10 Reasons Your Top Talent Will Leave You

An article written by Mike Myatt at Forbes.com inspired the article below.  You can see the article in its entirety here.

Managers tend to blame their turnover problems on everything under the sun, while ignoring the crux of the matter: people don't leave jobs; they leave managers.  “Employees don’t quit working for companies, they quit working for their bosses.” Regardless of tenure, position, title, etc., employees who voluntarily leave, generally do so out of some type of perceived disconnect with leadership.

Here’s the thing – employees who are challenged, engaged, valued, and rewarded (emotionally, intellectually & financially) rarely leave, and more importantly, they perform at very high levels. 

Below are Myatt’s top 10 reasons talented people leave their organizations.  Below each reason, I have reworded it to match athletics and being a part of a team.

1. You Failed To Unleash Their Passions: Smart coaches align employee passions with the team’s pursuits.  Don’t stymie a kids work ethic or dreams of playing college or pro sports by making him fit into a system that doesn’t suite them.  Find ways to highlight their abilities within the team concept.

2. You Failed To Challenge Their Intellect: Great athletes don’t like to live in a dimly lit world of boredom. If you don’t challenge them, they’ll leave you for someone/someplace that will.

3. You Failed To Engage Their Creativity: Great talent is wired to improve, enhance, and add value. They are built to change and innovate. They NEED to contribute by putting their fingerprints on design. Smart coaches don’t place people in boxes – they free them from boxes. What’s the use in having a racehorse if you don’t let them run?

4. You Failed To Develop Their Skills: Coaching and leadership isn’t a destination – it’s a continuum. No matter how smart or talented an athlete is, there’s always room for growth, development, and continued maturation. If you place restrictions on a person’s ability to grow, they’ll leave you for someone who won’t.

5. You Failed To Give Them A Voice: Talented people have good thoughts, ideas, insights, and observations. If you don’t listen to them, I can guarantee you someone else will.

6. You Failed To Care: If you fail to care about people at a human level, at an emotional level, they’ll eventually leave you regardless of how much success they have as an individual or you have as a team. 

7. You Failed to Lead: Teams don’t fail – leaders fail. The best testament to the value of leadership is what happens in its absence – very little. If you fail to lead, your talent will seek leadership elsewhere.

8. You Failed To Recognize Their Contributions: The best coaches/leaders don’t take credit – they give it. Failing to recognize the contributions of others is not only arrogant and disingenuous, but it’s as also just as good as asking them to leave.

9. You Failed To Increase Their Responsibility: You cannot confine talent – try to do so and you’ll either devolve into mediocrity, or force your talent seek more fertile ground. People will gladly accept a huge workload as long as an increase in responsibility comes along with the performance and execution of said workload.

10. You Failed To Keep Your Commitments: Promises made are worthless, but promises kept are invaluable. If you break trust with those you lead you will pay a very steep price. Leaders not accountable to their people, will eventually be held accountable by their people.

Bottom line, if leaders (coaches) spent less time trying to retain people, and more time trying to understand them, care for them, invest in them, and lead them well, the retention thing would take care of itself.

If these thoughts resonate with you, I’d encourage you to pick up a copy of his upcoming book Hacking Leadership (Wiley) as he unpacks several more thoughts about talent, team building, leadership and culture.

6 Elements of Mental Toughness

The following article is an exerpt from Forbes.com.  It compares the characteristics of mental toughness needed to be a successful athlete with thr characteristics needed to be a successful business leader.  You can get the full article here.

Flexibility
If something isn’t going well or doesn’t turn out as expected, they remain flexible in their approach and look for new ways to solve the problem.

Being Present
Game-ready leaders are able to remain engaged, alive and connected with a situation when under pressure. They are constantly identifying the opportunities, challenges, and threats in the environment.

Strength
They find the strength to dig deep and garner the resolve to keep going, even when in a seemingly losing game. They focus on giving their best and fighting hard until the end, with persistent intensity throughout the game.

Courage and Ethics
Game-ready leaders do the right thing for the organization and the team. They suppress the temptation to cut corners or to undermine others so they come out on top.

Resilience
Game-ready leaders rebound from disappointments, mistakes and missed opportunities and get right back in the game.

Sportsmanship
Game-ready leaders exhibit sportsmanship. They don’t let the opponent know when he or she has gotten them down. “Chin up,” I say to my son. Clearly we all experience disappointment, attacks from others, an occasional blow to the stomach. However, the behavior exhibited by game-ready leaders after losing or being attacked by others or the situation sets the tone for the rest of an organization.

Motivating Students Who Don’t Care | Emphasizing Effort

Motivation Students Who Don't Care is a book written by Allen Mendler for educators of 6-8 grade math students.  While it was written for the classroom, I found some of its topics and techniques applicable to coaching as well.

Emphasize Effort

In trying to motivate the unmotivated student, you should first start with motivating effort.  Effort is where growth comes from which leads to success.  Without effort, growth is stagnant, and so is motivation.  This chapter addresses the importance of addressing effort first in unmotivated students and some tips on how to do so.

- Most students who appear unmotivated or who have inappropriate behavior do not see themselves as capable and attribute success to ability rather than effort.

- According to Carol Dweck’s research, many students believe that intelligence is a fixed entity and is the factor responsible for success or failure (cited in Azar, 1996).

- Many students who fail just don’t try because they believe that no matter how hard they work, its won’t see significant growth or progress.

- Successful learners generally believe that their effort is the key factor in determining their level of success.

     -  Emphasize effort and growth and express confident in their ability to improve and grow through hard work and effort.  You have to believe in the growth mindset over the fixed mindset - everybody can grown and succeed with the right effort, the right instructions, and the right conditions.

-       Tools To Use

Build on Mistakes or Partially Correct Answers – With Enthusiasm
When there is  not 100% success, find ways to praise growth.

- Frame mistakes as part of the process, not as an indication of failure

- Celebrate partial success.  
     -  ‘Great look!  Just make a better pass!’  ‘Great shot, but did you see Ronald open?’

- Mistakes can be used to show how more teaching/coaching still needs to occur. 
     -  The layup we gave up helps me know that I need to do a better job of teaching how to help the helper.’

- Appreciating effort, whether there was a success or failure, is the first step towards improvement.

Create A Habit Of Celebrating Effort, Not Only Success  
We tell our athletes to work hard, make the right play, be early and stay late, but when it comes down to it, we play our best players and the leadings scorers are the ones who get all of the glory.  Find ways to celebrate the little things that each player does everyday; especially the ones who don’t score as much or who don’t get as much playing time.

1 – One thing I love about Nikki is that when she comes in the game, she always makes an immediate impact on defense.2 – Taylor might not be our leading scorer, but he plays so smart and hard on defense that he covers up for a lot of other people’s mistakes and his effort alone has won us a game or two.3 – I don’t know if ya’ll have noticed, but Maya’s ball handling hand shot making has greatly improved over the last month.  I can tell she gets to practice a few minutes early everyday to work on it!

Separate Effort From Achievement

Athletes are more likely to become or remain motivated when their strengths are acknowledged while their needs are addressed.

- Find ways to reward stats – scoring, rebounding, assists, blocks, etc.  But, also find ways to reward effort – taking charges, boxing out, getting deflections, make the extra pass, etc.

Identify and list all the intangibles that involve effort that you want to see from your team on the court and off the court; in practices and in games.  Find ways to teach and communicate those actions and to praise and reward those actions.

Encourage Each Student To Improve One Little Thing Everyday

Teach your athletes how to set small goals and how to go about the process of achieving those goals, and the habits needed to so, everyday.

Show Simple Courtesy

We get so preoccupied with our own lives that we neglect to consider the impact that small moments of courtesy can have on others.

-  When somebody does something, even if its as simple and expected as turning in their homework, give positive feedback immediately.

-  Making students wait more than 3 days for feedback negates its valuable effect on learning.

-  Show interests in their lives outside of your sport.
-  Find time to talk to them when they need it.

Reframe Unmotivated Behavior To Encourage Effort

Make sure the athlete knows that they are more important to you than what they do; you will likely see a shift in influence when you change your mindset.

- Its important to identify and communicating the positive aspects of the kids behavior.

-  A kid shows up 10 minutes late everyday for a 2 hour practice.  Sure they are late, but they are present for 92% of practice.

-  Celebrate the success, then the communication can end with a consequence if necessary.

-  “Sara, you play so hard for us everyday in practice and in games.  You do everything that I ask of you.  Man, if we could work on getting you here 10 minutes earlier everyday, that would be great.  Who do I need to talk with at home so we can figure something out?”

Ask For Small Things First

Focus and build on small successes.  Identify behaviors that you want your athlete to show more frequently and encourage them to show them more by acknowledging them and encouraging more from them.

Put the Effort in Writing So That It Becomes a Commitment

There is much research that shows a strong deepening of commitment and follow-through when goals, promises, and plans are written.  Work with your athletes to create commitment statements.

Give a Reason for Effort | BECAUSE …

When you ask someone for a favor, you will be more successful if you provide a reason.

- Providing an answer to the question why strengthens the effectiveness of telling them what to do and how to do it.

Celebrate Markers and Endings
In individual and group settings, always celebrate successes and accomplishments of goals.