Do you try to measure something because it’s important or do you make it important because you can measure it?
As a Sports Scientist, I used to measure almost everything physiological variable possible. The devil is in the details is what I told myself. Until, I began to ask the question: what am I measuring and why am I measuring it. That epiphany shifted everything in me. I started to understand that there is a difference between a contributing factor to success and a deciding factor to success. For the first ten years of my career, almost everything I taught myself to measure was a contributing factor to success but not the deciding X factor. It took me a long time to understand that to find the deciding factor, one has to learn to look way beneath the devil in the details.
Let me explain:
If you speak to any coach, sports scientist, psychologist, physical trainer, etc, they would name a few different variables that they believe are important for success. When you start to peel away the layers of each of these variables, you will come to understand that whilst they are important for success, the are not predictors of success. This simple realisation took me more than a decade to learn. Why? Because each time I thought a factor was important, I had to stress test that variable to ultimately understand if it was. More than fifteen years after I started working with professional athletes, I had to unlearn what I was taught, only to relearn the art of looking below the devil in the details. I had to look where others weren't looking to understand what others couldn’t see.
Before I even got to this stage, I interviewed and mentored under some of the greatest coaches in tennis, cricket and running. Great coaches, even though they understand the importance of science, they are never enamelled by it. They draw from its essence but ultimately rely on some other intuitive, gut instinct. I was intrigued by their subtle intuitive knowing, an art each of them cultivated over time — win by win, loss by loss, championship by championship. There is an important lesson here: You cannot get to the top by using the data and strategies that everyone else is using.
Countless years later, I put myself to the test to find the elusive deciding factor. I knew it wasn’t a single physiological marker. It could have been a psychological marker or maybe a combination of markers clustered under a single term that describes the hunger and desire required for the pursuit of excellence. I know a few scientist friends who would say that psychological markers are a byproduct of one’s genetic predisposition, so it’s ultimately all physiological. This may be true but for the purposes of this blog piece, I am going to purposely stay on the surface.
The Commitment to Excellence Ratio: (by Shayamal Vallabhjee)
I had a problem. I was getting inundated with coaching opportunities and I had to figure out which one’s to say yes to and which opportunities to reject. So I created the Commitment to Excellence Ratio: a very simple toolkit to help me quantify an individuals hunger and desire to commit to process.
This is how it works:
Step 1: I create a simple spread sheet. In column 1, we create a task list with a proposed completion date.
Step 2: In column 2, we create an Importance Indicator (Scale 1–5: (1: not important at all & 5: extremely important)
Step 3: As per the proposed date of completion, I calculate a Commitment to Excellence Ratio which the the number of task completed divided by the number of tasks listed x 100. This will give you a CTE percentage.
Step 4: Using the Importance Indicator, I attribute a differential formula to the overall CTE %’s to calculate an individual’s final CTE% per Importance Indicator. This is the final score I use to determine whom to work with.
So why do I do this and how does it help me?
In coaching athletes and executives, it’s very important to establish a relationship of trust that functions independent of the proximity of the two individuals. This means, the coach can never always been present and for the relationship to be fruitful, the individual/ athlete needs to trust and execute the agreed upon plan. The Commitment to Excellence Ratio gives me an indication of the importance / value an individual attributes to their own voice, plans or commitments. If their accountability to their own commitments and plans is found wanting, the likelihood of them adhering to the agreed plan and timelines for a sustainable period is highly improbable. The ratio I am looking for is >75%.
If you had to look below the devil in the details, what would you try to measure.
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