A Tennis Ball Part 1 of 3

2/21/14…The other week our leadership attended InsideOut training. We wanted to improve our coaching skills, especially in the realm of our high performance teams. The first part of attending this training caught my attention. The founder of this program, a tennis coach, picked someone at random on a local tennis court. The person agree to be part of an instructional video. Using S.M.A.R.T. goal setting, the founder first asked the person, what would you like to work on? Through a series of questions, the coach got the person to verbally express they would desire to hit 5 out of 10 backhands in the right hand opponents court. The person thought the goal reasonable, but lacked the confidence in his ability. The coach, standing at the net, began hitting balls to the person who was standing on baseline. Out of 10 balls, the person only hit 2 in his desired spot on the court.

Then the coach did something miraculous. Instead of having the person focus on the result, he slowly got the person to change their focus by asking a series of questions, all the while hitting balls to the person. First he asked the person, what do you see as I hit this ball towards you? Response: the lines on the ball as the ball spins towards me. Ok, can you tell me how fast the ball is spinning? Response: slow. Ok, can you tell me on a scale of 1-10 how fast the ball is spinning when looking at the lines.

During this whole process, the person was oblivious to their backhand accuracy improving. By the end of this exercise the person went from 2 out of 10 to 6 out of 10 in their accuracy. I was impressed! I was excited! Just by changing a person’s focus, their performance improved. The coach consultant called his approach the three F’s; with Focus being the first F. Impressive. Then my excitement increased when I heard the next F; Faith. Finally, an acknowledgment regarding how faith is a necessary component in the TOIL. Next, the coach discussed how most organizations approach performance deficiencies by giving people more knowledge. Yes I thought, organizations inundate people with more knowledge thinking performance will improve. However, the coach’s premise was people already have most of the knowledge they need to perform, so building on more knowledge will not result in a dramatic increase in performance. Instead the focus must go on the inside of a person, or back to the three F’s, Focus, Faith, Fire. Up until now, I bought into everything this consultant said. But...my excitement was short-lived as the coach started going in depth about the faith component. Why? When discussing the faith component of the three F’s, faith was expressed as the belief in oneself, not in God or the Spirit within. I sigh. I hope no-one around me heard.

Once again, answers sought in the secular world will at best only lead to short term contentment…