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The Emperor's New Clothes REMIXED
A classic folktale retold through the lens of modern day coaching
Dave Keelty
June 16, 2025
Table of Contents
The Emperor’s New Clothes Remixed
Not long ago, in a professional sports team, there was a head coach who prided himself on being athlete centred. He was a relationship builder, a connector, and he did everything he could to understand his people. While he loved the sport he coached, what really got him going was getting the best out of his people. While other coaches were known for building smart, hard-nosed teams, it was said of him, “He’s probably off having a coffee with a player again.”
One offseason, two consultants arrived at the club. They claimed to have developed a cutting-edge leadership framework that would revolutionize team dynamics. But this framework, they said, was unique: only those with genuine leadership insight would even be able to understand it. Those who didn’t “get it” were clearly not suited for high-performance environments.
The coach was thrilled. “If I implement this,” he thought, “I’ll immediately know who on my staff and squad is truly aligned with our athlete centred philosophy —and who just doesn’t get it.” He handed the consultants a large budget and cleared his schedule for them to “embed the framework” into the club.
The two consultants moved in, covering walls with post-its and diagrams full of vague buzzwords like “synergistic alignment” and “elastic ownership.” In reality, there was no framework—just empty phrases designed to sound impressive and make people doubt themselves if they didn’t understand.
The coach wanted to check on their progress but hesitated. He remembered that only the truly insightful would understand it. Despite his knowledge and track record of leading successful teams, he doubted himself. “Better to send someone else first,” he thought. “I’ll ask one of the senior players—he’s sharp, respected, and has been in high-performance systems before.”
So the captain sat in on a workshop. He listened closely as the consultants explained how the team would move from “resonance” to “transcendence” through a “non-linear feedback spiral.” They pointed at abstract shapes and referenced leadership literature no one had heard of. The player blinked, trying to follow. He saw nothing. It didn’t make sense. But everyone else in the room was nodding—or pretending to. A pit formed in his stomach. Is it just me? Am I the weak link here?
He thought about speaking up. But how would that go? The coach was so focused on being world class, on showing that having strong connections with players could be a competitive advantage. That being athlete-centred, truly athlete-centred was the way forward. Speaking up could be seen as challenging that philosophy. He felt like he had a good relationship with the coach, but perhaps he’d just sit on it and see how it evolved. Perhaps it would be become clearer why this was being chased. And after all, what would the actual harm be? So the captain nodded and said, “Yeah. It’s... sophisticated. I like it.”
Later, the head of performance sat in on another session. She, too, left confused but praised it loudly. “Very thought-provoking,” she told the coach. “Definitely ahead of its time.” But in a conversation with the captain, she shared her confusion:
“I’m not sure how to bring this up with the head coach. He’s just so focused on his philosophy, and proving it’s the right way to go, I’m not sure he’s willing to hear that this might not be the ‘silver bullet’ he’s hoping it is. In fact, he’s never been one for silver bullets. I don’t even understand where this has come from.”
Soon the whole organisation was parroting pieces of the new framework. However, you could split the team into two camps. Some were using the language tongue in cheek, although never when the head coach was in earshot. Others were dropping its phrases into conversation—without knowing what they meant—because that’s what people did here. No one wanted to be the one who “didn’t get it.” Everyone pretended they did.
It was at this point, a group of staff and senior players organised a meeting with the head coach. They shared with him their confusion and hesitation around what the consultants were working on. They couldn’t understand how it was going to add value, and they didn’t see how it was going to improve on what the team already had going. After the pitch, the room fell still. No one had ever questioned a leadership concept like that—not in front of the coach. This was his passion area, what he prided himself on more than anything else. His assistant looked nervously at the floor. The captain glanced at the coach, who didn’t say a word. His face turned….
This is a choose your own adventure style ending. Which door would you like to open? Which door do you actually open, if you’re being truly honest?
Door A Red. Not with anger, but with embarrassment. He realised he’d pursued this framework, without bringing his people on the journey. His inflexible approach had meant his people didn’t feel they could question him or clarify why they were doing this. The past few months had meant that pretending was easier than being honest. More than that, he’d been blinded by the promise of a silver bullet, when he knew, better than anyone, that there are no silver bullets in this world. He looked at the room and said quietly, “Thank you. I hear your points, and to be honest, a lot of them are valid. But before we address those, I need to say, I shouldn’t have let it get this far. I didn’t check in often enough, and ask the right questions when I did. I also didn’t observe and listen properly. If I did, I would have seen that there was confusion, and disagreement. I think I’ve been blinded my determination to show that my athlete-centred philosophy was THE way”. The conversation then turned to the points the group raised. Together they discussed how they could maximise their relationships and connections as a team, and how that would bring about enhanced performance. They screwed up the posts it notes and erased the diagrams, and instead focused on simplicity and authenticity. | Door B White. He didn’t speak. He couldn’t. Why couldn’t they see that this was game-changing? So, he doubled-down. He challenged their feedback, and pushed back on what they felt were fair points. He countered every point raised with a point of his own, backing the consultants and their frameworks. He was going to prove this was ‘the way’ to go. In the days that followed, cracks widened. The leadership group became fractured—some still loyal to the coach, others questioning everything. Players stopped bringing problems forward. Sessions lost their intensity. Trust, once implied, was gone. Weeks later, two-months into the season, the teams record was one win, seven losses. What started as a season with championship aspirations, looking build on the strong foundations set from the past two years, was sinking. The board quietly let the coach go. They said the team “needed a new direction,” but everyone in the building knew the truth: the coach’s obsession with proving his philosophy had built a house no one could live in. There had been no room for vulnerability. No room for questioning. No room for real leadership. The consultants disappeared without a trace. Their whiteboards remained—still covered in meaningless diagrams no one dared erase. |
Quote of the week
“To ensure that everyone is comfortable taking that risk, or asking that question, or proposing that solution, or suggesting that idea, those in positions of power must support that. And it doesn’t hurt if they themselves exhibit the humility to acknowledge when they are sometimes wrong. And that being wrong is okay.”
Ed Catmull, Co-Founder of Pixar Studios
(p.s. His book, Creativity Inc, is the best book I’ve read on creating a robust, psychologically safe environment)
An even deeper dive
This has some practical examples and tools you can use to become more skillful in developing psychologically safe environments:
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