Coaching Obsession: Recommendations for Managing the Work Life Balance. Part 1.
Coaching Obsession: An Introduction
‘’To be a good coach you have to be obsessed’’ Eddie Jones 2016.
For those of you unfamiliar with the England Rugby Coach, Eddie Jones qualifies by most standards as a good coach, having recently overseen a completely undefeated year and elevated the team's position to second in the world. Eddie is known for his obsession and frequently relies on less than five hours sleep [1]. This article will look at how obsession with work may affect other factors within a coach’s life and will attempt to provide a strategy to maintain a career focus which doesn’t prove detrimental to other areas of one's live. Whilst this article is written from a coach’s perspective, there is no reason it couldn’t apply to anyone who may be having difficulties maintaining a work-life balance.
Coaching is by definition a competitive environment and in order to succeed at a high level, you have to be willing to work harder than others. Books such as ‘’Bounce’’ and ‘’Outliers‘’ have popularised the 10,000 hour rule, attempting to add a more tangible rationale for hard work and deliberate practice leading to success in one’s field. As a coach, it is only natural that an individual will associate practice with success and therefore the more work you put in, the better coach you become. This accords perfectly with the message you are attempting to put across to your athletes, that success can be created due to sacrifice and dedication to a goal. Such a mindset is embodied by former All Black captain, Sean FitzPatrick, who provides the following quote;
‘’If you ask most business people that, or most sportsmen, they’ll say family’s number one, work’s number two, but then if you actually sit down and think, “Well actually, no. Work’s actually number one, family’s number two”, and then you might think to yourself, “You bloody horrible person, that’s terrible”, but if you want to be the best in the world, you’ve got to put that at number one . . . you’ve got to make huge sacrifices.’’ [2]
Losing Perspective
This ‘succeed-at-all-costs’ attitude is in many ways admirable. However, it also has pitfalls and can lead to personal or relationship problems if not carefully managed. These problems can be accentuated by positions of leadership where the decisions you make can heavily affect others as well as yourself. This creates additional pressure and stress that can impinge further on day-to-day life. Several coaches have acknowledged this, including current Brighton and Hove Albion manager, Chris Hughton, who remarked, ‘’there may be a perfect manager or head coach out there who finds time for himself and his family, and has a rounded lifestyle which prioritises things which really matter, but I’ve never met him’’[3].
The obsession with work ahead of everything else can affect not just relationships but also personal health. For instance, a study from Simply Business revealed 25% of small business owners have had to leave work due to stress or illness[4]. I have personal experience of this. In 2013 I contracted severe pneumonia. I believe a large factor in contracting the illness was due to not wanting to rest or take time off from my various commitments and eventually I paid the price for it. Moreover, this type of mindset can negatively affect your career if not managed correctly. Sport offers various examples where retrospectively coaches have described their lack of perspective and how it affected their work. Toulon head coach, Mike Ford, claimed that he had ‘’failed to see the wood for the trees"[5]’ during the end of his time with Bath, whilst Bill Walsh references the story of Dick Vermeil in his book, ‘the Score Takes Care of Itself’. Dick was eventually so worn out by his job at the Philadelphia Eagles that he retired for fourteen years! [6].
Obsession is on the one hand necessary for success but on the other hand can create serious health and relationship issues or severely affect your career itself. However, there are methods some of which I have personally experience of that attempt to manage this paradox and create a sustainable model for both pursuit of personal and professional goals and the maintenance of personal well-being. This is supported by research as will be examined in part two of this article.
References
