Today’s athletes are still motivated by the same things. What has changed is the amount of competition there is for the athletes’ attention

This post provided by the Coaches Network
By Ron McKeefery

Ron McKeefery, MA, CSCS*D, MSCC, is Vice President of Performance and Education for PLAE. Previously, he served as a strength and conditioning coach at the professional and collegiate levels, most recently as the Director of Strength and Conditioning at Eastern Michigan University. Named the 2008 Under Armour Collegiate Strength and Conditioning Coach of the Year and 2016 NSCA Collegiate Strength and Conditioning Coach of the Year, he is the founder of the popular Iron Game Chalk Talk podcast and the author of CEO Strength Coach

We have all heard coaches who reminisce about the “good old days,” when sports were much harder and athletes cared more and were more disciplined. That mindset has never resonated with me. Having coached for multiple decades, I believe athletes are still motivated by the same things. They still want to win, still love their teammates, and still want to make themselves and their families proud.

What has changed is the amount of external information, people, and technology competing for players’ time and attention. As a result, strength coaches have had to work harder to get them to buy in.

It would be easy to blame athletes for this difficulty. However, it really comes down to the fact that, often, we are not often prepared for the challenge. This article provides a game plan for connecting with today’s athletes and capturing their time and attention.

The framework I use comes from the book Switch by Chip and Dan Heath. In it, the authors present the example of a man riding an elephant down a path to demonstrate the components of change. The man symbolizes the rational side, the elephant the motivational side, and the path the situational world. They state that to bring about change, you must first direct the rider, then motivate the elephant, and, finally, shape the path. In this week’s blog, I’ll focus on directing the rider.

In a perfect world, getting a certain result from athletes would be easy—we’d tell them to do something, and they’d do it. But we don’t live in a perfect world. If the rider (rational side) on top of the elephant (motivational side) tells it to go right, and the elephant wants to go left, it’s going left.

Translating this to working with athletes, we can tell them to be on time for training, go to bed early, and eat the right things. Yet, if we do not guide them on how to put those directives into action, they can end up confused and unproductive. As a result, they might opt for sleeping in, partying all night, and eating pizza instead.

Of course, this doesn’t mean you stop trying to get the results you want. Rather, you simply have to reinforce what athletes should do and how they should do it. Here are three ways to provide this direction:

Focus on the positive: When we want an athlete to change, we often tell them what not to do. This positive-negative asymmetry can cause them to lose focus and ignore the instructions completely.

A better option is to lead the athlete to the desired solution or outcome. Instead of telling them, “Don’t do this,” demonstrate the proper way of doing something or point out someone else doing it correctly.

Keep it simple: Strength coaches are notorious for killing ourselves to come up with complex solutions to our teams’ problems. But this only confuses the athletes. Simplifying the solution gives them a better understanding of what they should do and how.

For example, early in my career, I had an issue with football players being late for training or missing sessions. To combat this, I created 10 different lifting groups that met throughout the day. But despite me working 10 straight hours and eating my lunch on the weightroom floor so I could supervise them all, I still had athletes arriving late or skipping their groups.

I realized that my error was giving the players too many options. As a result, athletes were scattered all over the place at any given time—some would be in class, some would be eating cereal in their underwear, some would be asleep in bed, and some would be lifting. Compared to getting your butt kicked in the weightroom, the other three options sounded much more appealing.

It wasn’t until I created two lifting groups—offense/defense or power/skill—and had one group meet while the other lifted that our tardiness and absence issues vanished. Having all of the players in the building at the same time eliminated athletes’ excuses for missing training and made it cool to be where the team was.

Point to a destination: Goal setting is not a new tactic in strength and conditioning circles, but I’ve noticed the approach has shifted from dream building to dream killing. I have witnessed many goal-setting meetings where a strength and conditioning coach asked a player for their current numbers and then proceeded to set an arbitrary benchmark for that training period—often cautioning the athlete not to think too big as they set their goals. What is missed here is a great opportunity to “define good goals” and cater to the athlete’s rational side.

For example, a great chunk of my experience has been working with football players who aspired to the NFL. I have coached hundreds of draft picks, so it’s easy for me to tell whether an athlete has the potential to make it. But if I tell a prospect flat out that he doesn’t have a chance, he’ll tune out everything else I say. Instead, I use the previous year’s NFL combine results as the definition of a “good goal” for the athlete to aspire to. This gives him an idea of what needs to be done to reach his objective and how hard he will need to work to get there. It also shows that I can help him achieve his dream.

Editor’s Note from Brian: This article was written by a basketball coach, but I feel that the principles are applicable to coaching any sport.

This article was contributed by:

Justin Matthew Brandt
[email protected]
CoachJB.weebly.com
Here is a link to his YouTube channel

I have been asked on multiple occasions on what my rules for my classroom or team are. My response is always the same, we do not have rules, we have standards. From reasoning to prescription practices, you will be able to decide for yourself which one is actually more beneficial after digesting the information provided below.

There are major differences between the two terms, even in their simplest of forms, the definitions. Provided below are the results for the two words if you were to search for them on Google.

Rule – one of a set of explicit or understood regulations or principles governing conduct within a particular activity or sphere.

Standard – a level of quality or attainment. An idea or thing used as a measure, norm or model in comparative evaluations.

By definition alone you can see that rules are very forceful and demeaning. In fact, if you were to reference a thesaurus for synonyms for words used in the definition, you would also find words such as “command”, “controlling” and “dominant”. Individuals are forced to bow DOWN and abide by a set of rules they may not even agree with. On the contrary, if you did a similar search for standards you would find words such as “character”, “individuality”, “genius”, and “virtue”. In this case, individuals rise UP in the situation to increase their likelihood of success. Thus, by definition alone, rules are negative, while standards are positive.

During an interview, Coach Mike Krzyzewski once described his reasoning for use of standards instead of rules by stating…

“When I was at West Point, we had a bunch of rules, all of which I didn’t agree with. Usually when you’re ruled, you never agree with all the rules, you just abide by them. But if you have standards and if everyone contributes to the way you’re going to do things, you end up owning how you do things.”

Take a moment to reflect upon this statement with the provided example. You are abiding by the rules just because it’s what you are supposed to do. So instead of running the floor with reasoning, maybe because the team you are playing against enjoys slowing the pace, you jog because it’s January and you are tired of running due to the rule. Or, my favorite, for the purpose of “because I said so”. Sound familiar?
Unfortunately, the reasoning provided above is far from being bizarre or a foreign concept. Knowing the why is the first step to buying into anything! You rarely spend your money on products without any reasoning behind it, why would you spend your time, something that has no return policy, on buying into a rule that makes no sense to you?

I’ll answer this one for you…you wouldn’t! What makes you think that your athletes will? Here are the positives and the negatives of changing this ONE statement. Negatives, you are no longer able to be lazy and some of your views that you thought were good, may actually reveal themselves to be bad. Positives, you and everyone else involved will gain perspective and reasoning, you will work harder, you will increase your program’s comprehension and you will eliminate bad habits/mentalities that were potentially holding you back. All by simply providing reasoning and answering the why.

While knowing the why is the first step when it comes to buying into anything, that does not mean it stops after day one. You will have to continue to reinforce the why on a regular basis. Your standards should also be relevant, realistic, have background data to support them, be developing and have consequences.

Relevant. The easiest way to make standards relevant is to gain input from your athletes. It is very easy to look up standards from other great teams and attempt to implement them. However, as Coach K said before in his interview, “if everyone contributes to the way you’re going to do things, you end up owning how you do things.” Ownership cannot be understated. When people don’t live up to the standards that they put into place, you can hold them accountable for both the decision they made to set the standard and the decision they made to not live up to it. Coaches, support staff and athletes alike.

Realistic and Background Data. I put these two in the same section because they work harmoniously. Your standards must be realistic for your players to live up to. If your team is young and struggling with turnovers, don’t set your standard to zero turnovers. It’s unrealistic to expect someone to go from 10 turnovers in a game to none. You wouldn’t expect a beginner weightlifter to squat two and half times their body weight, so why should your basketball player be any different? With that, you must provide some background data not only to hold them accountable, but to provide them with a standard to live up to.

The best example I can provide is drill work. One drill we do consists of athletes getting two jump shots and a lay-up in during one trip down the floor. It is a continuous transition drill that lasts three minutes long. Each year our standard is set by the numbers they achieve while running through the drill. If they don’t live up to the standards there is a consequence. The JV players and Varsity players have different standards. However, they are given the standards that are used for local collegiate programs as well. This leads into developing.

Developing. Once your players reach the standard consistently, it is time to raise the bar. In doing so, you promote a growth environment as opposed to a simple living at status quo. But remember to keep it realistic. What does that look like? If your team’s standard for “shooting drill A” is 13 and they reach 15, then the new standard is 15. If your squat workout this week is 3×10 at 200lbs, next week it’s 4×10 at 200lbs or 3×10 at 205lbs.

Consequences. While it is the least favorite portion of most people’s programs, consequences are essential to growth. You can talk goals, rules or standards until you’re blue in the face, but if there’s nothing there to hold you accountable afterwards, the majority of the population will continue to come up short. However, like your standards, make sure that your consequences are realistic and appropriate. The days where coaches make their student athletes run 30 suicides because they missed one free throw should be long gone. ESPECIALLY, if you have a coaching philosophy of running and scoring in transition. By punishing athletes with running, they associate running with a negative consequence. Do not make punishments as you go, have them predetermined, this way your emotions from the situation don’t dictate what happens in the moment.

The quick summary… Standards are instinctively more positive than rules. Rules encompass negative connotations and empower the coach/supervisor while standards inspire everyone in the program to contribute/grow their level of excellency. In order to set standards, you should be able to answer the why, make them relevant, realistic, have background data to support your standards, make sure they are always developing and growing and you MUST inforce consequences. The question you have to ask of yourself, staff and athletes now is, what standards do you want to set in order to raise your level of excellency?

If you want your athletes to perform at their very best, whether you are a parent or coach, then you must get them the right question. What can I give?

By John O’Sullivan, Founder of Change the Game Project

“Coach, can I talk to you?”

“Sure,” I said. “What’s on your mind today Michael?”

“Well, I just want to know what I can do so I get to start more games and get more playing time as a center midfielder. I don’t think I am showing my best as a winger, and my parents tell me I am not going to get noticed by the college scouts unless something changes.”

Well Michael,” I said, “there is something that all coaches are looking for from the players they recruit. In fact, it is exactly what I am looking for from you as well. If you approach every practice, every fitness session, and every match with this one thing, I think you will see a huge improvement in your play, regardless of where you play. Interested?”

“Of course, coach. What is it?”

I waited a moment before I answered to make sure he was listening.

“You have to stop asking what you can get, and start asking what you can give. You must serve.”

Michael furrowed his brow as he tried to process what I told him.

“You want me to serve the team, like with food?”

I smiled, “No Michael, serving others is the one thing that unites successful people, from friends to employees to athletes to business owners. The great ones know that to be more they must become more, and to become more they must serve others.”

“So, you are saying that instead of asking what I can get from the team, I should be asking what I can give to the team?”

I wanted to leap out of my chair and hug him.

Michael got it. It’s not about him. It’s not about me. It’s about service. The tool that would eventually earn him more playing time and increase his chances of playing in college serving others by focusing upon what he could give, instead of what he could get.

My great friend and coaching mentor Dr. Jerry Lynch is the founder of Way of Champions is the winner of 34 NCAA titles and one NBA World Championship as a sport psychologist and consultant. He calls this paradigm-shifting question the most effective question an athlete can ask, and an attitude that every coach must try and instill in his or her team.

We live in a world these days where self-centeredness and a ‘what’s in it for me” attitude of entitlement is far too prevalent. In the age of the selfie, Instagram, Facebook and a million other ways to say “look at me,” the concept of teamwork and the importance of service to others has gotten lost in the shuffle.

This is very sad, because service to others is the exact thing that athletes need to not only become elite performers, but the type of athlete that coaches look for, celebrate, and fight over at the next level. Do you want to stand out from the crowd?

Start by serving everyone in that crowd.

Far too many athletes bring the attitude of “what do I get” to practice and games. They want to know how they can:

Get to start
Get more playing time
Get to play my favorite position
Get to score all the points/goals
Get to work hard when I want to
Get to show up (physically and mentally) when I feel like it
Get to give less than my best because I am an upperclassman
Get attention as the star player
Sadly, this is the path to short-term satisfaction, at the expense of long-term development and high-level performance. This attitude does not promote success; it inhibits growth on and off the field, the court, and the ice.

If you want your athletes to perform at their very best, whether you are a parent or coach, then you must get them the right question.

What can I give?

Athletes who ask themselves what they can give bring “I can give/I can do” attitudes and actions to the table for their teams. The can actually “get” everything they are looking for simply by starting with the following service oriented ideas:

I can give my best effort in practice and games
I can give my team a positive attitude no matter what the circumstances
I can give my team a boost no matter how many minutes I play
I can give my team a better chance to win no matter what position I play
I can do the dirty work so my teammate can score the goal and get the glory
I can sacrifice my personal ambitions for the better of the group
I can lead by example
I can be an example of our core values in action
As a coach, I used to think that the most important thing was to have my best players be my hardest workers. But now I realize that isn’t enough. Being a hard worker can still be a selfish pursuit.

No, the most important thing as a coach is to have a team that all ask “what can I give,” especially when it come to your captains, your upperclassmen, and your most talented athletes. You must teach them that the selfish attitude may once in a while lead to success, but the selfless attitude leads to excellence, celebrates the success of others, and makes you the type of athlete that EVERY COACH wants on his or her team.

The most successful sports team in the professional era is not the NY Yankees, or the Boston Celtics, or Real Madrid, but a team from a far less known sport. It is the New Zealand All Blacks in rugby, who have an astonishing 86% winning percentage and numerous championships to their name. In the outstanding book about the All Blacks called Legacy, author James Kerr discusses one of their core values that epitomizes the selfless attitude.

It’s called “Sweep the Shed.”

You see the goal of every All Blacks player is to leave the national team shirt in a better place than when he got it. His goal is to contribute to the legacy by doing his part to grow the game and keep the team progressing every single day.

In order to do so, the players realize that you must remain humble, and that no one is too big or too famous to do the little things required each and every day to get better. You must eat right. You must sleep well. You must take care of yourself on and off the field. You must train hard. You must sacrifice your own goals for the greater good and a higher purpose.

You must sweep the shed.

After each match, played in front of 60,000 plus fans, in front of millions on TV, after the camera crews have left, and the coaches are done speaking, when the eyes of the world have turned elsewhere, there is still a locker room to be cleaned.

By the players!

That’s right, after each and every game the All Blacks leading players take turns sweeping the locker room of every last piece of grass, tape, and mud. In the words of Kerr: “Sweeping the sheds. Doing it properly. So no one else has to. Because no one looks after the All Blacks. The All Blacks look after themselves.”

They leave the locker room in a better place than they got it. They leave the shirt in a better place than they got it. They are not there to get. They are there to give.

If you are a coach, recognize that by intentionally creating a culture where players seek to give instead if get, you will have a team that not only develops excellence on and off the field but is a team that is much more enjoyable to coach. Create a culture that rewards the 95% who are willing to give, and weeds out the 5% who are trying to get. When you do, the “getters” will stick out like a player who is vomiting: he feels better and everyone else feels sick. Eventually, he will get on board, or be thrown off the ship.

Parents, teach your children to be teammates who give. It will not only serve them well in athletics; it will serve them well in life.

For as former NY Yankee great Don Mattingly so eloquently stated:

“Then at one point in my career, something wonderful happened. I don’t know why or how . . . but I came to understand what “team” meant. It meant that although I didn’t get a hit or make a great defensive play, I could impact the team in an incredible and consistent way. I learned I could impact the team in an incredible and consistent way. I learned I could impact my team by caring first and foremost about the team’s success and not my own. I don’t mean by rooting for us like a typical fan. Fans are fickle. I mean CARE, really care about the team . . . about “US.”

Mattingly continued: “I became less selfish, less lazy, less sensitive to negative comments. When I gave up me, I became more. I became a captain, a leader, a better person and I came to understand that life is a team game. And you know what? I’ve found most people aren’t team players. They don’t realize that life is the only game in town. Someone should tell them. It has made all the difference in the world to me.”

Please share this article with an athlete or a team that matters to you. Encourage, no implore them to take Don Mattingly’s advice, to take the All Blacks advice. Come to prepared to compete, and to be a “giver” and not a “getter.”

You will stand out.

You will be a difference maker.

And you will get everything you want by giving full of yourself, and helping everyone else get what they want.

It changes everything.

Coach O’Sullivan is a former college and professional player as well as a high school, club team and college coach. He is offering a FREE video series that is part of his Coaching Mastery program. For more information about gaining access to that program click the link above or in the image below. The video series includes a wealth of coaching education including some motivational and team building ideas used by some of the most successful coaches.

Why Norms are the Driver of Team Culture

Dr. Cory Dobbs, The Academy for Sport Leadership

“It’s not enough to know how to lead; you need to know how to build leaders too.”

On a scale from one to ten, how important is having a positive culture to your team’s ability to reach its potential?  When I ask coaches this question, most of them answer in the nines and tens.  Even the most inexperienced of them agree that, like it or not, the team’s culture holds the key to a team’s capacity.  Talent is the foundation for winning, but culture is the guiding force that determines a team’s potential.

Even the least talented team can enjoy its experience if it’s imbued with a positive and motivating culture.  Let’s face it, only one team will win the conference championship.  However, every team will rise to its capacity if its culture is carefully nurtured.

Think of culture like a vibrant and dynamic river.  All rivers are powered by the volume of water, the pull of gravity, and the focus produced by a river’s banks.  The volume of water comes from many small sources—tributaries—flowing in the same direction and landing in the river.  Think of a team’s members as the many small sources, each contributing volume to the rush of the river that is the team’s culture.  The pull of gravity provides force as the river rages toward its goal—the ocean.  And just like the ocean, team’s pursue an ultimate goal—a desired end-state.  The banks, like a team’s norms, provide boundaries that serve to concentrate and funnel the flow thereby giving the river more force and power.  A team’s norms contribute to its social structure that like the river’s banks provides stability, direction, and intensity of organized effort.

Unfortunately, many teams are more like puddles or ponds than powerful rivers.  They stop-short of reaching their capacity and the team experience becomes one of struggle, conflict, and dysfunction.  The channeling effect of the river’s banks makes all the difference between a puddle and a vigorous and focused river.

So, how do you go about creating a high-performing team culture?

The golden rule of culture building is found in relationships.  How team members interact and the kinds of relationships they form has everything to do with what kind of culture emerges, has everything to do with the emergence of trust, commitment, and individual and team performance.  Much of the success of a team lies in the crafting of a sense of “us.”  It lies in the norms, values and priorities that emerge to shape the shared understanding of “who we are.”  A team’s norms channel the sum of all these forces.

Generally speaking, norms are shared standards that define what behaviors are acceptable and desired by a team’s members.  They are informal “agreements,” not formal rules or policies.  So much of how players see and interact with the social universe around them is shaped by norms which are developed, discovered, or invented aspects of daily situations.

Norms emerge and develop from individual behaviors that take place one-to-one, as well as team norms of one-to-many and many-to-many.  Two players may have a relationship that includes good-natured ribbing of one another, while the ribbing might not be a desired behavior in a team meeting.  Norms act as guidelines, embedded rules of behavior if you will, that inform behavior and expectations in interpersonal interactions.

In the scheme of the well-worn Tuckman’s five stages of a team—forming, storming, norming, performing, and adjourning—the norming stage occurs when conflict has been resolved and team unity and harmony emerge.  Once the norming stage kicks into gear the aspirations of the team become visible and elicit inspiration.  A team that has achieved a high degree of maturity relating to team norms is likely to have a strong culture, whereas an immature team—low agreement and adherence to team norms—is likely to have a weak culture.  Simply said, norms are vital for developing a high-performing team culture.

STAGE 3: NORMING            The Cohesion Stage

During this stage, team conflict and chaos subside as the team achieves a sense of cohesion.  When the team reaches this stage, team members feel a sense of unity and responsibility to other team members.  Encouragement and acknowledgement of individual and team successes are the norm and commitment to team goals begins to take shape.  A collective identity materializes.  Close relationships will bring trust allowing team leaders to offer team members more constructive feedback.

Team leaders should know that their teammates might be asking themselves:

Do my teammates appreciate me for who I am and what I contribute?
What is my role on the team?
Do my teammates value me as a member of this team?
Who is committed to our team’s mission and goals?

During the norming stage team leaders might:

Assess progress toward team cohesion and team goals.

Identify and find ways to break down “new” barriers that are limiting commitment to each other and the team’s goals.

Keep team members focused on the team norms-those acceptable behaviors that are shared by the team’s members.

Revisit the “I can trust you when…”  and “I can’t trust you when…” exercise.

*Passage taken from The Academy for Sport Leadership’s Teamwork Intelligence Workbook for Student-Athletes

Here’s a sample of norm statements:

▪We put team needs in front of our individual needs.  Encourage members to learn new things.
▪We are committed to open, honest, and tactful dialogue.  Everyone must speak and listen.
▪We support one another personally even when we are in conflict.
▪We challenge members to become a better person.
▪We respect one another at all times.  Yet we see each others’ bad habits and help them to work on them.
▪Each of us is to be aware of our impact on the others and seek to ensure that our ideas, actions, and emotions challenge and support the team.
▪Each of us is responsible for understanding and managing our own behaviors and emotions in ways that support the team.
▪Each of us is responsible for holding each other accountable for owning our behaviors and emotions and to helping us grow and develop as responsible people.

 

LEADERSHIP RESOURCE FOR COACHES

Coaching for Leadership: How to Develop a Leader in Every Locker. ($24.99)

 

The Academy for Sport Leadership 

About the Author

Dr. Cory Dobbs is a national expert on sport leadership and team building and is the founder of The Academy for Sport Leadership.  A teacher, speaker, consultant, and writer, Dr. Dobbs has worked with professional, collegiate, and high school athletes and coaches teaching leadership as a part of the sports experience.  He facilitates workshops, seminars, and consults with a wide-range of professional organizations and teams.  Dr. Dobbs previously taught in the graduate colleges of business and education at Northern Arizona University, Sport Management and Leadership at Ohio University, and the Jerry Colangelo College of Sports Business at Grand Canyon University.

Dr. Dobbs recently joined Jamy Bechler on the “Success is a Choice” Podcast – hear his thoughts on team leadership and developing a leader in every locker here.

Bill Wadley
Recently retired Men’s Swimming Coach
Ohio State

This presentation deals with shaping and changing cultural barriers and shifting well established habits which becomes the challenge of cultural shaping. Coach Wadley discusses the goals and barriers that impact faculty and staff success and how to simplify systems and structure. This presentation also explains how culture can be the springboard for establishing student life goals which enhances learning.

The video is applicable to coaching any sport, not just swimming.

This video is provided by Glazier Clinics’ Head Coach Academy

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