Chapter 2: Coachability - The Foundation of Your MAD Skills

Video: Feedback as Fuel: The Coachability Mindset That Built 180+ Podium Teams

Central Question

How do you turn feedback and mistakes into competitive advantage?

Case-solving competitions are designed to expose weaknesses.

You will make mistakes.
Your analysis will sometimes be wrong.
Your recommendation will sometimes have holes.
A judge will ask the question you hoped nobody would ask.
A coach will tell you that the argument you spent two hours building ~~does not~~doesn't work.

That is not a failure of the process. That is the process. One of the most important characteristics of successful case-solving competitors is coachability. Coachability is the willingness to recognise that your current approach may not be the best and then do something about it. A coachable competitor is willing to:

Be wrong
Hear uncomfortable feedback
Consider another perspective
Change their approach
Test the new approach
Reflect on what happened
Try again

This creates a powerful learning cycle: Practice → Get Feedback → Apply the Feedback → Reflect → Practice Again. The objective is not to avoid mistakes; it is to recover faster and learn from them better.

Why Coachability Matters

Case competitions create an unusual learning environment.

You have limited time.
The information is incomplete.
The problem is unfamiliar.
Your teammates may disagree with you.
Your assumptions may be challenged.
The judges may take your solution in a direction you did not anticipate.
You therefore cannot rely on knowing everything in advance.
You need the ability to adapt.

The strongest teams are not necessarily the teams that make the fewest mistakes. They are the teams that recognise mistakes quickly, learn from them, and adjust.

Discover Your MAD Skills Principle

Feedback is fuel.

Don't just collect feedback to hear it; use it. There is no value in receiving the same feedback five times if nothing changes. When someone tells you that your recommendation is unclear, don't simply write: "Make recommendation clearer." Ask:

Why was it unclear?
What did the listener misunderstand?
Where did the logic break down?
What could I do differently?
How can I test whether the revised version works?

Feedback becomes valuable when it changes behaviour.

The Four Ps of Effective Case Teams

Coachability becomes even more useful when it is combined with strong team habits. My foundation for effective case teams is the Four Ps:

1. Preparation: Come prepared to contribute. This means:

Read and understand the case.
Complete the preparation required.
Develop your own initial thinking.
Understand the tools and concepts you may need.
Be ready to explain and defend your ideas.

Whenever possible: Pre-resolve solo, then collide ideas. Individual thinking before team discussion can prevent the first idea raised in the room from becoming the team's automatic answer. The goal is not to eliminate collaboration. It is to make collaboration better.

2. Participation: Every team member must contribute. A team of four with three silent members is not functioning as a four-person team. Different perspectives are one reason teams exist. Participation means:

Contributing ideas
Asking questions
Challenging assumptions
Building on other people's thinking
Listening to different perspectives
Helping the team move forward

Participation doesn't mean everyone must speak equally on every issue. It means everyone is responsible for contributing to the team's thinking.

3. Presence: Be fully present. Case solving requires attention. You cannot contribute your best thinking if you are distracted, disengaged, or mentally somewhere else. Presence means being engaged with:

The case
Your teammates
The discussion
The clock
The evolving solution

It also means listening. Sometimes the best contribution you can make is recognising the important point someone else has just raised and helping the team develop it.

4. Promptness: Deadlines matter. In competition, being late can affect the entire team. If one person is late to practice, misses a preparation deadline, or fails to deliver their portion of the work, everyone else may have to compensate. Promptness is therefore not simply about punctuality.

It demonstrates respect for:

Your teammates
Your coach
The process
The competition
The limited time available: So Respect the Clock.

Coachability in Action

Imagine your team delivers a practice presentation. The coach says: "Your recommendation is good, but I don't understand why it is better than your second alternative." There are two possible responses.

Response One

"We explained that on Slide 12."
This is defensive.

This team is trying to prove that it did the work.

Response Two

"That's helpful. If you didn't see the difference, we probably haven't made the trade-off clear enough. Let's rethink how we compare the alternatives."

This is coachable. The second response ~~does not~~doesn't mean the coach is automatically right. It means the team is willing to investigate the feedback rather than immediately defend itself.

Challenge the Feedback Don't Dismiss It

Coachability ~~does~~ ~~not~~doesn't mean accepting everything someone tells you. Good coaches can disagree with you. Judges can misunderstand your argument. Teammates often provide feedback that is not useful. Coachability means being willing to consider the feedback. Ask: "What can we learn from this?"

Sometimes the answer is: "The feedback is correct. We need to change."
Sometimes it is: "The feedback reveals a communication problem, even though our underlying analysis is correct."
And sometimes it is: "We considered the issue carefully and still disagree."

All three can be legitimate outcomes. The important part is that you thought about it; you didn't just dismiss it.

Build a Recovery Mindset

Case competitions will produce moments where things go wrong.

You forget a number.
A slide ~~does not~~doesn't advance.
A judge asks an unexpected question.
A teammate loses their train of thought.
Your financial model produces an unexpected result.
Your recommendation is challenged.

The response that matters is not: "We made a mistake." The more useful question is: "What do we do next?" This is a recovery mindset. Strong teams learn to: Recognise → Recover → Reflect → Improve. The ability to recover under pressure is itself a competitive skill.

The Coachability Test

After every practice session or competition, ask:

What went well? Identify behaviours worth repeating.
What did not go well? Be specific.
What feedback did we receive? Separate observations from emotions.
What will we change? Identify concrete behaviours.
How will we test the change? Put the improvement into the next practice.
Did the change work? If not, adjust again.

This turns practice into a learning system rather than repeated performance.

The Bottom Line

Coachability: The Foundation of Your Mad Skills

Case competitions are learning environments. You will make mistakes, encounter difficult feedback, and discover weaknesses in your thinking.
Coachability is the willingness to hear feedback, consider it, apply it, test the result, and learn from what happens.
The objective is not to avoid mistakes. It is to recover faster and learn from them better.
Feedback has little value if you never change your behaviour.
Use the learning cycle: Practice → Get Feedback → Apply the Feedback → Reflect → Practice Again.
Strong case teams also practise the Four Ps:
- Preparation: arrive ready to contribute.
- Participation: use the perspectives and abilities of the entire team.
- Presence: remain fully engaged.
- Promptness: respect deadlines and the competition clock.
Whenever possible, pre-resolve solo, then collide ideas. Individual thinking before group discussion can create stronger team conversations.
Coachability is not simply about accepting what a coach tells you. It is about developing the judgment to use the feedback to become better.

Feedback is fuel, but only when you use it.

MAD Skills Drill

Take a case your team has previously solved or a recommendation from a recent practice case. Give yourself 10 minutes. Without rebuilding the solution, evaluate it against the Winning Solution Test. Ask:

Clear: Can we explain the problem and recommendation in one sentence each?
Insightful: What did we discover that was not immediately obvious from reading the case?
Supported: What are the three strongest pieces of evidence supporting the recommendation?
Realistic: Could this organisation genuinely pursue the recommendation?
Feasible: Does it have, or can it acquire, the required capabilities and resources?
Implementable: Can we explain who does what, when, and how?
Measure: How will management know whether it worked?
Persuasive: Could we convince a senior decision-maker that this is the best course of action?

Then identify the weakest dimension of your solution and improve that dimension.

Coachability Twist

Present your assessment to another team member or coach.

Their job is to identify one weakness you missed.
Your job is not to defend the original solution.
Your job is to ask: "What would we need to change to make this stronger?"

The MAD Skills Test

Can you identify a weakness in your own solution before a judge does? Winning teams don't just create solutions; they continually make them harder to challenge.