3 Ways to Build Team Trust

Another great blog post by Stephanie Zonars (www.LifeBeyondSport.com)!!

As I gathered with a team for a Building Trust workshop last weekend, the assistant coach roamed around the room with a small box collecting cell phones. I’ve heard about coaches doing this, but it hadn’t happened at one of my workshops yet. Got me thinking about the impact of technology on relationships.


We’ve experienced the upside. Facebook has connected us with long lost friends and family. Texting makes it easy to communicate basic information quickly. Twitter even saved some lives in the Haiti earthquake.
 
But for all the benefits, electronic communication alone will not result in strong, healthy, trusting relationships. The youngest of Generation Y (born after 1990 and referred to by Tim Elmore as Generation iY) seem to lack patience as well as listening and conflict resolution skills—all of which are required to build relational trust.

I’ve noticed, however, that when given the opportunity to connect face-to-face, young people do engage. In fact, the high school and college teams I work with share with courage and vulnerability. Seems that it’s less a function of willingness and more a response to environment.

Our world is moving so fast, we must proactively work to slow it down and create an atmosphere for the individuals on our teams to feel comfortable sharing. Three practical ways you can do this on your team:

Model the behavior you want. If you want your team to put their phones away and talk to one another, show them how. Refuse to check your phone when you are in the middle of an in-person conversation. Answer it when your athlete or co-worker is in the midst of a heartfelt disclosure and you can bet they won’t readily open up to you again.

Institute tech-free zones. Make team functions tech-free zones. Meals together, game nights, bus rides—make some of these tech-free times and opportunities to interact face-to-face. Keep it playful and your team may not even notice the absence of their tech toys.

Ask questions. Your team members want to know that you care about more than just their performance. Take time to ask them about their families, dreams and experiences. People like to talk about themselves, and you’ll be amazed at what you’ll learn! Can’t think of what to ask? Check out these great questions.

Building trusting relationships isn’t hard, but it takes time. If you want a trusting team it’s going to take intentional time, effort and creativity.

Coach K's Most Important Ingredient for Success

-Post written by Stephanie Zonars (www.LifeBeyondSport.com)

Coach Mike Krzyzewski won his 903rd game a week ago, surpassing Bobby Knight as the winningest coach in men’s collegiate basketball. (Basketball super-fans know that Pat Summitt holds the overall coaching record with 1,071 and counting).

Amazing accomplishment for Coach K! He’s built the strong, winning tradition of Duke basketball through qualities like dedication, hard work and perseverance. Yet, when asked after the win for the single most important characteristic for a coach to have in order to achieve success, Coach K said “trustworthiness.”

With the myriad of answers he could have given, he says trustworthiness? Yes. And I couldn’t agree more.

Trust to a team is like the foundation of a house. If you build a house on a foundation that’s been poured correctly, when the storms come up against that house it will still stand. But if your foundation has cracks and fissures, the rain and wind will tear your house apart.

Same is true for your team. If you create strong team trust, your team will stand in the face of adversity like injuries, losses or other drama. But if your team trust has cracks and fissures, the tough times will tear it apart.

3 ways to build Team Trust: http://lifebeyondsport.com/2011/02/3-ways-to-build-team-trust/

Quote of the Day:

In the business world, everyone is paid in two coins: cash and experience. Take the experience first; the cash will come later. – Harold Geneen

Recruiting: Horse Race or Beauty Pageant?

GREAT article from Dan Tudor (www.DanTudor.com):

Your Recruiting Strategy: Horse Race or Beauty Pageant?

One of our clients alled a couple of weeks ago, and she was worried.
A couple of her new recruits hadn’t responded to her first two emails and was wondering if we needed to highlight more of the things her Division I college had to offer their students and athletes.
“I’m worried if we don’t out-shine a couple of our other competitors soon, we won’t be able to get her on campus this Spring”, said the coach.
What I told her is what I want to tell you:
Recruiting isn’t a beauty pageant, it’s a horse race.
Here’s what I mean:
A beauty pageant is all about picking who looks the best, and who presents themselves the most convincingly to the judges.  Now I’ll admit, there are some recruits who fall into this category…they’ll pick a program using the most basic criteria:  How new your facility is, how big of a conference you play in, or strictly based upon something that they want for themselves.
The beauty pageant prospect is the toughest to land because they are making choices based on assumptions and stories that they’ve already defined for themselves:  The decision that they “deserve” to play in the best facility…what your conference will say to their friends and teammates back home…or some other off-the-wall criteria that they usually don’t reveal until they’ve already made their decision.
In short, if you’re recruiting a prospect like you’re judging a beauty pageant – which many coaches choose to do – then you’ll going to experience a tough road when it comes to recruiting great athletes for your program:  Your results will be random, and while you will experience some incredible highs when your prospect decides your program is the most “beautiful” in their eyes, there will also be far more soul-crushing defeats when they decide they don’t like the way you look.
If you’re interested in another way to approach recruiting, you should think about recruiting as a horse race.
Why a “horse race”?  Because the more I observe recruiting at different levels, the coaches that take a horse racing approach usually have more consistent, more reliable results.
Here’s why successful recruiting resembles a horse race:

• Everyone starts evenly right out of the gate.
• There are always two or three horses that jump out into the lead right away, and take a position along the rail.  If you’re one of those top three, great.  If you aren’t, don’t panic.  Find your spot and settle in for the race (remember, it just started a few seconds ago!)
• This is where things get interesting: Before they field makes the first turn, horses start dropping out.  Usually that’s because those “horses” don’t hear back from their recruits right away.  They haven’t filled-out their questionaire, or returned the first email.  Due to that lack of interest, they drop out of the race for that prospect.  My recommendation to you is to not be one of those drop-outs!
• The longer you stay up with the leaders, the more you’ll be viewed as a serious consideration by your recruit.  As you enter the halfway point in your recruiting efforts, stay consistent and understand that there’s still a long way to go in the mind of your recruit.
• What gets it done “down the stretch”?   Outlining the differences between your program and the others still in the race.  The more radical and unique the differences, the better your chances of jumping out into the lead.
• Want to make sure you win at the finish line?  Stay connected and talk with your prospect regularly.  It is extremely important, Coach.  The worst thing we see a coach do is step back and leave the prospect alone to make their final decision.  Guide them down the stretch…that’s what they want.

Beauty pageants are random, and produce subjective results that rarely make anyone but the winner happy.
Horse races are about preparation, strategy and strength down the stretch.
My main point: You can choose the strategy that fits you best, but what I see working most consistently with programs around the country is a strategy based on a long term approach that doesn’t necessitate immediate interest from high profile prospects, but instead relies upon a consistent, compelling and creative message that forces them to take serious look at you and your program.

Quote of the Day:

It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change. – Charles Darwin

Making & Breaking Habits

 The hard must become habit.  The habit must become easy.  The easy must become beautiful.  ~Doug Henning

We are all creatures of habit; basketball players are no different.

Using the left hand on the left side of the backboard...applying ball pressure...sprinting the lanes...boxing out. All of these are habits that can be established or demolished.

Coaches get frustrated when players continuously do the same (wrong) thing over and over again. How do you break the chain?

The answer is simple but the time and focus on the process of forming a new habit is the challenging piece. First, I have a basic philosophy that I cannot hold players accountable for something that I have not taught and drilled. For example- boxing out. Sure, you can preach boxing out for 3 hours every day at practice and discipline the team if they fail to box out. What kind of results will this get you if you do not actively practice boxing out and follow through with reminders? Not what you are looking for I bet.

To truly form new habits for players, you must drill boxing out every day AND make it a point of emphasis during scrimmages, positional work, etc. I'm in favor of having a visual cue at practice with 6 or 7 "priorities" for play on the court that you and the players can constantly glance over at to remind everyone of what is expected (ie, ball pressure, boxing out, communication, etc.).

So, if you want better close outs- drill close outs everyday for 3 or 5 minutes. If you want better ball pressure, then drill ball pressure every day.

EVERY DAY.

I read this story in one of John Wooden's books: members of the media attended UCLA's open practice at the NCAA Championship game. They were surprised to see that 25% of the practice was dedicated to really basic fundamentals: catching and shooting without a basketball, slow and steady defensive slides, ball handling and basic transition drills. The reporters asked Coach Wooden why his team was practicing such elementary drills and his reply indicated that one of the reasons his team was in the Championship game was by perfecting the basic fundamentals of the game by practicing them every day.

EVERY DAY.

Quote of the Day:

Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve. Thoughts are things! And powerful things at that, when mixed with definiteness of purpose, and burning desire, can be translated into riches. – Napoleon Hill