Optimizing Peak Performance Using A Process Versus Product Approach

John Wooden the "Wizard of Westwood". A coach who put his mark on the coaching fraternity that will never be equaled. He spent 40 seasons as a Head Coach and finished with a record of 885-203. That's a winning percentage of .813! He spent 27 years roaming the sidelines at UCLA and finished 620-147. Including 10 National Championships and 19 Conference Championships.

During that time he won 7 consecutive National Championships, won 38 consecutive tournament games, and 88 consecutive games. Not to mention went undefeated four times during that stretch. His success has been documented and unparalleled. It's insane and will never be duplicated.

I first began my coaching career as a 20 year old college student coaching JV basketball. I was totally addicted right away. I read, listened, went to clinics, watched coaching tapes, I mean I studied every offense and defense there was available. I studied every technique until I could talk about it like I came up with it. Over 5 or 6 years I saw improvement in our players and in our team but not as much as I would have liked.

I took over that 6th year as the Head Baseball Coach as well. Using the same basic approach I focused on teaching our players the game and techniques. We had a good season too losing late in the South Jersey Championship game. I went into that off season wanting to improve as a coach but reading more about techniques and team defense etc... wasn't going to be productive enough. So I began pouring through everything I could find about the coaches I respected the most. I wanted to know how they taught their teams concepts like mental toughness, approach to the game, and their philosophy of coaching.

One of those coaches was John Wooden. Coach Wooden has written a lot of books and has a lot of coaching philosophies and beliefs. He is most famous for the his Pyramid of Success. One day I was reading his stuff and I came across a concept he referred to as Process versus Product. I light went of in my head when I began to read it. I could immediately see the benefits of this approach. I could immediately see how to adapt it to baseball. I know for a fact, that it led us to the success we had.

The Process versus Product concept as it applies to coaching and playing is not complicated. Process is the way you do things and product is the end result. An example would be a batter. The process is whether or not it was a good at bat. While the product is the end result of a hit, walk, strikeout etc... If your goal as a coach is to build teams who play consistent and at peak performance a majority of the time then you must have a philosophy that is process oriented.

If your a competitive coach or player (which you probably are if your taken the time to read this)then your also probably a Type A personality who deep down believes you can will yourself to victory. The Refuse to Lose mentality which sells T-shirts and bumper stickers but doesn't win games. Wanting to win and winning are two completely different things. The game of baseball is a great reminder to the truth of that statement. Making a great pitch does ensure you will get the batter out. Hitting the ball on the screws does not mean you will get a hit.

When I came back to take over the High School program in my hometown I began laying the foundation for a process oriented ball club. I broke it down into 6 phases in order to teach the players effectively.

Phase #1: Educate
Phase #2: Control/Can't Control
Phase #3: Build Processes
Phase #4: Simulate Game Situations
Phase #5: Self Evaluation
Phase #6: Reward

I took these 6 phases and began hammering them home every single day until it became routine for our players. Until it was a way of life for them. I wanted them to not even know how to play the game any other way. By the end of our first season the players had bought in and we took off. Over the next 6 seasons we captured 6 consecutive South Jersey Championships and 4 State Championships. In 2005 the team won both the Diamond Classic (An invitational tournament harder to win the a State Championship) and the Courier Cup as the number 1 team in South Jersey. For a small group 1 team like Pennsville it was quite an accomplishment for our boys.

Here is a breakdown of the 6 phases:

Phase #1: Educate

The first thing we did was educate the players on the concept of Process versus Product. I explained to them exactly what Process meant and exactly what product meant. I told them process is the small details and how we prepare before each pitch. How process was knowing exactly what to do in each situation they would be in. It was a game plan on how to get ready for the next pitch. I then explained how Product was the end result, nothing more nothing less.

What I had seen in my players in the past were guys who went 0-4 and were hanging their heads while guys who went 3-4 were grinning ear to ear. Never mind the fact that the 3-4 player had two Texas's leaguers and a slow roller for an infield hit. Also, did a poor job of working the count and spent most of the day in the hole. Meanwhile, the 0-4 player had 4 great at bats. His approach was sound, worked the count to his benefit, and hit the ball hard 3 times.

I wanted the players to understand that it is the approach that we base our confidence on not the end result. It is not an easy task for anyone, let alone a 16 year kid, to buy into this concept. But it can and should be done! I spoke to them about this concept daily. I am sure I got to the point where they were like, "here we go again!" but that's how important it is.

We all know how efficient fighter pilots are when they fly. We know how successful our pilots are in the heat of battle when they are in a dog fight. I began studying how they were trained and found an underlying theme to their consistency. Although, just like baseball, there is a feel and an instinct in their game there is also a process for everything they do. It is the processes they follow that allow them to fly with confidence and know what to do in every given situation.

We think we are nervous in a tight ball game, what do you think they feel in a dog fight at Mach 5 where the product is live or die! But yet they perform at peak performance at an unbelievably high percentage of the time because they follow the processes set up for them. Even when they are nervous or scared their bodies take over and run the processes for them because they know no other way. They have been trained to do exactly that! This builds confidence in anyone and at the end of the day confidence is what determines success and failure.

In most cases enemy fighters are beat before they even match-up with one of our pilots. The same thing holds true on the ball field. Some teams are beat before the game even starts because they don't have an underlying confidence in how to handle them self. They don't have a process!

Phase #2: Can Control/Can't Control

The second thing I would do is have the players make two lists of things we could control and things we could not control. I put them on poster boards and hung them up in the locker room. Once the list were made I explain to them that everything on the can't control poster board was out of our control so we are not going to worry about it. We are not going to spend anytime talking about it or working on it.

Then I explained you can not base your self-confidence on things you can't control in life or especially the game of the baseball. You can not control whether or not you get a hit but you can control whether or not you have a good at bat. This is what we would base our self-confidence on. If we could control it then we would base our self-confidence off of those factors. If our Process was good then we felt good regardless of the Product.


Phase #3: Build Processes

The next thing we did was study the Can Control board. We took every single detail we could control and built a process for how we would handle that part of the game. We wanted every detailed covered. For example we had a process for how we prepared for games if they were home and if they were away. Take away games for example: I knew in order to win a State Championship you had to go on the road. I didn't want to leave how we prepared on away games to chance.

We would arrive in the locker for away games. Dress, gather our equipment, and board the bus. The varsity players were required to sit in the front of the bus were I could talk with them about the game plan. The further the players are away from the Head Coach the more they will fool around and less prepared they are for the game! When the bus departed players were allowed to relax and talk until the bus left Pennsville.

Once the bus cross out of Pennsville the players were required to stop talking and begin playing the game in their mind. To focus on their job at hand. I am sure some did much better then others. Point here is the players all settled down into a relaxed state. When we would get to a point approximately 15 minutes away we would turn on a CD player with a premade CD of 4 to 5 songs that were our game day songs. We always ended the ride by listening to Eminem's "Lose Yourself"! By the time we got to that song we had the bounce in our step when we walked off the bus. More importantly, we were in a frame of mind to get after it.

In 2005, the most decorated team I coached, they took to that process better then any other team I had. They were ready when we walked off the bus every time! They sang the songs and believed in them. I know it might seem a little softballish but it was a coordinated, focused effort of preparing. In fact, the only day I didn't ride the bus to a game, was the day our bid for 7 consecutive South Jersey Championships ended. That's not a knock at my assistant coaches. I know they will read this and think what the hell!

It wasn't their fault and I am not implying that it was. It was my deal and it still haunts from time to time that I wasn't on the bus. My wife gave birth to our fourth child that day and I got to the game in the 3rd inning. I mean I was never going to miss the birth of my daughter but I wish I could have been with my guys from the locker room to the field. Truth is, I could have rode the bus and maybe we still would have lost. But deep down I still feel bad for not being there with them.

We had a process for hitting, fielding, throwing, pitching, situations, bus rides, you name it our players had a game plan of how they would handle it. Again this leaves nothing to chance and puts you in control of how you perform. I do not believe you can control whether you win or lose but I do believe you can control how you play. I almost never even talked about winning or losing and even the few times I did it was emotions getting the better of me. You can't control it so don't focus on it. Instead build processes for what you can control so you are consistent in your play. You and I both know if your process is consistently good you will win the majority of the time!

Phase # 4: Simulate Game Situations

I will not go into how I believe you should simulate game situations in this post but I do want to make the point of how critical it is to your ball club. If we expect players to make plays, know what to do with the ball in any given situation, make reads on the base paths, then we need to give them those situations everyday in practice. If we think as coaches they will know what to do without repping it everyday then we are leaving games to chance.

Casinos run games of chance and the house almost always wins. The odds are in their favor. As a coach I don't want to be the gambler I want to be the house! In order to swing the odds in your favor then you must rep every situation. Build a process for it, teach it to your players, and then put them in situations in practice so they can rep the process. This allows them to feel more comfortable in the games and dramatically improves their success rate.

For example, we had an On Deck Approach. We built a process for how our hitters should approach their plate appearances from the dugout, to the on deck circle, to the batters box. They would study the pitcher from the dugout. 2 batters away from on deck circle put batting gloves on, get your helmet, and bat. 1 batter away from the on deck circle we are studying pitcher and must know the situation of the game. As soon as the batter finishes his plate appearance you are ready to walk right out to the on deck circle. We never used a weight for the bat. Instead they would time the pitcher taking swings on each pitch he threw. Seeing on each game speed swing a ball in that we turn on. Then a ball away we drive into the gap. Two strike approach staying inside the ball. We had 3 or 4 hits on the pitcher before we every got in the box.

Once in the box we had a process of how we would handle the pitcher but that's for another post. Point being, when games were tight and players were nervous they had a sequence to follow that always prepared them to have their body ready. It's no different then the fighter pilots in the sky. Well except that whole death thing! If we expect players to commit these processes to unconscious memory then we had better train them that way in practice everyday and give them the reps they need.

Phase #5: Self Evaluation

Self evaluation is one the best teaching tools out there. What we did was create a Players Grade Book. It was broken down into different process areas: Hitting, fielding (we had a special set for the catchers), Pitching, Base Running, and Head. Each of these areas were broken down in 5 or 6 sub categories. An example would be:

Hitting
1. Studying Pitcher
2. On Deck Approach
etc...

They were processes that went with that skill. After each practice or game the players would grab their notebooks and grade themselves on a scale of 1 to 3. 3 being the best. They would go through and grade themselves on about 25 areas, 20 if they were not a pitcher. It would take the players 2 or 3 minutes to fill it out and then put it back in their notebook before they left. I would check them once a week. I was really only checking to see if they had done them.

Regardless of what grade they gave themselves it forced them to think about all the important concepts in playing the game. They had to think did I do this or not. They can lie with the grade they give themselves but they can't lie to themselves about what they actually did. Again, this forces them to self evaluate their game.

Phase #6: Reward

As a coach you must reward the players when their process is good. Especially, when their process is good but they haven't got much in the score book to show for it. You don't need to make a big deal about the guy who had 3 hits. He already feels good. Instead make a big deal about the player who went 0-4 but had a great process and quality at bats.

One example of how we did this was with an award called Greenie Board. Greenie Board was a poster board hung on the wall. It was green by the way. After practice and games players who had quality at bats signed the board. I had tons of players who would not get a hit in the game but still sign the board. The board was based on process and quality at bats. At the end of the year who ever had the most signatures took it home with them.

Some of you may be thinking at this point why the word Greenie Board? Naval aviators when they train to be fighter pilots are graded on how well they land planes on the aircraft carriers. Their process is graded and the top scores are put up on what is called the Greenie Board. It seemed only fitting to name our hitting award after them.

In Conclusion

All the great businesses, infantries, teams, you name it, have a process of how they handle their business. It is a blue print for success that allows them to not only be successful but repeat it over and over. Training any other way is simply foolish in my eyes. It is not only a skill that will allow your players to be great on the field but it is something they can use in their everyday life. It takes the guess work out and allows your natural ability to shine.

Playing great is still about instinct, timing, rhythm, and tempo. Having a process allows you to be focused and prepared so those traits can surface and you can play to your potential. Best of luck!