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Team Management By Exception
by Dave
Wednesday, February 07, 2007
Without getting very nuanced, there is a school of thought in business management which is most often referred to as "management by exception." This approach leads an organization to deal with its most pressing problems - the exceptions - first. It is not a school of thought which is purely reactive in nature. That is to say, one can either act based on a plan or react based on experiences, but not both. Management by exception supplements plans and is not purely reactive. Rather, it involves building room into the overall plan to make observations and measurements and deal with important problems as part of the management approach. I believe management by exception is an excellent way to approach fastpitch softball.
Before one can approach a fastpitch practice or game, or for that matter anything at all, one needs to craft some sort of plan. If you want to make toast, you have to get out the toaster, grab some bread, put it into the toaster and push down the lever. You can't make toast if you don't have bread so if you want it, you've got to do grocery shopping at some regular interval. You really don't do anything without some sort of plan. If all you ever do is react, you're in for a bit of trouble. If you wait until you realize each morning that you are hungry, you aren't going to find anything in the cupboard to eat. Then each morning you'll have to run out to the store and buy a loaf of bread. That is no way to live. And if you so much as buy something for lunch, dinner or tomorrow's breakfast while you are out at the store, you are engaging in some sort of planning!
Some folks like to fly by the seat of their pants and never "tie themselves" to a fixed plan of any sort. Others like to craft a plan and live by it no matter what happens. Neither approach is advisable. Just like the hungry person at home who realizes there's nothing to eat, the strict plan adherer will drive his or her car off a cliff eventually because they don't ever want to break the plan as it was originally made. Do you think I am exaggerating? Consider the folks who drove their cars off roads because their navigations systems said "turn right now, turn right now!" My personal preference is to generate an overall plan and then deal with serious problems as they arise.
In all sports, there are certain skill issues which must be dealt with. In basketball, you've just got to dribble the ball sometime. You've also got to pass and shoot. If you don't do these things, you're going to have a bad experience on the court. Similarly, in fastpitch, there are certain things a team must do. They have to field grounders, line drives and pop-ups. They have to throw the ball. They have to put out a reasonable pitcher and catcher combination. They've got to bat and hopefully get some runners on base.
So we enter the realm of practice with some idea as to what skills need to be taught. Some coaches approach practice with an eye towards focusing on certain defensive skills while others approach it with different, more offensively minded priorities. We've all seen teams which play great defense but can't hit. We've seen teams with great pitching and catching, yet an infield which can't get an out. For that matter, we've seen teams with "A" pitchers but no catcher so the result is 6 strike-outs an inning and still the inning isn't over yet! We've seen teams which have tremendous speed and generate most of their runs by running the bases aggressively yet they have nobody who can hit the ball out of the infield. Different coaches have different philosophies and they emphasize different skills. Still, most coaches do cover, at least in a cursory manner, the most fundamental skills like throwing and catching, bunting, etc. Some, relative few, do not and are likely to lose a lot of games as a result.
My personal bias tends to be on fundamental defensive skills. But the trouble with that is, if you spend a great deal of time on the fundamentals, there isn't much time left over for teaching situational play. And even if your kids are the greatest throwers and catchers in the universe, your team is going to get smoked by another one which, while not being quite as "fundamentally sound" on defense as your team, plays the overall game better.
Drilling can only take a team so far. During cold months, most often we are forced to limit practices to a variety of drills designed to mimic playing situations. We work on fundamentals and then we progress to doing drills like the star or other complex throwing exercises. We do a lot of hitting because that is the easiest thing to cover during the winter. We hit ground balls with softees on gymnasium floors when we can arrange to use these sorts of spaces. We do agility and quickness drills which make us seem more like a basketball team at times. We try to concoct anything we can which will teach the skills and eventually simulate game-like situations.
In order to implement such a practice regimen, a coach has to develop a long list of drills. If he or she is a really aggressive planner, a plan for utilizing the full drill list might be developed. This plan might list out all the practice dates and precisely what will be covered at each one. Strict adherence to the plan will yield only the accomplishment of having completed every drill in the book and will fail to take note of any serious deficiencies which might otherwise be uncovered via use of the management by exception approach.
What I'm trying to tell you is 1) having no practice plan is stupid, 2) having a comprehensive one you will follow to the "T" is foolish, 3) building a plan which allows for adaptation based on the relative weaknesses of your team and provides room to work on situational skill building is a better approach. I've come to this conclusion based on experience - difficult experience.
My first coaching experience involved extremely young girls. I volunteered to help out the assigned coach who basically set each girl up in the field and then proceeded to throw pitches to each kid in succession and have them try to hit the ball. Some of the girls in the field made very well developed artwork on the infield dirt. I'm absolutely sure this girl will grow up to be an artist - you should have seen how well designed and elaborate the work was! My kid got nothing out of these "practices" so I worked on fundamental skills with her myself.
My next experience involved volunteering to assist a coach who knew something about the game but not very much. She was one of those "extremely creative types" who never adheres to a plan on penalty of death. We got out to the practice field and she asked the parent volunteers what they thought we should do. I replied, "I don't know coach but whatever you want us to do, I'm willing to help." Then after 15 minutes and my realization that absolutely nothing was going to be done unless someone forwarded an idea, I said, "how about we have the girls throw to each other." She said, "that's a great idea." So practice thereafter consisted of lots of throwing back and forth and not much else until I suggested rolling some grounders to the girls. Again, my kids didn't get a whole lot out of these practices so I proceeded to drill my kids on our own time. And I resolved to venture into a part of the universe I hoped never to go - I resolved to be a coach.
Those first "coaching" experiences were a lot of years ago. When I first entered the head coaching arena, I worked almost exclusively on the fundamental skills which I saw as most lacking in the kids in our recreation league. I worked throwing first and my kids became good at it. I worked the fundamentals of ground ball fielding, then catching, then some basic hitting. I made a plan of skill progression and never deviated from it. My teams always got smoked early in the year as our poor-throwing, not very fundamentally sound opponents, still understood what was going on during games better than my kids. Usually, at the end of the season, my teams would start accomplishing great things like beating the undefeated team and winning our last couple of games. And that's probably just about right for rec but at the end of each year I would lament that I couldn't keep this team together for another year. I also came to the conclusion that these fundamentally sound kids got better not because we practiced more but because they began to learn what was going on in the field by playing games. Inevitably, at the next year's draft, my well-schooled kids would be taken first and I'd start with a new crew of underachievers. And our competition would be filled with kids who did the fundamental skills fairly well - the skills I had taught them!
Finally, after going through this for a few years, I realized I had better work more into my practices than just the fundamentals. I began trying to put together slightly longer practice sessions which, after a few weeks, would include inter-squad scrimmaging. That did the trick. And I realized that in addition to any practice plan I developed, there had to be room to adapt to the weaknesses and strengths of the girls I chose for my team.
So, that's where I am today. I'm still coaching though hopefully not for all that much longer. I don't like the parental politics involved in coaching. I'd like to focus more of my time on my kids exclusively, especially as they show signs of being exceptionally good players. But be that as it may, I'm still coaching and I need to build a plan for my team. That plan will of course involve management by exception and not ignore the need to do situational work.
I've still got my bias towards fundamental skills. That will never go away. It has, despite my suggestions to the contrary, always served me well. We work agility and speed, a lot of complex throwing drills, some more basic defensive skills, and some other stuff. I work in some situational drills like defensing the bunt or dealing with runners trying to advance. We work some baserunning drills. And we, of course, do conduct batting practices.
I have trouble discussing approaches to teaching hitting because as girls get older, things get a lot more complicated. Some of our girls go for private slap-hitting instruction, some go for rotational hitting, some have classic linear hitting instruction, etc. One day I'll write something on these topics but from a coaching perspective, it becomes very difficult to try to teach hitting with one philosophy when your girls are being told something different by their private, very expensive coaches. I've seen some coaches try to do just that - even at the high school level - but I advise against it if your kids mostly get private instruction someplace else. I try personally to refrain from teaching any batting fundamentals and instead make smaller suggestions like try to hit this one to the opposite field or let's hit the top half of the ball this time. Then I try to make use of the skills these girls get from their other lessons.
One thing I do try to provide in our practices is the opportunity to hit live pitching. Most batting instruction involves hitting off the tee, soft toss, pitching machines, or some combination of these. These are proper for learning fundamental and advanced mechanics. It is necessary for even the most accomplished hitter to make use of the tee and other devices. But every hitter must also acclimate herself to the variety of motions, release points, and speeds which real pitchers throw. If you don't at least work in a little live pitching, your girls will not be ready for games and will only start really hitting the ball after the midpoint of the season. And live pitching is not just good for your batters. Your pitchers need to work against batters too. So do your catchers.
Yet even with all these fundamental skill drills, the more complex situational drills and simulations, and all the live batting practice in the world, our team will not be ready for the season and that brings me to my next point. If you take a look at the best softball players and teams, as well as big time baseball organizations, amateur and professional, one thing is going to stand out to you. These folks all practice plenty but they do more of one thing than anything else. They scrimmage. It is now February and pitchers and catcher will report to spring training soon. Then the rest of the team will show up. They'll do stretching, flexibility, speed and agility. They'll throw a lot. They'll go through a regimen intended to get the hitters into sync. Then it will be week two and they'll begin playing practice games!
The same approach is used in college baseball and softball. It is no accident that the best players at all levels are the ones who get the most chance to play real games. In softball, the best players come from the warm weather states where games are sanctioned year-round. So Cal, Arizona, Texas, and Florida boast the largest numbers to college softball scholarships. that's not to say other places don't do quite well in this regard. They do. Michigan and surrounding states are real up and comers in the softball world as witnessed by Michigan's national title in 2005 and Northwestern's stellar performance last year. These teams did have a few So Cal ladies on their rosters but they built solid teams of relative locals as well. Yet I suspect these outstanding athletes have found creative alternatives to playing out in the hot mid-winter desert sun. The number of places which provide venues for indoor baseball and softball has been increasing. And if you visit these places, you'll find a lot of the best local players playing in games during January and February.
But I'm not calling out to those well healed enough to build indoor facilities. I'm merely bringing up the cold hard reality that what you need to prepare your team, in addition to rigorous practice sessions, is games. No matter how much drilling you do each week, if you constantly play teams which have been doing games, you're going to have some troubles. This is more so if you are only together for one year and your opponents have played together as a team for several years.
Why games are so important really speaks to the title and theme of this writing, "management by exception." Games provide a better idea of where your team's weaknesses lie. You can have a shortstop who is really great when you do ground ball drills in the gym, yet when she gets out on the field she may show no aptitude for the position. She may demonstrate that she and the team is better off with her playing second or center. You won't be able to discern this by conducting drills of any sort. You'll need games. Even the apparently best pitcher in the world looks different in practice, including live pitched batting practice, than she does in the pressure cooker of a game. the same is true of every position on the field and hitting and baserunning as well. Even if you don't find your all-star shortstop to be ill-suited to the position, you may discover that she has significant difficulty fielding balls hit to her right or making the throw from second base to home when runners advance. The kid who bunts so well in practice might freak a little when called upon to do so in games. She may need more practice working the stick. And that kid who always bunts half-heartedly during practice sessions, may get the fire lit in her belly when you need her to put one down in a game. You were focusing so much time and effort trying to get her to bunt better in practice when all along she could do it just fine in games!
the point here is, if I've convinced you that you must manage by exception, you need something realistic with which to judge exceptions - you need games. It is only through games that you can discover your team's real deficiencies. So I suggest that you build a network of local teams who can play at, near or above your level so you can schedule as many scrimmages as possible. Don't completely fill your schedule of available practice time with such scrimmages - you'll need opportunity to address the deficiencies you'll discover in games. You can try to address these problem areas during the course of games but I suggest that it is only in some practices that you'll get the opportunity to do enough repetitions to build the sort of motor memory necessary to correct the errors. But schedule enough practice games to enhance the overall preparation.
I strongly urge tournament teams to schedule double headers wherever possible. In addition to getting a general feel for how your girls will play in games, you also want to see how they'll play when they go all out for an hour or two, sit for an hour and then have to go all out again. These sorts of "tournament simulations" give better insight to potential problem areas. And playing a single game isn't the best way to test your team when the real competition will involve three a days.
I said play against teams which are at, near or above your level. I do not think you want to bother much with teams who don't push you. Similarly, while there is something to be gained by playing against teams who can beat you with their second string or while they are still asleep, it certainly doesn't benefit them and eventually it will break down your team's emotional stability. Try to find teams who give you a good game but who beat you no more than 2 times out of 3. Stay away from teams who can't beat you once in 6 games, and only when you've got number 5 pitcher in there. But even if you can't find a team which is a perfect fit, scrimmage somebody even if they stink or are likely to displace Team USA.
If you are stuck into a situation where the only available scrimmage mates is a team far inferior to your team, talk it over with the opposing coach and suggest strongly that he allow your pitchers to face your batters and vice versa. the same may apply if the only team you can find is too far superior. This way your hitters will face realistic pitching, your defense will not stand in the field counting the Ks or running away from screaming linedrives, and the other team will experience the same benefits from scrimmaging you.
As usual, I've gone on for far too long. I hope you understand that some sort of plan is necessary for coaching a team. I hope I have convinced you that this plan needs to be at least flexible enough to adapt to weaknesses your team has whether you refer to this as management by exception or not. I hope I have also convinced you that mere fundamentals are not enough to build a competitive team. I hope you will scrimmage against other teams as frequently as you can while still making time for practices which will work on the shortcomings you discover in games. In any event, best of luck to you and your team in the coming season which is closer than you think!
 
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