Creating a Winning Environment

We build great teams and experiences so that our athletes never forget that they are capable of greatness.

Coach James was taking over for the basketball program at New Hope High School, but the first time he visited the gym he realized that the team and program needed a lot of new hope because there wasn't a lot of hope there. He saw an old, unkept gym and a team full of players who looked uninspired and discouraged.

As he watched his team scrimmage, he saw athletes not competing, pointing fingers and giving excuses, blaming others, and dragging their feet with their heads down after each mistake.

Coach James thought to himself, "Why do they think it is okay to not compete, not to play through mistakes, and not be great teammates?" Coach James realized that the athletes were just living up to the expectations set by the adults who were in charge before he got there. 

New Hope was far from a basketball powerhouse, and most coaches ended up leaving the school after a year or two because they felt like the challenges were too steep to overcome. No one was showing what was possible, and, in turn, the athletes didn't expect much of themselves.

Coach James had turn teams around before, but he knew that this would be one of his biggest challenges. He knew from prior experience that his starting point had to be changing the culture. He couldn't just talk about having high expectations, and while he had to do a renovation rehab on their gym and locker rooms, he needed more than fancy posters, quotes, and team slogans. His plan of attack was to define, manage, and model the specific thoughts, words, and actions that could build habits of excellence.

Every moment that we allow our athletes to think, say or do less than their best, we become the authors of their bad habits.

Coach James inherited one long-time assistant coach who they called Coach Harris, and he brought another assistant coach with him who they called Coach Scott. Both of them had their doubts, and neither thought that they could change the culture quickly, but Coach James kept reminding them WHY they were there. Coach James said, "We became coaches to impact and change lives through coaching. It is our responsibility to create habits of excellence in our players and to build their confidence and stamina so that they can believe in themselves and be and do better. We are passionate, we care, and we are going to make a difference. We are going to show them that they can be successful."

The next day, all three coaches began acting and talking differently, and the players noticed. Coach James said, "If we want to change the team, we have to change the way that they are being coached. We can't blame our athletes for the culture of the team - they simply follow the coaches."

Coach Scott, who had seen several coaches try and fail to try to bring hope to New Hope said, "Our athletes have never been given consistent messages about what to do or how to do it. I believe that our athletes will rise to the level of our expectations, but they will just as easily fall to the level of our expectations. It is our job to define, manage, and model the expectations that we have, teach them how to live up to our expectations, and to hold them accountable."

Define

The first step to changing a culture is defining that culture. Culture is what you see, not what you hope for. If you want to build a strong culture, you have to be able to articulate very clearly.

When you have an identity, you have standards to live up to that can help create a sense of ownership, which in turn draws clear lines of communication (Ledbetter 29).

Their key question became, "What do we expect?" Anything that is expected should be clearly defined (Ledbetter 35). When athletes weren't doing, talking, or interacting with a habit of excellence, the coaches asked themselves, "What do we expect from them at this moment?" The coaches worked hard to define almost everything, from what time each athlete should show up for practice and games, to the clothes they wear and how in practice, to how to sprint the huddle and how to line up during timeouts and between quarters. Nothing was left to interpretation, everybody knew what to expect, and everybody knew what their habits of excellence were going to be.

Manage

If it was easy as clearly defining expectations then many of our losing seasons could have easily been winning seasons, but the coaches learned how important it was to manage, monitor, and maintain the changes that they defined. They had to get everybody invested in the changes, and they had to manage the pushback from those who struggled with the habits of excellence. You get what you promote. They had to be willing to face the 'brutal facts' of their situation, and they had to appropriately address issues when they saw them. They identified was to use the least invasive forms of redirect for non-serious issues:

- Nonverbal redirection
- Use of proximity (standing closer to athletes not practicing habits of excellence)
- Modelling what to do

They also had to be willing to stop and teach when athletes weren't performing skills, drills, or plays to the level that was defined. The manage part was difficult because these athletes weren't used to being held with such a high level of expectations. There was a lot of pushback early, but the coaches kept pushing through. The most important thing that they did was work tirelessly towards building meaningful relationships. Athletes don't care how much you know until they know how much you care, and the coaching staff was as committed to getting into the hearts of their athletes as they were to get into the minds of their athletes.

Model

The final part was the coaching staff knew that they had to model everything that they wanted their players to do. In a broken culture, the modeling doesn't stop with team meetings, quotes, and slogans. The athletes were watching their coaches see what they could and could not get away with. They wanted to see if the coaches were going to consistently follow the model that they had defined and were managing. They were watching to see if the actions of their coaches matched their words.

Humans are pretty resistant to change. Coach James knew this and never tried to deny it. He knew that most of his players would not like most of the changes that he was trying to make, but he also knew that they were what was best for the athletes and the program, so he stayed consistent and fair. He defined what success was for the team, and he defined the habits of excellence that they need to master to be successful. He invested in his athletes as people, and he managed everything. He was consistent and staying with the plan through the good and the bad, making common-sense adjustments as they went along. And he modeled the habits of excellence for everyone in the program so that they could see how to think, talk, and behave every day.

It wasn't always easy to manage and model habits of excellence. There was a lot of pushback. But he remained the calm in the eye of the storms. He knew that the best action against resistance (from the players and their parents) was calm, consistent, repetitive action. Even if he didn't feel it on the inside, he always remained calm on the outside. He sent a message of, "We can do this. We will do this. I will lead us and show us the way."

LEADERS DON'T ALWAYS SUCCEED BECAUSE OF CHARISMA, BUT BECAUSE OF CONSTANCY; ALWAYS BEING THERE, REPEATEDLY, AS THE CALM IN THE EYE OF THE STORM.

This story was adapted from a story written in Leverage Leadership 2.0.