Coaches & Leadership
You’re not always going to agree with the people on your staff.
You’re going to see a game situation differently. You’re going to evaluate a player differently. You’re going to have a different read on what the team needs at a given moment. That’s not a sign that the staff is broken. It’s a sign that you have different perspectives in the room — which is exactly what a good staff should have.
The question is not whether disagreement will happen. It’s what you do with it when it does.
Read this passage slowly.
Plans fail for lack of counsel, but with many advisers they succeed.
Proverbs 15:22 — NIVLet that sit for a second before you move.
Many advisers. The wisdom of multiple perspectives is built into Proverbs as a recurring principle. Plans that are tested against multiple viewpoints are more likely to succeed than plans formed in a single mind. The disagreement between advisers, when it’s handled well, is the mechanism by which plans improve.
The key phrase is “handled well.” Staff disagreement handled badly — arguments that go underground, resentments that accumulate, passive-aggressive implementation of a decision you voted against — is corrosive. The same disagreement handled well is the thing that produces the best available decision.
What does handling it well look like? It means the disagreement happens in the room, not around it. Staff members who have a different view say it directly, in the meeting, to the person with the decision authority. Not to each other afterward, not to the players, not to people outside the program.
It means once the decision is made — even if you disagreed — you implement it fully. You don’t implement it at 80% effort because you didn’t get the outcome you argued for. You implement it completely, because a fractured implementation of a good decision produces worse results than a complete implementation of a mediocre one.
And it means the head coach creates genuine safety for disagreement. The staff that only tells the head coach what they want to hear is not serving them or the program well.
The disagreement handled well is the mechanism by which decisions improve. The same disagreement handled badly is what corrodes a staff.
Is there a disagreement on this staff that hasn’t been said out loud in the room yet but is being managed around? What would bringing it into the room look like?
Names the underground disagreement. This question requires a staff culture where it’s safe to name it.
Say the disagreement in the room. Then implement the decision fully. Both.
This devotional is specifically for a coaching staff meeting. It’s most effective when delivered by the head coach as an invitation to honest staff dialogue.