Monthly Archives: May 2011

Culture Change: 7 Workable Solutions For 7 Common Problems

Female athletes, Team chemistryFemale athletes, Team chemistry

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The reason we’re all so impressed with coaches like Russ Rose, John Wooden, and Phil Jackson is not just that they’ve been tremendously successful in terms of wins and losses. It’s more that they’re able to navigate the normal ups and downs of teams and seasons, seemingly without missing a beat. There is a great article at the Harvard Business Review’s blog called, Let’s Talk About Culture Change, and it talked about things that can be done to create the culture that you want. After reading it, I brainstormed a list of common problems on teams and ways to solve them. Check it out!

7 solutions to problems most teams will encounter at some point

Problem #1: Your team has the dreaded “girl drama”.
Solution: Well, this one is tricky, because I’m not a big fan of that phrase…but I know that you’ll know what I’m talking about when I say it. I’m talking about when your female team is fighting, talking behind each other’s backs, not willing to work together, gossiping amongst members…all of that stuff. Drama generally starts when players have a conflict, but refuse to actually speak with each about it. Then they go about building alliances with their other teammates, forcing everyone to choose sides. Coaches must insert themselves into these situations and force the two athletes to talk it out. It’s really that simple, because it’s probably just miscommunication.

Problem #2: Your team is losing…all the time.
Solution: Ouch, this one is painful. Not too many professions have to live out their successes and failures in public like coaches. Chronic losing is touchy because it’s generally the culmination of a lot of things going wrong. I would go back to my coaching philosophy and share it with my team. The purpose of a team is more than getting together to play games, it’s teaching teamwork and leadership and goal setting…get on the same page with your team and things will get better.

Problem #3: Your team leaders haze newbies.
Solution: So, your captains and leaders are picking on your young players in the name of team chemistry, eh? In the words of Dr. Phil, how’s that working for ya? I think we all recognize that the excuse “it was done to me, so I’ll do it to others” is weak and flawed, right? I think it’s difficult to burden newbies with grunt work and then say we’re all in this together. I’m not saying that there shouldn’t be perks to putting in your time on the team…but that’s a different conversation than saying there should be liabilities associated with being new.

Problem #4: Your players don’t take being on the team seriously.
Solution: We sometimes see this on middle school teams where everyone’s forced to be on a team and also on teams at all levels with their non-starters. They know they’re not going to play or it’s just not that important to them, so they don’t eat appropriately, they don’t get enough sleep, or they stay up all night before the big game doing homework. Coaches have to give every player a legitimate role, even if they’re not getting court time in games. We’ve got to give each player a reason to invest their time and energy into the betterment of the team or we’ll lose them. Your bookworm players can break down stats, your future coaches can track opponent tendencies, your extroverts can make sure you guys are the loudest team in the gym. There’s something for everyone…get them invested.

Problem #5: Your team isn’t competitive.
Solution: I’m not talking about not competitive against opponents, I’m talking about them being adverse to competition itself. I’m sure you’re wondering why anyone would want to be on a team if they don’t want to compete. Well, there are many reasons. They may want to get in shape, their friends may be on the team, they may enjoy the sport…but not the competitive aspect of it. Coaches of these teams should find out what motivates the players on their team. Once you find out what it is, you can start to incorporate competitiveness into the mix and show them that competition isn’t negative, but very positive and fun.

Problem #6: You and your assistant coaches aren’t on the same page.
Solution: Ugh, this one is no good…especially if your players can tell. You guys don’t want to be like feuding parents, being played against each other by your team. When you hire your assistants, you’ve got to let them know what your coaching style and philosophy are…that way, they can support you even if they don’t agree with everything. Weekly meetings will help everyone stay on the same page and being a head coach that’s open to new ideas will keep your assistants focused and upbeat.

Problem #7: Your players don’t connect with you.
Solution: I’m certainly not saying that you’ve got to be homies and Facebook friends with your team…I actually think that’s a bad idea. Coaches are in a power position, so there’s no real way to be friends with your athletes. That doesn’t mean we can’t be intentional about connecting with each of the players on our teams. The best way, in my opinion, is to connect with things outside of sports…then they’ll be more willing to listen to you when it’s athletically related. Talk to them about their classes, their boyfriends or girlfriends, the clubs they’re involved in on their own time. Even better? Go to their performances or competitions, they’ll appreciate it!

I’ll bet you can think of other situations, or problems, that need solutions…let me know and I can write about those too!

6 Commitments of Quality Coaches

Coaching nerds, Coaching philosophy, Leadership

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I found a nice article over at Basketball Insights that talked about NBA coach Gregg Popovich’s leadership skills. Since he’s been so successful, I thought I’d share it with you and put my spin on things.

6 ways to show your commitment to your team

1. Understand what motivates your players. In practices and in games, we’ve got to know how to get our teams going. I often tell my teams that games aren’t the time for teaching…go play and we’ll fix it later. The same goes for us as coaches. We’ve got to remember to use practice time to figure out how each player is motivated to learn, how they’re motivated to push themselves, and how they’re motivated to excel. In the same manner, we can use scrimmages to see how they’re motivated in stressful competitive situations.

2. Do what it takes to be a champion. Winning cultures win. I’m sure you’ve played teams that your team was better than…but that other team had crazy swagger. They expected to win more than your team hoped to win. Before we can create a culture of winning, I believe we’ve got to create a culture of success. You all know by now how deep my love of John Wooden’s Pyramid of Success goes, he was awesome. He was also a champion.

3. Be a learning leader. Isn’t the coaching cliché that the best coaches steal from the best coaches? With so many coaches out there, I can’t think of a reason that we can’t all find someone to learn from! I believe in being a coaching nerd and learning from as many folks as I can, whether it’s another coach or a business leader.

4. Provide vision for your program. What is important to you? What is your coaching philosophy? How do you want your team to be perceived? All of those things go into creating a vision for your program. Then you go out and get it. Without knowing what you want, how will you know what players to recruit? Beyond that, how will your players know when they’re successful?

5. Put the team first. Everything we do has to be about the team. Whether it’s being incredibly prepared for every drill, practice, and game…or making sure you’re on the same page with your assistants. All of that puts the team first. Add to that all of the intangibles that we teach our athletes, they’ll appreciate that it’s “we before me” and model that behavior.

6. Have fun. Hopefully you love your sport. Hopefully you love going to practice. Hopefully you love coaching. Hopefully you love your athletes (even when they’re driving you crazy). Hopefully you get along with your coworkers. Hopefully you’ve got rockstar assistants. If you’ve got all of that, then you’re having fun.

Leading, coaching…it’s not easy, but it’s the best job ever! We can learn from those folks who’ve not only been successful, but who’ve been continuously successful over a long period of time.

What’s The 1 Thing You Need To Be Exceptional?

Burnout, Coaching career, Time management, Work/Life balance

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Sleep.

Research shows that most people, 95% to be exact, need seven to eight hours of sleep. So why are we staying up too late and getting up too early and depriving ourselves of our much needed sleep? Because we’re getting after it? I’ve written here and here about being burned out…but that happens after a whole lot of sleep deprivation and can be prevented. In an article on the Harvard Business Review’s blog, Sleep Is More Important Than Food, we can read about the effects of being stingy with our sleep patterns. Lack of sleep lowers our ability to function so much so that Amnesty International has deemed sleep deprivation as torture. Lack of sleep is so entrenched in the coaching culture (I have a coffee press in my office…primed and ready to go!) that we accept it as normal. But is it? Let’s look at what burning the candle at both ends can do to us.

Here are 3 areas of our lives that lack of sleep affects

Physical health. According to the article, Sleep Deficit: The Performance Killer, lack of sleep hurts us physically…everything from high blood pressure to obesity. Everything I’ve read says we’re driven to require sleep by some mechanism inside of us, much like hunger pangs drive us to eat.
Team health. No one on your team will tell you this (because they’re afraid of you, Grumpypants), but you’ve been a bit irritable lately. Lack of sleep affects our personalities and sense of humor…that player who always makes you laugh just won’t cut it when you’re tired from not getting enough sleep.
Work health. Here’s a quotation from the article: We continue to live by a remarkably durable myth: sleeping one hour less will give us one more hour of productivity. In reality, the research suggests that even small amounts of sleep deprivation take a significant toll on our health, our mood, our cognitive capacity and our productivity. So we’re not being more productive on less sleep, we’re actually taking longer to do tasks (and making more errors) than we would while properly rested! Think of it this way, we spend all day thinking and creating and generally exhausting our brains…and sleep is the time to revamp so that we can do it all again.

So go to bed, you’re not any less tough by giving in to the Sandman. Your team, your coworkers, and your body will thank you!

3 Ways To Become A Creative And Innovative Leader

Coaching career, Coaching community, LeadershipCoaching career

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“Chance favors the connected mind.”—Steven Johnson

We tend to think that great ideas are the result of grand epiphanies or “a-ha” moments. Not so, according to this TED talk by author Steven Johnson called, “Where Good Ideas Come From”. The video is about seventeen minutes long and, in my opinion, very engaging. I know we’re all looking for ways to get better in order to be the best we can be for our teams and I think this video is packed with great ideas for us. You surely should go and check out the video, but just to whet your appetite, I’ve written about three ways we can apply his ideas to our coaching lives.

Do these three things to watch your ideas go from good to great

1. Stay away from Negative Nelsons/Nellies. Gotta love ‘em…those negative influences in your life. They’re the folks that pull out their rifle and shoot down all of your great ideas before you can complete your sentence. They may be awesome people and they may not mean any harm…they may actually be very valuable in some other facet of your life. But when it comes to cultivating new ideas? They shouldn’t be your first stop because they’ll have ten reasons why your idea won’t work and will wonder aloud why you’re even trying.

2. Surround yourself with colleagues. Johnson says that great ideas come from our network of past experiences, we “stitch them together”, and voila…innovation! A lot of times, we think we’ve got to get in a room, shut the door, and be by ourselves so that we can think. Johnson’s research says just the opposite. He says that our history is full of great ideas that got their beginning in a bar or coffee house with a bunch of folks sitting around throwing ideas off of each other. What does that mean for us? It means that when we go to a professional development event, we should talk to people, see what they’re thinking…they may spark an idea within us. Or do a pop-in on one of your coworkers to bounce ideas around. I love the way Johnson puts it because I see that as the role of this blog: connecting vs. protecting ideas. Sure, by protecting your idea, no one else may know it; but by not connecting, you’ll never know how great your idea could’ve been.

3. Trust your gut. Like I said before, most good ideas don’t come from “eureka” moments, but from an idea you had that was allowed to grow. Johnson calls these “slow hunches”. You’ve got an idea, and you’ve been kicking it around in your head, but you’re not sure it’ll work…that’s a slow hunch. We’ve got to get intentional about connecting with our colleagues and having these amazing brainstorming sessions that lead to innovative ideas. There are some cutting edge companies that build this type of atmosphere right into their framework, allowing their employees to take innovation work breaks. They let those employees receive eighty percent of their salary and their only job is to think and bounce ideas off of each other….that’s how big this is! These companies know that sharing ideas, even mistakes, will eventually turn your slow hunch into the next big thing.

I loved this talk! I hope you had a chance to sit down and listen to it, I believe it can change the way we think about how we approach coaching.

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3 Keys To Unlock The Confidence That Will Lead To Your Success

Coaching philosophy, Pyramid of success

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“You must have confidence. You must believe in yourself if you expect others to believe in you.”
—John Wooden

Confidence is the result of preparation. Don’t believe me? Go into a meeting with your boss without knowing what the topic will be and see how you feel. I’ll bet you’d feel a lot less than confident. But if you know the topic ahead of time and you’re able to get some info together so that you can speak intelligently…then you’ll feel confident. So we agree…preparation is key. But how do we prepare our athletes? I think confidence has got to be on three different planes: they’ve got to be confident in themselves, in their teammates, and in their team goals. If one of those three is missing, then success may be just out of your reach. Read on to see how you can properly prepare your athletes to be confident.

3 reasons why confidence is essential for your athletes

In themselves. As Wooden says in that opening quotation, you’ve got to believe in you…because if you don’t, why should I? The beauty of confidence is in the preparation. Your athlete feels confident at the free throw line when the game is on the line because you’ve put her in that situation a million times in practice. Even when she makes a mistake in the game, that athlete understands that she will have more successes than failures during any given competition, so she’s not too high when things are flowing and she’s not too low when nothing is working right. She’s confident that things will work out for her because she’s done everything within her power to be prepared.

In their teammates. According to dictionary.com, confidence in your teammates would look like “belief in the powers, trustworthiness, or reliability of a person.” That sounds like preparation to me! Your passers have confidence that they will each do their jobs, because they’ve done it time and time again. In practice, in games, in stressful situations…they’ve watched their teammates be tested and be successful. Therefore, they have confidence that they’ll be successful in the future.

In their vision. If your team isn’t confident in their goals and vision for the future, then it likely won’t come to pass. Why? Because sometimes your team will not play well, sometimes they’ll lose, sometimes they won’t live up to their own hype. But quality preparation for their goals will help them to stay focused. Coaches can talk to their teams about the pressure of being picked to win it all, or the pressure of winning back to back, or the pressure of “must win” games. Coaches should talk about how athletes can manage their emotions, their classwork, and their expectations through it all. All of that qualifies as preparation.

As the Boy Scouts motto says: Be prepared. I firmly believe that proper preparation leads to successful performances. If we invest in our athletes through preparation, our teams will benefit in the form of winning teams.

Join me in a series discussing John Wooden’s Pyramid of Success. I believe his Pyramid can be applied to our teams, our recruiting efforts, how we behave as professionals, and to our lives in general. This series will cover Self-Control, Alertness, Initiative, Intentness, Condition, Skill, Team Spirit, Poise, and Confidence.

Why Being Yourself Leads To Success: 5 Thoughts On Poise In Athletics

Coaching philosophy, Pyramid of success

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“My definition of poise is very simple: being yourself. You’re not acting. You’re not pretending or trying to be something you’re not. You are being who you are and are totally comfortable with that.”
—John Wooden

Poise is near the top of Wooden’s Pyramid of Success…which means that the blocks under it have to be accomplished before poise can even be a thought in our minds. I love Wooden’s definition of poise because it says a lot in a few words. If you’ve got a team of individuals who are self-confident enough, self-aware enough, and comfortable enough in their own skin that they can truly be themselves with each other…that’s when the door to becoming the best opens up wide.

I’m going to break with form a bit and list a few quotations of what other folks had to say about poise. Enjoy!

“The key to winning is poise under stress.”—Paul Brown
“To me, it was never about what I accomplished on the football field. It was about the way I played the game. I played the game with a lot of determination, a lot of poise, a lot of pride and I think what you saw out there…was an individual who really just loved the game.”—Jerry Rice
“For poise, walk with the knowledge you’ll never walk alone.”—Sam Levenson
“To bear defeat with dignity, to accept criticism with poise, to receive honors with humility-these are marks of maturity and graciousness.”—William Arthur Ward
“The qualities of man comes thus, not only he is able to survive in any kind of situation but he also maintains his poise in trying times.”—Sam Veda

I believe this all applies to coaches as well. I wrote before that once I became a more authentic coach, I became much more successful. Know who we are as coaches, and being comfortable with it, will help us lead our teams with poise.

My Athletic Nirvana Smells Like Team Spirit

Coaching philosophy, Pyramid of success

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“Team spirit means losing oneself in the group for the good of the group. It means being not just willing but eager to sacrifice personal interest or glory for the welfare of all.”—John Wooden

Team spirit. It’s a tough one to define, but as has been said about other things…I know it when I see it. Here are three different ways that we can teach team spirit within our teams.

3 different ways to define team spirit

1. Willingness to cooperate as part of a team. I’m sure we all know the coach who is willing to turn the other way when she sees poor behavior from one of her players. She looks the other way because that player is really good and the team would lose without her. I’d caution that coach to reevaluate her personal coaching goals, because I’d hope that having the respect of her team is high on that list. Players can smell BS and hypocrisy a mile away, that’s why I believe that we’ve got to be team first coaches. Team first, you second, me third. If each person on the team has that kind of attitude, success is sure to follow!

2. The essence of a group that makes the members want the group to succeed. This definition implies a collective belief that the whole is better and will be more successful than the parts. It’s also an acknowledgement that there are different levels of skill within each player. In addition, this definition recognizes that those with higher level skills will represent the group in competition…but that those with lesser skills have a well-defined role within the team. Though a smaller group will represent the whole…there will be no success without each team member having a legitimate role on the team that is valued.

3. Willingness to sacrifice personal considerations for the welfare of all. I often sit down with my teams to make sure they understand what happens on game day, because everyone sacrifices. I want my non-starters to understand that the starters will make infinitely more mistakes in front of their friends, families, and professors by virtue of their being on the court more. I want those same non-starters to understand that there is a burden to be borne by those starters: wins and losses are perceived to be squarely on their backs. The starters’ challenge is to represent our team.

On the flip side, I want my starters to understand that their non-starting teammates put just as much time, sweat, and energy into the team…without the “glory” of getting to put on a show. Starters need to appreciate the non-starters’ willingness to get them ready for competition behind the scenes. If both sides can respect each other’s sacrifices, then the team spirit of our team will undoubtedly be great.

We all want team players on our teams, but it’s tough to define. Hopefully this has given you a more solid idea of what it means.

P.S. I’m hoping you got my wordsmithery (yes, I made up that word) in the title. Fabulous song, check out the video for some old school goodness.

Is Skill The Most Highly Sought After Trait In Athletes?

Coaching philosophy, Pyramid of success

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“You’d better be able to execute properly and quickly. That’s skill.”—John Wooden

So often when people talk about team chemistry or leadership or team dynamics, they seem to think, “Well, that’s great…if I have time to get to it.” I think it’s partly because coaches understand the tangibles: setting up a practice plan, putting together drills, making corrections to specific behaviors. I also think it’s partly because coaches don’t understand the ins and outs of those intangibles (and how to measure if we’ve been successful), so we tend to stay away from them.

But if we are to believe the Pyramid, and I think we all know by now that I do, then a successful team is built upon intangibles. Taking the next step, it seems that our success will rely on combining skill with team chemistry.

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What Coach Wooden has brilliantly given us with his Pyramid is a way to measure the success of those intangibles. Build these blocks of the Pyramid of Success into your practice plans and you’ll be well on your way to achieving your goals!

Industriousness: Hard work seems like a tangible thing, right? Run your team into the ground and they’ll be working hard. Actually it’s the biggest intangible of all. Only your players know whether they’re truly and consistently working hard.
Friendship: Forcing your team to hang out together at the beginning of the season is a little awkward at first. But doesn’t knowing that it will build the foundation of your successful season make it a little more important to you?
Loyalty: Team first, me second. It’s a tough sell, but if you can do it…your team will soar!
Cooperation: If everyone on your team is fighting to get their own way, then the team will suffer. Imagine your team was in a row boat and each of them has their own oar. If they row separately, the boat will just go in circles. But together? Now they’re going places!
Enthusiasm: Coming to practice should be fun. Competing should be fun. Your athletes may get sore. Practices may be hard. They may sweat through their tshirts. And because of all of that…they hopefully can’t wait to come back for more!
Self-Control: Getting through the highs and lows of a season will require them to have control of their emotions. They need the discipline to not wallow in a defeat and not get too high after victory.
Alertness: Your athletes should keep their eyes peeled for teammates that are struggling off the court. When they’re on the court, they should be scoping for opportunities to take advantage of an opponent’s weakness.
Initiative: Some folks are paralyzed by fear of failure. We’ve got to build opportunities for big successes into our practices, always knowing that they are also opportunities for big failures. We don’t want a team of “play it safe” athletes. Failure? Not a big deal. Being afraid to try? Big huge deal.
Intentness: With industriousness, this is one of my favorite blocks of the Pyramid. It means staying relentlessly focused on your team goals. Despite losing the big game, or a rash of injuries, or starting the season slowly. Your team’s eyes stay on the prize.

Our practices can also be a time to purposefully work on the intangibles of great team dynamics. If we do it and we do it consistently, we’re well onto the road to success.

Do These 3 Things To Remove The Barrier Between You And Your Success

Coaching philosophy, Pyramid of success

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“It is impossible to attain and maintain desirable physical condition without first achieving mental and moral condition.”—John Wooden

As we sit down and review past seasons, I wonder how many of us take conditioning into consideration. Beyond that, I wonder how many of us build conditioning into our practice plans. Of course, I’m talking about Wooden-type conditioning, which is deeper than running sprints and lifting weights. Read on to find out the three types of conditioning necessary for successful players, teams, and seasons.

3 reasons why proper conditioning is vital to reaching your potential

1. Mental condition. The season is a long haul and the players (and coaches) have to mentally prepare themselves for the ups and downs that will inevitably happen from beginning to end. Everyone is happy at the beginning of the season because we’re all mentally and physically fresh. But what happens a couple of months into season and some folks see the writing on the wall, that they won’t play as much as they thought, and their school work is wearing on them? The mentally strong teams will keep pushing through, relying on their team goals to keep them motivated.

2. Moral condition. This is a particularly timely topic. What would your players do if they could take a pill that would help them recover faster from tough workouts, go harder in the weight room, swing faster, and hit harder? As you know, baseball has been dealing with this issue lately and I believe it’s a moral issue. Will you do whatever it takes within the rules…or are you willing to operate in the grey zone just outside the rules? I’d be wary of a coach or player who didn’t see any problems with breaking rules, because where does it stop? We’ve got to believe that things will work out for those of us that do things the right way and even if it doesn’t, we’ve taught our players a valuable life lesson.

3. Physical condition. Some sports require massive aerobic capacity. While others require its participants to use tremendous explosive energy. Every sport requires different levels of exertion, but the thing that all sports require is a commitment to doing what it takes to be in the best possible physical condition in order to be successful. I believe that mental and physical conditioning go hand in hand. For an athlete to push themselves to the edges of their limits daily requires a resolve that is a bit unnatural…therefore a significant goal is required. As long as the goal is large enough and the players think it’s attainable through hard work, they’ll be willing to log long hours in the gym.

As Wooden says, “you must be conditioned for whatever you’re doing if you’re going to do it to the best of your ability”. Hopefully, conditioning our athletes for success is a top priority for all of us coaches.

Join me in a series discussing John Wooden’s Pyramid of Success. I believe his Pyramid can be applied to our teams, our recruiting efforts, how we behave as professionals, and to our lives in general. This series will cover Self-Control, Alertness, Initiative, Intentness, Condition, Skill, Team Spirit, Poise, and Confidence.

Do You Recognize These 5 Qualities Of Intentness In Your Team?

Coaching philosophy, Pyramid of success

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“The road to achievement takes time, a long time, but you do not give up. You may have setbacks. You may have to start over. You may have to change your method. You may have to go around, or over, or under. You may have to back up and get another start. But you do not quit. You stay the course. To do that, you must have intentness.”—John Wooden

John Wooden is the man. There’s really no other way to see it. I thumb through his book, Wooden: A Lifetime of Observations and Reflections On and Off the Court, at least once a week. In the section he devotes to intentness, he uses different words as synonyms to describe what intentness means to him. So I’ve decided to look those words up in order to shed more light on exactly what intentness should mean to us with our teams. It turns out that it’s not just one thing, but a combination of five wonderful traits that all of us would love to see in our players.

5 characteristics of teams that are intent on success

Determination: When I looked this word up, the definition that stood out to me was “firmness of purpose”. I often remind my team that they’ve got to be sure of their goals, because achieving them will be hard. If they’re not sure…it may just be too hard. Building our team goals on a firm foundation of belief will help our teams to be determined.

Persistence: “Constantly repeating” is what the dictionary had to say about this one. As a coach, I love that definition, because that’s another way of saying “practice”! If our teams are persistent in their approach to practices (and corrections within practice), then success is sure to follow.

Tenacity: Love this one too! “Holding together, cohesive, tough.” Like I talked about with determination, sometimes the road to success is very hard. Weak teams fall apart…they start fighting amongst each other or forming cliques within the team. But strong teams? The hard times bring them together and make them a more cohesive unit.

Perseverance: “Steady persistence in a course of action, especially in spite of difficulties, obstacles, or discouragement.” Can you imagine a season without difficulties? Have you had one without obstacles? Surely there have been points during the season when your team is discouraged. In spite of it all, we press on…never losing hope that we’ll be successful in the end!

Patience: This one is a toughie for anyone…who really wants to be patient? Most of us would rather be successful now rather than later, but that’s not the way it typically works. Generally you plug away, always doing things the right way, until your team (eventually) finds success. The definition: “the capacity for calmly enduring pain or trying situations.”

If we nurture these characteristics in our teams, I believe that we’ll be on our way to building successful teams, seasons, and players.

Join me in a series discussing John Wooden’s Pyramid of Success. I believe his Pyramid can be applied to our teams, our recruiting efforts, how we behave as professionals, and to our lives in general. This series will cover Self-Control, Alertness, Initiative, Intentness, Condition, Skill, Team Spirit, Poise, and Confidence.