1

An Open Letter to NewTechnical Directors and DOC’s

“[S]ince it is my intention to write something useful to those understanding, it seems best to go straight to the actual truth of things rather than to dwell in dreams.”Niccolo Machiavelli – The Prince XV

2

“to understand the nature of the people it needs to be a prince, and to understand that of princes it needs to be of the people.”Niccolo Machiavelli – The Prince Dedication

So you’ve gotten the job as a TD or DOC for a youth soccer club. The following is some advice based on years in the trenches, serious study and reflection on what will be your initial and primary concern. This is not happy talk where everything will turn out right. In fact, it is quite the opposite. It is a cautionary tale where the focus will be on your number one job. Insuring or expanding your own power. Because without power you are powerless, and can do no good for yourself or anyone else.

“For I believe that the following would be the true way to go to paradise: learn the way to Hell in order to steer clear of it.”Niccolo Machiavelli – Letter to Guiccardini

3

What type of club are you working for?Match your actions to the clientele

This letter will focus on two types of clubs; recreational and faux elite. The former are based on democratic principles and organization. Ambition is local, costs and energy is low. These are FUNdamental clubs. Their aim is entertainment through recreation.

Faux elite clubs have a autocratic structure and exclusive principles. They claim a club-wide focus on player development. Ambition is state-wide or national. Costs and energy level are high. They use the rhetoric's of progress, power and identity. Their aim is conquest.

Use the ECA report on youth academies for a comparison between true elite clubs, faux elites and your own situation. Calling yourself elite doesn’t make it so:http://www.ecaeurope.com/Research/ECA%20Report%20on%20Youth%20Academies/ECA%20Report%20on%20Youth%20Academies.pdf

4

What type of club are you working for?Treat recreational club members as customers – they buy, you sell

Like a meal at a good restaurant most of your customers only want a short term, pleasurable experience. No surprises, satisfaction guaranteed. Maintain a positive, supportive, engaging, and approachable demeanor. Practice good customer service habits like punctuality and repetitive/positive phrases; “Ready for some fun!” They don’t want to “become educated,” they just wantto experience a pleasurable moment. So reassure them and always have something “New and improved, better than ever, you’ll love this” ready when the first signs of boredom appear; and it will. Happy customers keep coming back and keep you in power. You’re an entertainer, so entertain.

“men are so simple, and so subject to present necessities, that he who seeks to deceive will always find someone who will allow himself to be deceived.”Niccolo Machiavelli – The Prince XVIII

5

What type of club are you working for?Treat faux elite club members as clients – they are under

your care and protection and free to ask for a second opinion

The faux elite provide a different set of problems and opportunities. They have higher expectations which may not be matched by higherstandards. Also, your authority, formal and informal, will be called into question by trail chair experts. These problems are illustrated by the dilemma that a doctor faces with a patient in denial. There is only so much the doctor can do without the patients buy-in to the prescribed goals and methods. They’re impatient, opinionated and can shop for the treatment they want.

The rest of this letter will focus on the traps that this dilemma creates for you. Navigating these troubled waters requires vigilance,audacity and fingerspitzengefühl.

6

“it is necessary to be a fox to discover the snaresand a lion to terrify the wolves.”

Niccolo Machiavelli – The Prince XVIII

If everyone that you came into contact with was honest, and the world turned harmoniously towards a shared goal this letter would be unnecessary. Unfortunately such a world only exists “in dreams.”The world you work in is filled with deceit and greed, the dark sideof human nature; free will and chance, the uncertain side. As long as these realities exist in your interactions you must be on guard.

An attack on your power will come through the business, bureaucratic or educational sides and be political in nature. It can be internal or external to your organization. A successful attack diminishes your power and ability to help yourself and others. While you may not be able to stop an attack you can work to minimize the damage.

7

Without money nothing gets doneand no one seems to be getting enough

The business of economic reality

Youth soccer is first and foremost a business so business laws apply. Return on investment, opportunity cost, productivity and so on. The one that you need to be concerned with is; money coming in must exceed money going out. When you become an unsupportable cost you’ll be gone. You have ideas, plans, wants and needs that will require financing. Without enough money you’ll act in half-measures or not at all. The club has real financial needs and limited resources to meet them. You’ll need to appreciate the dynamics of the situation and offer prudent and judicious advice. Never put your wants ahead of the clubs needs. Always work towards keeping their consumer confidence high, but realistic. They have to buy what you’re selling.

8

Bureaucrats act within a bureaucracyand keep the wheels turning

People who make and enforce laws on human nature

Rules are a necessary evil in regards to your power. Without them you have no formal authority, with them you face constraints. You have to watch the people who make and enforce them. When they begin to see the laws as more real then the people and situations that they were drawn up for they begin the process of dogmatization. Bureaucrats who defend the ideal world at the expense of the real one are a threat to your work in the field. When your new ideas run counter to the status quo you will meet resistance, even hostility. This erodes their confidence in your abilities and motives. They’ll keep an eye on you and use, or make, rules to further constrain your actions.

9

Education - everyone’s good reason, no ones real reason“You need both quality and results. Results without quality is boring; quality without results is meaningless.” Johan Cruijff – ECA Report Slide 3

Your position as the leader and protector of the clubs educational policies contains double binds that invites attacks from in and outside the club. The double binds are your position on quality and how to measure results. The problem with quality;

“Quality… you know what it is, yet you don’t know what it is… But some things are better than others, that is, they have more quality. But when you try to say what the quality is, apart from the things that have it, it all goes poof… So round and round you go, spinning mental wheels and nowhere finding anyplace to get traction. What the hell is Quality? What is it?”Robert Pirsig – Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

It gets worse.

10

Education - everyone’s good reason, no ones real reason“You need both quality and results. Results without quality is boring; quality without results is meaningless.” Johan Cruijff – ECA Report Slide 3

“He saw now that Quality was a cleavage term. What every intellectual analyst looks for. You take your analytic knife, put the point directly on the term Quality and just tap… and the whole world splits, cleaves, right in two-hip and square, classic and romantic, technological and humanistic-and the split is clean… Hold Quality undefined. That was a secret.”Robert Pirsig – Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

But as the leader you have to define Quality. When you do you automatically leave out, therefore alienate, a number of your constituents. It won’t be long until they resent your position and possibly you. They can ignore your authority, they may even combine forces and begin to work against you. They don’t need to define Quality in order to unite. Attacking your position is enough. This can lead to a direct attack on your power.

11

Education - everyone’s good reason, no ones real reason“You need both quality and results. Results without quality is boring; quality without results is meaningless.” Johan Cruijff – ECA Report Slide 3

Appealing to results doesn’t help when you’re arguing player development. Any type of measurement beyond “have fun” is specious at best. Each success that you claim brings a number of failures you’ll disavow. For every D1 scholarship “success,” there are 30 walk-ons or drop outs, “failures.” Team titles, state cups and the like, mean nothing to a player in any practical sense. Titles may be on the brag sheet but they won’t help when defending against a corner kick.

So results gives you the same problem as Quality. You must declare what is important and again, there are those who will disagree with you. Powerful arguments give rise to others informal authority. Groups coalescearound these disagreements and individuals. You’ll find allies as well as enemies. Creative tensions that you’ll have to use towards your own ends.

12

Politics, how power is gained or lost“War is merely the continuation of policy by other means.”

Carl von Clausewitz – On War Book I

The moral dilemma – choosing the ideal or the real

“for how we live is so far removed from how we ought to live, that he who abandons what is done for what ought to be done, will rather bring about his own ruin than his preservation.” Niccolo Machiavelli – The Prince XV

Make no mistake about this, you have a decision to make which will go against many of the things that you have been taught. Are people, including yourself, honest, kind, doing the right thing, or, are they dishonest, brutish, greedy, screw ups? Your choice will frame your options for survival. It’s the bedrock for your world view and the starting point for your decisions and actions. Get this question wrong and you have no chance to stay in power. Get it right and you at least you have a fighting chance.

13

Politics, how power is gained or lost“War is merely the continuation of policy by other means.”

Carl von Clausewitz – On War Book I

Your first weeks on the job.

“And it ought to be remembered that there is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in it’s success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things. Because the innovator has for enemies all those who have done well under the old conditions, and lukewarm defenders in those who may do well under the new. This coolness rises… partly from the incredulity of men, who do not readily believe in new things until they have had long experience of them. Thus it happens that whenever those who are hostile have the opportunity to attack they do it like partisans, whilst the other defend lukewarmly.”Niccolo Machiavelli – The Prince VI

At first you’ll appear more as a threat to the status quo than as a harbinger of positive change. Size people up and don’t believe everything anyone tells you.Your bed of roses has quite a few thorns. You have to find where they are.

14

Politics, how power is gained or lost“War is merely the continuation of policy by other means.”

Carl von Clausewitz – On War Book I

Your first impression on club members is vital.

“The prince must consider… how to avoid those things which will make him hated or contemptible; and as often as he shall have succeeded he will have fulfilled his part, and he need not fear any danger in other reproaches… It makes him contemptible to be considered fickle, frivolous, effeminate, mean-spirited… and he should endeavour to show in his actions greatness, courage, gravity, and fortitude; and in his private dealings with his subjects let him show that his judgments are irrevocable, and maintain himself in such reputation that no one can hope either to deceive him or to get round him. That prince is highly esteemed who conveys this impression of himself, and he who is highly esteemed is not easily conspired against; for, provided it is well known that he is an excellent man and revered by his people, he can only be attacked with difficulty.”Niccolo Machiavelli – The Prince XIX

15

Politics, how power is gained or lost“War is merely the continuation of policy by other means.”

Carl von Clausewitz – On War Book I

The importance of the company you keep. Choose wisely. Look for those that can do what you can’t and engender confidence throughout your team.

“The first opinion which one forms of a prince, and of his understanding, is by observing the men he has around him; and when they are capable and faithful he may always be considered wise, because he has known how to recognize the capable and to keep them faithful. But when they are otherwise one cannot form a good opinion of him, for the prime error which he made was in choosing them.”

“There are three classes of intellects: one which comprehends by itself; another which appreciates what others comprehend; and a third which neither comprehends by itself nor by the showing of others; the first is the most excellent, the second is good, and the third is useless.”Niccolo Machiavelli – The Prince XXII

16

Politics, how power is gained or lost“War is merely the continuation of policy by other means.”

Carl von Clausewitz – On War Book I

Mercenaries

“The fact is, they have no other attraction or reason for keeping the field than a trifle or a stipend, which is not sufficient to make them willing to die for you.”Niccolo Machiavelli – The Prince XII

Mercenaries are outside organizations that are hired to aid the club. When they are meant to aid in education they are a direct threat to your power. There are two arguments against them. First, they always come with a price. Money flows out of the club and is unavailable for other needs. Since they are a business they prefer repeat business, they’ll do everything they can to come back and drain your coffers again. Second, they bring their own ideas and maybe their own people. This gives everyone something to compare you to. When they are better at presentation and entertainment, and that’s their job, you lose. Eventually they’ll move to take over your role.

If you have your own staff, bring them in at the start. If not, work with what you inherit. Using mercenaries at the start invites marginalization when your weakest..

17

Politics, how power is gained or lost“War is merely the continuation of policy by other means.”

Carl von Clausewitz – On War Book I

What tools do you have to effect change?

“You must know, then, that there are two methods of fighting, the one by law, the other by force: the first method is that of men, the second of beasts; but as the firstmethod is often insufficient, one must have recourse to the second. It is therefore necessary to know well how to use both the beast and the man.”Niccolo Machiavelli – The Prince XVIII

The choice between these two methods is the “dilemma of dirty hands.” It’s choosingbetween the ideal/ought and real/is with a clear conscious. Choose the former and you have no access to the beast; nice guys finish last. Choose the later for the right reasons, win, and you’ll be forgiven, even celebrated. Lose and you’ll be a laughing stock and an example how not to do it.

“In all men's acts, and in those of princes most especially, it is the result that renders the verdict when there is no court of appeal.”Niccolo Machiavelli – The Prince XVIII

18

Politics, how power is gained or lost“War is merely the continuation of policy by other means.”

Carl von Clausewitz – On War Book I

Dealing with liars.

You will meet a never ending flow of these people. If you cannot ferret them out they will give you endless trouble. You cannot count on them and others will know that you’re being played the fool. That erodes your informal authority. Learn and use the Thirty-Six Stratagems to keep them off balance. Since they do not respect the law be the beast.

“they will offer you their blood, property, life, and children…when the need is far distant;but when it approaches they turn against you.”Niccolo Machiavelli – The Prince XVII

“Those who rely simply on the lion do not understand what they are about. Therefore a wise lord cannot, nor ought he to, keep faith when such observance may be turned against him, and when the reasons that caused him to pledge it exist no longer… because they are bad, and will not keep faith with you, you too are not bound to observe it with them.”Niccolo Machiavelli – The Prince XVIII

19

Politics, how power is gained or lost“War is merely the continuation of policy by other means.”

Carl von Clausewitz – On War Book I

“How flatterers should be avoided” – dampen the echo chamber

Liars have been found out and don’t have your trust. Flatterers do and this takes them inside your circle of confidence, the body politic. They are a cancer which can spread. Flattery leads you to the ideal and away from the real.

“I do not wish to leave out an important branch of this subject, [keeping power] for it is a danger from which princes are with difficulty preserved, unless they are careful and discriminating. It is that of flatterers, of whom courts are full, because men are so self-complacent in their own affairs, and in a way so deceived in them, that they are preserved with difficulty from this pest, and if they wish to defend themselves they run the danger of falling into contempt. Because there is no other way of guarding oneself against flattery than by letting men understand that they will not offend you by speaking the truth; but when everyone can tell you the truth,you lose their respect.”Niccolo Machiavelli – The Prince XXIII

20

Politics, how power is gained or lost“War is merely the continuation of policy by other means.”

Carl von Clausewitz – On War Book I

“How flatterers should be avoided” – dampen the echo chamber

“Therefore a wise prince ought to hold a third course by choosing the wise men in his state, and giving to them only the liberty of speaking the truth to him, and then only of those things of which he inquires, and of none others; but he ought to question them upon everything, and to listen to their opinions, and afterwards form his own conclusions. With these councillors, separately and collectively, he ought to carry himself in such a way that each of them should know that, the more freely he shall speak, the more he shall be preferred, outside of these he should listen to no one, pursue the thing resolved on, and be steadfast in his resolutions. He who does otherwise is either overthrown by flatterers, or is so often changed by varying opinions that he falls into contempt.”Niccolo Machiavelli – The Prince XXIII

21

Politics, how power is gained or lost“War is merely the continuation of policy by other means.”

Carl von Clausewitz – On War Book I

“How flatterers should be avoided” – dampen the echo chamber

“this is an axiom that never fails: that a prince who is not wise himself will never take good advice, unless… he has yielded his affairs entirely to one person. In this case… he may be well governed, but it would not be for long, because such a governor would in a short time take away his state…”

“But if a prince who is not experienced should take counsel from more than one he will never get united counsels, nor will he know how to unite them. Each of the counsellors will think of his own interests, and the prince will not know how to control them or to see through them… Therefore it must be inferred that good counsels… are born of the wisdom of the prince, and not the wisdom of the prince from good counsels.”Niccolo Machiavelli – The Prince XXIII

22

Politics, how power is gained or lost“War is merely the continuation of policy by other means.”

Carl von Clausewitz – On War Book I

Dampen the echo chamber – “Keep Confidants, and Don’t Confuse Them with Allies”

“The lone warrior strategy of leadership may be heroic suicide… no one can be sufficiently anchored from within themselves for very long without allies and confidents.

Allies are people who share many of your values, or at least your strategy, and operate across some organizational or factional boundary. Because they cross a boundary, they cannot always be loyal to you; they have other ties to honor… That means they can help you understand competing stakes, conflicting views, and missing elements in your grasp of a situation.

Confidants have few, if any, conflicting loyalties… Confidants can do something allies can’t do. They can provide you a place where you can say everything that’s in your heart, everything that’s on your mind.” Heifetz & Linsky – Leadership on the Line

Allies offer support, a reality check on ambition and ideas. Confidants offer space to vent, you can safely get the things off your chest that you can’t with your allies. You’ll need both.

23

The Times They Are A-changin’“I hold it to be true that Fortune is the arbiter of one-half of our actions,

but she still leaves us to direct the other half.”Niccolo Machiavelli – The Prince XXV

While you might bask in the comfort of a two year contract, those two years will fly by. There is no time that your position is more vulnerable to attack than now. Until you find allies, confidents, a staff that you can trust, know the motivations and hidden agendas of your board, the limits and tastes of the Executive Director you’re open to attack; and lukewarm defenders.

This cautionary tone isn’t pessimistic, it’s realistic. And realism demands that you accept the bad with the good. While the honeymoon period is pleasant, war is coming and you must use the good, pleasant times to prepare for the inevitable rough times ahead. Your fighting chance needs a fighting chance.

“A prince ought to have no other aim or thought, nor select anything for his study, than war and its rules and discipline.”Niccolo Machiavelli – The Prince XIV

24

A note on the value of Machiavelli

“One of Machiavelli’s most important contributions was to collapse the distinctionbetween theory and practice… While Plato, Aristotle, and Aquinas had dwelt in realms of abstract theory far removed from the places where men lived, Machiavelli took his role of adviser to a practicing politician seriously… Assuming the worst of both friends and enemies was always the safest course, and in taking this approach he was rarely disappointed. Results were all that mattered. Instead of asking: what course of action should a prince take in order to be considered good? He asked what to him was the more important question: What course of action should a prince take to remain in power, without which his ability to do good vanishes altogether… This is not an apology for selfishness, but rather a plea that we judge actions not in the abstract but by their consequences.”Miles J. Unger – Machiavelli A Biography

25

John Boyd – Destruction & CreationMachiavellian Mind

“Studies of human behavior reveal that the actions we undertake as individuals are closely related to survival, more importantly, survival on our own terms. Naturally, such a notion implies that we should be able to act relatively free or independent of any debilitating external influences—otherwise that very survival might be in jeopardy. In viewing the instinct for survival in this manner we imply that a basic aim or goal, as individuals, is to improve our capacity for independent action.

The degree to which we cooperate, or compete, with others is driven by the need to satisfy this basic goal. If we believe that it is not possible to satisfy it alone, without help from others, history shows us that we will agree to constraints upon our independent action—in order to collectively pool skills andtalents in the form of nations, corporations, labor unions, mafias, etc.—so that Obstacles standing in the way of the basic goal can either be removed or overcome. On the other hand, if the group cannot or does not attempt to overcome obstacles deemed important to many (or possibly any) of its individual members, the group must risk losing these alienated members.”

26

John Boyd – Destruction & CreationMachiavellian Mind

“Under these circumstances, the alienated members may dissolve their relationship and remain independent, form a group of their own, or join another collective body in order to improve their capacity for independent action.

In a real world of limited resources and skills, individuals and groups form, dissolve and reform their cooperative or competitive postures in a continuous struggle to remove or overcome physical and social environmental obstacles.In a cooperative sense, where skills and talents are pooled, the removal or overcoming of obstacles represents an improved capacity for independent action for all concerned. In a competitive sense, where individuals and groups compete for scarce resources and skills, an improved capacity for independent action achieved by some individuals or groups constrains that capacity forother individuals or groups. Naturally, such a combination of real world scarcity and goal striving to overcome this scarcity intensifies the struggle of individualsand groups to cope with both their physical and social environments.”

27

Thank you“I’ll live or die by my own ideas.” Johan Cruyff

Presentation created May 2014, by Larry Paul, Peoria Arizona.All references are available as stated.All content is the responsibility of the author.For questions or to inquire how to arrange a consultation or workshop on this topic you can contact me at larry4v4@hotmail.com, subject line; decision/action model.For more information visit the bettersoccermorefun channel on YouTube, http://www.youtube.com/user/bettersoccermorefun?feature=watchor Street soccer, a guide to using small sided games at Udemy, https://www.udemy.com/street-soccer-a-guide-to-using-small-sided-games/?sl=E0IZeFxSVw%3D%3D