Softball Coaching Tips: Process Not Outcome

Guest post by Ken Krause, Life in the Fastpitch Lane blog

Focus on the Process Instead of the Outcome

One of the biggest temptations in coaching is to determine the success or failure of a particular action by the outcome.

If a hitter is in the cage and strikes the ball well we'll say "Good hit!" even if her eyes were closed and the swing looked more like a fisherman trying to boat a marlin. If fielders are throwing the ball in warmups without a ball thrown away, we'll consider it a job well done, even if the technique used to get the ball from one line to the other wouldn't hold up too well in a pressure-packed game situation.

It's just human nature. Yet focusing on outcomes can actually hurt player development. Yes, it's nice to be encouraging — you've heard plenty from me on that already — but the goal is to be effective repeatedly. That's probably not going to happen if good outcomes substitute for good technique.

Focusing on outcomes often shows up when working with pitchers. It's one of the reasons I won't allow beginning pitchers to have catchers. If a pitcher is staring down a catcher from 35, 40 or now 43 feet away, what's her goal? To get the ball to the catcher. Doubly so if the catcher is Dad.

Yet getting it there any old way defeats the purpose of taking lessons. It's bettter to throw 100 balls away while learning to pitch correctly than throw 100 strikes with a technique that won't allow the pitcher to advance.

I always tell my beginning students to focus on the process, the actions we're working on. As long as they keep the ball in the building when we're indoors, they're doing fine.

Focusing on the process is not just for individuals, either. You want to take the same approach in team settings — especially when you're working on something new, or increasing the speed at which you do something already.

Take fielding, for example. If you want your players to learn to go faster, a good way to do it is to time them against a stopwatch. Yet adding that kind of pressure can cause breakdowns in other areas.

If your players aren't used to going as fast as you want them to, they're going to boot some balls and throw some away. If you make that outcome the focus, they're never going to learn to go faster because they'll be too consious of trying to make the throw on-target. Which they can do when they go slower.

By focusing on the process, though, you can get them to understand the core concept you're trying to teach — moving more quickly — and let them reconcile that with accuracy when they're ready.

The other thing to keep in mind is everyone learns at different paces. You may have some players who pick up a concept right away. Others may struggle for a while. But staying focused on the process will give the ones who are struggling the opportunity to learn; given enough reps and enthusiasm they will eventually succeed.

Of course, that's all well and good in practice. But what about games? Aren't the outcomes more important than the processes there?

Yes…and no. It really depends on the current situation and what your players need.

Take the hitter who's in a slump. The more she worries about outcomes, the longer that slump is going to go. She'll make bad decisions on pitches, or over-swing, or do something else to try to force her way out of it. That never works.

But if you can convince her to focus on the process — get a good pitch to hit, use good mechanics, track the ball well, etc. — the outcomes will take care of themselves. Maybe not today, or tomorrow, but they will. In the meantime, if you absolutely have to have a hit right now, there's probably someone on the bench who can come through.

We all like to win. But we also know there can be ugly, undeserved wins as well as good but tough losses. The more you can remain focused on the process instead of the outcome, the better long-term results you're likely to see. And both you and your team will be a lot happier and more relaxed/ready to perform as well.

Anyway, that's the way I see it.