bwiliams@coachingtoolbox.net, Author at Coaches Toolbox

Thinking Through Your Personal Brand

How do you cultivate a dynamic personal brand? Many coaches think that focusing on personal branding is unnecessary. They shy away from engaging in personal branding–viewing it as self-promotion. However, the reality is that we all have personal brands, whether we focus on them or not. We should be aware of how others view us, and how it may help or harm our ability to succeed on and off the playing field. The following three questions can help you assess your personal brand.

What do I want to be known for? Think wide and deep.
What results do I want to deliver through my coaching efforts? It’s not only about wins and losses.
How do I want others to describe me? Consider your legacy.

An Introduction to the Introverted Leader

Several years ago, Susan Cain, a Harvard Business School professor, delivered one of the most well-received Ted Talks of all time. Today the YouTube video counts more than 18 million views of her talk on introversion. Cain wrote her 2012 book “Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking,” which has sold two million copies worldwide. With the Ted Talk and book, Susan Cain has single-handedly triggered a deeper awareness of and appreciation for the many facets of introversion.

She’s introduced a myth-shattering perspective that has transformed the way we view introversion and introverts.

On the surface, introversion looks a lot like shyness; both effect social interaction, but for differing reasons. The shy find socializing difficult. On the other hand, an introvert simply prefers to spend time alone. Introverts are collectors of thoughts, and solitude is where the collection is curated and rearranged to help them make sense of their thoughts.

Far more than we are consciously aware of, we live in a society dominated by extroverts. Susan Cain’s research points out that the American culture glorifies extroversion. Sports stars and movie stars are highly paid and followed, and social media thrives on people exposing their innermost thoughts and feelings. Extroverts are highly visible in most settings and situations. Bold personalities are rewarded.

Cain writes, “We’re told that to be great is to be bold, to be happy is to be sociable. We see ourselves as a nation of extroverts—which means that we’ve lost sight of who we really are.” In fact, she notes, one-third to one-half of Americans are introverts. So if you’re not one yourself, she often advises audiences,

“You’re probably raising or managing or married to one.”

For the past 20 years, I’ve been working with coaches and athletes in the areas of leadership and team building. During this time I’ve noticed a deficit in time, effort, and energy when it came to identifying and developing high potential coaches. It seems as if excellence in leadership is a given. But it’s not! You don’t become a high–potential coach by merely “putting in the time.” Just working hard isn’t the x-factor. Neither is high potential a natural gift.

I’m helping high achievers and high potentials become self-aware and increase their personal effectiveness. If you’ve got a deep commitment to excellence, building right relationships, guiding with influence and accelerating change, let’s talk.

I’m looking for high-potential coaches with a desire to be mentored one-to-one by me. My coaching program is for those coaches willing to pay the price, ready to invest in developing their career for the long-term. If you are interested in talking about how you can go from high potential to high achievement—let’s talk. [Cory 623.330.3831]

Sample of What You Will Learn
-Deep Coaching: Inspiring Others to High Performance
-Humility is not Optional: It’s a Necessity
-What Coaches Need to Hear
-Entering the High Impact State of Coaching
-The Social Context: Intrapersonal and Interpersonal Dynamics
-Conquering Denial
-Managing Envy

Kind regards,
Dr. Cory Dobbs
Ready to Coach You!
(623) 330..3831

New to the Second Edition of Coaching for Leadership!

We are pleased to announce a new chapter to the second edition of the best-selling Coaching for Leadership. The chapter, The Big Shift: Unlock Your Team’s Potential by Creating Player-Led Teambuilding, connects the previous edition of this book to its origin, as well as to the future of team sports.

The new chapter sets forth a practical and applicable agenda for change and improvement. The reader is introduced to seven vital elements of change; seven shifts of traditional mental models that lead to the new core principles necessary for creating a player-led team culture. Click here for more information about Coaching for Leadership

About Cory Dobbs, Ed.D.

Cory Dobbs is the founder of The Academy for Sport Leadership and a nationally recognized thought leader in the areas of leadership and team building. Cory is an accomplished researcher of human experience. Cory engages in naturalistic inquiry seeking in-depth understanding of social phenomena within their natural setting.

A college basketball coach, Cory’s coaching background includes experience at the NCAA DII, NJCAA, and high school levels of competition. After a decade of research and development Cory unleashed the groundbreaking Teamwork Intelligence program for student-athletics. Teamwork Intelligence illuminates the process of designing an elite team by using the 20 principles and concepts along with the 8 roles of a team player he’s uncovered while performing research.

Cory has worked with professional athletes, collegiate athletic programs, and high schools teaching leadership and team building as a part of the sports experience and education process. As a consultant and trainer Dr. Dobbs has worked with Fortune 500 organizations such as American Express, Honeywell, and Avnet, as well as medium and small businesses. Dr. Dobbs taught leadership and organizational change at Northern Arizona University, Ohio University, and Grand Canyon University.

Putting the Person Before the Athlete

As a leadership educator your main task is to create a psychologically safe environment in which your players want to learn how to become team leaders. This is not a trivial distinction. A learning climate characterized by trust and openness is critical to encourage young people to respect and appreciate their teammates, coaches and the learning process.

Strategies for transformative learning should be purposeful, planned, and productive. When we say put the person before the player we imply that the process of navigating life’s challenges should be the over-arching goal of learning to lead.

The following seven conditions are helpful in creating a psychologically safe learning environment favorable to promoting a transformational experiential approach to leadership development.

Student-athletes need to feel comfortable with the concepts of leadership.
Student-athletes need to know about the practice and the processes of leadership.
Student-athletes need permission to make mistakes. Healthy relationships transform conflict into cooperation.
Student-athletes should have a sense of purpose as it relates to leadership. They need to have an answer to the question “Why lead?”
Student-athletes should begin to develop an awareness of their individual strengths and weaknesses as leaders. They need feedback.
Student-athletes need to monitor and adjust behaviors intended to influence others. They need to take the appropriate action suggested by feedback.
Student-athletes should begin to learn the complex practices of self-reflection, self-acceptance, and self-compassion.

Kind regards,
Dr. Cory Dobbs
Ready to Coach You!
(623) 330..3831

New to the Second Edition of Coaching for Leadership!

About Cory Dobbs, Ed.D.

The World is not Fair and What Got You to Good Won’t Get You to Great

Teamwork Intelligence Conversational Exercise

The following questions are intended for leadership conversation involving coaches and players. The deeper your conversation goes the closer and clearer you get to understanding the heart and mind of each team member. The deeper the better; adverse incidents happen daily—it’s a guarantee.

What Can You Do When Something Unfair Happens?

Let’s Talk About It!

A) Accept the fact that the world is not fair.

Conversation Starters:
What do you mean by the word being fair?
Should you accept the fact that the world is not fair?

B) The most important thing to remember when something you think is unfair happens to you is to not dwell on it.

Conversation Starters
How do you dwell on adversity?
Is there any way the world could be made fairer?

C) When something unfair happens to you, emphasize what you have rather than what you lost.

- Conversation Starters:
  If you can’t make the world completely fair, how can you deal with it?
  Explain this sentence and apply in your team situation: Successful and happy players and coaches never dwell, at least not for long. Such coaches and players are too busy building a team.

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD 10 MORE EXCLUSIVE ARTICLES FROM DR. CORY DOBBS

What Got You to Good Won’t Get You to Great

Some coaches are more talented than others. Pause for a moment.

That’s a fact of team sport life that few coaches would dispute. The challenge is how to develop the coaches (head coach or assistant) who appear to have the highest potential. So you might be asking yourself, “How do I go about developing my coaching talents?”

Don’t wait. If you’re ready to put forward the resources needed to become a rising star in the coaching ranks, take action.

Kind regards,
Dr. Cory Dobbs
Ready to Coach You!
(623) 330..3831

New to the Second Edition of Coaching for Leadership!

About Cory Dobbs, Ed.D.

A college basketball coach, Cory’s coaching background includes experience at the NCAA DII, NJCAA, and high school levels of competition. After a decade of research and development Cory unleashed the groundbreaking Teamwork Intelligence program for student-athletics. Teamwork Intelligence illuminates the process of designing an elite team by using the 20 principles and concepts along with the 8 roles of a team player he’s uncovered while performing research.

Cory has worked with professional athletes, collegiate athletic programs, and high schools teaching leadership and team building as a part of the sports experience and education process. As a consultant and trainer Dr. Dobbs has worked with Fortune 500 organizations such as American Express, Honeywell, and Avnet, as well as medium and small businesses. Dr. Dobbs taught leadership and organizational change at Northern Arizona University, Ohio University, and Grand Canyon University.

Everything They Don’t Tell You About Being A Coach

This video is courtesy of Glazier Academies

In the 2-minute video, Frank DeLano delivers a powerful message taken from his full presentation “Everything They Don’t Tell You About Being a Coach” from Glazier’s Head Coach Academy.

Being put in the middle of difficult situations is seemingly a daily occurrence for coaches. There is no one answer or policy that is a guide to working through these tough calls, we can all benefit from having the mindset to examine all problems that deal with kids from as many sides as we can.

In this video, Coach Delano gives us his thoughts on dealing with the following scenario:

One of your athletes is an at-risk student who really needs to be a part of something that you can offer them. At times, those needs can conflict with what is best for the team.

Coach DeLano has won six state championships and definitely plays to win. As you will see in the video, he also has the heart to serve students.

My lesson from the video is that we need to look for a third alternative that helps the individual and that we are still able to do what is best for the team.

Click the play arrow to see the two-minute video.

Here are a few more of my takeaways from his entire presentation on Everything They Don’t Tell You About Bring a Coach:

Dealing with everything they didn’t tell us is not in our job description. However, putting thought and concern into each individual challenge that you are faced with is what will allow us to achieve maximum impact for our athletes.
Coaches must adopt a fireman-like mentality. Firemen train themselves to run toward fire to be able to put it out. Coaches need to have that same mindset when dealing with issues that affect their athletes and their program.
No matter what is going on around us, as coaches we need to remain calm. More importantly than that, we need to help everyone else to remain calm.
Try as we might, there will still be times when there is no resolution. When faced with that, we need to be the leader in the healing process.
No matter how many people are around us during our workday, having to make decide what is the best course of action can lead to a feeling of being alone and lonely as a coach.

To close, I offer a thought that I heard from That Matta (former Ohio State and current Butler Men’s Coach) at a coaching clinic in 2001. That was when we were both “young coaches.” 🙂 I made it the number one priority for our program. He said, “I am very goal-oriented. The number one goal for our coaching staff is to establish a life-long relationship with our players that can never be broken.”

Helping coaches develop a way of thinking that can be applied to all the issues they face is the purpose of Glazier Academies. The curriculum provides coaches across all sports and at all levels with the preparation and tools to tackle the most challenging and important issues they face today.

Coaches and athletes working together to eliminate the stigma of mental health afflictions

This article was originally published on www.sidelineinteractive.com

This post is a summary of our key takeaways from Volume 2 Episode #85 of The Educational AD Podcast, hosted by retired high school Athletic Director Jake Von Scherrer. This summary of the podcast episode is posted with permission of Coach Von Scherrer.

You can watch the 35 minute interview on YouTube at this link: Joanne P. McCallie Interview

Joanne P. McCallie is the former Head Women’s Basketball Coach at Maine, Michigan State, and Duke. Coach P’s Career Division I coaching record was 628-243.

Since retiring from coaching, Joanne’s new mission is build a foundation and to be a consultant and advocate and messenger through public speaking and writing to reduce the stigma that often surrounds the discussion on mental health.

Our hope in posting this summary of and encouraging readers to listen to or watch the podcast in it’s entirety is to inspire you to do all you can with your team, school, and community to have open discussions of the importance of being attentive to mental health and to reduce the stigma surrounding mental health issues.

She believes that post pandemic, up to 50% of our population have suffered some form of anxiety or depression. Her cause is not just about manic depression, it is about everyone’s brain health.

This is not intended to say that coaches can or should offer professional advice regarding mental health. As coaches, we need to encourage our athletes and work with parents to provide support and encouragement to our athletes to seek professional assistance when it is needed. And, to encourage all athletes to practice positive habits regarding mental health, just as we encourage positive physical health habits.

Here is a summary of our takeaways from Coach McCallie’s interview on the podcast episode:

A mental health affliction is something that and individual suffers from. It is a part of who they are, but that affliction doesn’t define them as a person. No one is “bi-polar,” it is and illness that they suffer from.

As a coach at Michigan State, she began collaborating with professionals in the field of mental health to help improve the mental health of the coaches, players, and support staff in her program. Along with sports psychologists, they worked together to spin negative perceptions that athletes have of their environment or themselves.

Administrators and coaches need to be proactive and not reactive. As much as possible, therapy needs to take place before there is a mental health emergency. Administrators and coaches should openly discuss the importance of both physical and mental health.

She motivates players differently depending on the personality and needs of each individual.

Mental health issues are diseases of despair. With mental health impairment, there’s no intention. You’re simply ambushed. You can’t defend yourself.

Unfortunately, we can’t prevent all crises that are brought on by mental health afflictions, but you can work very hard to create an environment where a young person might think twice about doing something drastic. We need to have some discussion about the subject of mental health and they know that there is somewhere to go and someone to see to get help.

Provide the opportunity and encourage anybody who has a question or concern about mental health to discuss it privately with the coach or Athletic Director. The coach can help by listening and directing the athlete to a trained mental health expert. The coach is not equipped to help the athlete in the way that the athlete needs.

The coach can still be demanding of that athlete. It does help the coach to be able to coach the individual better if you understand that they have some issues with anxiety or depression. The coach can help the athlete find a therapist because any individual with those issues should be seeing a mental health professional.

Another plus to being an advocacy for positive mental health is that If the coach understands the mental health problem, they can more effectively communicate with and collaborate with the athlete’s parents. Together they can privately come up with a plan that helps the athlete to have a more positive athletic experience. Confidentiality is extremely important.

As a young person experiencing her bipolar affliction, Joanne didn’t want to approach her parents because she felt so badly about what was happening, was ashamed, and blamed herself. She felt better with someone who was close and cared about her, but not as close as her parents. Keep in mind that your athletes may have similar feelings.

Simone Biles, Michael Phelps, and many, many others were still champions while dealing with mental health problems. Joanne was a Division I athlete and then a highly successful coach while dealing with her own mental health affliction.

We need to spread that message that mental health diagnoses do not mean that an individual cannot be successful in athletics or in any other area of life. We can still succeed in spite of these diseases. How you deal with and overcome your issues can allow you to become your best self.

Coach P’s message is that you can challenge yourself to be what you want to be and choose difficult, impactful careers without being intimidated by others or by a mental health disorder.

An example of a written message that Coach shared with one of her players: “There are no promises, but dreaming big is the way to go. Knowing full well that things may not go your way. That is the risk we assume for greatness.” This was to an elite student/athlete coming off a severe injury and working to get back to the high level of play that she was performing at prior to her injury.

Coach P did not want her to be satisfied with just coming back from the injury, but to strive to become even better than she was prior to the injury. Joanne’s purpose with the note was to redirect the athlete’s thinking and get her into a better headspace. Dreaming for the highest levels is what it is all about.

Coach McCallie does not focus on the outcome. She focuses on the process. To go after the highest levels of achievement, you have to commit to the process and commit to accepting the results that your process leads to. And, sometimes things work out, but not in the timeline that the athlete or coach has established for themselves.

Athletic Directors Toolbox segment of the show. This is a segment at the end of every episode of the podcast where the guest is asked what three things they can she share with the audience that she would put in her toolbox if she were an athletic director starting a new job.

Coach P actually gave us four items for the Athletic Director’s Toolbox 🙂

1. Get to know the people in the athletic department as individuals. They don’t work for you, you all work together.

2. Be a “coaches Athletic Director.” Support the program by giving the coach confidence.

3. Dig out the problems before the surface and support the coach.

4. Loyalty is something that can never be underestimated.

Joanne also shared her ideas of best practices for conduction practice for coaches of any sport. (In addition to creating her own success, she had the privilege to learn from coaches such as Tom Izzo, Nick Saban, and Mike Krzyzewski.

1. Every minute of practice is accounted for and planned in advance.

2. You have to practice the way you are going to play.

3.There is no room for generalities. You must be specific about what outcomes you are looking for in all areas.

4. She has a “Thought for the day” every day to share with her team.

5. Coaches must constantly ask themselves, how are we going to use our philosophy to better us in practice.

6. The players and the coaching staff must provide each other with positive energy and feed off of each other.

7. In order for your practices to have the best opportunity for individual and team improvement, the head coach must delegate duties to the assistant coaches and to the players.

8. The coaching staff must make time in practice to nurture one on one personal relationships with each student-athlete. One on one and team motivations are different and a coach must be able to effectively do both.

9. The feeling of being completely absorbed in practice is a great feeling for both coaches and athletes.

Joanne is the author of the book “Secret Warrior.” that details her journey as both a student athlete and a very successful coach who continually had to battle impaired mental health.