You Don't Tell Them How, You Show Them How.

POINT TO PONDER

An ounce of practice is worth more than tons of preaching.

                                                    - Mahatma Gandhi

    

STORY LINE

Vince Lombardi, two-time superbowl coach and Pro Football Hall of Fame inductee, was known for his relentless dedication to practice. He would line his players in formation to run a play. The players would run the drill. Any variation or mistake, however minor, would lead to Lombardi yelling out, "run it again!" 

     And they would run it again. This time something else would be off. "Run it again," Lombardi would bellow. 

    And again they would run the play. And again. And again...

    After a while the players had run it so many times that they could catch the mistake themselves and would bark at each other, "run it again," before Lombardi could chime in. The players would line up and run the play over and over until they knew what the play felt like free of error. 

 

REFLECTION by Rajiv Shah

Vince Lombardi didn't just tell his players how to play, he provided the framework to allow them to feel what it was like to get the play right. Lombardi wanted his players to achieve mastery of the play, that action, not through lecture but through execution. Once mastery is achieved a player doesn't have to think about the play, he can just feel it and be fully present in the job at hand. 

    Repeated practice led to mastery and mastery allowed his players to enter what psychologist, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi termed a "flow state" - also known as being in the groove or in the zone. And to be in the zone you can't be thinking about how you are performing an action but instinctively acting and reacting in the moment to any given stimuli. 

    In the acting world, Stella Adler (famed teacher to Marlon Brando, Robert DeNiro, and Benicio Del Toro) spoke of rehearsing to the point where you stop thinking about what you are doing or how you are doing it, but you just do it in the moment. Adler called achieving this state as getting back to zero. Zero being a place of simplicity, connection, and effortlessness. But Adler believed that effortlessness came from many hours of preparation, so many hours that you could no longer see that preparation at work. 

    Lombardi was getting his players back to zero. They repeatedly ran plays so that in a game situation the players were able to act and react to given circumstances fully present in the moment. Vince Lombardi understood that through repeated practice the players would learn for themselves the right execution. He didn't tell them how, he showed them. 

Comments

[Rajiv Shah]

Great article regarding flow states and a section how flow states are applicable at work:

http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/199707/finding-flow

[elisabeth]

"Watch your thoughts, for they become words. Watch your words, for they become actions. Watch your actions, for they become...habits. Watch your habits, for they become your character. And watch your character, for it becomes your destiny! What we think we become." - Margaret Thatcher

The ultimate practice.

[chiaoju]

Perhaps the repetitive action has created the behavior of staying focus and 'getting your head in the game'. The thinking process still exist, only in a different manner. Not so much about "would this be right?" but more like "this is what I'm going to do" and just do it.

Our mind is so powerful, that if you want an egg to stand, with a focus mind, you can make the egg stand.

[California Guy]

Not just in the workplace but also in the home. As parents, it is our actions that get imprinted into the minds of our children regardless of the words that we speak.

Early on, it is very important to reinforce our words with the corresponding behaviors. If we want children to have a positive view of school work, then we must be willing to sit down and go through each homework exercise until they can work independently and only ask us for the occasional helping hand. If we want children to work through mistakes and maintain a forward looking attitude, then we must minimize the blaming-and-complaining and discuss with them what they can learn from the past so they do not repeat the same mistakes in the future.

This coaching or teaching mindset is what I have observed with role models in my family, in the workplace, and in the world at large.

[Eastcoast]

We should all be thankful God does not respond, like Lombardi, to our prayer life by saying, "Run it again."