Leadership

Yesterday Is Deceiving

By Coach Brian Williams on June 17, 2020

Dr. Cory Dobbs
The Academy for Sport Leadership

In an essay titled “Good Guys Finish First (Sometimes),” Andrew Bagnato told the following story:

Following a rags-to-riches season that led them to the Rose Bowl—their first in decades—Northwestern University’s Wildcats met with coach Gary Barnett for the opening of spring training.

As players found their seats, Barnett announced that he was going to hand out awards that many Wildcats had earned in 1995. Some players exchanged glances. Barnett does not normally dwell on the past. But as the coach continued to call players forward and handed them placards proclaiming their achievements, they were cheered on by their teammates.

One of the other coaches gave Barnett a placard representing his 17 national coach of the year awards. Then, as the applause subsided, Barnett walked to a trash can marked “1995.” He took an admiring glance at his placard, then dumped it in the can.

In the silence that followed, one by one, the team’s stars dumped their placards on top of Barnett’s. Barnett had shouted a message without uttering a word. ‘What you did in 1995 was terrific, lads. But look at the calendar: It’s 1996.’

Teachable Point of view: It’s dangerous to rest on our past successes.

New to the Second Edition of Coaching for Leadership!

We are pleased to announce a new chapter to the second edition of the best-selling Coaching for Leadership. The chapter, The Big Shift: Unlock Your Team’s Potential by Creating Player-Led Teambuilding, connects the previous edition of this book to its origin, as well as to the future of team sports.

The new chapter sets forth a practical and applicable agenda for change and improvement. The reader is introduced to seven vital elements of change; seven shifts of traditional mental models that lead to the new core principles necessary for creating a player-led team culture. Click here for more information about Coaching for Leadership

About Cory Dobbs, Ed.D.

Cory Dobbs is the founder of The Academy for Sport Leadership and a nationally recognized thought leader in the areas of leadership and team building. Cory is an accomplished researcher of human experience. Cory engages in naturalistic inquiry seeking in-depth understanding of social phenomena within their natural setting.

A college basketball coach, Cory’s coaching background includes experience at the NCAA DII, NJCAA, and high school levels of competition. After a decade of research and development Cory unleashed the groundbreaking Teamwork Intelligence program for student-athletics. Teamwork Intelligence illuminates the process of designing an elite team by using the 20 principles and concepts along with the 8 roles of a team player he’s uncovered while performing research.

Cory has worked with professional athletes, collegiate athletic programs, and high schools teaching leadership and team building as a part of the sports experience and education process. As a consultant and trainer Dr. Dobbs has worked with Fortune 500 organizations such as American Express, Honeywell, and Avnet, as well as medium and small businesses. Dr. Dobbs taught leadership and organizational change at Northern Arizona University, Ohio University, and Grand Canyon University.

Are You Really Leading?

By Coach Brian Williams on May 21, 2020

Slow Down and Take a Look at How You are Leading.

Dr. Cory Dobbs
The Academy for Sport Leadership

The primary purpose of leadership is to create more leaders, not more followers. Pause for a moment, think deeply about this declarative statement. More leaders.

Now…

How are you doing as a leader? The answer is how are the student-athletes you lead doing? Do they learn? Do they lead? Do they manage conflict? Do they change—grow and improve? Do you really create more leaders? When reflecting on how you are doing as a leader, find out how the student-athletes you lead are doing.

In their best-selling book, _The Leadership Challenge_, authors James Kouzes and Barry Posner set forth a fundamental ingredient of all leadership endeavors—that of modeling the way. The authors contend that “Your value as a leader is determined not only by your guiding beliefs but also by your ability to act on them….To be a leader, you have to Model the Way for others by demonstrating intense commitment to your beliefs with each and every action.”

Team leadership is not an easy role for many young student-athletes. Peer leadership is often an uncomfortable challenge. The desire to be liked has been the downfall of many adult leaders. So don’t gloss over the fact that a student-athlete will often be driven by their need to be liked by teammates. Expect the first hurdle for your emerging team leaders to be overcoming the need to be liked. Young leaders will also have to overcome emotional issues such as the internal conflict that might occur because of their desire for acceptance. As a leader they will at times need to take actions that temporarily separate them from their teammates—the followers. This is but one example of some of the inherent difficulties in peer leadership.

As a coach, you present a compelling model that young athletes will intensely observe. They are constantly seeking cues on how they should lead (wanting to please you) and informing them how to act in a given situation. Team leaders will imitate many of your behaviors and attitudes. They will, for example, watch what you do and then imitate or adapt what you do. The less experienced the team leader the more likely they’ll study you closely to help them figure out “how” you want them to lead. When faced with inconsistencies between what you say and what you do, the young and developing team leader will tend to give greater reliance on what you do.

Your status as a model increases the necessity of having a healthy interpersonal relationship with all your players, but the relationship with team leaders will generally be a little more involved as you assume the role of leadership mentor. Mentors are role models. As a mentor your impact will come from more than just what you tell your team leaders, they will assimilate and emulate many of your behavioral traits and copy many of your values and attitudes.

A healthy relationship and a positive approach to teaching leadership will shape your team leaders. How you model leadership and mentor leaders will go a long way in helping a young and emerging leader understand leaders and leadership.

New to the Second Edition of Coaching for Leadership!

About Cory Dobbs, Ed.D.

Choosing Success Every Day

By Coach Brian Williams on May 11, 2020

Ask Why Before You Ask How

Dr. Cory Dobbs
The Academy for Sport Leadership

One simple way to gain more control over your life is to ask the correct questions at the correct times. Everything that you do in your life has at least two basic parts to it. One part is the reason for you to do it and the other part is how you can do it. You must first discover whether or not you should do something and then ask yourself why you want to do it. If you determine that it is important, then you should learn the best way to complete it. Simply put, you should ask “why” questions before you ask “how” questions.

Asking “why” questions is central to determining whether what you are about to do is worth doing. In short, you are addressing the key human motivational question “Is it worth it?” Your success in leading yourself and others depends on your ability to work with the why questions. The actions you prioritize should revolve around improving and differentiating yourself thereby propelling you to success every day. Examine your choices, priorities, and dreams to help make decisions that will impact your teammates and help you achieve your goals and dreams.

This may sound like common sense. But many student-athletes aren’t yet very skilled at making optimal decisions on some of life’s key questions—whether the issue is simple or complex. However, as you mature you’ll find yourself not only desiring to make more choices but provided the opportunity to make decisions that affect you and your teammates.

All of us are constantly asking ourselves, whether it’s a trivial task or a key life decision, “Is it worth it?” Before we exert physical or intellectual energy we generally respond either impulsively or with great thought to this motivational question.

The why questions are so important because they are the first questions successful people ask to focus their actions. If you want to experience more success on a daily basis take time to thoughtfully respond to the concerns and consequences posed by the Why questions.

Answering the question “Why?” helps you by planting seeds that:

Guide you in clarify your objectives.
Push you to think of alternatives.
Challenge you to see a different perspective.
Increase your productivity.
Force you to think about the consequences of your actions.

Studies have shown that by taking as little as ten minutes each day to carefully craft your priorities and actions steps you’ll improve the likelihood of your success. Here is a process for you to use as a tool for maximizing your success every day.

Daily Leadership Action Steps

Focus on priorities. As you encounter your daily calendar your challenge is to clarify your objectives and do those things that are going to help you as a student, as an athlete, and as a team leader.

Implement something every day. Each day provides you an opportunity to produce results. What are you going to do and why? Results matter.

Reflect on what happens/results. To learn from experience you must reflect on what happens. When you detach yourself—as best possible—from an experience you are able to make better sense of daily actions, events, and incidents.

Seek feedback and support. Learning from experience requires feedback from coaches, teammates and self-generated.

Transfer learning. A skilled learner will find ways to transfer learning from one context to another. Start by looking for opportunities to use your new skills and knowledge.

New to the Second Edition of Coaching for Leadership!

About Cory Dobbs, Ed.D.

Player-Led Leadership

By Coach Brian Williams on April 12, 2020

Dr. Cory Dobbs
The Academy for Sport Leadership

How Coaches Turn Students into Smart Leaders

Looking back on 2019 we’re going to refer to it as the year of Player-Led Leadership. Go ahead, Google it. Many major universities

(Click here to see
UCLA

UTSA

Nebraska)

have begun to identify the need to involve the student-athlete in a more holistic manner. To compete in today’s athletic arena, high performance is built around player-led leadership.

As a field researcher and facilitator of player-led leadership I am rooting for more coaches to open up to the process and practice of player-led team building.

However, often times it’s the case that player-led leadership is undermined because coaches are lacking a growth mindset in this area and lacking the skills and abilities to transform their operating system.

The driving assumptions are that a player-led process will lead to a (1) collectively, (2) reflectively, and (3)relationally smarter team; that all student-athletes are capable of learning to lead; and that team leadership is grounded in a team learning together.

For the serious coach, it takes commitment to really create a dynamic player-led team. Many coaches mistakenly assume they’re new role will be taking a back seat to student-athlete leadership.

If you believe, as I do, that student-athletes are capable of much more leadership than we’ve asked for in the past, you must read Coaching for Leadership. It’s about the real work of transforming your team’s culture, the work of implementation of player-led team leadership.

New to the Second Edition of Coaching for Leadership!

About Cory Dobbs, Ed.D.

Cause and Effect are Seldom Closely Related in Time and Space

By Coach Brian Williams on March 24, 2020

Dr. Cory Dobbs
The Academy for Sport Leadership

THE DOING-UNDERSTANDING GAP
When you finally notice that your team isn’t cohering, you discuss with your staff and begin addressing current issues. “Janae is a cancer in the locker room.” “Lucas doesn’t get along with anyone.” “Let’s hold a team meeting so we can air things out!”

Beware of the easiest and fastest solution. The easiest way out is to have a frank talk with Janae, or to sit Lucas down and ask why he can’t get along with his teammates, or “airing things out.” You and your staff conclude you are being proactive because such responses seem rational and likely to be effective.

But they are not effective. And you are being reactive.

From a very early age, we are conditioned to see life as a series of events. We are taught that for every event there is one obvious cause; and that the forces of cause and effect are always closely related in time and space.

So if you are bent on “airing” things out, steer the conversation upstream and back in time to dig out the root cause. Often, small and subtle actions left unattended become larger and complex issues. Yet, you seldom, if ever, will observe (in real time) the initial seed from which your problem grew.

In order to fully understand relationship problems, to get a glimpse of the underlying reasons why unhealthy relationships emerge, we have to have the skills and patience to “go upstream” and find the formative experiences. The most powerful learning here is learning that direct experience can often lead us down the wrong path. If we are unwilling or unable to get beyond the fixation on linear cause-effect chains (A caused B which Caused C)–sequential thinking that cause and effect are closely related in time and space–and we’ll be unprepared to deal with complexity (team building and interpersonal relationships) and adversity (conflict and chaos) when it strikes.

Reality is indeed made up of causes and effects. But what we see depends on what we are prepared to see. Herein lies the problem of investing time in the process of reflection. How much time do you dedicate to reflection? How do you do reflection? Use these two simple questions to drive a team conversation on the role of reflection in building your team. The key to seeing more is to invest time in preparing to see more.

New to the Second Edition of Coaching for Leadership!

About Cory Dobbs, Ed.D.

Healthy Coaching Staff Conversations

By Coach Brian Williams on March 6, 2020

Focus on the Coaching Staff

HEALTHY CONVERSATION: THE STARTING POINT

The most valuable resource in any organization is the human resource. The second most valuable resource may just be the way we talk to one another. That’s because we spend a considerable part of our work lives in conversation—it’s the way we get things done. And the way we talk and relate to one another is expressed in conversation. So it’s appropriate to suggest that conversation determines the quality of our work and our work life—for better or worse.

To that end, while it’s self-evident that we have more tools for communication than ever before, our exchanges seem more fragmented and our relationships more disconnected causing us to miss out on the promise of conversation. Therefore, we need to get smart about how we talk to one another.

Over the past decade and-a-half I’ve witnessed many dysfunctional coaching staffs. The primary dysfunction is rarely a result of coaching strategy, tactics, or philosophy. Rather, it is manifested in the way the staff members talk with one another. The complexity of coaching a team requires a coaching staff to think together, which is accomplished through conversation. Unfortunately this is often where the wheels fall off the team bus.

Think of a conversation as a dynamic, interactive process that unfolds over time among individuals. For the most part, the objective of deep conversation (we’ll save shallow conversation for later) is to solve a problem—either task related or person and performance. The implied goal of communication is to “share” one’s reality. The flaw is that reality is produced by our individual filters and colored by our unique experiences.

To build a high-performance coaching staff necessitates conversational participants connect rigorously (intensity) and relationally (intimately). Rigorous conversation is communication that is authentic and stimulates a search for reliability, while relational conversation is designed to promote healthy working relationships and a stimulating environment. The essence of rigorous and relational conversation is not only to share one’s reality, but to create a reality that includes the voices of all participants.

The coaching world resides in a complex setting—mixing human behavior and real-time decision making. Most coaches (head and assistant) don’t want merely to survive the decision making process; they want to be effective, or even excellent at what they do. To do so requires the coaching staff to understand that conversational experience is a vital part of the message. That is, communication occurs from an emotional, ego-driven perspective as much as it does from a logical mindset.

The emotional aspect of conversation often is a trigger to a quick death of communication. When someone disagrees with us, we get angry or defensive, and, depending on the status difference, we are likely to dismiss the other’s input. After all, we simply want the other person to see the world as we see it.

I believe we can transform the way your coaching staff works. I think rigorous and relational conversation is the answer. I make this assertion because I know that small-scale conversation is the beating heart of any team. One conversation, moment, or incident, can have a profound impact on an individual or a team. One comment, question, or discussion can inspire and provoke fundamental change. Truth be told, rigorous and relational conversation is the only way to build harmonious, constructive, and mutually beneficial relationships that produce high performance.