Most of us don’t coach high-performing sports teams. In fact, I don’t know a single head coach. But I do know that coaches need starters, and they also need players who can come in off the bench to play when the starters need to rest, are injured, or don’t have the right skillset for the circumstances.
Makes sense, right? But here’s the tricky part: as the coach, do you focus on getting the starters as much playing time as possible, so they get really really good? Or do you make sure your bench players get time too, so they’re ready when their moment comes? How do you balance these competing needs?
I’ve been thinking about the idea of “building your bench” as it might apply to one’s own skills and talents. Who do I start? Who do I sub in? Who might be waaaay down the bench, not getting many minutes? To be clear, I’m talking here about a whole bench full of real strengths and aptitudes, not the stuff that you’re actually not good at or hate doing (we can outsource that to special teams).
The big question for me is how to trust my top strengths and skills AND to deliberately venture further down the bench. If I come back to the same comfortable strengths over and over, the others may wither. Instead, can I choose opportunities and challenges that insist I look past my starting five?
What are your “starting five” strengths? What might be worth developing that’s a little further down the bench?
