“Has the Computer Frozen Again?”
Seizing and Freezing, Open Minds, and the Perils of a Windows 95 Mindset in Coaching
From time to time, I drive over to Derby with the family for a wander around the shops. One place I always seem to end up in is Waterstones on the high street — three floors, wooden staircases, shelves that seem to pull you toward books you didn’t know you were looking for.
And yes, perhaps I do judge a book by its cover a little.
On this occasion, I picked up Think Again by Adam Grant. Even before getting far into the book, the prologue stopped me in my tracks. There was a phrase that immediately connected with coaching:
“We tend to stick to our guns.”
Adam Grant refers to a psychological tendency known as seizing and freezing. We seize an idea, a belief, a way of doing things — and then we freeze it in place.
The moment I read it, I smiled.
Not because it was funny, but because it felt deeply familiar.
It reminded me of coaches who spend years striving to get a position, a role, a badge, a level of recognition… and then, once they get there, something changes. The striving slows. The curiosity softens. The experimentation becomes more cautious. Almost without noticing, the coach stops developing and starts protecting.
They freeze.
Not physically, of course. But cognitively. Professionally. Philosophically.
The danger is not in learning something valuable. The danger is in believing the learning is complete.
There’s a line in the book that captures this beautifully:
“We favour the comfort of conviction over the discomfort of doubt.”
That is such a human thing to do. Conviction feels safe. Doubt feels unsettling. Conviction gives us identity. Doubt asks us to loosen our grip.
But perhaps coaching requires a little more doubt than we often allow ourselves.
Not insecurity. Not indecision. But enough openness to revisit what we think we know.
Another phrase in the book made me laugh out loud:
“We laugh at people who still use Windows 95, yet we still cling to opinions formed in the 1990s.”
Immediately, I could hear the old Windows 95 startup sound in my head. The family’s first proper computer. The excitement of switching it on. The coloured windows logo drifting across the screen. At the time, it felt revolutionary.
Now imagine someone arriving at work today, opening a laptop running Windows 95, and proudly declaring:
“This is all you need.”
People would smile politely. Some would laugh. Others would panic.
Not because the foundations were entirely wrong — but because the world has moved on. The system has evolved. The functionality has expanded. The possibilities have changed.
And yet, in coaching, how often do we still operate with “Windows 95 thinking”?
How many ideas do we still hold onto simply because they worked once?
How many planning methods, feedback habits, learning theories, communication styles, or beliefs about athletes were seized years ago and quietly frozen into permanent truths?
That doesn’t mean the old ideas are useless. Some remain incredibly valuable. Foundations matter. Experience matters. Wisdom matters.
But wisdom is not the same as repetition.
Experience alone does not guarantee growth. Twenty years of coaching is not always twenty years of learning. Sometimes it is one year repeated twenty times.
That is the uncomfortable edge of reflection.
The challenge is not whether something works. The deeper challenge is understanding why it works, when it works, for whom it works, and whether there might now be a more effective way.
Sometimes the answer is reassuring:
“This still holds up.”
Other times the answer is more confronting:
“I’ve been protecting this idea more than exploring it.”
I wonder whether coach development itself goes through a cycle of seizing and freezing.
Early on, coaches gather ideas rapidly. They are open. Curious. Searching. Everything feels new. They seize information constantly.
Then comes the desire to stabilise things. To build an identity. To feel credible. To have answers. So naturally, we freeze parts of our practice into routines, philosophies, and habits.
That is not inherently bad. In fact, some freezing is necessary. Without structure, coaching becomes chaos. We need principles. Anchors. A sense of direction.
But perhaps the real danger comes when frozen certainty becomes emotional armour.
Because once our identity becomes attached to an idea, questioning the idea can feel like questioning ourselves.
And this is where coaching can quietly become cold.
Cold to new perspectives.
Cold to challenge.
Cold to feedback.
Cold to younger voices.
Cold to different disciplines.
Cold to evidence that unsettles what we’ve always believed.
One of my friends was recently delivering a two-day workshop with skydivers. While talking about strategy and direction, I jokingly said:
“Just remember — parachutes work better when they’re open.”
Then I added:
“So do minds.”
There is something powerful in that image.
An open parachute creates possibility.
A closed parachute creates impact.
Perhaps coaching is similar.
The best coaches I’ve encountered are rarely the ones desperately trying to prove how much they know. More often, they are the ones willing to revisit what they know. They stay warm to learning. Warm to conversation. Warm to uncertainty.
They thaw regularly.
And maybe that is the real task.
Not abandoning experience, but preventing experience from becoming ice.
Not rejecting the past, but refusing to become trapped inside it.
Not chasing novelty for novelty’s sake, but staying open enough to recognise when the landscape has changed.
Because the irony is this: success can sometimes become the handbrake.
The more successful we become, the easier it is to justify staying the same. After all, the methods worked. The outcomes came. The reputation formed.
But organisations, teams, athletes, and environments evolve. What once solved a problem may now create one.
And perhaps this is where the old computer metaphor becomes even more interesting.
Back in the Windows 95 days, computers used to freeze all the time. The screen would lock. The cursor stopped moving. The fan whirred away but nothing progressed. Usually somebody in the room would ask the same question:
“Has the computer frozen again?”
Sometimes the answer was simple:
Not enough memory.
Not enough processing power.
Too many things running at once.
An operating system struggling to cope with a changing demand.
Maybe coaching can feel similar.
Sometimes we freeze because we have overloaded ourselves with certainty. We are running old programmes in environments that now demand different capabilities.
Sometimes we don’t lack experience — we lack available RAM for reflection.
We become so committed to defending our current operating system that there is no space left to process new information.
And perhaps the uncomfortable truth is this: the longer somebody has been successful, the harder it can become to update.
Because updating means vulnerability.
It means admitting that something which once worked brilliantly may no longer be enough on its own.
That can feel threatening in high-performance environments where expertise becomes status and certainty becomes currency.
But maybe growth has always required a degree of intellectual humility.
Not tearing everything down every five minutes.
Not endlessly chasing the newest trend.
But maintaining enough openness to ask:
“What might I be missing here?”
The irony is that many coaches encourage athletes to stay adaptable, reflective and open-minded whilst quietly becoming rigid themselves.
We ask athletes to review performances.
We ask teams to evolve.
We ask environments to innovate.
But do we genuinely do the same ourselves?
Or have we frozen around a version of coaching that once brought us success?
That may be why reflection matters so much in coaching. Not reflection as performance theatre. Not reflection as a buzzword. But genuine examination.
What beliefs have become brittle?
What assumptions have become automatic?
Where have we mistaken familiarity for truth?
Because nothing freezes faster than certainty left unchallenged.
And perhaps the goal is not to become endlessly uncertain, but to remain intellectually alive.
To stay open enough to upgrade.
To evolve without losing ourselves.
To keep the parachute open.
To ensure the operating system keeps updating.
And maybe, every now and then, to ask ourselves honestly:
“Am I still coaching in 2026…
or am I just running Windows 95 with better wallpaper?”
Reflective Questions
What coaching belief or habit have you held onto for years without seriously revisiting?
Where in your practice have you confused experience with continued growth?
What ideas, people, or perspectives currently make you uncomfortable — and what might that discomfort be trying to teach you?
In your organisation or team, where might success itself have become the handbrake?