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THE FORMULA FOR HIGH PERFORMANCE TEAM BUILDING

Dr. Cory Dobbs
The Academy for Sport Leadership

“Tell me and I will forget. Show me and I may remember. Involve me and I will care.” -Your Student-Athlete

Here’s a simple formula that should provide you a clear way to grasp high performance in the area of team leadership. High involvement plus high commitment equals high performance.

So, what does all this mean for you? Well, high involvement means you need to nurture the involvement of every team member. Did you get that—every team member. Each and every team member needs to engage with the leadership development process by bringing a high level of energy and focus. Only when you have high involvement can you entertain the idea of high commitment. Simply put, if you don’t have high involvement you can’t have high commitment, and if you don’t have high commitment you’ll never see high performance.

If you select only a few team captains you’ve willingly and knowingly chosen low involvement. Those student-athletes not selected to develop as leaders will not care much about the process of leadership development of their peers. They’ll clearly say by actions and non-actions, “Why bother, there’s nothing in it for me.” You’ve chosen not to get them directly involved and commitment comes from being involved.

Those student-athletes you’ve chosen as team leaders might show high commitment to leadership and leadership development. Why not, it benefits them. But you are still left with the reality that you don’t—and logically can’t have—high involvement with only a few chosen participants. Thus, you’ll never achieve high commitment nor high performance.

However, if you choose to involve everyone on the team—a leader in every locker—you have a chance to attain high commitment. By placing leadership practice and opportunities in the hands of every team member, you involve everyone. And depending on the quality of programmatic development you have a chance at achieving high commitment. Ahhh, once you get high commitment it is very likely you’ll get high performance.

This isn’t some mystical process. By deploying a leader in every locker approach your players are highly involved with an opportunity to become highly committed. Your challenge is to get them to willingly invest their minds and heart into the team leadership development process, building skills and competencies that lead to high performance. So, to wrap up this leadership bite here’s the formula once again: High Involvement + High Commitment = High Performance.

Leadership Lessons from John Wooden
Dr. Cory Dobbs, The Academy for Sport Leadership

It’s Been Decades Since “Coach” was on the Sidelines but His Commitment to Character is as Relevant as it Ever Was

March is known for its madness. A time when team greatness is revealed. March is also a time when the best baseball players in the world go back to work— fine-tuning the fundamentals of their game. College basketball’s greatest coach was a tour de force for principled leadership and success. Great teams and fundamentals are of vital importance no matter what your endeavor, no matter what time of year.

Do you need proof that leadership is not about style? The legendary UCLA basketball coach John Wooden suggests that leadership is influence derived from one’s character. For Wooden, the ideal leader is someone whose life and character motivate people to follow. The best kind of leadership derives its capacity from the force of example, not from the power of position or personality.

Much of what passes as leadership today is nothing more than manipulation of people by sticks and carrots—threats and rewards. That’s not effective leadership for the long-term. Authentic leadership seeks to motivate people from the inside, by an appeal to the head and the heart, not by use of command and coercion. Compliance seldom, if ever, leads to authentic commitment.

Wooden influenced players through his character which he displayed in everything he did, from the way he recruited student-athletes to the way he taught them to put their socks on.

For Wooden character is the essential element necessary for great leadership.

Steve Jamison, author of best-selling books on John Wooden and Bill Walsh, has spent the past fifteen years working with Wooden on various books on leadership. He teaches Wooden’s principles to business leaders at UCLA’s Anderson School of Management.

“The reason he resonates with people, relate to him is as a teacher, leader, coach, he was extraordinary and as a person he was even more extraordinary. That’s a tough combination,” Jamison said.

Jamison began working with Wooden to organize and distill his wisdom for coaches and leaders in any industry. At the time he couldn’t find a publisher because most thought Wooden was no longer relevant. As one publisher told him “Coach Wooden is a little dusty on the shelf.”

Character, however, is never a quality to be shelved. Coach Wooden, as Jamison said, “Didn’t seek players who were characters. He wanted players that had character. Character was something that he felt essential to being a good performer, a good leader. Much of the problems we see today we can lay at the foot of leaders that have little character.”

When You’re Through Learning, You’re Through
Coach Wooden practiced life-long learning—as you would expect from a great teacher. Jamison, a leadership expert and educator said, “A lot of leaders get to a position with a lot of authority and power, it’s very easy to become overconfident and arrogant and think you know it all. John Wooden never made that mistake. He was very secure in what he knew but he never stopped learning. Never stopped looking for answers.”

“How willing are you to learn?” Jamison asks. “That doesn’t mean just opening a book or taking a course but how willing are you to challenge your beliefs and the way you do things, examining ways to improve. How willing are you to entertain new ideas? Whatever your level of success, self evaluation is important.”

Jamison said Coach Wooden simply asks leaders “How can you improve if you don’t have the ability to analyze yourself?” Jamison backed up this declaration from Coach Wooden by offering a story that exemplifies his commitment to self-evaluation.

“In Wooden on Leadership, Jamison explained, “ he tells the story of getting to the 1962 semi-finals of the NCAA national championships where UCLA played Cincinnati, the defending nation champs. They lost in the last seconds. On the flight back his assistant coach Jerry Norman says to him ‘coach you know we got some guys coming in next year (Goodrich/Erickson). You know, maybe we should look at bringing in the full court press.’ John Wooden knew what it was, he’d tried it his first two years at UCLA.”

“Maybe it’s time to revisit the press, said Norman.” Wooden, secure in his self, listened to his assistant. The next year UCLA pressed full-court. And the rest, as they say is history.

Wooden on Teaching: The Little Things Make the Big Things Happen
“One of the great abilities John Wooden has and had was his ability to take a complicated issue, distill it, so that, as he said, that ‘little things make big things happen,” said Jamison.
“In my view, what it was that he did to teach leadership, and it’s not complicated, he behaved like a leader. He acted like a leader. The primary teaching tool he used was his own life as an example,” Jamison commented.

Coach Wooden was a proponent of the principle that people don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care. According to Jamison, “John Wooden had an effusive way of letting players know he cared. His practices were ferociously intense. There wasn’t any slack in practice where you could hang out and shoot the baloney. He found time at the beginning when players were coming onto the court to take a moment, to pull someone aside as they were ambling over to the practice and ask about how things were going. ‘How’s your mother.’ ‘How’s that history class going.’ He did this to show his sincere care and concern for his players.”

 

Pyramid of Success
Coach Wooden’s primary teaching tool has been his leadership model as distilled in his Pyramid of Success. Jamison commenting on this influential model for effective living said, “His definition of success isn’t about big, it isn’t about power, fame, fortune, and prestige. For him the highest level, the highest standard of success is making that effort to become the best that you can become whether it is a coach, teacher, student, member of a team.”

Success, as Coach Wooden says, is the peace of mind which is a direct result of self-satisfaction in knowing you made the effort to become the best of which you are capable.

The Two Most Destructive Attitudes: Resentment and Arrogance
Dr. Cory Dobbs, The Academy for Sport Leadership

Parents, teachers, coaches, and managers, all invest a great deal of time trying to instill attitudes they consider appropriate. The central role of each of these leaders is to guide those they lead to adopt, modify, and deploy relevant ways of thinking—which includes forming attitudes that influence desired behavior. The opposite happens as well; a great deal of time and effort is spent to correct or punish the behaviors that result from inappropriate attitudes. To the extent that leaders are able to construct preferred attitudes will determine the health of the individuals, team, and organization.

Behavior and Attitudes
Creating an environment in which trust and respect are paramount, where healthy and inspirational relationships flourish, is vital to success in today’s environment. To create this culture requires an understanding of the nuances of attitudes. An attitude is the spontaneous interplay of preexisting emotions and integrated assumptions. Furthermore, attitudes result from the neural activity of the brain, such that the “cells that fire together wire together” creating a habit of mind. And assumptions are mental models that provide structure to the sense making process. Together they generate emotional and cognitive cues that impulsively (they can agitate a person to act faster than the speed of sound) lead to behavior. In a sense, then, an attitude has two distinct fibers weaving it together.

An attitude has an immediate and enduring influence on how we see, think, feel, and what we do. And the sobering reality is that an attitude (such as “I don’t care,” or “Why are you picking on me?”) can construct itself indiscriminately with little regard to whether it is helpful, useful, neutral, or harmful. If you stop and think about it, an attitude begins as an invisible entity—an emotion or assumption embedded in the brain—that progresses into a subjective experience in which one’s perception of a person, object, or event is greatly shaped, and greatly shapes the actions one takes.

And that’s true for both positive and negative attitudes. However, despite what most people think, we (yes, you and me) struggle to “grasp” our own predisposition for holding a certain attitude. As irrational actors, we are often unaware of how our attitudes impact those residing in our outside world. Often, transgressions are small and seemingly insignificant. But they aren’t. Collateral damage abounds with disagreement, disconnection, and disengagement. Over time, attitudes harden and the relational participants become antagonistic toward each other. The hidden costs are many.

Attitudinal Mindset
Let me unveil the two most destructive attitudes. They are resentment (“I won’t forgive or forget,” and “apologizing is not for me”) and arrogance (“You’re not worthy” and “I want what I want”). Stop for a moment and think about these two pillars of negativity. Imagine a close friend revealing resentment toward her boss. Not difficult to do. Let’s say she is asked to work overtime—and everyone else is allowed to leave early. The thoughts and feelings produced by the immediate feedback that encompasses resentment quickly wires neural circuits ensuring the brain has recorded this incident.

Your friend has now created an attitude of resentment toward her boss (and likely the boss resents the attitude of the worker too). Whenever they are in the same room, the memory of the previous “injustice” has the potential to emerge giving energy and power to an internal state of resentment. If another incident happens, it will only amplify the initial event. What makes this especially unnerving is how automatically it happens. Moreover, both parties will ultimately find out that lingering resentment is emotionally damaging and that life at work will never be the same.

And arrogance, well ego-involvement is simply a part of athletics. We all have the need to feel worthy, but the person with an unhealthy sense of self—selfish and self-centered—usually has a tough time when it comes to emotional competencies. They are unaware of how others’ respond to their actions as they yearn to be the center of attention.

The trouble is that arrogance makes the individual a pawn to their emotions. The challenge for the arrogant person is that they must protect and promote themselves at the same time. For example, if they have the need to be seen as confident in order to feel worthy, they will protect themselves (“save face”) from a threat to their competence, and feel compelled to put others down while building themselves up. The more arrogant the actor, the less room there is for others.

To the extent that the arrogant person is driven by impulses to protect and promote their self-concept, they will perceive others as less worthy than themselves—this self-serving bias is rooted in one’s upbringing. Yes, it is the job of the ego to give us a sense of who we are and where we belong—a social compass with which to define and affirm our individual and collective identity. But the attitude of superiority ultimately prevents the arrogant individual from fully developing a healthy ego and an accurate view of self. For the arrogant, life is a roller coaster ride.

Action Steps
Okay, time to take action. You have work to do. Write down on a sheet of paper (old school) these two attitudes. Describe in bullet points each concept as you have seen others deploy these attitudes. Seriously, take ten minutes to “study” resentment and arrogance in greater detail by reflecting on your experiences with others. Then invest another ten minutes assessing how you can improve yourself by challenging and changing these destructive attitudes realizing you are not immune to them.

Resentment Arrogance
Won’t forgive “You’re not worthy” (Self-centered))

Won’t forget “I want what I want” (Selfish)

By Lindsay Peterson

From the Hudl Blog

High school vol­ley­ball coach Lindsay Peterson has ideas on how to keep your play­ers engaged dur­ing film review.

Film. As coach­es, we know it helps us under­stand what our teams do well and what we need to work on. It allows us to scout our oppo­nents and gives us insight into their performance. 

However, for play­ers, it can be cum­ber­some. They might see it as just anoth­er thing they ​“have to do.” Players often don’t know what to look for, or they get caught up in what they indi­vid­u­al­ly did or didn’t do. 

That’s why it’s impor­tant for coach­es to use film as a learn­ing expe­ri­ence, so it’s ben­e­fi­cial for every­one on the team. Watching film can build vol­ley­ball IQ and, for your visu­al learn­ers, it can be real­ly eye-opening. 

Get It on the Schedule

My teams use film in dif­fer­ent ways, but it’s most pro­duc­tive for us to watch togeth­er as a group. I like to take the first 45 min­utes of prac­tice to do this. It’s not every week, but I do it as often as I can. Why? Because going back and watch­ing match­es can be as impor­tant as prac­tic­ing itself. 

I always watch the film first to edit out time­outs and side changes. Most of the time I have them watch one set, or at the most, two. This ensures it catch­es their inter­est and keeps their focus. I try to use dif­fer­ent edit­ing tools to high­light what I want the play­ers to pay atten­tion to the most. 

Set the Goal

Having film meet­ings at the start of prac­tice means it’s already a time where the play­ers planned to be togeth­er and work on get­ting bet­ter. But it’s impor­tant to be clear that this isn’t a time to point the fin­ger at any­one or any posi­tion. Volleyball is a game of errors. If we want to get bet­ter, we have to see where we’re mak­ing our errors and then work hard to cor­rect what we can. 

In the same breath, we also need to cel­e­brate what’s going well for us and where we have improved! I like to start there, with the good things we do, then move into the things we need to get bet­ter at.

Choose the Assignment

I’ve found a few dif­fer­ent ways to keep play­ers inter­est­ed dur­ing film sessions. 

Have players take notes 

While they’re review­ing match­es, have them look for three things they did well and three things they need to improve on. Or have them track those same cat­e­gories for the team instead of them­selves. Then share with part­ners or the whole group.

Stat sets by position

Here’s how to divide it up:

• Setters can stat set selec­tion, kills, digs
• Middles can stat blocks, kills, hit­ting efficiency 
• Right sides can stat kills, hit­ting effi­cien­cy, digs
• Outsides can stat kills, hit­ting effi­cien­cy, digs
• Liberos/​Defensive Specialists could stat serve receive, digs, pass­ing efficiency

Once they’re fin­ished, have each posi­tion group share their results with the rest of the team.

Scout opponents

Divide the team in half — one half will make notes on your team, the oth­er will make notes on the oppos­ing team. Have both groups study how they could beat oppo­nents, and how oppo­nents could beat them, then have them share their find­ings with the team.

Don’t Skip the Last Step

No mat­ter how you watch film, I rec­om­mend end­ing the ses­sion with the same two steps every time:

• Set prac­tice goals for them­selves based on what they learned from the film. 
• Have them help you cre­ate a prac­tice plan based around these goals. In my expe­ri­ence, play­ers real­ly enjoy hav­ing a say about what we do! It’s a great way to keep them engaged dur­ing prac­tice. And if they for­get, remind them why you’re prac­tic­ing it — because you all rec­og­nized it need­ed work in film review. 

Both of these steps are extreme­ly impor­tant because it makes the film-watch­ing process tan­gi­ble. And when your play­ers are bought in, they’re already on the path to improvement.