This article was written and submitted to me by Björn Galjaardt. The article has application to coaching regardless of the sport that you coach.

With a flirt to water polo…

Game [noun]: 1) A form of competitive activity or sport played according to rules; 2)An activity that one engages in for enjoyment.

By focussing on the above explanation we don’t need to go ‘hunting’ and using it as an adjective or verb. We then need to define understanding and awareness. In sport and business due diligence will help to gain knowledge about the tactics of our competitors. Therefore, different strategies can be implemented or adjusted. The understanding of the game can be seen in the word comprehension, the ability to understand. For example, a certain system is set in place, the people executing a system must understand how they operate and what their tasks are. That’s the power of abstract thoughts or intellect. In water polo it could be a tactical system like an ‘extra’ situation. In business it could be a finance model or assembly process.

Awareness is knowledge or perception of a situation or fact. Timing of action and actual adjustment must cross each other at the right level in order to anticipate. This is where awareness comes in play. Another definition of awareness is; a concern about and well-informed interest in a particular situation or development. In this case some may argue that experience is needed. However, one must first understand the foundation of the system, the tasks and its purpose.

“When well executed, that’s where game understanding meets game awareness”.

Taking initiative and adapting to a certain situation requires some skills. First, one must read the situation and then go quickly through a library of options. Secondly, a decision must be made instantly to apply and execute. In water polo a defensive play could go from press to a simple zone (game understanding). The timing could be an initiative to react upon a certain move from an offensive play (game awareness). When well executed, that’s where game understanding meets game awareness.

Comparing a theory from Chris Argyris, in a 1977 published article, that describes double loop learning. In a simple example explained: “A thermostat that automatically turns on the heat when the temperature drops below a certain degree, is an example of single loop learning. A thermostat that could ask why it’s set to a certain degree and whether this is more economically to achieve the goal of heating the room, is an example of double loop learning”.

“Double loop learning is the process that narrows down both paths until they cross”.

While a thermostat is a single apparatus, a team will work together as one. Game understanding, purely the execution in a certain situation, set by continuously practice, observation and perhaps experience could be seen as single loop learning. Gameawareness would then be the timing, adjustment and anticipation to a certain situation that may require ‘more’ than purely the execution of a certain system. Double loop learning is the process that narrows down both paths until they cross. Providing feedback and higher level thinking in a process to reach a certain outcome eliminates mistakes and improves the result. This is no different in sport or in business. Sometimes people come up with bright revolutionary or innovative ideas in business. In a water polo game for example, an athlete decides to steal a misplaced pass in a full press system.

With double loop learning the process for a positive or negative outcome must be clear. An employee shouldn’t fear that his job is on the line and an athlete shouldn’t fear being permanently substituted. Everyone interpret or view something in a particular way. Once the criteria are set there is still opportunity for self-initiative. Clear rules and expectations in the process will see businessmen and sportsmen achieve more than they are capable of. This is where game understanding successfully meets game awareness in conjunction with double loop learning.

Do you love volleyball? Do you love coaching young people? Do you love your job? If the answer is yes, then show it. Here are three reasons that enthusiasm will make you a better coach.

This article and other helpful coaching tools can be found at Coach Dawn Writes

By Dawn Redd-Kelly, Head Volleyball Coach at Beloit College.

John Wooden is a coaching rock star and legend.   So I thought, what better gift to give my readers during my blog vacay than a series on Wooden’s Pyramid of Success? Join me for a series of posts that will delve into both the foundation and apex of his Pyramid and examine Wooden’s thoughts on Industriousness, Enthusiasm, Friendship, Loyalty, Cooperation, Competitive Greatness, and finally, Faith & Patience.

Enthusiasm

So I think the fact that I have a coaching blog and a Twitter account devoted to coaching shows that I’m pretty passionate about coaching in general…and volleyball in particular.  But even before all of that, I made sure that every team that I coached understood how much I loved the sport.  On that first day of practice, I would sit them down and tell them the ways that I love volleyball…I love the way the ball sounds as it’s being passed, I love the sound of the gym when everyone’s talking and playing hard, I love the cheers at the end of plays, and on and on I would go so that they understood that their coach was crazy about the sport.  Let’s look at ways that coaches can create an atmosphere of enthusiasm on their teams and in their gyms.

3 ways to make your enthusiasm for your sport and job contagious

“You have to like what you’re doing, your heart must be in it.”
I love volleyball and I love coaching.  It’s one of the first things that I say to recruits and at the beginning of each season.  Whenever folks ask me what I’d do if I were a multi-millionaire…and I always say: coach volleyball.  I love the sport and find it amazing that someone’s actually willing to pay me to do the one thing that I love and am good at!  Because of my love of the sport, I believe that I’ve always attracted athletes of a similar mindset to whatever program I’m coaching…ladies who love to work the sport, learn about the sport, and get better at the sport.

“Enthusiasm brushes off on those with whom you come into contact.”
After you’ve been coaching at a program for a while, your athletes seem like they start to act like you a little, don’t they?  And I think that’s because your love of the sport is brushing off on them.  Your seniors will have had four years to bask in how fired up you are about coaching your sport, your juniors will feel the seniors’ love, while your underclassmen will assume that they’re supposed to love the sport because they’re following along with what your upperclassmen are doing.  As a coach, you have the opportunity to create an environment where your players love the sport and love working hard at the sport.

“Leaders must always generate enthusiasm if they wish to bring out the best in themselves and those under their supervision.”
Our job, as coaches, is to lead people and inspire them to be greater and better than they ever thought that they could be.  Our players should be able to look at us and know that we love what we do, we’re good at what we do, and we have their best interests at heart.  Enthusiasm in those three areas will pay off dividends as we ask them to sacrifice their minds, bodies, and time.  And taking the step just beyond that, we have the marvelous opportunity to model leadership to our student-athletes…to show them what true enthusiasm for your sport and craft looks like.  I hope that none of us take that responsibility lightly.

Enthusiasm and Industriousness are the cornerstones of Wooden’s Pyramid…meaning that everything else stems from those two things.  That’s good news because both of those things are completely within our control!  Next up:  Friendship.

 

This article was provided by Coaches Network

Too much emphasis on winning can distract from the true value of sports. Winning is just a by-product of this commitment to positive values and embracing the challenge of competition.

Longtime soccer coach and internationally known speaker Reed Maltbie explains why it’s important to develop what he calls a “warrior” culture as opposed to a winning culture.

Coaches can often become blinded by the desire to win. This single-minded focus forces people to sacrifice their values and can hurt the growth of young athletes. But as Maltbie explains in an article on Changingthegameproject.com, the goal should be to achieve excellence. Winning is just a by-product of this commitment to positive values and embracing the challenge of competition.

“In a values-based, purpose-driven team or mindset winning is not the focus, but the expectedly pleasant by-product. It is not ‘wanted’ as the main desire but simply expected as something that may happen if things are done right,” Maltbie writes. “Winning and losing are both mere waypoints on the journey and both should be viewed with the same desire to learn from and grow from them.”

Like many coaches, Maltbie struggled with this approach when he started out over 20 years ago. He had winning mentality and all he cared about was acquiring as many trophies and accolades as possible, often bragging about not having a losing season as a major part of his success. But after seeing the way that this mentality left him feeling empty and took away from the experience of his players, he began to change his approach.

What he discovered was this: “All warriors are winners, but not all winners are warriors. The simple commitment to personal excellence, high standards, and an ethereal quest to be better than the day before makes a warrior a winner.”

With this mentality he stopped treating winning as the ultimate goal and started treating it as a simple step on the path to excellence. Since then his goal has been to help athletes develop into “warriors.” He does this by encouraging athletes to live by unbending values, strive for improvement every day, take challenges head on, and respect the nature of competition.

Here is his guide for changing your focus from winning trophies to striving for excellence:

• “Warriors are purpose-driven WHILE winners are trophy-driven.” Winning a competition is a fleeting moment. What lasts longer is developing the desire and drive to always do your best and to seek excellence everyday. This motivation goes far beyond the pursuit of a piece of metal.

• “Warriors are internally motivated WHILE winners are externally motivated.” When you focus on being the master of yourself, true excellence can be achieved. Competing for the sake of winning is an external motivation that relies on comparing yourself to others rather than seeking self-improvement.

• “Warriors have a growth mindset WHILE winners have a fixed mindset.” People focused solely on winning often think they are entitled to the trophy, while those with a growth mindset understand how much work it takes to get there. Even when the competition doesn’t go your way, the value lies in the opportunity to learn and grow.

• “Warriors are process-oriented WHILE winners are outcome-oriented.” Instead of worrying about the endgame, stay in the moment and enjoy the journey. When you always have your eye on the goal, it can be easy to miss what’s going on around you.

• “Warriors are values-based WHILE winners are glory-based.” It’s important to develop the values that you want to fight for and then to instill these values in your athletes. When acquiring trophies is the focus, you are looking to boost your own ego rather than create a legacy of excellence.

“We have a chance to teach our children and our athletes the awesome joy of being a warrior. Of seeking challenge, battling for personal excellence, of striving to be a better person each day, and living and playing with a purpose and embedded in values,” Maltbie writes. “They have the opportunity to experience deep satisfaction in mastering the game, enjoying the journey, and being part of something bigger than themselves. We make this choice to create warriors not winners and we may not fill our mantle with trophies, but we will fill the world with happy, resilient, purposeful people who will make an impact beyond the game.”

Click here to read the full article.

This article was provided by Coaches Network

 

By Dr. Wade Gilbert

A great way to learn about quality coaching is to listen to coaches and athletes talk about the coaching styles they believe are most helpful for achieving success. Coverage of recent sporting events such as the women’s World Cup, and the NBA and NHL finals, provided many opportunities to hear some of the world’s most successful athletes and coaches share their insights on this topic.

Whether coaching females or males, and regardless of differences in coaching styles, these championship coaches all share one thing in common: they make building relationships with their athletes a top priority.

U.S. women’s national soccer team coach Jill Ellis, who led the American team to their first World Cup championship in 16 years, has been lauded by current and former players alike for her open and honest communication style. Moreover, she places great emphasis on learning how to connect with players in ways that are uniquely meaningful and relevant to each one of them.

Chicago Blackhawks coach Joel Quennville has gained the trust of his players, and led them to three ice hockey championships in the past six years, by keeping an open-door policy and showing a genuine interest in listening to his players.

Golden State Warriors coach Steve Kerr, in just his first year of coaching the team, built a culture of trust and engagement by making relationship building a regular part of his daily routine en route to the team’s first basketball championship in 40 years.

A quote from coach Kerr perhaps best summarizes the emphasis these championship coaches place on relationship building with their athletes: To me, the X’s and O’s … they’re an important part of coaching but a relatively small part. Eighty percent of it is just relationships and atmosphere.

Successful coaches have long known that the time and energy invested in building quality relationships with their players pays huge dividends. For example, one of the winningest college football coaches of all time Eddie Robinson proclaimed that showing genuine care for each of his players was the cornerstone of his coaching approach. More recently, Cameron McCormick – longtime coach of the world’s hottest golfer Jordan Spieth – revealed that building quality relationships with athletes was at the top of his the list for becoming a successful coach, based on his study of the world’s best golf coaches.

The surest way to show players that you care about them is to ask them about their lives and then give them your undivided attention. Never forget that you are coaching people first, and the sport second. Keep a file for each athlete to record notes about things and people that are meaningful to them. Regularly check in with each athlete and update their ‘life’ file.

Some high coaches like to give their athletes a survey to complete at the start of the season, with questions about their dreams, passions, favorite subjects in school, and family. Other coaches find that setting aside a few minutes before practices for ‘social time’ allows them to speak with athletes about their lives while athletes are starting to warm-up.

However, for relationship building to work, coaches must also be willing to share information about people and things that are meaningful to them. If you want your athletes to share with you, you must share with them. Ultimately, building relationships with athletes is an act of courage – both for the coach and for the athlete. Each must show the courage to be vulnerable.

Coaches show courage, and build relationships, when they create emotionally safe environments. Giving frequent encouragement and helping athletes pull the lessons from performance failures creates an environment where athletes feel safe to risk failure.

Ask any championship coach to reflect on what they cherish most from their career and they’ll tell you it was the relationships they built with their athletes along the way. Take a page from the playbooks of the world’s most successful coaches, and set aside time in your daily routine to make a personal connection with each of your athletes. This simple strategy not only leads to better performance, but makes for a more enjoyable and enriching sport experience.

 

This article is adapted from an article on the Human Kinetics “Coach Education Center” website.  Click here to read the full article.

Dr. Rick Perea

This presentation as explained by Dr. Perea deals with organizational motivation and performance along with self and team efficacy, Intrinsic versus Extrinsic motivation, and individual and team cohesion. Dr. Perea explains the difference between groups versus teams and how organizational climate and culture is formed and developed. This presentation goes into detail explaining the difference between self-efficacy and team efficacy.

This video is provided by Glazier Clinics Head Coaches Academy.

Please make sure that your sound is on and click on the video to play.

PUT YOUR CURSOR OVER THE LOWER RIGHT CORNER OF THE VIDEO AND CLICK (IMAGE LOOKS LIKE THIS)TO WATCH THE VIDEO ON FULL SCREEN TO BE ABLE SEE LARGER DIAGRAMS AND VIDEOS

This is a You Tube video, so please make sure that your network allows you to access You Tube.

Click the play arrow to see the video: