Leading through Trust
Baseball, Pitching Coaches, & Empowerment
Lately, I have been reflecting on leadership and empowerment. What makes a good leader? What experiences have shaped my view on what it means to lead? How might I relay this in a meaningful way to others through storytelling and metaphor?
This relation ties to sport — specifically baseball — and I truly hope you enjoy it.
In high school, I played baseball. When not playing shortstop, I was typically on the pitcher's mound (the hill). The role of the pitcher is special, as this person commences the game and initiates each play thereafter. Though, as most are aware, it takes a team and trust to succeed on the field.
However, this piece is not about the rules of baseball, individual positions, or even a single person. It is about the dynamics at play on the field, and how these situations might relate to leadership and empowerment.
Throw & Catch
Along with the pitcher, there is another player intimately tied to each pitch — the catcher. This player sits behind home plate and relays to the pitcher what pitches to throw, along with a myriad of other items kept under consideration in a complex and fluid environment.
I would compare this position to that of a conductor, in the musical sense. The catcher is simultaneously ‘weighing and measuring’ the opponent stepping into the batter’s box — recalling past at-bats, foot placement, anxiety level, etc. — , assessing where to position the other players on the field, and if players are on base, considering 2nd & 3rd order effects based upon an infinite number of scenarios that could unfold once the ball is in play. In short, this position carries with it a heavy cognitive load.
So, Throw & Catch. If you have played the game, this phrase makes sense. It is typically what you will hear coaches tell a player struggling on the mound. The goal of a coach here is typically to settle the pitcher down and get the game ‘back under control.’ It sounds like this, “Come on now, just play catch out there. You do it every day.”
The role of a pitching coach in baseball would be described in 100 different ways if you asked 100 coaches. This person is not on the field, but they are, depending on how they coach (lead), pulling strings like a puppet master which can dramatically influence the game. Under certain conditions, I would argue they can make or break the game without being in the lineup.
At the high school and collegiate level, a pitching coach will decide to be the one calling the pitches at times. This decision means that the coach will relay information via numerical code, or hand signals of a sort, to the catcher. The catcher will then take this information and either search the code on a wrist band or recall the code from memory, then relay the information to the pitcher. Finally, after this information has passed through 3 brains, a pitch can be thrown.
I often experienced the above scenario, but there is another way to approach calling pitches. Other pitching coaches make the decision to allow the pitcher and catcher to play their own game, deciding pitches together. The coach affords the catcher the freedom to call the pitches, and the pitcher to be part of the decision-making process — after all, these are the two playing catch, right?
I described how a pitcher initiates each play, and a catcher is constantly assessing the field. This might lead you to ask, ‘Why would you want anyone other than these two players calling pitches?’
That is the entire point of the rest of this story. The implications of a coach (leader) calling the shots, when enabling those in the game (at the point of action), could enable the adaptability and interpretation of insights unable to be seen from outside the field of play.
Scenarios
Scenario 1: Total Control
In this scenario, we play out the feelings and actions of the 3 positions (roles) presented above given that a coach has full control over what pitches are being called for the duration of the game.
Given these circumstances, I would argue that a coach (leader) has wholly removed the players’ versatility from the state of play. By deciding to wield ultimate authority over what pitches will be thrown the freedom of thought, improvisation, and ability to react to change are no longer present. It is hard to imagine a scenario where a coach is more in tune with on-field happenings than their players. For example, when a batter is walking up to the plate the catcher can see their eyes and sense their emotions. The catcher is but inches from the batter as they settle in for the pitch, able to hear the breathing from their opponent. This level of awareness is only found within the field of play.
Why does this matter? I believe it matters a great deal.
As the catcher is directed to call a certain pitch, let’s say an offspeed pitch low and outside, he might assess the batter is unnerved over the upcoming at-bat. It could be the opposing batter fears the pressure of the moment, is overly stressed, or the sunlight is making it hard to see. The catcher is aware of this, while a coach surely cannot be expected to be this wholly aware for each pitch and at-bat.
So how does this play out?
What I often experienced, and I know many of my peers did as well, was a lack of willingness by the pitcher and catcher to make their own decisions based on the surrounding and ever-changing circumstances. The culture it promoted was one where the coach is the Conductor-in-Chief. The catcher but a vessel for relaying information, the pitcher only to receive information and act as directed. It removes the human factor, those senses innate to what makes us tick, from the operating environment.
This is, for all intents and purposes, an efficient way to operate. Through the lens of a coach, a call is made and executed upon in a process that can be iterated time and time again. What it does not offer, however, is pliantness.
A catcher will not question what is directed under this regime. In so choosing to question, it would be questioning the leadership ability of the person in charge. If this were to be done every time the setting changed, there would be an endless 3-way communication cycle that could take eons to breakthrough for each pitch. A bit of hyperbole there, but the point stands.
In this case, it becomes easier for a catcher to relay what they are directed to relay, and for a pitcher to act without questioning, therefore affording the coach a false sense of awareness of the future since they have projected their own directives into the next action. But, the future is not certain no matter what pitch is called, so the efficiency of this system can fail due to unforeseen, unacknowledged realities in the present.
This system has no awareness of self. Decisions are guided by past information alone.
How might this paradigm be flipped?
Scenario 2: Total Trust
In this scenario, we play out the feelings and actions of the 3 positions presented above with a different set of rules where the pitcher and catcher determine what pitches to throw, while the coach empowers them to act and react based upon what they sense and understand.
In this new scenario, a culture has been established by the coach (leader) that any player can make the determination of how best to respond based upon what they sense, feel, and understand in real-time.
What is the difference here compared to Scenario 1?
My argument is, the coach has just opened the game up to an infinite amount of emerging opportunities upon which the team can seize.
The catcher is now able to interpret the present, filling the role of orchestrator from within the lines of play, thus becoming so harmonized with the game that unique, live insights become the driving force behind decisions. Another result of this decentralized control is the pitcher and catcher now feed off one another via shared opportunities they sense and share. For example, the catcher may sense the pitcher’s arm is tiring and know that the batter is dug in for a massive swing by how they placed their cleat into the dirt. In response to this opposing player’s action, the determination is made to throw an offspeed pitch as opposed to what initially felt like a time for something harder.
In another instance, the catcher interprets that the umpire has been more likely to call pitches a bit off the plate inside. Realizing from throw & catch the day before, he knows the pitcher is more comfortable with the inside call. Adding to this, from the catcher’s tacit knowledge of this batter, he knows this player typically likes to hit to the opposite field, making that inside pitch the right call, at the right time, based on all the factors in the now.
The pitcher, reflecting my own experience, may feel more confident about a type of pitch at any given time. In this new paradigm, the pitcher knows he can shake off a call from the catcher, trusting the catcher will immediately reassess a multitude of factors and give him his next option.
Personally, I remember feeling a throbbing in my hand momentarily as the blood would rush to my arm in an intense moment of the game. I would know that I did not have it in me to throw my best fastball, but that I could place an offspeed pitch confidently and accurately in that specific instance. This new approach to coaching means the pitcher and catcher can now lean on and trust one another to constantly assess, and reassess based upon a shared purpose.
These two players are completely empowered by their leader to sense, understand, and react to enable the most likely scenario for success.
What of the coach?
This is where I present that the coach is leading through trust. This individual has enabled those under their charge to act on their own, encouraging flexibility and creativity at the lowest level, closest to the action.
The coach simply made the choice to empower these players to know they have the ability to interpret signals around them and act based upon what they are experiencing. This effectively distributes the team’s ability to understand the whole of the game and react accordingly, as opposed to waiting on a centralized authority to make all of the decisions.
This culture of purpose and trust amongst the individuals on this team encourages stronger connections between the players and allows for fuller awareness of self and environment, that converges through each action, pitch after pitch.
Stanley McCrystal writes in Team of Teams,
“Purpose affirms trust, trust affirms purpose, and together they forge individuals into a working team.” (McCrystal, 2015)
The players in this scenario share a common purpose, naturally. This results in a team that can execute as one body while being able to interpret, through each individual, what team action best serves the whole.
Summary
My goal is not to tell coaches and leaders that decoupling decision-making authority is the single best way to breed teams that work together efficiently and effectively across every situation. Not at all.
What I do hope to convey, however, is a personal and practical example that empowering individuals under your charge to act and react based upon the sea of complexity they may find themselves in can be paramount to growing a team that can operate in the unknown. A dynamic, ever-changing environment is rarely the place for autocratic control in my experience.
I believe that the more optimization we try to build into an ever-increasingly complex process, the more certain it is that we will degrade the system. This baseball metaphor is meant to show how shifting the way you think about leading — thinking about who is truly in a position to understand the circumstances at play — and considering where empowerment and trust might outweigh direct control, can have positive influences upon those who are doing the job you have asked them to do.
I would add, it can have synergistic effects between teams operating in an environment experiencing a constant state of change — as Heraclitus once posited, Panta Rhei — as they trust one another to make the best decision based upon the sum of their shared insights.
All that to say, I guess baseball can teach us something about leadership and trust.
Thanks for taking some time to reflect with me. I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed continuously challenging my own views on leading in today’s ever-dynamic world.
Stay safe, God bless.
Chris is an Air Force Veteran and dabbling writer of things. He has spent nearly a decade as an Intelligence Professional and has a career focused on enabling and realizing innovation culture within National Security.
You can also find him interacting with other like-minded explorers through Agitare as they seek to build a community for National Security facilitators.
Sources:
McChrystal, S. A. (2015). Team of teams new rules of engagement for a complex world. New York, NY: Portfolio/Penguin.
