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Archives for May 2020

What they are in on, they’ll be into

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One of the more interesting statements I’ve heard about coaching the past few years was from John Weaver of the Culture Classroom Podcast. He made a statement that we as coaches rent our programs whereas our athletes own their programs. I think this is an interesting paradigm shift which is consistent with the philosophy of servant leadership in general as well as general principals of motivation.

In his book on motivation titled Drive, Dan Pink outlines what he refers to as Motivation 3.0 which includes autonomy, mastery and purpose. The book, Pink outlines four aspects of autonomy: task, time, technique and team. He asserts that the more of those elements you have, the more autonomy you’ll feel and, the more engagement you’ll feel with your work. Low autonomy leads to low engagement. High autonomy leads to high engagement.

In their research on what they have named Self Determination Theory (SDT) Edward Deci and Richard Ryan contend that autonomy is one of three basic human needs. Of the three (autonomy, competence and relatedness), they stress that autonomy is the most important and the “sun around which the other SDTs orbit. They write,

“Autonomous motivation involves behaving with a full sense of volition and choice, whereas controlled motivation involves behaving with the experience of pressure and demand toward specific outcomes that comes from forces perceived to be external to the self.“

Deci and Ryan as quoted in Drive by Daniel Pink

In a study at the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University, researchers followed 3,148 Wisconsinites for 20 years and found that “When job demands are greater than the control afforded by the job or an individual’s ability to deal with those demands, there is a deterioration of their mental health,” according to lead author Erik Gonzalez-Mulé, assistant professor of organizational behavior and human resources.

All of this goes to support the point that what you athletes are in on, they will be into. Finding ways to give athletes voice and choice is essential not only in providing your athletes ownership and buy-in but also to provide you with valuable information that you would otherwise not be aware of. This is demonstrated in what some call the Rumsfeld Knowledge Matrix. Getting student input will help shine a light on that dark box that is “what we don’t know we don’t know.”

In a blog post on valuing student voice, Jimmy Casas writes,

“If we really want to know about the learning environment or climate/culture of any classroom, I think we need to start by collecting information from the most critical voice – the students’ voice. After all, aren’t they the ones who could best describe to us how they feel about being in a class?  I think so. So why don’t we take the time to ask them? Are we afraid of what they might say? Is it an issue of time? Do we not truly value their voice? Do we not have a process or a tool to do so? Consider the benefit as three-fold. One, the information that we would collect could give us better insight into what students think about how they feel; a feeling that impacts their ability to learn and ultimately the level of their success in the classroom. Two, we can use the data we gather to help us determine the characteristics and practices that teachers bring to the classroom that allow them to connect better with students that we can then use to support other staff in their development. Three, the process, when used as a growth tool rather than an evaluative tool, can create a culture where staff uses student feedback to reflect, identify shortcomings, and use the information in dialogue with students to shift instruction, assessments, feedback, structures, rules, etc. as well as our own behavior in order to impact all students in a positive and more effective way.”

Ways that you can incorporate student voice into your athletic program:

  • Create a Google Form that you share out with your team. This could include a “Start-Stop-Continue,” value voting about team decisions or just ask for how athletes are feeling.
  • Create a student athlete leadership team, unity council or meet with your captains often in way that allows them to provide you input as well as you to give them direction and instruction.
  • Encourage your assistant coaches to cultivate relationships with your athletes and to share with you the “climate” of the program. I tried to assign a coach who I knew had great relationships with athletes to be our team “barometer.”
  • Go out of your way to pick three athletes a day to check-in with and see how they are doing.
  • At the end of the season, exit interviews allow you to get valuable input on what went well and what ideas athletes may have. Over the years, doing this provided us with several important additions to our program.

Building Productive and Positive Relationships with Sports Parents

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There’s an old coaching “joke” that goes, “The ideal school to coach at is an orphanage.” The nature of a coaches’ relationship with parents is complex, contingent, collaborative and often times contentious. One of the most, if not the most important ingredient in program success is the positive support of the athlete’s parents. Coaches who isolate themselves from parents risk creating resentment or distrust whereas, those who get too close, risk being burned when circumstances change.

In the most recent episode of Michael Lewis’ excellent podcast Against the Rules, the Moneyball author takes a close look at his high school baseball coach, Billy Fitzgerald, and why he came under fire from parents despite the incredible impact he had on countless young men. When he heard about the pressure to remove his coach, Lewis penned an essay that was published in The New York Times Magazine.

Listening to the podcast I found myself thinking a lot about how Coach Fitz resembled coaches that I had in my youth. It made me think about a number of issues but in particular, I thought about how essential and important maintaining a positive relationship with parents is for coaches today.

On that note, I thought I would share a few thoughts about maintaining positive relationships with parents.

Provide parents with the opportunity to have a positive role in the program: As a young coach I was taught that there are four fundamentals of a successful program: Motivation, Planning, Progression of Teaching and Coaching Coaches. For motivation I was told that you have to have a plan for how you will motivate your team, motivate your parents to have a positive role in the program and motivate the student body. I am thankful that the line that stood out to me was to give parents an opportunity to have a positive role in the program and when I have done that, I have found it to be beneficial for everyone.

I heard at a football clinic several years ago that parents have the right to be involved in their child’s athletic experience and I have adopted that philosophy into my own practice. During my coaching career we did many things to involve parents in the program from team meals to Mom’s Nights, Dad’s Breakfasts, etc. The more we made them a part of their child’s experience, the better the dynamic was between parents and coaches.

Assume positive intent: I used to be fond of quoting Hanlon’s Razor which states, “Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.” Unfortunately, I have found that some people take offense to the use of the word stupidity. Either way, when dealing with a conflict, if I assume the other party is operating from a place of good intention, I am more empathetic and responsive, especially with difficult conversations. Every parent loves their child and wants the best for them and we as education-based coaches are partners in this process. We may disagree with each other but trying to give other the benefit of the doubt goes a long way in keeping such dialogs healthy and productive.

Maintain perspective: I have used the mantra, “I am independent of the good or bad opinions of others,” for the past several years. The phrase reminds me that I should not concern myself with what is out of my control. If you weren’t aware, what other people think of you is out of your control. A fellow coach once told me, “If you listen to fans when things are going well, they’ll want you to listen to them when things are going bad.” I’ve remembered that and have tried to remain independent of other’s opinions of me.

Early in my career as a coach, I worked for an Athletic Director who warned me against putting a wall between myself and parents. We had a successful coach in the building who had been burned by parents and his reaction was to mistrust parents and try to insulate himself as much as possible from them. While we need to be cautious in our interactions with parents, we should approach the relationship as a partners not adversaries.

One of my favorite pieces of advice for dealing with criticism, is that we should ask ourselves if we had done the absolute best that we could at that moment. If we wish we could do it over again, noting how we would act differently in the future is a valuable exercise. If we know we did the best we could, smile and think to yourself, “Sorry you feel that way, have a nice day.”

As Abraham Lincoln said, “I do the very best I can, I mean to keep going. If the end brings me out all right, then what is said against me won’t matter. If I’m wrong, ten angels swearing I was right won’t make a difference.”

Establish and reinforce healthy boundaries: What many people interpret as entitlement, I have found often is the result of poorly established boundaries. Defining how we do things such as communication, complaint process, providing feedback are essential both to preventing conflicts as well as burnout in coaches. These boundaries should be laid out early and with BRIGHT LINES so that parents (and coaches) understand that texting the head coach at 10:30 pm or approaching her after a game to talk about playing time are inappropriate. As the saying goes, an ounce of prevention equals a pound of cure.

Final thoughts: Reflecting on my own relationships with the parents of my athletes, I truly miss the dynamic that existed when I was a head wrestling coach. The amount of time that we spent together traveling, waiting, comforting and celebrating with our athletes created a comradery that was missing when I became a head football coach. As a football coach, there wasn’t the regular interaction with parents at tournaments, etc. There was also the dynamic that football is a more subjective sport with starters, role players, etc. While we had great parents, it wasn’t quite the same experience.

In the end, establishing and maintaining healthy productive relationships is important most for the student-athlete. The more we can get parents and coaches sharing the same message with their student-athletes, the better we are able to leverage their athletic experience from both a competitive and transformational experience.

Guaranteeing a Championship Experience

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For the past few years I have been sharing with coaches and parents the idea of providing our student-athletes with a championship experience. I try to frame the concept in terms of the fact that half of the teams in our state will have a losing record a the end of the season and there will be only one champion from our league and only one state champion. Not every athlete can have a championship season, but I believe they can have a championship experience.

What is a championship experience? There are two equally important components of this concept. The first is doing all of the things that are necessary and developmentally appropriate to maximize the potential of the athlete or team. What I will refer to as the “Competitive Experience” includes but is not limited to:

  • Systematic approach to strength, quickness, agility and conditioning.
  • Developmentally appropriate skills and techniques.
  • A progression of teaching.
  • Systematic approach to the tactical/technical aspects of a particular sport based on factors such as  available personnel, the strengths and deficiencies of the best competition, etc.
  • Proper planning and organization.
  • Effective communication.

Regardless of one’s talent or that of their opponents, the foundation and framework of success must be addressed. As Vince Lombardi said, “The will to win is not nearly so important as the will to prepare to win.” 

Most competitive coaches and athletes understand that in order to be successful, one must put in the time, effort and energy that a particular discipline demands. However, many neglect to approach the second aspect of the championship experience with the same intentionality that we apply to the technical/tactical aspects of our respective sports. That is, in order to provide the championship experience we must also do the things necessary for our athletes to become the best people that they can be. The “Transformational Experience” as I’ll refer to it includes but is not limited to:

  • Character
  • Social and emotional learning
  • Leadership
  • Relationships
  • Reinforcement of Academic Objectives

The transformational experience begins with making every single student-athlete feel that they are valued independent from what their contribution to the team is. This is easier said than done I’m afraid, but breaking down how we attempt to demonstrate that to our student-athletes and parents will help bring the same intentionality to the transformational experience as we have with the competitive experience.

When I share the idea of the Championship Experience with parents and coaches, I do so as a challenge to myself and with the intention of creating accountability partners. I ask parents and coaches how we can better demonstrate how much we value our tennis athletes the same way we may do for our football and basketball programs. We may not have the ability to create an atmosphere at a swim meet that replicates that of “Friday Night Lights” but asking how we can demonstrate that our swimmers’ hard work and dedication is valued and appreciated is an important step toward creating a transformation experience.

I have been sharing this idea with parents and coaches for the past two years and there have been a few parents who have used it as a way to bring up issues that they were concerned with. This has had a few positive aspects for me. When parents or coaches come to me wanting to discuss concerns for our athletes’ experience, rather than be defensive or trying to minimize their concerns I have tried to embrace their concerns and address them with whatever means I have within my control. This Southwest Airlines “Yes and. . .” approach has both strengthen my relationship with coaches and parents and forced me to improve our programs in positive if not unexpected ways.

Ready, Fire! Aim. . .

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Winston Churchill once said, “Perfection is the enemy of progress.” People who take their time to weigh their options are said to have “analysis paralysis.” “Perfect is the enemy of good,” according to Voltaire. Of course there are a number of axioms that urge caution such as, “Fools rush in,” “Prudence is the better part of valor,” and “Measure twice, cut once.”

Recently, I had a conversation with a colleague and posed what we call the “$1,000,000 Question” which is, “What do you know now that you wished you had known when you got started?” The question was specifically aimed at what we had learned about leadership development. As I reflected on my experience as a head coach for 18 years and an Athletic Director for the past 8 years, I finally came to the conclusion that the philosophy of “Ready, fire, aim,” may be the most important conclusion I have come to on the topic.

For many of us, we think of an initiative or project that addresses a need for our program or school and rather than taking action, we wait for everything to be right before taking action. While prudence dictates to comprehensively assess the potential pitfalls, snares and dangers that lie ahead, too often, we postpone initiatives not because we lack capacity or that we are embarking on a major change in an organization, but because we don’t have an idea of how every little detail will look along the way. So we default to “Ready, aim, aim, aim, aim, aim. . .”

In the book, The Lean Startup, Eric Reis (@theleanstartup) details a methodology for, “creating and managing startups and how to get a desired product to customers’ hands faster.”

Reis writes, “Too many startups begin with an idea for a product that they think people want. They then spend months, sometimes years, perfecting that product without ever showing the product, even in a very rudimentary form, to the prospective customer. When they fail to reach broad uptake from customers, it is often because they never spoke to prospective customers and determined whether or not the product was interesting. When customers ultimately communicate, through their indifference, that they don’t care about the idea, the startup fails.”

The Lean Startup methodology consists of three steps in a recurring cycle: “Build, Measure, Learn.” The idea is to create a product/project/initiative, get it to your customer to elicit feedback and finally analyze that feedback so that you can refine the product/project/initiative into its next iteration.

This doesn’t mean that one just launches new initiatives willy nilly without giving thought to a number of factors such as timing (do I have enough time to implement this and see it through to fruition), culture/climate (are there unrelated factors that may hamper or distract from the proper implementation of the initiative) and capacity (we have have the time/resources to implement this properly). In his book The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership, dedicates a whole chapter to what he refers to “The Law of Timing.”

In that chapter Maxwell says, “The wrong action at the wrong time leads to disaster; the right action at the wrong time leads to resistance; the wrong action at the right time is a mistake but the right action at the right time leads to success.” This may seem to stand as a counterargument to the main thesis for this blog post but I don’t think that the two are mutually exclusive. I believe you can take action and be mindful of timing.

An example from this year is that I moved schools late last summer. One of the initiatives that I wanted to get up and running was to start working with the Student Athletic Leadership Team (SALT) at my new school. However, due to the late transition I felt a little overwhelmed at the start of the school year and once I did have the capacity to take on the SALT, I was hesitant to do so both because I wasn’t sure I wanted it to continue in the way they had run it in the past and that the start of winter sports was an odd time to begin the work.

The truth is I was uncertain exactly what I wanted to do with the group and what I wanted the purpose of the group to be. Because of that I was afraid to get started and learn from the interactions and experiences generated from the group. Reflecting on the past 8 months, I feel that I missed an opportunity to intentionally invest in our student-athletes and assist our coaches by working on leadership development with our team leaders. Had August, September and maybe even October were awful times for me to try and get started with that initiative. However, waiting for the end of the year or even the start of year two has resulted in the loss of time that I won’t get back.

I’m currently in the process of identifying our SALT members and plan to have several meetings before we finish the year. After all, while the best time to plant a tree may be 20 years ago, the second best time is today.