Leadership

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!

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.

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!

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.

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!

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.

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.

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 Trustworthy?
Dr. Cory Dobbs
The Academy for Sport Leadership

Make no mistake about it: trust is a cornerstone of every relationship.  With it you can build a great coaching staff and team of student-athletes.  Without it, well…

Every leadership act and the reception of those acts involve trust.  It is expressed in every encounter; it is something we experience in every interaction with another human being.  Healthy relationships are the product of trust and the foundation of cohesive teams.  And unhealthy relationships, those lacking in reciprocal trust, invites distrust, deceit, selfishness, isolation, and rips relationships apart.

It’s safe to say that your coaching colleagues and players demand trustworthiness.  But what exactly is trust?

Trust is a multi-faceted concept that leaders can gain, and lose.  In order to better understand trust, we must consider its four dimensions.  Here’s a framework I use to analyze trustworthiness.

Cognitive Trust:  Cognitive trust is knowledge-driven. It emerges from one’s knowledge of the situation and expressed by alignment of a coach’s words and actions. This allows a player to predict whether or not a coach is to be trusted in certain situations.

Affective Trust:  This is the emotion-driven element of trust that can create either great depth of relationship, or shallow transactional interactions. Affective trust arises from one’s feelings generated by the level of care and concern demonstrated by the coach.

Procedural Trust:  This is the process-driven component to leadership trust.  To achieve objectives every team has a wide range of systems or procedures—ways of doing things. Your offensive/defensive style and philosophy are bounded by procedures. Coaches are seemingly always “selling” their system and looking for “buy in” by the student-athlete.

Purposive Trust:  This is the mission-driven component. Shared values and shared goals, as they relate to the growth and development of the student-athlete, form the foundation of purposive trust. This type of trust refers to your actions having or serving a purpose that benefits all today and tomorrow.

These are not trivial distinctions.  Your credibility is at stake daily.  You can be trustworthy in three dimensions and distrusted in the other dimension, and therefore labeled as untrustworthy.   However, by detecting the dimension that is holding down your trustworthiness, you can correct course and earn the trust and confidence of others.

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.

Dr. Cory Dobbs
The Academy for Sport Leadership

THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT

Years ago The Butterfly Effect was popularized to help explain the complexity of systems. For centuries, people viewed the universe as a large machine in which causes matched effects–big causes had big effects, and small causes had small effects.  According to the scientific notion of a Newtonian world-view, the world could be reduced—one cause has one effect.  This perspective lasted until the early Twentieth-Century when the mechanistic view was slowly displaced by systems thinking.

More recently scientific researchers have discovered that, “if a butterfly flaps its wings (small cause) in China it can contribute to the cause of a tornado (big effect) in Kansas.”  The butterfly effect explains how small changes in initial conditions produce enormous effects, though often distant in time and place.   The new understanding is that small causes trigger a chain of events.  According to the new paradigm of systems thinking, it’s possible to propose that today’s problems come from previous solutions.  For example, a sole focus on short-term events (such as running as a form of punishment) invariably will cause problems, though not predictable, in the long-term.

Through systems thinking we are able to see that small changes—whether a flow of energy (positive or negative) by a single player or a variation in coaching processes—occur all the time and alter the course of effects in unseen ways.  The trick to learning a new paradigm is to set aside your current one while you’re learning. The new knowledge you are wrestling with won’t fit into your existing model, your existing ways of looking at things, of understanding the world.

The point is to understand that you have the potential, good and bad, to set in motion unknown results that will always emerge downstream.  Like the butterfly effect, by engaging the hearts and minds of each of your student-athletes, you can unleash unknowable possibilities.  Small changes in input produce huge changes in output—little causes can have big effects.  A small comment can turn a bad attitude into a joyous celebration.  Change a locker assignment and you change who players talk to before and after practice.  A shift in the way a player talks to a teammate impacts the relationship.  Imagine all the possible ways the peer effect will energizes, orients, and engages the talents of every student-athlete.

 

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

“Tell me and I’ll forget. Show me and I may remember. Involve me and I will care.” -Your Student-Athlete The world of coaching is changing. In Coaching for Leadership you’ll discover the foundations for designing, building, and sustaining a leadership focused culture for building a high-performance team. To find out more about and order any of the Sport Leadership Books authored by Dr. Dobbs including Coaching for Leadership, click this link: The Academy for Sport Leadership Books

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.