"Day 1, Change The World..."

“You always have a culture so you might as well be intentional with it.” –John O’Sullivan

O’Sullivan is the host of the wonderful podcast “Way of Champions” and he also started a little venture known as “The Change the Game Project” which if you are coaching youth sports and are unaware of this, you are behind. His point is well taken. No matter where we work, train, live, there is a culture. Sometimes great, sometimes toxic.

What is your culture?

In a wonderful new book from Karen Crouse, she investigates why a tiny town in Vermont, “Norwich” has produced 11 Olympic athletes in a population of just under 3,500. That is roughly one Olympian for every 322 people in the town. How is this possible?

Culture seems to be a big part of its success. This is a town that doesn’t cut kids from sports, offers up and encourages kids to try lots of different sports, both winter AND summer. The Parents aren’t overbearing and focused on wins and losses. The allow their kids to be in charge of their own sports experience and let them fail and learn from those experiences. And most times, when Olympic careers are done, athletes come back to Norwich to train the next generation of Olympians because of their fond memories growing up.

The San Antonio Spurs recently came into Phoenix and handed them a lopsided beat down. This statistic was in the Pre Game notes of that game: Since 1997, how many days have the Spurs had a losing record? (20 years by the way)

Giving you a hint, #5 on that list is the Utah Jazz with 1,005 days. Number 4 is the L.A. Lakers at 969, #3 is the Dallas Mavericks with 867 and #2 is the Houston Rockets at 856.

The San Antonio Spurs?
48 days.

Coach Gregg Popovich is one of the subjects of a new book from Daniel Coyle called, “The Culture Code.” Coyle examines the reasons why Popovich has had such a remarkable stability of success the last 20 years. Some will say he’s had superior talent, but other teams have had superior talent and not been as successful as long. What is his secret?

Coyle talks about three big parts of a culture in his book. Boosting safety: are your workers or in our case, athletes feeling safe? Is the environment a good one to learn and flourish or is it filled with negativity, little chance to redeem yourself after a bad play, punishments for mistakes and losses?

(Simon Sinek has a TED talk on this phenomenon that every coach should watch)

The second part of a strong culture is getting vulnerable and staying vulnerable: can you as a leader let your team know that you aren’t perfect, you make mistakes and pass that vulnerability onto them? The connection at that point is substantial.

The third trait Coyle talks about is seeking, finding and sharing resonant stories: Can you and your athletes share stories about your season that can build culture? A good win or even a bad loss might put a point home. Is there a catch phrase or a sport quote you and your team use to help define your team’s culture and ideals?

One senior at a DI school this year was talking about her team’s culture. She talked about the coaches yelling, negativity and hurtful sarcasm in practices, the one mistake in a match that would get a player pulled, the way the 'star' players were treated and given special treatment, including not practicing if they “didn’t feel like it.” Her senior season was everything she had hoped it wouldn’t be as the team with promise and hope floundered and spiraled into a losing and toxic season. To make matters worse, the standout that was given special treatment left the program right after.

“We can all celebrate ‘culture’ as a cornerstone of success. Not everyone can identify nor instill a successful culture. It’s hard. You never arrive. It’s something that you work at every day.”

Those thoughts are from current Arkansas Head Coach Jason Watson who recalled his inaugural practice at ASU when he was first given the job 10 years ago. “We had to change the culture right away. A better culture would permit us to recruit the type of athletes we wanted to coach. Macey Gardner, Whitney Follette and Bree Bailey for example don’t come to ASU if we had the same culture we had in 2008. arena The whiteboard at ASU was without its wheels when I arrived for our first practice. The graduating seniors had ‘stolen’ them. I wanted the wheels back and asked the team to find them. One player said, ‘The Seniors have them’. ‘Great,’ I said, ‘Go get the wheels from them or spend every day running every set of stairs in Wells Fargo arena until they are back on my whiteboard.” One of the underclassmen got them back within 24 hours. That was a pretty sure sign that the culture was a mess. Of course some of the returning athletes, who may have been victimized by the outgoing senior class, felt it was their turn to ‘pay it forward’ to the underclassmen and even the coaching staff.” Watson’s solution: “Day 1 - Change the World. Day 2 - see Day 1.”

When was the last time you held a mirror up to your coaching culture? What about you as a Club Director? What is the culture of your club? As O’Sullivan points out, if it’s there already, why shouldn’t we be intentional about it? What do you like about your culture? What don’t you like? Maybe more importantly, ask your athletes and maybe even parents the same question. Is it too late to change this season?

“Your culture is something that you always work on.” Watson says. “I think we all recognize that. Also, I think coaches should take some time to examine and reflect on where they are at as a coach and what they can change. You also have to have the courage to change; the courage to get in front of your team, be vulnerable, and admit the need to change. I think that’s what happened on our program’s turnaround. Perhaps it was the next evolution of our culture or me as a coach. Perhaps losing sucks and why not make this change. Perhaps the athletes we coach today wish for a partnership/collaboration relationship with their coach. Perhaps I’m afraid of being one of those coaches that can’t change; that are resistant to change and therefore get spit out of the coaching profession and end up working at Dick’s Sporting Goods.”

Perhaps, since it's there already…it’s worth a look.