Power of Yet, Power of Pull, Power of Moments

Picture from Andrea Piacquadio (https://www.pexels.com/@olly/)

I was in a badminton gym yesterday when my daughter was attending her badminton practice with a Chinese coach. From my point of view, her training is challenging as the coach is very demanding. I spoke to the coach regularly as I want to know my daughter's progress. The coach speaks little English and most of our conversation is in Chinese.

Some background on this coach. He trained and competed for China, and retired from competitions due to injury. He spent over 8 years in South America coaching the Peruvian National Badminton Team, and then settle in California (owning a badminton gym for over a decade). All and all, he has about 30 years of coaching experience. I learned much from him from badminton techniques and coaching skills.

In this blog, I will share some of these learning.

Power of yet...

He wants his students to understand the concept of "Not Yet". Badminton skills need to be developed over time, and he tries his best to guide his students to master different techniques. Students need to work hard and believe that they can improve (that's do not give up). 

I understand what he was talking about because I watched Carol Dweck's Ted Talk. The power of believing that you can improve.

He told his students that there are no shortcuts to success. He punished students if they are caught cheating (watch Carol Dweck's Ted Talk, she did mention that some students cheated to get good grades :-)). I find that he is very demanding (in a good way). As a result, my daughter has improved much. She suffers during most of the training because the coach is always pushing for better results. She understands that it is not going to be easy and she takes it. I am really proud of her.

Putting this in the context of the software development team. A good coach identifies developers who have "yet" to be ready for designing software and write code (clean and production-grade). The software development coach (needs to be a good programmer too. Just like the badminton coach, he won 6 medals in international competitions) and the individual engineer work together to improve the engineer's software development skills. A good coach makes the developers believe in the Power of Yet.

Believing in a Growth Mindset is essential. And, most importantly, we have to get out of our comfort zone to learn and become better at a subject. Leaders in a team need to demonstrate this. It can be taking on the most difficult tasks in the project, making tough decisions (and taking responsibility), and working hard during crunch time. When the leaders do these, the team members will follow.

Power of Pull

The badminton coach believes in the Power of Pull (read this book "The Power of Pull: How Small Moves, Smartly Made, Can Set Big Things in Motion" if you want to know more). He said that it is important to train as a team and let the team members push each other to become better players. No world-class badminton players train alone. They train in teams, and team members help them to improve.

He set up an environment where students train and compete with each other. Having better players to lift the standards of the weak ones. Once a month, we have students from other gyms visiting us to spar with the students. He praises the students, and he also goes hard on students. He usually goes like "You have yet to master these techniques. Work hard and you will win the next time.".

Switching to software development. The same concept applies. Good software engineers need to bounce ideas with others. We need to work as a team, and let the team members pull us into this collective learning mode. However, it is important to not compete with each other. We should not even promote friendly competitions. Or rather, we need to find the right balance for friendly competitions. I value learning a lot (typically, I take on difficult tasks to learn and grow), and I do not benchmark myself against anyone. Instead, I benchmark my progress against myself.

Power of Moments

The badminton coach is finding ways (moments) to motivate the team as he is asking much of these kids. (this book has a lot of examples about the Power of Moments. "The Power of Moments: Why Certain Experiences Have Extraordinary Impact"). Here are some examples.

• Having some students onboard new students gives the students a sense of achievement (ability to teach new students some drills).
• Handing out popsicles after 3 hours long of training in summer.
• Giving out swags to students

In software development, we can encourage mentorship, giving days off to engineers who work hard during crunch time, and giving out swags (I already have a lot of swags from Microsoft :-)). These are small gestures, and they have a great impact.

TL;DR

• Be open-minded, Always ready to learn. (I am asking questions and learning almost every day). No endings to learning.
• Work in an efficient and effective team. Leaders need to provide a team environment for collective learning.
• Little gestures have a great impact on people.

PS: In the coming week, the coach is leading a team of players for the 2022 U.S. Junior National Championships. We wish everyone a safe trip and a great learning experience.