Performance

Performance…. That word can be connected to other words. It was a great performance, subpar performance, so so performance, a performance that was out of this world, piss poor performance, and peak performance. This one word evokes emotion for those that it becomes attached to and can affect results for a period of time. It doesn’t matter if it’s business, medicine, or even sports performance matters.

How we judge performances varies upon what it is that is happening. If we are watching our favorite concert and the show is everything we wanted, we give a standing ovation. If we ace a test we get accolades from friends and family. When we see a beautiful sunset or sunrise we might say mother nature hit it out of the park. Sports is the one area where a good performance can be judged with a “W” and a bad performance gets you the “L”.

The sports performance is where most of my time is spent. Although I hate that my entire worth as a coach is based on W’s and L’s it sure pushed me to get the most out of my athletes. There worth, rather correct or incorrect, is also judged upon the same criteria from stakeholders and friends. If they win most don’t care if they played badly and what’s even stranger, if they lose it is of no consequence if they played the match of their life but came out on the wrong end of the score. This is where I have an issue. Of course I want them to win but I also feel that you cannot control whether you win or lose. You can only control the effort you put into the performance. Furthermore, you can influence your probability of winning if the work you put in during the practice time is also rated as high performance. Athletes cannot expect to win if the effort outside of competition is less than the effort put forth during actual play.

There have been many moments as a coach where I have watched a player get beat, there is a difference in getting beat versus losing, knowing that they have done as much work as possible and have done their best during the competition only to come out on the wrong end of the score. They come off knowing that based on the L next to their name they have failed. It is the rare athlete that can judge their own performance on the merits of the event and not by a letter associated with it. We have been so force fed winning and losing as the ultimate success measure. I agree that winning feels a lot better than losing but if an athlete doesn’t perform to the level they feel they should, even when they are victorious, there is a feeling of being incomplete. Sometimes athletes win because they have more talent and not necessarily because they had an outstanding performance. This knowledge base for an athlete is a high level of competency and is rare.

Rating performances is human nature and will continue to be so for as long as we are keeping score. The entertainment industry has even turned singing and dancing into a sport. Is there nothing left that we can enjoy just for the sure pleasure of watching a great performance? I know that I am critical because it is my job and I am judged on my success. The next time you are watching a great performance enjoy it and save the judging for someone else. Oh yeah, what was the performance of this post? Just kidding.