80/20 -- so many ways this could go!
There are so many versions of the 80/20. Whether it is 20% of the work leads to 80% of results or that discipline maintenance is 80% allowing less discipline 20% of the time. In coaching, I think about this very differently. I want my teams to play at 80% because I believe this allows an optimized intersection between speed and accuracy with the ability for creativity and freedom.
What do I mean? I think the 80% as the foundation of the actions we should be doing as a team. From the game plan to the technical skills, it is the stuff we work on 80% of the time at training. These range from the fundamentals of technique execution through the mini-unit pictures we create through our attack/defense coordinated actions. We need to do these with high accuracy and high efficiency, which means that they need to reliable from the start of the season through the end of the season. This is where most of our focus is during the week and we continue to iterate throughout the course of the season. In rugby, some examples are the catch & pass decision making (2 v 1, 4 v 2), the contact roles at the tackle and post tackle, the phase play defense (fold, launch, etc.) and the scripts from the scripting of the first three phases from set piece.
By getting the 80% dialed in, it gives the team confidence that most of the time in a game an individual effort and decision will have a coordinated response from the team. It allows the coaches to start refining and iterating the technical details. It builds the confidence in the players to trust their teammates will perform their roles, which opens up more head space for decision making.
I think about the next ten percent (81-95%) as pushing the pace and the limit of the 80%. I expect the team to do this at times during the match to try to finish a linebreak or to get a key turnover. I expect the speed to go up, but I expect the accuracy to go down. This means that for parts of the game I am willing to risk a decrease in efficacy to have an increase in speed with the potential result being a net positive for the team. These are things that we have practiced, but the picture may be less than perfect OR the speed we performing them at might be outside our comfort zone. I want the team to be pushing into this zone when they feel the risk is outweighed by the reward — it allows us to do something special. This is freedom to use the system to play creatively — it is also the area that over the course of the season, I like to take from the 81-95% and refine our abilities to include it in the 80%.
The final five percent (96-100%) is for us to take chances with actions that we feel could benefit the team. As a coach, I can’t prepare my team for every given eventuality. I need the players to be ready to experiment using the technique they have but applying to a situation that may have never used it in. This should happen occasionally. The reward needs to be significant for a player to take this sort of risk. The technique might look a little funky, the results might not be a positive, but I want players to be taking these risks. In the analysis, I probe to see what picture the player saw and then we might choose to build the technique, ditcht the technique or apply it in a different situation. These opportunities don’t come in every game, but they do come and I want each player to have a little extra so they can really push themselves when that time comes and they take the risk.
My aim as a coach is to build connection as a team, which allows us to impose our will in the game. My aim is that we can do that with 80%. This allows space for the players to push their skillsets and increase the speed of the game intermittently, when done well this will allow the team to create more dominance and pressure on our opponents — this is the 81-95%. All the while leaving space for players to be instinctively creative in the moment — 96-100%.
How do I use this as a coach? I tend to spend 70-90% of practices honing and refining the 80%. I tend to spend 10-20% of practices building pressure on the 80%, so the team can increase the speed and willingness to try things under duress. The last 5-15% is focused on being a little funky and creative — applying skills where they are unexpected. What do you think? How might you use this approach?
