The Myth of the Player-Coach

Player-Coach Concept in Sports

Evan opened by discussing Pete Rose, who was the last player-coach in major American sports from 1984 to 1986 with the Cincinnati Reds. He noted that:

• There have been no player-coaches in professional sports in the last 40 years

• The last player-coach in the NBA was over 50 years ago

• There has never been a player-coach in the modern era of football or hockey

• Most player-coaches in professional sports were failures in terms of winning percentage

• Virtually all player-coaches had sub-.500 records and short-lived dual careers

Evan explained several reasons why the dual role is problematic:

• Knowing how to do something doesn't make you good at coaching it

• It's nearly impossible to both play and coach simultaneously and be successful at either

• People generally become mediocre at both roles at best

• The issue is fundamentally about focus and priorities

• The two skill sets don't mix well

Evan then connected this concept to business settings:

• While professional sports has abandoned the player-coach model, the business world hasn't figured this out yet

• Many job descriptions use terms like "hybrid role" or "hands-on manager" which are essentially player-coach positions

• Companies often try to save money by having one person handle both technical and management responsibilities

• Leadership often underestimates the difficulty of balancing technical work with management duties

• Career progression often leads to this problem when technical experts are promoted to management but still expected to maintain their technical duties

Evan shared some concerning statistics:

• Nearly 20 million employees leave companies each year due to having a "bad manager"

• Conservative estimates put replacement costs for these employees at upwards of $500 billion annually

Evan offered several recommendations to address these issues:

1. Completely eliminate hybrid player-coach roles as they hurt both the manager's growth and the development of people working under them

2. Evaluate and determine effective managers through anonymous surveys and 360 reviews conducted by third-party organizations

3. Organize departments so dedicated managers have one job - managing people - rather than being "manager project managers" or "manager programmers"

4. Continuously solicit feedback and respond to it, creating an environment where employees feel they can be heard safely

5. Avoid protecting managers who "get stuff done" but destroy long-term culture, including bullies and micromanagers

Evan concluded by drawing a parallel to Pete Rose's gambling troubles during his player-coach tenure, suggesting that creating player-coach job descriptions is a gamble that rarely pays off and generally hurts organizations in ways they may not fully understand.