7 Coaching Lessons from the World of Sport: #4

#4 Do not dwell on mistakes, do not point fingers

What happens when you dwell on an error on the football pitch? When you dwell on a teammate’s error?

You become distracted right? How often do you see a team score a goal and follow it up quickly with another one, because the opposing team hasn’t been able to move on from the mistake?

I’m in Organisational Development, so it’s a bit of a cliché me saying this, but how often do we focus on the learning that we can gain from a mistake, rather than just the mistake?

We all know how hard it is to deal with a mistake when it impacts a project or a team greatly, but we also all know how the majority of people won’t be let that mistake happen again. Repeated mistakes or behaviour are indeed a problem to be addressed, but not letting go of a team member’s mistake after it has happened is equally a problem.

So let’s think… how well do you let people come back from their mistakes? How do we support others in getting over their possible guilt and embarrassment to come back stronger?

An example from the sporting world for me, is David Beckham’s sending off in the 1998 World Cup against Argentina. During the second round match of the championship, Beckham was fouled by the Argentinian captain and went down. Then, seeing red, he retaliated, kicking the shin of the opposing player before getting up off the floor. The Argentinian player went down like he had been shot of course (and has subsequently admitted to overacting) however the deed occurred right in front of the referee and Beckham received a red card.

After being such a star at Man United, contributing so much to England’s qualifying for this World Cup and grafting on the pitch in the group stage, this one mistake turned the entire nation against him. England were eventually knocked out on penalties, but no one really remembers Batty missing his penalty to put us out. Rather everyone’s attention was directed towards that heinous villain David Beckham, with the petulant temper, the annoying Spice Girl wife and the fact that he, of course, lost us the entire World Cup (not just that second round match).

The press were ruthless, with The Sun tabloid printing his face on dartboards for people to cut out of the paper and people around the country making David Beckham effigies to be hanged or stabbed with pins.

This could have been the end for Beckham, and yet he worked his way back into the nation’s psyche as a national treasure, champion of the 2012 London Olympics and even had his ‘right’ and ‘left’ foot mentioned in the cinematic masterpiece “Love Actually”, when Prime Minister Hugh Grant is waxing lyrical about the strength of the British nation.

Strength of character indeed to come back from the public bashing he received and the cold shoulder from his teammates in the changing room afterwards. In his autobiography however, he makes one key comment about an act that really helped him immediately after the end of the match. His captain, Tony Adams, big Arsenal defender, walked over to him in the changing room in and, in front of all the other team members, put his arm around him, gave him a strong squeeze and said ‘Look son, everyone makes mistakes, don’t let it get you down. You are going to come back stronger and better.

Who knows, perhaps Beckham would still have come back and captained his country, still become the nation’s darling and taken elocution lessons, even without Adams’s small gesture. Then again, perhaps not. Adams, as his captain, gave him a small nod that it was ok to have made that mistake.