Hard Lessons To New York | Being Able o Communicate Your Vision

In the 4th chapter of his book, Win Forever, Pete Carroll talks about the lessons he learned as the head coach of the New York Jets.  He was promoted from a defensive coordinator to head coach, and he talked about how he wanted his players to perceive him in his new role.  Concerning that, he wrote:

I wanted to show them that they were going to get the same coach they had had the past four seasons - someone who was positive, focused, and extremely competitive.  I believed that the only way we were going to win was as a single, united team.

His philosophy was forming, but it was still undeveloped.  He know what he wanted to do, but he was still figuring out how to make it happen.  Here he talks about the vision he had for the Jets organization:

The vision I wanted the team and staff to share wasn't about 'not failing' but about really searching within yourself and developing positive approach to wining.  I wanted every member of the team to think of himself as a piece of our success.  As I described how I saw our new competitive philosophy, the players and coaches began to buy in and seemed willing to at least give it a try.

In the end, he realized that he did not do a good enough job of getting his management to buy into his vision.  He also said that he didn't understand his vision enough to explain it in a convincing way.

In the long run, I have to admit that I probably contributed to my firing by the Jets because I didn't do everything I could have done to make sure the owner understood my vision.  Looking back, I didn't understand the scope of my approach well enough to explain it to him in a convincing way.  I mistakenly though that having the team's attention was enough.  I still had some work to do when itt came tot defining and articulating my philosophy.

What mattered was that we did everything in our power to focus the players on our priority and have them buy into it without worrying whether it was silly or not.  - Pete Carroll

Create shared experiences. - Pete Carroll