This article first appeared on The Coaches Network. (Reposted with Permission)

Core values are the foundation of what you do and why you do it. They are anchoring principles that ground you to what’s really important and guide you toward success. They are what you stand for no matter what your circumstances may be or what your win/loss record is. Core values serve as a guide because they are non-negotiable. They serve as the essence of what your program stands for and they are expected to be shared by everyone. Core values are central to your program and the decisions leaders make should revolve around them.

Every good coach and leader understands the importance of core values as a guide through the ups and downs of sport, and more importantly, developing character in young men and women. Yet, despite the critical importance of core values, many athletic programs have core values that are not clearly defined, left unstated, too flexible, and in some cases, there are no core values at all. Sadly, too many athletic programs have core values that are only an afterthought. They are not discussed and implemented, and coaches falsely assume their athletes will just pick up on these values and apply them. Without a clearly defined set of core values, many teams struggle to handle the difficulties of sport because their values change based on what’s convenient in the moment rather than a stable bedrock of guiding principles. As a result, leadership is often inconsistent, there is little accountability between teammates, and the potential to build character through sport is lost.

As a coach and leader, developing and communicating core values begins and ends with you. However, because core values are central to team success and character development, it is vital to involve your team in determining them, making them visible, emphasizing them, and using them as a guide for your program’s daily decisions and actions.

To begin defining your program’s core values, consider the following categories of core values. Have a meeting with your team and staff. Ask yourself and your team: What do we value about …

Being People of Strong Character
Effort and Commitment
Having a Positive and Productive Attitude
Being a Good Teammate
Competing Relentlessly.

As you discuss and work through defining your core values, give your team a chance to share or write down their responses to the previous question(s) and write them out on a white board, chalk board, or poster board. Once the responses are written down, place them into three categories:

Stay: The majority of the group agrees the value is important and will be a core value.

Example: “RESPONSIBILITY: We will be responsible for our actions. No excuses!”

Combine: Two or more values that are similar can be merged into one, overarching value.

Example: Poise and maturity can be combined into “COMPOSURE: We will control our emotions and decisions on and off the field.”

Cut: The majority of the team agrees that the idea does not have enough relevance or support to be a core value.

Once your team has developed five to 10 core values it’s time to put them into action. Here are a few ways to make your team’s core values part of its daily commitment to progress and success.

1. Post your core values in your locker room.

Create a constant reminder of your core values by posting them in the locker room, weight room, and your coaches’ offices. This doesn’t have to be anything fancy, only consistently visible.

2. Have every member of your team and staff memorize your core values.

To help embed core values, have your team members and staff memorize the core values. Be sure everyone in the program can recite the core values at a moment’s notice.

3. Emphasize one of your core values with each week.

Make a full week all about one of your core values. Before the first practice of the week, discuss the core value that will be emphasized that week and why it’s important. After each practice that week, recognize those that committed to and best exhibited that core value.

4. Recognize your core values when you see them on and off the field.

Call out your team members and staff when they exemplify the team’s core values. Catch them “doing good” and use them as an example for the entire team. Don’t be afraid to stop practice for a minute to point out how hard someone is working or when someone is being a great teammate.

5. Incorporate your core values in your highlight videos.

Be sure to include core values in your highlight and video sessions. This is a great way to show what your core values look like and to recognize those committed to them. It’s also a great way to show why core values are important even if the result of a play or a game isn’t what you want. These highlights are about doing it right.

It will be easy to stick to your core values when everything is going well. It’s easy to preach core values when your team is winning, everyone is healthy, and team chemistry is good. Sticking to core values becomes more difficult when you’re on a losing streak, you’re faced with setbacks, and your athletes may not be doing the right things on and off the field. As previously mentioned, core values begin and end with you. When you bend and break your core values, you run the risk of losing respect and trust with your team and you send the message that short-cuts are okay. Stick to your core values. They are an invaluable resource to build more mentally tough athletes and develop character in those around you.

Raymond Prior is one of the country’s top peak performance professionals, and has nearly a decade of experience educating athletes and coaches about building mental toughness. Prior works with athletes, teams, and coaches at professional, Olympic, NCAA, amateur, and youth sport levels. His clients include professional athletes, Olympic Gold Medalists, individual and team National Champions, National Coach of the Year Award winners, individual and team Conference Champions, and more than 100 NCAA All-Americans in a variety of sports. For more information on Raymond’s consulting, visit www.rfpsport.com, or contact him by email ([email protected]) or phone (505-235-4486).

by Stephanie Zonars, LifeBeyondSport

At the What Drives Winning Conference, Florida softball coach, Tim Walton, referenced a TED Talk by business leader, Margaret Heffernan.

In it, she cites research by evolutionary biologist who studied productivity using chickens. William Muir devised an experiment to find out what would make chickens produce more eggs.

Chickens live in groups, so he selected an average group and left it alone for six generations.

Then he created a group from chickens that were individually the most productive— “super chickens.” With this group he selected only the most productive from each generation for breeding.

His findings?

After six generations group 1 was doing fine. Healthy chickens and increased egg production.

After the same time span, only 3 chickens in group 2 were still alive—they had pecked the rest to death.

The highly productive chickens in group 2 only achieved their success by suppressing the productivity of the rest.

Heffernan’s contention is that we tend to run organizations, teams and even countries using the “super chicken” model—one in which success is achieved by choosing superstars and by giving the most talented or brightest individuals all the resources and power.

And the result is the same as with the chickens—aggression and dysfunction and ultimately inhibited team productivity.

You’ve seen this with sports teams built on the uber-talent of a few athletes.

There’s nothing wrong with having elite athletes on your team. But if you don’t find a way to create strong cohesion between ALL team members, you diminish the team’s ability to reach its full potential.

What can help you develop that kind of team cohesion?

Heffernan shares another study done by MIT researchers in which groups of volunteers were given tough problems to solve.

They found that the most successful groups were not those with 1-2 members with exceptionally high IQs, nor the groups with the highest aggregate IQ.

The highest performing teams had three commonalities:

1       they showed high social sensitivity (empathy) to one another

2      they gave relatively equal time to each other (no one dominated the group and no one passively rode along—all participated)

3      they had more women on them 🙂

The researchers learned that social connectedness separated the best performing teams from the rest. [Tweet That!]

Heffernan teaches that social connectedness naturally results from a culture of helpfulness where individuals understand that they don’t need to know or be everything, because they are around people who are good at giving and receiving help.

It’s an environment where, when things get tough, individuals have social support and know who to ask for help.

But a culture of helpfulness won’t happen unless people get to know one another.

In other words:

get to know each other → culture of helpfulness → social connectedness

All this together is called social capital.

And social capital—the reliance and interdependence that builds trust—is the key to creating high performing teams.

It requires time to develop social capital. It doesn’t develop with a one-hit-wonder like a retreat or team building workshop at the beginning of the season.

Don’t get me wrong—that helps! It’s just not enough.

One company, for example, synchronized coffee breaks so that employees had time to get to know one another.

The result? Profits increased by $15 million and employee satisfaction saw a 10% rise.

That didn’t happen overnight, but it happened.

The time you invest in creating opportunities for your team members to get to know one another is not a waste. It’s an investment that will reap rewards!

Avoid super chicken syndrome by making time this summer to collect ideas and develop a plan for offering ongoing opportunities for your team members to get to know one another next season.

What motivates people is the bond, loyalty and trust they develop between each other. What matters is the mortar, not just the bricks. —Margaret Heffernan

Margaret Heffernan: Why it’s time to forget the pecking order at work

The Key to Creating High Performing Teams appeared first on Life Beyond Sport

About Stephanie Zonars

Stephanie Zonars helps coaches build and maintain winning team cultures through her business, Life Beyond Sport. Teams at Penn State, Notre Dame, West Point and over 60 other schools have built stronger trust, communication and teamwork through her workshops. Stephanie spent three years on staff with the Penn State women’s basketball team, assisting the team to back-to-back Big Ten Championships. She’s also the author of three books. For more tips on leadership and team culture, visit LifeBeyondSport

 

Anson Dorrance

The second video is of 22 time NCAA Division I Women’s National Championship Coach Anson Dorrance of North Carolina Women’s Soccer. This video was also produced by whatdriveswinning.com

The video has 3 segments.

The exercise Coach Dorrance discusses at the beginning regarding letters the day of the national championship game could be used in other settings such as senior night, or even prior to the first game of the year.

The middle portion of the video is a discussion of how the team selects a theme for each season.

He also discusses the core values of the North Carolina program and how he arrived at their present system. Here is a link to those: Core Values of a Championship Program

This article provided by Coaches Network

By Bruce Brown, Proactive Coaching

Successful coaches weave these 10 principles into all aspects of their team’s activities—whether it be during the off-season or pre-season, or in practice and in games.

Consistent and clear standards and values. Pre-set team values are the foundation for every successful team. What is your team’s identity? Great teams establish their own culture.

The team members feel a collective responsibility to learn and follow the team values. People commit to the team values and live it in their actions. “This is the way we do things around here” is something the team members are proud to express. The feeling is that “we don’t want to do anything that would let down the coaches, the team and each other”. Everyone is accountable.

Master Teachers, Master Motivators. This first way for a coach gain credibility is to respect and trust is how much they know and how well they can teach it. Successful coaches understand the game and their players and how to teach both.

Positive role models. Coaches must consistently diplay the team values in their actions, and it carries down to the seniors so that they serve as role models for the team values. In a successful program, the freshmen or sophomores can be told, “If you are not sure how hard to work or how to act in any situation, just watch our seniors and follow their lead.” Your older players and most talented players must be your best workers.

All roles are valued. When there is relationship-based leadership, everyone who contributes to the team’s overall value. Credit is shared. When all roles are valued, players are more willing to accept roles and the team is more successful.

Positive rites of passage. Intentionally created positive traditions provide a path for athletes to feel welcomed, and to grow into leadership roles. Nothing that could be considered hazing is ever present.

Consistent performance feedback. Coaches know how to balance praise and correction. Athletes take correction as a compliment—they are coachable.

Trust. With a successful team, players trust each other and their coaches. They trust their training. Mutual trust among players and coaches allows direct, open, honest communication and fearless play.

Sense of Urgency. There is a high-energy level during both practice and games. Individual and team discipline is visible in the focused attention and focused effort of everyone. Details are important. Only disciplined teams have a chance to win championships.

Impact the player’s lives. Players in these programs treasure the experience so much that they carry the lessons and values over beyond the season and into their lives overall. They build successful “teams” of their own—whether it be in sports or other endeavors.

Proactive Coaching published materials designed to help define, build and empower leadership. Their resources include:

• Proactive Leadership, Empowering Team Leaders (book)

• Captains, Seven Ways to Lead Your Team (booklet)

• Captains and Coaches Workshop (DVD)

• The Impact of Trust (DVD)

For more information, visit www.proactivecoaching.info

This 12 minute video with 24 time National Champion Rugby Coach Jack Clark was posted by whatdriveswinning.com. If you go to that site, you will be able to view other similar videos with other coaches who have built highly successful Division I programs in various sports.

This video is a You Tube video, so please make sure that you are on a server that allows you to access You Tube videos.

Make sure that your sound is on, then click the play arrow to view the video.

Jack Clark on High Performing Teams

At the beginning of this video, Coach Clark discusses the “buckets” that make up the job of a coach.

Those buckets are operations, applied science, coaching, and culture.

The majority of this presentation is on building a high performing team.

 

The mindset Coach Clark instills with his Cal Rugby teams is “Grateful for everything. Entitled to nothing.” Clark feels that if we are willing to work for everything that we have, that we become more resilient.

To create a value system, you must connect your beliefs together. The system allows the team to process everything that comes before them both on and off the field in a way that is based on values. The beliefs must be complimentary and can never be contradictory.

To establish your programs’ value system, you must spend a lot of time thinking about

The Cal value system is: Selflessness, Constant Performance Improvement (not necessarily improving results), Merit, Toughness, Leadership