I found Matt's comments on this particular piece very interesting, in that they invoke other industries. Sales is my lifetime trade, and I am an "A" player at it. I took up BJJ this year and I would consider myself a C player. I'm athletic, but I am also middle aged and never wrestled.
What differs, in my belief between what I see play out at companies, and what I see play out in the gym is this.
Company policies (Matt listed a number of them) are designed to maximize C player productivity/performance. Because the company is focused on profitability and C players make up the largest percentage of the "bell curve" of employees. In almost every company meeting, I enter with the understanding that the message is not for me.
In my experience - BJJ education is aimed at "A" players. People with VERY high physical intelligence and kinetic awareness, who can integrate a demonstrated technique in one single session (in a way, this is a gyms way of being focused on profitability, because having a competitor or high level champion is their way of selling).
Have you heard of Lean, Agile, DevOps, SCRUM, Just-In-Time (JIT) Manufacturing, or The Toyota Way?
These are business methodologies and philosophies share a common thread: they emphasize the power of self-organization, decentralized decision-making and servant-leadership. The Toyota Way, which incorporates Lean principles, revolutionized the automotive industry and propelled Toyota to become the world's most successful car manufacturer. The core tenets of this approach were later transplanted into the tech and software development world, giving rise to Agile and DevOps.
As these methodologies gained traction and showcased impressive success stories, companies eagerly jumped on the bandwagon, hoping to reap the benefits. However, many, if not most organizations fell short of truly embracing these philosophies. Instead, they opted for partial implementations, driven by a fear of missing out (FOMO) and a desire to appease investors by claiming they were "Lean," "Agile," or "DevOps." Project Management software made it possible to simultaneously take both approaches, to make it appear as if teams were self-organizing and choosing their workload, while Project Managers could slip in directives and predictive methodologies from upper-management, contaminating or subverting the self-organization process. Upper-Management almost invariably wanted to claim they were "Lean" or "Agile" but rarely could let go of their familiar top-down, "Predictive Approach" they had been used to their whole careers.
We're going to see the exact same thing play out with Ecological Dynamics in the Combat Sports world.
Yeah, I've used Lean and Agile before at work for technical marketing projects. I have some friends that work in DevOps.
I definitely think some of those principles are useful for the coaching process. In a very, very abstract way, for one's personal learning as well. Overall, though, CLA is very tightly coupling practice design to the individual needs of the person and the team, so it can't be quite as systematic as some of those methodologies are.
You're right that stuff like Agile made dev work less linear and far more adaptable.
This is what about 80% of Jiu-Jitsu gyms will do: incorporate a few ideas from EcD, add some game based play, improve their positional sparring rounds and be less verbose in detail.
I catch myself reverting back to the traditional / IP approach; setting up a game but then taking a minute to tell the students about a few of the "best" solutions or most "high-level" plays. It's so much better to run the game a few times and wait for common problems to emerge than to front-load the solutions.
I found Matt's comments on this particular piece very interesting, in that they invoke other industries. Sales is my lifetime trade, and I am an "A" player at it. I took up BJJ this year and I would consider myself a C player. I'm athletic, but I am also middle aged and never wrestled.
What differs, in my belief between what I see play out at companies, and what I see play out in the gym is this.
Company policies (Matt listed a number of them) are designed to maximize C player productivity/performance. Because the company is focused on profitability and C players make up the largest percentage of the "bell curve" of employees. In almost every company meeting, I enter with the understanding that the message is not for me.
In my experience - BJJ education is aimed at "A" players. People with VERY high physical intelligence and kinetic awareness, who can integrate a demonstrated technique in one single session (in a way, this is a gyms way of being focused on profitability, because having a competitor or high level champion is their way of selling).
Have you heard of Lean, Agile, DevOps, SCRUM, Just-In-Time (JIT) Manufacturing, or The Toyota Way?
These are business methodologies and philosophies share a common thread: they emphasize the power of self-organization, decentralized decision-making and servant-leadership. The Toyota Way, which incorporates Lean principles, revolutionized the automotive industry and propelled Toyota to become the world's most successful car manufacturer. The core tenets of this approach were later transplanted into the tech and software development world, giving rise to Agile and DevOps.
As these methodologies gained traction and showcased impressive success stories, companies eagerly jumped on the bandwagon, hoping to reap the benefits. However, many, if not most organizations fell short of truly embracing these philosophies. Instead, they opted for partial implementations, driven by a fear of missing out (FOMO) and a desire to appease investors by claiming they were "Lean," "Agile," or "DevOps." Project Management software made it possible to simultaneously take both approaches, to make it appear as if teams were self-organizing and choosing their workload, while Project Managers could slip in directives and predictive methodologies from upper-management, contaminating or subverting the self-organization process. Upper-Management almost invariably wanted to claim they were "Lean" or "Agile" but rarely could let go of their familiar top-down, "Predictive Approach" they had been used to their whole careers.
We're going to see the exact same thing play out with Ecological Dynamics in the Combat Sports world.
Yeah, I've used Lean and Agile before at work for technical marketing projects. I have some friends that work in DevOps.
I definitely think some of those principles are useful for the coaching process. In a very, very abstract way, for one's personal learning as well. Overall, though, CLA is very tightly coupling practice design to the individual needs of the person and the team, so it can't be quite as systematic as some of those methodologies are.
You're right that stuff like Agile made dev work less linear and far more adaptable.
This is what about 80% of Jiu-Jitsu gyms will do: incorporate a few ideas from EcD, add some game based play, improve their positional sparring rounds and be less verbose in detail.
I catch myself reverting back to the traditional / IP approach; setting up a game but then taking a minute to tell the students about a few of the "best" solutions or most "high-level" plays. It's so much better to run the game a few times and wait for common problems to emerge than to front-load the solutions.
Completely misrepresentated what I said and what happened in the discord. Interesting you care so much about my opinion though. I'm flattered!