Here's the Study on Millennials that Tom Coughlin Requested

Tom Coughlin is well-established as the NFL's resident hardass, most notably documented in the Washington Post by Sally Jenkins who described Coughlin as "a Patton-like, megalomaniac throwback." This is fair given that he prohibited "TVs in the trainer's room, weight room or equipment room" and required "socks must be mid-calf. No hats or sunglasses in meetings, and no slouching. Players must sit straight up in meetings, feet on the floor, no folded arms or crossed legs."

Arguably, Coughlin's most draconian rule required that players be at least five minutes early for team meetings, creating an unsolvable logic puzzle about what exactly "on time" means. But his most inhumane adherence to militaristic order came in 1999 as coach of the Jaguars, when he fined players for being late because they were in a car accident. As the New York Times reported:

"Jacksonville Jaguars Coach Tom Coughlin fined two rookies $500 each for being late to a team meeting on Saturday even though their tardiness was caused by an accident in which their car flipped four times before hitting a guard rail on a bridge."

This is the Tom Coughlin—the you're-late-if-you're-on-time, posture-is-a-form-of-character Coughlin—Dr. Chris Bogart, a clinical psychologist and executive director of of The Southfield Center for Development, was familiar with before heading to the Giants facility to give a presentation on understanding millennials.

The presentation made news when Coughlin told Bart Hubbuch from the New York Post that the Giants "did a study on millennials to 'understand these guys, this generation.'" This created some confusion: since when is Tom Coughlin interested in understanding people?

Bogart, who mostly works in the school system on learning and developmental research, told me he was asked to give a presentation by the Giants about two different things: how to help players retain information more effectively, and gaps in generational attitudes towards work and learning. "From the little bit I was able to glean, they've had some challenges with a couple of their players in terms of motivating them," Bogart told me over the phone. "And I think what they were doing is saying, hey, let's take a step back here and look at this in a broader way and say, are there ways of looking at this based upon research that might guide us in terms of more effectively help these players really feel like they can embrace this information more effectively?"

This request comes after the Seattle Seahawks and head coach Pete Carroll have been making waves with their positive and individualistic approach towards coaching. Carroll has become known for what SI's Jim Trotter described as an approach "heavy on fun and competition and taking advantage of the uniqueness of each individual." Perhaps the Giants felt it was time to find out if shouting may, in fact, not always be the answer. This sounds anachronistic to Coughlin's boot-in-ass approach, but that's exactly what Bogart was brought in to do.

Bogart's presentation to the entire Giants coaching and training staff (embedded below) included a breakdown on the differences between generations. Coughlin is a "traditionalist" while his players are millennials. Many members of the coaching staff are Baby Boomers and Generation X'ers, underlying Bogart's observation that "for the first time in history, organizations have four different generations of employees." (Bogart said the presentation "came from a collaborative effort of the clinicians at the Southfield Center for Development; and the information was gathered from a variety of professional and research sources, the details of which can be provided by the Center.")

With this gap, according to Bogart, comes wildly different approaches to instruction, learning, and work. Bogart's presentation describes Coughlin and other traditionalists as "Patriotic; Loyal; Hard working; Wants to leave a legacy; Faith in institutions; Job-hopping viewed as disloyal" who value "authority, conforming, and discipline" while millennials are "Diverse; Media savvy; Cyber-literate; Realistic; Environmentally conscious; Collaborative; Many times their first job is after graduating college; Will work 60 hours a week - but want to do it on their own schedule" and value "Being real; Confidence; Being social; Integrity; Innovation; Entertainment; and Efficiency."

In the presentation, Bogart advised the Giants to "capitalize" on millennials' "intuitive sense of understanding technology," "listen to what they have to say," "let them" communicate digitally since they are comfortable doing so, and "allow them space to be the best they can be."

At least to this 25 year old who would rather be coached by Tom Coughlin than self-describe as a millenial, a lot of Bogart's recommendations—which, it should be emphasized, are good suggestions—can essentially be boiled down to "millennials are people, too." After all, the approach itself is called "mindfulness," creating the natural juxtaposition to carelessness or negligence. Maybe this is important for Coughlin to hear from an expert, but it's a little depressing he couldn't figure that out on his own.

How did Coughlin take it? Bogart was surprised. "Going in there…I thought he would encounter it from a little bit of a more closed front, like, hey, this isn't what's worked for me and I've won two Super Bowls and who's this guy telling me different ways of looking at things. But [Coughlin] could not have been more open to what we had to present."

"[Coughlin] sat right up front, took notes on everything we were presenting. He asked a lot of great questions. He engaged with us during the breaks. He could not have been more open and really saying, obviously we need to do some things differently and embrace the idea that a learning environment is different today than it was 30 years ago."

As tempting as it is to ridicule Coughlin (more than I already have, I suppose), the very definition of being a traditionalist is to resist change, which means that Coughlin is breaking barriers simply by considering something new. "I think it's great that they're doing this," Bogart said. "I think it's great they're trying to think outside the box on how to approach things differently." Maybe if one of his players is late to a meeting because he was in a car accident, he'll now only be fined $250.

Learning and Generations, Southfield Center for Development