It’s not easy to give a definition of great team chemistry. Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart in 1964 was studying how to define what pornography is. He was struggling. His law clerk, Alan Novak, said to him, “Mr. Justice, you will know it when you see it.” That is the origin of Justice Stewart’s “I know it when I see it” quote. Great team chemistry is a lot like that. It’s tough to define but easier to recognize. (So is bad team chemistry).
Poor team chemistry isn’t hard to recognize.
- Sloppy practices,
- weak work ethic,
- entitled attitudes,
- bad body language,
- no communication,
- just going through the motions,
- no energy on the bench or sideline,
- finger pointing,
- excuse-making … and the hits just keep on coming.
We want teams with energy and passion.
We want high standards, precision and excellence.
We want togetherness, teamwork and a true family feel to our program.
(In a family, we celebrate each others’ successes. We aren’t envious that our grandson got accepted to West Point or annoyed that our niece won an award and an academic scholarship. Their accomplishments are savored and seen as our success).
We want toughness, strength and stability. Same for resiliency, communication, honesty and trust. How about a dynamic work ethic, high standards and a no-excuses, take total responsibility for yourself mentality? What about character and sportsmanship? Don’t forget Loyalty!
I was so excited to share some of these ideas with a coaching friend of mine. While I was rattling off a grocery list of team features with great definitions and examples of each he got quiet. He just sat there. His eyes glazed over. He was overwhelmed and not really absorbing anything I was so excited about. Finally, when I shut up long enough for him to say something, he said ” I wanted you to give me a drink. you hit me with a fire hose”.
At first I was offended. I was trying to give him fifteen or twenty golden nuggets of wisdom that I had worked really hard to mine over a 36 year coaching career. I had dug deep to get those nuggets. I had great stories to illustrate precision, teamwork, resiliency, etc.
He was right – it was overwhelming. Even better that that, he was honest. (Understand the difference between being honest and being adversarial). He told me what I needed to know, rather than what I wanted to hear. He had to hurt me to help me. (Sometimes you will have to do that, Coach. It’s called leadership. “If you need everybody to be happy all the time be a party planner.” – Mark Miller).
Let’s go back to our last blog. We need a winning mindset. Champions see the world differently. They see adversity as a friend to sharpen and make them, not something to be avoided and feared. Champions challenge their teammates to step up to excellence. (Poor teammates try to get others to step down and settle for mediocrity).
We need a system that teaches character competency and clarity of purpose. We realize that intangibles are more important than coaching X’s and O’s.
Our culture/chemistry is A SET OF SHARED VALUES, ATTITUDES, GOALS AND PRACTICES.
Convinced? So how do we get started?
Becky Robinson said, “If you don’t tell your people what’s important, then they are guessing. And they might guess wrong.” If this is true, then you need to decide what you want your shared values, attitudes, goals and practices to be. It starts with our core values.
Our core values will tell us:
- Who we are.
- How we do things.
- How we treat people.
- What success looks like.
Our culture should be seen, heard and felt. People should get a sense of who we are and how we act almost by osmosis.
Years ago, I was attending an elementary boys basketball game at our school on a Saturday morning. I was approached by one of our grandparents who had attended our game the night before. He was very excited about what he had seen at that game. I can’t remember his exact works but he was so impressed with how hard the guys played, especially on defense. He pointed out that four or five signs in the gym stressed defense. The crowd seemed most energized and excited when we were playing defense. He noticed that even the elementary team worked really hard at the defensive end of the floor. He said defense was obviously very important to us … and he had been on our campus less than 24 hours. We were fanatical about defense and convinced it was the best way to win (probably because we didn’t shoot it very well).
Jon Gordon says “Once you know what you stand for decisions are easier to make”.
I realize young guys will make mistakes even if you teach them the right things. Kids aren’t perfect (neither are coaches). But if we proactively teach kids what is/is not acceptable we will have fewer hicccups and problems to deal with.
Last night in a five minute span I took from our two year old grandson 1) a softball bat, 2) a bottle of Tylenol, and 3) I made him get down from the top of the couch. That took some effort but it was less effort that it takes to fix or replace a broken TV or lamp, or take him to the hospital. (There is a reason for child-proof pill bottles). Wouldn’t you rather take the matches away from your athletes before they start a fire that will be damaging and costly to extinguish?
After three prominent Florida State Seminoles mistreated women in a criminal manner, the President of FSU wanted changes made. FSU is going to require that the athletes take a class to teach them what is acceptable behavior. (By the way one of our camp alumni curretly plays basketball for the FSU women’s team and she is AMAZING! She’s a great athlete and a super role model for others. I’m a big FSU women’s basketball fan).
Even programs with winning cultures will still have some issues to clean up. But they won’t be as bad won’t happen as often and won’t last as long.
SHAPE YOUR CULTURE before it shapes you. -Jon Gordon
We’ll talk about core values in the next post.
-Coach T
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