Same task - different approach

I have played enough basketball and volleyball and rate myself 7/10 in both.

I used to have a great jump/vertical and could almost touch the ring and easily cross the men's high net in volleyball too.

But what I lacked in both were good coaches. Coaches who could correct my approach and jump.

Since basketball interested me more, I learned a lot watching NBA. The best compliment I got in my college days was being called KOBE. I definitely had that MAMBA spirit (but more because I had a similar look that he had in his rookie years).

Anyway, I had picked up a good jump shot for basketball and even had a decent ball release too. 

But things weren't the same in volleyball. Although I could spike hard, my fundamentals were wrong and I never knew it.

That is, until now - when I have become the volleyball coach for college students of my alma mater.

As a coach now, I was observing the approach to a spike in volleyball more closely and observed that it is very different than a pull up jump shot in basketball. Both require or have best balance when jumped with 2 feet - but while in basketball, we most often jump with our feet mostly together or slightly apart, in volleyball - they are never together. 

And that's the biggest flaw that I had in my volleyball spike. After I picked up volleyball again (almost 20 years after my graduation), I started getting lower back pains and realized that it wasn't only because of my excessive pikes but due to my bad posture. 

I have the habit or squaring up to the net and jumping to spike, whereas the correct approach is to get the third approach leg parallel to the net and jumping in an angle (facing the setter) - with one arm tracking the ball and the other, lowered and ready to be raised, elbow first and brought down hard for the spike. 

That's when I realized that we sometimes end up doing 2 seemingly similar tasks the same way, when in fact, they both may require a different approach altogether. 

It also struck me that this isn't exclusive to sports but also to strategy. No two strategies can be the same or be replicated for another brand. They each have their problem, barriers, triggers, circumstantial reasons to take a different route. 

A strategy framework could help arrive at a strategy but it's never the actual strategy itself. Sometimes people confuse that with the strategy and therefore use the same model/framework to other brands and end up replicating the strategy itself.

That's blasphemy in the stratosphere.

I realize now with a deeper hard-earned experiences that strategy has to be different, relevant and unique to a brand as the approach is going to be different and so is the result. Because, sometimes one wants to take a jump shot, sometimes, one wants to spike. Both may require 3 steps but confusing one for the other is how you could miss your shot, hurt your back or lose the game.


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