Read Time: 2.5 min

Here’s what this week’s newsletter includes:

• 🏈 Anecdote: The Air Raid Offense and Lessons from football’s greatest innovators in simplicity and focus.

• 📈 Research Insight: The power of “less but better” in leadership and productivity.

• ✄ Practical Takeaway: A one-step exercise to ruthlessly eliminate the non-essential.

• 🎁 Exclusive Giveaway: Access our Year-End Review tool for coaches and leaders.

🪞The Idea: Effective Reflection

Coaches and Administrators aren’t often allowed to reflect on the new year. Their “year” doesn’t match the calendar but their season. The end of the year, the holiday season, is hectic for everyone. It’s hard to reflect rigorously on the past year during a season of family reunions, travel, and holiday parties.

Practical reflection isn’t about adding more tasks; it’s about honing in on what truly matters.

Focus on doing less but doing it better, focusing on quality over quantity.

✈️ Anecdote: The Air Raid

Hal Mumme birthed the Air Raid offense in the 1980s. Mumme, the original architect, was a small college coach with big ideas. The late Mike Leach, his then-assistant, was a curious mind with a law degree and a love for unconventional strategies. Together, they challenged the norms of a run-dominated era with a radical, pass-centric approach.

Today, the legacy of Mumme's creative genius and Leach's strategic boldness is evident in modern football's high-scoring, pass-driven nature.

But, the genius of the Air Raid lies in its simplicity. Leach claimed he could install his offense in 4 days.

Expert coaches have a smaller playbook, not a larger one. When their team goes through a rough patch, they don’t add. They eliminate and do the basics better.

They perfect a few key strategies that work for their team, resulting in a more focused, cohesive, and successful team.

It simplifies communication, teaching, and execution for their players. Players not only master the techniques but also better understand the principles, which leads to better decision-making.

The same is true of your leadership. What needs to be simplified? What do you need to focus on doing better?

Don’t do more, do better.

< Research Insight: The Pursuit of Less

We have previously written about the “paradox in productivity,” mentioning several studies in cognitive psychology that suggest overloading ourselves with tasks and information leads to decreased productivity and effectiveness.

This is counterintuitive.

Greg McKeown's “Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less” extensively explores the concept of less but better. McKeown advocates eliminating the non-essential to give more attention to what truly matters. Leaders who learn to cut out the trivial can focus on the vital few, leading to excellent efficiency and results.

✄ One Practice: Eliminate Ruthlessly

This week, instead of our usual five, we will share one practice for simplifying by eliminating the non-essential. Shane Parrish of Farnam Street calls this practice “Eliminating Ruthlessly.”

Do less, but better.

You can do this exercise both informally and formally. The informal list is personal and expands beyond your work, leadership, and role. Your formal list exists only within your role.

Write down your top ten objectives for 2025. Now, circle the three to four that matter most to you.

Everything not circled you should avoid. That doesn’t mean you don’t care about them - you do. But all of these things distract you from what matters. All the energy that goes into your 9th objective comes at the expense of your top one.

In other words, if you chase five rabbits, you catch none.

The three or four items circled can now be divided into smaller 90-day projects, followed by monthly, weekly, and daily projects.

🎁 The Giveaway

We shared a Year-End Review we use with the coaches and leaders we work with with anyone on Twitter. As readers, we wanted to make sure you all had a chance to access it as well!

We are processing this document in our BETTER Community (see more below). For those who would like to participate, your offer to get a rate only offered to our newsletter subscribers stands until Monday! To access that rate, all you have to do is fill out the form below!

Closing Thought: 

Much like the Air Raid offense, the world of coaching and leadership teaches us the power of simplicity and focus. As you reflect on your journey, remember that pursuing excellence isn't about the multitude of tasks but the depth and quality of the few we choose to master. Embrace the paradox of productivity and lead with a clear, intentional strategy. Here's to a year of impactful leadership, minimal yet profound actions, and personal and professional growth that mirrors the disciplined pursuit of less but better.

BETTER’s Solution to Coach Development

As a part of our work, we lead cohorts of leaders. It’s just one meeting a month with a topic, some homework, and sharing about how it’s going. But it’s powerful. Many of the coaches and leaders in our cohort express the following sentiment:

“I wish every coach got to experience this on some level.”

So, we thought, why can’t they?

As a part of what’s next for BETTER.

We are launching a community around the Culture Playbook.

Until now, the Culture Playbook has been something you buy and then get. We wanted it to be so good and affordable that every coach in the country could access it.

From now on, leaders will receive the Culture Playbook as part of a guided community led by Kevin and Seth.

If you’ve enjoyed our newsletter, imagine a community where we will take you and others through a deeper level of how to install the systems for yourself, athletes, or other coaches. You can ask us questions directly. We can guide and share discussions, share ideas, and get feedback.

We will host monthly calls, and every coach will have direct access to us. We will lead guided discussions and encourage coaches and ADs to share best practices. We want it to become the absolute best resource for all things Culture Development, both at the program and department levels. Over time, we will continue to add content, resources, and offerings. You’ll get discounts on future products that the public won’t get. And no, the price is not changing.

We’re targeting a public launch in early January, offering newsletter readers early access and a 25% discount. Fill out the form using the link below, and we’ll send you a link to get started.