is not a novel concept, but it is a way of framing the derivative of effort, passion, and time. Most material things leave us or break but prioritizing good work will change the way we interact with the world forever.