Why people are uncomfortable with cvMax's coaching
It has nothing to do with the style, effectiveness, or anything else people seem to bring up, like the lack of "actionable feedback". People have a problem because he came off as very emotional.
In this clip from Eyes on SKT (2017), kkOma employs the same tactic: single out a player and tell them that they are dragging down the team to instill in them a sense of responsibility and urgency.
Except, it doesn't draw the same reaction out of people, because kkOma doesn't sound like he's lashing out in uncontrollable rage.
I'm sure there are worse clips of kkOma (this was in-between sets, so he's obviously not going for psychological destruction of his players), and there are better clips of cvMax.
The point is:
- It's a commonly used coaching tactic, and can be greatly effective. No, this is not exclusive to the East, it's not a product of "toxic work culture", and it is not inherently abusive.
- You can't judge the effectiveness, whether he's abusive or not, or what cvMax's wholistic approach to coaching is based on a few clips of him blowing up on his team.
I was going to make a much longer post but I'll end it with this:
The other side of this fence is that the coaches are gentle on the underperforming player, they continue to underperform, and the team grows frustrated and starts to resent said player.
An example of this happening was the dynamic between GENG Ruler and GENG Life, but there are countless examples of it in traditional sports as well.
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Edit for MAXIMUM clarity:
Since people are throwing up irrelevant studies, here's an excerpt from a study which should clarify why their studies about abuse is irrelevant:
Tough Love—Impactful, Caring Coaching in Psychologically Unsafe Environments
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9230064/
>Results: Both groups of players [successful and unsuccessful] found each of their talent development and high performance environments to be psychologically unsafe. Furthermore, players perceived coaches who were the most impactful in their development as offering ‘tough love’. This included a range of ‘harder’ and ‘softer’ interpersonal approaches that presented the player with clear direction, role clarity and a sense of care. It appeared that this interpersonal approach helped the player to navigate, and benefit from, the psychologically unsafe high performance milieu. (4) Conclusions: There appear to be a number of balances for the coach in the high performance setting to navigate and a need for more nuance in applying constructs such as psychological safety.
What cvMax does is plausibly within the "tough love" category. Nobody knows what ratio of "soft" and "hard" strategies he employs. Therefore, we should not label it as "abuse". That's it. That's the first point I made.
The second point I made was the validity of the specific approach captured on camera as a productive coaching tactic.
The coach singles out a player and tell him that he is dragging down the team. It's inherently humiliating for the player, but it is undeniably effective at achieving certain effects:
- It reassures the other players that something is being done about this player's performance. If the coach is this frustrated, other players would be even more frustrated.
- It creates a sense of urgency and guilt in the player about letting his teammates down, which ideally drives them forward.
- Paired with feedback, it strongly reinforces the lesson. cvMax just called this "trauma" in yesterday's interview, which doesn't help his abuse allegations, but it is undeniably the same mechanism. Knowledge paired with strong emotion is better retained. If you can do this with positive emotion, great. Positive emotion is not always readily available.