A while back I wrote the post Would you prefer great players or a great situation? It was motivated by a question I received at the time. The thrust of it was that I’d personally rather be in a good situation than having great players in a bad situation. I asked readers to think about their own perspective on that question.
Well, some years later, Patrick Daniels saw the post and decided to share his thoughts in a post of his own. The line, “I firmly believe that prioritizing the creation of a great situation is the superior approach,” captures his thoughts. While there is overlap with my own post, Patrick goes further. In particular, he specifically talks about how to create a good situation. It’s an interesting exploration of the subject. Definitely worth a quick read. It ties in with what I wrote about in What drives coaching success? and the posts linked from there.
There’s definitely a control factor, however. Certain situations allow a coach more potential to influence things around them. Others do not. Coaching at the professional level tends to be the latter.