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The very essence of leadership is you have a vision. It’s got to be a vision you articulate clearly and forcefully…You can’t blow an uncertain trumpet.—The Myth of Change
We all believe that we know what’s best for our teams and feel that they should embrace whatever changes we have in store for them with enthusiasm. But…that doesn’t always happen. Think about some of the major changes that we could install: significant changes to how your team runs its offense, important changes to how team leaders are chosen, or even changes to your coaching staff. All of those things impact our teams. Let’s look at how we can make the transition go smoothly.
How we want our teams to react when presented with change:
“Gosh Coach, we knew you were knowledgeable and insightful about our sport, and this particular change is so well thought out that we cannot help but to be excited about this necessary change.”
How our teams will actually react:
- Silence.
- Some will resent the change and verbalize it.
- Some will welcome the change and verbalize it.
- Some will resent the change and keep quiet.
- Some will welcome the change but not feel comfortable verbalizing it.
Getting ready for change
- Ready ourselves. Anytime we want to make significant changes on our teams, we’ve got to make sure we’re prepared. How do we do that? We talk to other coaches whom we respect. We ask folks who’ve instituted the change that we’re looking into…pick their brains about the positives and negatives of the change. We can also ask them what they’d do differently when instituted the change. Leave no stone unturned.
- Ready the team. Now, as the CEO’s of our teams, we can most certainly drop the news of change on our team in any kind of way that we choose. But, if we want it to go well, some key buy-in will be needed. Talk to some of the folks on the team and let them know what we’re thinking…and ask them what they’d think if we made that change. This way, when we make the major change, we have some people who can be positive behind the scenes.
Selling the team on why we think the change is necessary and why we think the team will be more successful because of the change has to be our goal when making significant changes. If we’ve done our jobs right, the change is something that everyone can look forward to instituting.
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