Ian King

Players turned coaches have a short memory  

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After having watched a player I formerly trained in a team sport for many years become a coach and appear to err in the same over-training ways he would have complained about as a player under my guidance, I formed a hypothesis that many players who were trained in an optimal environment suffer short term memory loss upon making the transition to coach.

Specifically, they revert to training volumes that would have raised their shackles as a player.

I am now seeing another case of this. As a player, this coach was quoted a saying the high volume training being imposed on them was causing high incidence of injuries and depressed team performances.

Now, in his second year of coach of the same team in an Australian national league competition, the coaches season has been described as…..highest incidence of injury in the league, and a rapid fall from top of the latter to bottom half.

Sounds familiar?

Same influence in the physical preparation in both scenarios. Another case of a former player with selective memory loss now that they are a coach?

Ian King

Corporate integrity and a changing US?  

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The recent furore over the petroleum company BP oil spill impact on the US natural environment, lifes lost, and economic damage, is dominating news in the US.

And so it should.

But it raises a few questions.

Firstly, based on my reading ‘Confessions of Economic Hitman’ (book), energy companies (including US ones) have been devasting other countries cultures, natural habitats, lives and livelihoods for at least decades now. Is the current anger in the US because it affects directly the US? Or are Americans ready to get angry about any company / country that causes loss of live, damage to the environment, and descruction of a way of life as it occurs in any country? If the latter is correct, I would take great comfort.

Secondly, for the first time I have witnessed it, the US people appear angry about a company (BP) that may have put profit before safety and the environment. This is great. However from a distance it appears to me that the corporate culture of the US has been this for some time, in fact some may suggest they set the standard of this globally. Does this mean we are seeing a signficicant change in the value system of the people? That distain for profit before people and the environment, once a vision held only by fringe ‘greenies’ and other ‘woodstock leftovers’, is becoming mainstream in America? If it is, that’s exciting.

Thirdly, is this expectation that integrity should be maintained before profit and greed, going to filter into all industries? At the moment, I am seeing US companies continuing to sell books that they have been advised directly and indirectly contain serious copyright breach issues.  Or will the inital expectation for corporate integrity be limited to companies affecting our natural environment only?

Time will tell. Promising signs either way. This could be interpreted as an early indicator that the 2012 predictions/prophecy as they relate to a new era of integrity could be coming.