The concept of a playbook – whether in team sports (containing diagrams of offensive and defensive plays) or in business and politics (containing strategies and tactics for campaigns) – is critical for the reason Hunter describes in the above quote: one becomes so familiar with it that the plays and strategies become part of muscle memory.  They are memorized and practiced to the point where one does not have to think about what to do to succeed, and how to do it.  Whether we think about it this way, or not, if we are involved in a comprehensive activity that changes little over time, we all have a playbook.

You each have a playbook for how to succeed in school.

You employ pretty much the same strategies year after year, in class after class.  The strategies you employ are the ones that work best for you.  You enter a class on the first day, you go over the syllabus, and you don’t really think about how you are going to fulfill the assignments.  You’ve taken so many exams, written so many reflections and essays, you don’t need to give it much thought.

Your playbooks are all similar, and yet the strategies and tactics can vary depending on your definition of success.   A student who is committed to get the most out of class – whether in terms of learning or grades – will likely have somewhat different strategies than the student who wants more of a balance between what he or she takes from class and personal, perhaps work, life.  The point here is:  you each have one and you follow it without even thinking.

And that – the lack of thinking about it – is the main problem.  For this class, as well as for your lives.

In our productive endeavors, as long as we face the same conditions, day after day, our playbooks serve us well.  Thus, in football for example, in a given season we face the same rules in each game.  Variations in the playbook come from a host of factors.  For example, the current coaching philosophies, talent at each position, the opponents we’ll encounter, all require adjustments.  The same is true in school.  For most classes, we face the same policies and practices.  There are variations across disciplines and professors but, for the most part, we can easily adapt our strategies to handle the variations we encounter.

However, the world outside of education does not operate in the same way.  Most of you likely have little idea concerning the jobs you will get after graduation.  You are smart enough to realize that employing organizations don’t operate anything like institutional education, but developing a playbook for your careers – let alone your lives – is not something you are even considering.  How do i know this?  Because if students were thinking about it – understanding and practicing the skills and strategies they will need – they would not be using the playbooks they are now.

And there lies a key to this class:  If i take your development, and preparation for life after college seriously, then the playbook for this class has to be dramatically different than the one you are bringing with you on the first day.  It is no exaggeration to say that, not only will your existing playbook not work in this class, if you follow it you cannot do well.  And giving it up will be one of the greatest challenges you face this semester simply because the one you have about school you have built up over most of your lives thus far, and it resides – as Hunter says – in your “unconscious brain.”

The complete disconnect between college and workplace is a primary reason why this class is so different from most you will take.  Another reason is that your education almost always assumes that things now – even in the future – are exactly the same as they have been in the past.  College courses are taught the same way, using the same material (with occasional “updates”) that they have been for decades.  Part of the jargon in business is the term “VUCA world,” used to characterize the world we currently face, one characterized by constant change.  The disruption caused by VUCA is extraordinarily difficult to deal with unless one has practice in being creative and flexible.  It is the world you will enter once you leave the safety and security of PC.

All you have to do to experience this disconnect between what you learn in college and what employers want in a prospective hire is do online searches like “what employers look for in new hires.”  Here is one example.  And another.  The gap created by this disconnect has gotten so wide, many colleges are experimenting with new ways of developing the knowledge, skills, and the types of awareness employers seek.  One recent experiment has been to give students intensive training in an area and then, when they demonstrate competence, award them with a badge or credential. Here is one experiment, a program that offers eight skills.

Given that i originally came from the business world, my challenge has been to create classes geared to preparing students for their careers, but more importantly for their lives after college.

The good news is that we will spend quite a bit of time challenging your existing playbooks and building a new one.  Now, why would i do that to you?  Why put you through all of the hard work and trouble just so that you can have a playbook for this class?  That would be rather sadistic, don’t you think?  Well, the better news is that this playbook will be geared to your work life after graduation as well as your lives now.  The primary reason is that – unlike sports and school – this playbook is based on the idea that things change continuously and we all need strategies that will help us make the most out of the chaos change creates in our lives.

Learning and unlearning

Consider the following:  In college you played for a football team (especially a great one, like Nebraska!).  You knew the playbook inside and out.  It became part of you.

Now, you have moved on and been asked to join a semi-pro rugby team.  Or perhaps a water polo team.  You decided to offer your college football playbook to your new team since you know how great it was.  How effective do you think that might be?

Because of the success you have had with a traditional school playbook, this is to some extent what you will be facing, at least at the beginning of the semester in this class.  Your traditional playbook can’t work.  This is – following the analogy – a very different game, a very different playing field.

What the quote from Descartes suggests, then, is that this course is less about learning than it is about unlearning.  To make the transition between schooling (of which you are coming close to the end) and your career, you will need to unlearn so many things you have taken for granted.  That is, as i state above, the hardest thing about this class.  But you not only have me to help you, you will have your classmates – all who are going through the same thing – as well as guidance from alums who have been where you are now.

How to use this playbook (and a quick overview of how this class works)

i refer to this text as a playbook for my classes.  It is likely more appropriate to refer to it as a manual for developing a playbook of your own.  It begins with the members of this class creating a collective playbook.  That is why it exists online in the form of a blog; it requires your collective contributions as well as mine.  It also requires contributions from those who have already taken my classes, as you will see.  Then, by the end of the semester, you will have a framework for a new playbook, again, one that pertains more to your lives after you graduate.

This “text” is required.  You will be tested on it, but not the way your current schooling playbook defines “test.”  You won’t be taking a multiple-choice test or essay exam on it.  Rather, the testing will come as you apply it to your work in this course.

Application of course material is a very important part of this class.  Your existing playbook makes this concept difficult to understand in a class, so let’s go over what this means.

Consider the futbol / soccer team playbook (as i write this i am watching Manchester United play Chelsea).  Players, when they join the team or start a new season, are given the playbook.  The coaching staff may go over some of it, but the players’ first responsibility is to go through it and commit all plays and strategies and tactics to memory.   At that point, a coach does not say: “OK, take out a pencil and paper.  There are 100 true-false questions, do the best you can.”  Rather, the coach might divide players into practice squads, send 22 of them onto the field, and then walk them all through various offensive and defensive formations, as well as set pieces.

The more carefully the players studied their playbooks the night before, the easier it is for them to get into a rhythm in the walkthroughs.  Then comes weeks of practice.  Note that it is not about memorizing the playbook through reading; rather it is applying the plays and strategies in simulated game conditions.

So the players are tested, indeed, but the test is how well they apply the playbook in practice sessions and, ultimately, in matches.  Note that in practice, players will get feedback on how they are applying the plays and what they might do to improve.  Better players always do that for themselves.  In other words, they know how they, and their teammates, are doing and they push themselves to continually improve.

Now, back to our classroom situation.  Our strategies and theories and practices – to a large extent – are in the course textbooks, in articles and videos that you will review each week.  You will review that material the same way soccer players study new plays.  You do not have to memorize the material.  Rather, you should see the class material within the context of the course, a bigger picture of how this material applies to what we do in the class.

i’ll be more specific.

Since decision-making is an important aspect of management, suppose i give you material on various models of decision-making in organizations.  This material describes four different models of group decision-making.  Before you come to class you each review the material to understand how each model works, how they differ, in what circumstances are they best used, etc.  You would not need to memorize them (you will have the materials to draw from), rather, get a feel for how they are used by groups to make decisions.

In class, i divide you into groups of three or four.  i give each group a major decision faced by an organization.  i ask the groups to discuss which of the four models are most appropriate.  i might make this a simulation, a role play where you three or four are making this decision for your organization.  Thus, select a model of the four you studied, lay out a brief plan for making the decision, then role play to come up with a specific decision using the model.

i didn’t lecture on the models, we didn’t even discuss them; i asked you to take the knowledge you had gleaned from the material you studied and apply that knowledge in a simulated situation.  In other words, you test the models by using them to make decisions.  First, we’ll use them in hypothetical situations.  Based on our testing, we’ll then use the models to make actual decisions about the class, or your projects.

To be even more specific:  Each group would present their process – the model they chose, why they chose it, what their decision was and how the model worked.  After all presented briefly, we would discuss the models more generally.  Feedback would be self-feedback (each group lets us know how they think they did, how they would improve their process next time), feedback from other groups (suggestions for improvement if the group didn’t mention it in their self-feedback), and from me.  But note something:  The better the feedback from the group and other groups, the less i even need to participate.  I would only build on your feedback or add things that the others didn’t cover.

So, where do grades come in?  Well, since we have been using team sports as an analogy, how is a soccer team graded?  In the games.  Win, lose, draw.  Their overall record for a season is akin to a cumulative GPA.  What is important is the practice.  The grade – game outcome – is a direct function of how well the team – and individual players – did in practices.  Note that the first few times the team ran through a new play, they sucked.  But, whereas in a classroom if you fail a couple of quizzes, you are stuck with those failures all semester.  In the world outside of schooling, that makes no sense.  Indeed, we learn by failing, then improving using what we learned through our doing.

The same assessment systems have to be woven into this class.  We won’t grade your applications until you practice and improve until you are ready to be graded.  Feedback, as much as possible, especially feedback on how to improve, is what we will need throughout the semester.  Outside of classrooms, all organizations work like this, not just sports teams.  When you first develop a product or service you test them, you get feedback, you improve.  If it is software, at some point you throw it out to a group of users in a beta test.  You desperately want the software to fail; that is how you will improve it to the point it is ready for general release.  It is far better to fail in testing than later, when people are relying on your product.

Practice vs, game

Below is a table illustrating how a traditional class works, compared to this class, and compared to our real-world example.

This playbook / manual, then, consists of the following components:

• Overall course philosophy / orientation with particular emphasis on how – and why – it must be different from other classes you have taken.
• Various strategies and exercises geared to getting the most out of this class.
• Guidance through the stories of alums who have taken my classes.
• Ongoing comments, postings, reflections, ideas from all of you.

Overall, two things are critical:  1) That you study (read, pose questions, re-read) this playbook so that you can get the most out of this class (i recommend that you also read/view the material that is hyperlinked in the chapters), and 2) contribute to its development through your contributions.  Since this is the first draft of this playbook, and is the first semester i will use it in classes, i ask for your feedback on what needs to be clarified and / or what might be added to aid in understanding.  You can use the comment section below each chapter for submitting those suggestions.