Cignetti models coaching in the classic Hungarian sense
The word “coach” comes from a Hungarian village named Kocs that in the 15th century began building sturdy horse-drawn carriages. Translated, a coach was literally the vehicle that carried someone from where they were to where they wanted to be.
The word evolved into metaphor over time. By the early 1800s, Oxford English Dictionary had adopted the term to describe tutors who “carried” students through exams. Later came athletic coaches, training and preparing players for competition.
Somewhere along the way, we lost the meaning — and many leaders now use coach to describe behavior that does the opposite of development.
What’s been lost, as the word has taken on various shapes over time, is the “how.” Confusion is evident weekly in my work, as I explain what coaching actually is and what it’s not.
“You’re the expert. Can’t you just tell me what to do?” asked a 45-year-old executive.
I can’t blame him. If the sidelines of youth sports are any testament, most of us have been exposed to so-called coaches whose primary behavior is loudly shouting an endless list of commands.
Good coaches know that the real work is 80% drawing out and only 20% pouring in.
The Indiana Hoosiers football program reached a pinnacle this past season. And that’s thanks in no small part to Curt Cignetti, the coaching linchpin.
Cignetti isn’t just Indiana’s football coach. He’s running a master class in leadership. His edge isn’t play design; it’s talent arbitrage. He consistently extracts more value from the same human capital than richer programs do, not by shouting louder or installing smarter schemes, but by refusing to treat players as empty vessels. He doesn’t pour knowledge in. He pulls capacity out.
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What distinguishes Cignetti is not strategy alone but development — the rare and challenging craft of changing how people think, not just what they do.
Percy Agyei-Obese played for coach Curt Cignetti for four seasons at James Madison University. Jayson Jenks of The New York Times reported his experience in January, recalling a story from the team’s first year in the Sun Belt Conference.
Agyei-Obese said, “Guys on the team were coming to me as their captain: ‘We’re beat up. Our bodies are beat up. It’s a lot. Do you think you can talk to Coach?’
“I went to Cignetti. I gave him the whole spiel. I told him, ‘As a captain, I wanted to communicate this to you.’
“When he answered, he said he totally understood and then started asking for my opinion: “How do you think we should go about it? Should we shorten this practice? Should we just have an off day tomorrow?’”
In an era that conflates aggressive command and control for leadership, his success offers a quieter (truer) lesson: The best coaches, in sport and in life, do not push people toward performance. They invite them into its possibilities and then hold them, patiently and relentlessly, to the work of becoming. AIl agency rests in the coachee.
The highest return on investment in leadership isn’t what you teach people; it’s what you help them discover they already have. It’s only when individuals make these decisions on their own that the wide gap between knowing and doing begins to narrow.
My colleagues and I borrow the 500-year-old word to describe a process fueled primarily by question-asking as the metaphorical carriage.
The International Coaching Federation defines coaching as partnering with clients in a thought-provoking and creative process that inspires them to maximize their potential.
And good coaches are clear about what coaching is not:
◗ Consulting: providing answers and solutions;
◗ Training: transferring skills or knowledge;
◗ Therapy: healing trauma; or
◗ Mentoring: sharing personal experience.
Most leadership development still traffics in advice. Real coaching is braver work.
It asks you to release control, tolerate not knowing, and trust that the most valuable insights are already inside you, waiting to be drawn out.
If Cignetti is right — and the data (have you seen the trophy?!) suggests he is — your next competitive advantage will not come from another strategy deck. It will come from a partnership that dares to develop people rather than manage them.
The coach is the carriage. Carriages move only when the driver takes the reins.