I don’t know if overpromotion is a word or not, but lets just say it is.
I have followed sports the majority of my life and I have noticed that great teams are normally led by great coaches.
Great coaches come in many different shapes and forms. Often you will see a team make a former player their coach. Sometimes this works, sometimes it doesn’t.
Logic might tell you that if a team takes a great player and makes him a coach, he will be a great coach. This coach, being a great player, knows what it takes to be great, so logically he should be able to coach his team to be great.
Logic would also tell you that if you take a marginal player and make him a coach, he will be a marginal coach. This coach, being a marginal player, doesn’t know what it is like to be great, so logically he shouldn’t be able to coach his team to be great.
Funny thing about logic in this case, it is wrong. Rarely does a great player become a great coach. However there are plenty of cases where a marginal player becomes a great coach.
Now slow down, I am not saying that all marginal players will make great coaches, or that great players will make horrible coaches, I am just saying that I recognize a trend.
I wonder if this trend exists outside of the sports world?
When I worked in retail jewelry, great salesmen were often rushed into management positions. I always wondered why this happened? If someone is great at sales, why take them away from the sales process and have them manage people who aren’t as gifted in the sales process? Unfortunately when the great salesman became manager, the store usually suffered. The sales went down and the manager was replaced.
When a marginal salesman was promoted to manager, the store normally benefited. Yes, a valuable member of the sales team was removed, but the great salesmen were still selling. These marginal salesman usually became very good managers.
I wonder where else this trend might exist? The medical community? Industry? Politics? Churches?