Singletary v. Madden on management
The San Francisco 49ers won their first game yesterday, beating their even more hapless cross-Bay rivals, the Oakland Raiders. The Niners鈥� head coach, Mike Singletary, took over from Mike Nolan in 2008 amid much media buzz. Some immediately expect any 鈥渇iery鈥� coach鈥檚 intensity to be the wonder drug. Early on, thisquestioned the certainty of this result, noting the implosions of the intensity-is-everything coaches like Mike Ditka in New Orleans or Rod Marinelli in Detroit and the success of Tom Coughlin after ditching the 鈥淐olonel Coughlin鈥� routine in New York. From an economic, strip-things-down-to-their-essence perspective, McCloughan goes right to the key variable in the coach鈥檚 management style and the likely source of his downfall 鈥� player effort:
Like many Hall of Fame players who have become head coaches, Singletary鈥檚 pedigree doesn鈥檛 mean he鈥檒l be good at this new job. In most cases, Hall of Fame players fail miserably as coaches. Why? Because their players鈥� effort and intensity will never match their own.
Where, in my view, McCloughlan along with admirers of Singletary (when he took the job) miss it is that the focus on effort is Singletary鈥檚 problem, not the player鈥檚. Effort matters. It matters a lot. In every workplace I鈥檝e experienced, from concrete construction to higher ed, effort mattered and differed among employees. The whole team production story of management鈥檚 role (Alchian & Demsetz, 1972 American Economic Review) focuses on the solution to the effort problem. Most any coach with a long record of success has effective means of maintaining high effort levels. Some may do so out of fear and intimidation. Others (e.g. Bill Belichick) do it by casting off players who aren鈥檛 rowing hard enough. Some use player-leaders to promote a high-effort culture, or some combination of these methods.
Effort management is not the end of the story, however. One could view almost everything that Mike does as tilted toward a myopic fixation on effort and 鈥渟ending signals鈥� to team members along these lines. In his first game he sends talented but immature tight end Vernon Davis to the showers for a silly unsportsmanlike penalty. Ok, message sent. Then, he in the locker room to crudely illustrate how the team was 鈥済etting it tail whipped.鈥� Yes, coach, we get it. In a later game, he used up timeouts to pull his defense over and lecture them. Now, it鈥檚 getting silly and actually costly for the team (they needed those timeouts later). This season, the 鈥渋t鈥檚 all about effort鈥� business has continued, most recently with the tongue-lashing of QB Alex Smith on the sideline. Here鈥檚 :
鈥淭hat鈥檚 really not part of coaching, that鈥檚 sometimes I worry about that. I see youth football and I see high school football and coaches yelling at players and I cringe when I see it. I think people get the picture that鈥檚 what coaching is and believe me, that鈥檚 not what coaching is 鈥� 鈥淵ou have to coach, you have to teach, you have to strategize, you have to encourage. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 what coaching is, not the opposite.鈥�
Madden gives a nice synopsis of the varied elements that go into coaching/managing. My guess is that while each team needs some ongoing 鈥渆ffort management,鈥� only a small number of teams have real problems in this regard, and among those, problems arise as losses mount. Given the near equal talent distribution in the NFL and a high level of effort across the board, the items highlighted by Madden become the discriminating managerial traits.
Of course, all the maniacal activity by some coaches may speak more to indulgence of their own personalities (a type of effort or 鈥渟hirking鈥� problem on its own) that I discussed in my 2007 post and how from Tony Dungy.
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