The next time you experience a failure, think about why you failed instead of who was at fault. Try to look at it objectively so that you can do better next time. My friend Bobb Biehl suggests a list of questions to help you analyze any failure:
◄What lesson have I learned?
◄Am I grateful for this experience?
◄How can I turn the failure into success?
◄Practically speaking, where do I go from here?
◄Who else has failed in this way before, and how can that person help me?
◄How can my experience help others someday to keep from failing?
◄Did I fail because of another person, because of my situation, or because of myself?
◄Did I actually fail, or did I fall short of an unrealistically high standard?
◄Where did I succeed as well as fail?
People who blame others for their failures never overcome them.
Too many times I hear coaches making excuses for a poor game or, even worse, a poor season. On the collegiate level, in most every case, I believe the coaches are responsible for the outcome. After all, we have great control of our situation. If we lost, we can look to three areas in which we are responsible.
Preparation: this includes conditioning, strength training and most importantly, practice. This is the teaching phase. Did we teach them properly to play and handle the situations that arise in a game? Are we motivating them to give us our best in all areas of preparation?
Competition: this is all that goes into the game...the game plan, the timeouts and half-time adjustments. This is the coaching phase. Did we coach them properly to play and handle the situations that arise in a game? Are the motivated and prepared to carry out a game plan?
Recruiting: this obviously covers the people you are competing with on a daily basis…and I’m not just talking about your players but your staff as well. This is the people phase. If you team is not performing in practice and/or games at the level you expect – and you think you are preparing, coaching and motivating at a level that should produce positive results – than you better look at your recruiting. Blaming players is something I often hear coaches talking about after defeat. "They don't listen." "The can't finish in the paint." "The don't buy into what we are trying to do." Why? You have to look in the mirror to answer those questions.
To piggy back off of Maxwell’s questions, here is a list of questions that coaches might want to ask of themselves after a failure or setback:
◄When did the failure begin? A bad game didn’t just happen. A poor performance is simply a symptom to a bigger problem that you must correct. I guarantee you that if your team play poorly last night that you can look back at some time in practice or even away from the court and see the beginning of a problem.
◄Where did the failure begin? Was it in recruiting? It is poor practice habits or preparation? Was it in the development of roles or team chemistry? You have to go to the location of the problem to begin fixing or eliminating it.
◄How did I allow the failure to be born and grow? This is the most difficult question because it starts with admitting that you are the source of the problem. However, with the right attitude, it is an amazing feeling because with the answer to that question, you empower yourself to develop and execute a solution.
"When you lose, everybody's willing to think, 'What did I do wrong? What do I need to do better?’ I think the worst thing you can do is play poorly and still win."
–Nick Saban
Self-examination is the first step to growth and improvement. It is also a step that you can’t bypass.
I remember after losing a semi-final game in the Final Four and having a long, philosophical discussion with Hall of Fame coach Billie Moore. She asked me why we had lost that particular game. I gave her the generic standby answer: "We just didn't bring our A game." She quickly responded "Why not?" I froze for a bit only for her to follow up with, "It is easy not to take the time to break down the last game of the season but there are reasons your team lost. If you don't take the time to look deeply at those reasons you won't be able to correct them and find yourself in this situation again in the future."
