Lessons from "The Why Is Everything"

All opinions expressed in the blog are solely my own. 

Influencer Simon Sinek says, "Start with WHY." Let's examine using "why" starting with Michael Silver's excellent, "The Why Is Everything." 

First, I digress. During the offseason, opportunity arises to draw from sport and literature to educate ourselves. Readers aren't obliged to read or to agree. Constructive disagreement raises the dialogue. 

1. “Tell me the why.”

In the book:
Kyle Shanahan built a coaching culture where you don’t get credit for having an opinion - you get credit for being able to explain it. His standard was simple: if an assistant couldn’t justify why they were teaching or calling something, he’d tell them to get out of his office. That insistence on clarity traveled through his coaching tree (McVay, McDaniel, LaFleur, Raheem Morris, etc.) and became the identity of that group.

In volleyball:
This is accountability for coaches and players.

• We don’t run a drill “because we’ve always done it.” We run a drill because it fixes a specific problem (slow transition footwork, poor seam responsibility, first contact tempo, etc.).

• We don’t tell an outside hitter “just be smarter.” We tell her, “In out-of-system, high ball to zone 5 instead of trying to bounce it cross because their middle is late closing.”

• Athletes should know why we ask for “platform early,” “hips to target,” “eye work on the setter,” “close the block to the antenna.” If they can teach it back, they own it.

How you frame it to your team:

“If you don’t know why we’re doing it, ask. If I can’t explain it, we shouldn’t be doing it.”

That creates two things: trust and speed. The Shanahan tree believes that clear understanding makes players faster, because they’re not guessing. 

2. Adapt the system to the players - not the players to the system.

In the book:
The Shanahan/McVay/McDaniel group is known for tailoring the offense to the personnel instead of forcing players into a rigid system. They threw out “this is our scheme, take it or leave it,” and instead built game plans around the unique skills of whoever was on the roster - designing a custom offense for a rookie Robert Griffin III in Washington to maximize what he already did well.

In volleyball:
Stop pretending every team is built the same.

• If you’ve got one dominant terminal hitter and not much size, your identity might be serve pressure + first-ball sideout + obsessive floor defense.

• If you’re long at the net but passing is shaky, maybe you become a blocking/point-scoring team that leans on tough serving and chaos transition instead of trying to win pretty in-system.

• If your setter is an elite attacker, you live in 5-1 tempo with dumps and spread the block. If she’s more of a quiet distributor, you win with rhythm and location.

Message to athletes:

“You are not trying to be some other program. We’re going to build what fits us now.”

This does two things.

1. Kids feel seen.

2. Players stop comparing themselves to last year’s roster or “powerhouse schools,” and start taking pride in their identity.

That’s exactly how the Shanahan tree differentiated themselves in the NFL: ruthless self-honesty about what they had today, not the fantasy of wishing.

3. Constant innovation is not cute - it’s survival.

In the book:
The young coaches in this tree were willing to question decades of “that’s how we do it” thinking in pro football. Silver frames them as a group that attacked old dogma with relentless creativity, building new looks, motions, matchups, and sequencing to stress defenses in ways the league hadn’t prepared for. 

In volleyball:
This is your license to evolve in-season.

• Are we giving away our block with our hands too low pre-jump? Fix it.

• Is our opponent living on tips to zone 2/3? Adjust the middle-back base and take it away the same night.

• Serving patterns, matchups, tempo, sub patterns, coverage assignments - nothing is sacred if it’s not working.

How you sell it:

“We are a laboratory, not a museum.”

That line matters. It tells players: change is not panic. Change is how winning programs behave.

Bonus: It keeps athletes mentally alive. When players feel like they’re part of “the lab,” they lean in instead of drifting. That’s culture.

4. Collaboration beats ego.

In the book:
Silver describes the Shanahan/McVay/McDaniel circle as hyper-competitive with each other but also ridiculously collaborative. They grew up together on the same staffs, argued, stole ideas, and sharpened each other. It wasn’t one genius; it was a coaching ecosystem that kept generating answers.

In volleyball:
You can build the same thing on a high school roster.

Collaboration in your gym looks like:

• Middles talking with your setter between points instead of waiting for a timeout.

• DS/libero running back-row traffic and calling seam responsibility loudly and early.

• Bench players being active scouts (“Outside 12 is tipping line when she’s late”).

• Assistants feeling safe to say, “We’re getting burned in 6 - can we move the middle-back up two steps?”

If athletes believe “only coach thinks,” you get 6 brains. If athletes believe “we all think,” you get 12, 14, 16 brains.

Your theme line:

“Championship teams solve problems aloud.”

That reflects what those NFL staffs built — a culture where information flows fast and no one is too proud to take a good idea from someone else. 

5. Live in ruthless detail.

In the book:
Silver paints this group as obsessive. Film, tendencies, motion timing, leverage angles, how to dress up the same concept five different ways so it looks new to the defense - their edge wasn’t just creativity, it was precision. Their standard is: every detail matters because every detail becomes a point on Sunday.

In volleyball:
Details are points.

• Footwork on your close is either sealing the seam or giving up a kill.

• Platform angle is either a 3-pass or a free ball for the other team.

• Communication timing (“tip read” early vs. late) is either a pancake save or a ball on the floor.

This is how you frame it in volleyball language:

“At our level, games don’t swing on posters. They swing on angles.”

That line teaches humility (it’s not about the highlight kill) and seriousness (your angle at 18-18 in Set 3 is the match). It also gives players something practical to chase: clean reps, disciplined eyes, quiet footwork, repeatable contact.

Ruthless detail is how you beat teams with more raw talent. That’s directly in line with how McVay’s Rams and Shanahan’s 49ers punched at heavyweights with “better rosters on paper.” 

How you can package this for your program

If you’re building themes for the season / locker room / preseason handbook, you can title the page:

THE WHY IS EVERYTHING - MVB EDITION

• Ask more, know more.
• Know more, see more.
• See more, react quicker and make the play. 

1. Know the Why

2. Build Around Who We Are

3. Be the Lab

4. Solve It Together

5. Win the Details

Lagniappe. Long video. Out of system. Save for the weekend.