Series: How Great Coaches Speak
What Muffet McGraw can teach you about being a better speaker
One of the best ways you can learn how to improve your speaking and communication skills is to watch others — in your field or close to it — doing it really well.
In this ongoing series, I’m going to share videos of great coaches delivering great talks. For each, I’m going to tell you what they’re doing that makes them great.
(Side note: If you have examples of other coaches you’d like to share with me for this series, please email me directly at FitToSpeak@gmail.com)
Before going further, I want to make one thing clear:
There are aspects of the way these coaches speak that could certainly be improved upon — from a technical standpoint. But I’m not going to mention those.
Why?
Two reasons:
Speaking is never perfect. And sometimes, what’s technically ineffective is exactly what makes you effective. Not everything needs to be ‘coached’ (but you already know that).
Because I’d rather you focus on what they’re doing great and mimic that.
The second coach in this series is…
Muffet is in a league of her own. She’s a basketball Hall of Famer and served as the head women's basketball coach at Notre Dame from 1987 to 2020, compiling a 905–272 (.769) record over 32 seasons. She led her team to nine Final Fours, seven championship game appearances, and two National Championships.
Now, watch Muffet being interviewed for Benchwarmers, a discussion series on leadership and a winning culture:
If you read my last post in this series with Kara Lawson, you’re acutely aware of how different this example is — much more formal and highly produced.
Why did I choose this example?
Because there will be times when you, as a coach, will be asked to speak in a formal setting. And if you approach these opportunities the same way you approach informal speaking opportunities, you’re going to flop.
So, what is it that makes Muffet great at speaking?
Her dedication to communicating a clear and consistent message
Her conversational skills
Her use of influence devices
1/ Her dedication to communicating a clear and consistent message
In planning for this post, I scoured YouTube for videos of Muffet. There was a common theme in each video I watched: clear and consistent messaging.
She accomplishes this using two strategies:
She answers the question that was asked.
She only answers the question that was asked.
When Muffet is asked a question, she starts with the immediate answer to the question, elaborates on her answer, and then wraps it up with a summary statement.
This seems like an obvious framework, yet it’s difficult to find people who do it in the wild.
Answering questions in this way ensures the questioner gets the answer to their question first, is given reasoning and/or evidence to support the answer, and is then reminded once more of what the answer was (which is the message).
Muffet’s second strategy is to only answer the question that was asked. If you watched the interview, you may have noticed that she doesn’t ramble. At no point does it feel like she’s getting off track or holding the floor for too long.
The remedy for rambling is simple: stay on point.
Know your point, start with your point, stay on your point, and when you’re done making your point, stop talking.
2/ Her conversational skills
There are three specific skills I want to highlight:
Positioning
Personality
Listening
Positioning: This interview is done on a courtside bench, with Muffet and Jack sitting side-by-side.
Side-by-side isn’t usually the best position for a one-on-one conversation, but they make it work by turning their bodies toward one another. This body language creates a connection, which is immediately obvious to us watching the interview.
Imagine how ‘cold’ this interview would have felt if they had sat side-by-side but faced forward…
Personality: Throughout the interview, Muffet is smiling, laughing, sometimes poking fun at herself, and at times serious. Her personality is dynamic — she matches it to the tone of the question or topic.
When you allow your personality to be flexible and meet the demands of the moment, you’ll come across with greater sincerity and will be more relatable.
Listening: You can see Muffet listening throughout the interview — seriously, go back and watch her listen.
She’s connected with her eyes, she nods to show she’s following along, she keeps her body language open, and she doesn’t interrupt once. This would be a great time to ask yourself: “How do I look when I listen?”
3/ Her use of influence devices
In this 20-minute interview, you hear Muffet state statistics, tell stories, provide examples, and use quotes — seamlessly.
(Data) “…and to see the numbers in women’s coaching — across all sports — move from maybe 90% of all coaches were women (when Title IX came in) to now it’s 60/40 men versus women, in women's sports. […]”
(Story) “I come from a big family — eight kids. And when you have eight kids and seven pork chops, you gotta learn to move fast right away. So we were competitive in everything we did. We were going to be the fastest one to get the dishes done. Whenever there was anything at school, we had to be the first; I always wanted to be first. I always wanted to be the winner.”
(Example) “My staff is incredibly accountable because they are constantly — when we sit in our meetings — Carole will say, talk about ‘the post didn’t do this’ and Niele would’ve said ‘well my guards didn’t get you the ball in the right place,’ and […]”
(Quote) “What you allow is what will continue.”
I refer to these as influence devices.
Influence devices are tools you can (and should) use to make your messages credible and sticky. They work because they’re more than your personal thoughts and opinions — they’re evidence.
With each point Muffet makes, she follows it up with an influence device; and so should you.
Special thanks to John C on Twitter for suggesting Muffet McGraw.
I’d love to hear what you think. Please share your thoughts and questions in the comments.
Who should the next coach be?
Thanks for reading!