Keeping Score Doesn't Help You Win

The boys didn't do very well at their hockey tournament this weekend. The best game was a loss of 5 to 3, and some games were blowouts with scores like 10 to 0, and 11 to 1 against. They played hard and had fun, but didn't get very good results, based on the standard hockey metrics.

In hockey, the key metric is definitely The Score - did you win or did you lose? For each player, there are points for goals and assists. There's also Plus/Minus, points awarded for being on the ice when goals are scored for or against your team. And, for goalies, there are Save Percentage and Goals Against. Everyone knows these stats for the big leagues, and a lot of kids' teams are tracking these things too.

The truism is - what you measure, you improve. If this were true, the boys should constantly be getting more goals, more points, more pluses, and higher save percentages. Unfortunately, this doesn't seem to be happening.

The reality is - none of these metrics provide any value to help the team improve; none of them help Jordan get more goals, or help Kyle stop more pucks.

The solution is - we need metrics that do help the team improve; we need to dig deeper to find things that can change the results, not just report them.

So, you ask "Why aren't we getting more goals?" and decide to start measuring shots on goal, for and against. If the shots are 75 to 10 against, you've got a pretty good idea that you need to get more shots. So you tell your players - "We Need More Shots!" After a few games, you still aren't getting any more shots, and still aren't getting any more goals.

So, you ask "Why aren't we getting more shots?" and decide to start measuring possession time, for and against. You find out that the other team controls the puck 85% of the game and your team only controls it the remaining 15%. So you tell your players - "We Need to Control the Puck More!". After a few more games, you still aren't controlling the puck, still aren't getting any more shots, and still aren't getting any more goals.

So, you ask "Why can't we control the puck?" and decide to start measuring how your team loses control of the puck. After a few games, you realize that 50% of the turnovers happen when the boys panic and slap the puck away, and another 25% are from failed pass attempts. Suddenly, you have something you can work on that can directly affect the outcome of the games. You can do passing drills and eyes-on-target drills and soft-hands drills and stick-on-the-ice drills. In the next few games, you can continue to measure how you lose control of the puck, and continue to work on these drills until that part of the game improves. Chances are, when you improve THIS metric, you'll also improve puck control, shots on goal, and goals scored.

So, if you want to improve, don't waste your time with metrics that just report what happened, what the results were. Dig down to find metrics that drive the results, that you can take action on. That's how you build a winning team.