Owen Eastwood - Culture Affects Performance

Have you ever noticed how a player can be great for one team, and struggle or be a headache for other teams?

Culture plays such an important role in the success of athletes.

Owen Eastwood is a performance coach who has worked with some of the most elite teams and groups in the world, including Gareth Southgate's England Football team, the Command Group of NATO, the South African Cricket Team, corporate leadership teams, elite ballet, and the British Olympic team.

He said The English Institute of Sport shared with him that 70% of behavior is determined by the environment that you are in. Our behaviors, mindsets, and performances are fundamentally affected by the environments we are in.

He said that culture can be too abstract, but it is actually the most practical thing in the world: it is the environment we are in at any point in time and how it’s making us feel. Is it giving us confidence, do we feel like we belong, and do we feel like we are connected with the people around us? Those things are essential to success.

Michael Owen - The Affect of Culture

Owen shared a story about Michael Owen, an English soccer player who at one point was one of the best and most sought-after players in the world.

Michael Owen became a star in the Liverpool Football Club. He felt very connected to the team and the entire organization; he knew everyone in the organization, and everyone in the organization, from the athlete to the owners, knew him and his entire family.

He never had to stress about the social dynamics because he knew he belonged, knew his role, and felt very comfortable.

After a few years with Liverpool, he went to Real Madrid’s football club, and his experience was completely different. When he arrived, he was dropped in a meeting room with no formal introduction. He was never taught anything about the history of the club, the values of the club, or the style of play of the club.

He had a year-long anxiety reaction of, “I don’t think I belong here” because he felt like he was thrown out there to try and prove himself. Every training and every game was a proving ground where he had to show and prove why he was there.

He went from a relaxed, fun-loving teammate who was one of the best in the world, to an athlete who had lost his confidence and filled with anxiety. He had to waste a lot of energy trying to figure things out because the environment wasn’t set up for him to feel comfortable like it was at Liverpool.

How Do We Create The Best Environment For Success?

1 - Properly welcome new teammates into the team

When someone walks into a new locker room, they expend a lot of energy and headspace trying to figure out if they belong. This keeps them from being able to fully focus on doing their best work.

Have a plan for properly introducing them to the team so that they know they are a part of the inner circle and don’t have to wonder or second-guess joining the team.

I want every new teammate to leave KNOWING they belong and KNOWING they made the right choice in choosing us.

2 - Set and Align Goals

The leader must define the direction and goals for the team, establish clear expectations, manage the behavior of the team, and model the behaviors and expectations that they set. But they have to know that every individual also has their own goals and purpose for being here.

Talk about the goals you have, and talk about the goals your athletes have, and align those goals so that you are all moving and working together to achieve those goals.

3 - Create Growth Action Plans

Once you have a goal or a North Star to attack, create a plan for how you want to achieve those goals. What are 3-5 things that need to be done for you to reach those goals? What are 3-5 barriers that might get in the way? What are you going to do to overcome those barriers? A goal without a plan is just a wish. Know what you want to do, and then figure out how you are going to do it - together.

4 - Check In Regularly and Provide Healthy Feedback

Create a schedule for how often you want to check in with your athletes. A principal once knew she wanted to fire a teacher in October but waited until the school year to do so. It completely caught the teacher off guard, and the reason for the firing could have easily been fixed with communication.

When you are checking in regularly, you are truly coaching, teaching, and guiding your athletes. When feedback is a part of your culture, there are no surprises, and receiving and responding to constructive criticism becomes easier and the norm.

Performance Enablement is a framework that can help you grow and keep your best players. Performance Enablement helps you help your athletes accomplish their individual goals while working together to accomplish team goals.

Performance Enablement is a framework that can help you grow and keep your best players. Performance Enablement helps you help your athletes accomplish their individual goals while working together to accomplish team goals.

You can read more about it here: Performance Enablement: A Key to Attracting and Retaining the Best Talent

Think (LEAD) Like a Farmer

I ran across the idea of Leading Like a Farmer from a post on X (Twitter).

Why lead like a farmer? In the book, The Leader Who Had No Title, Robin Sharma writes:

"A leader should be like a farmer because he has patience and trusts the process. He just has the faith and deep understanding that through his daily efforts, the harvest will come. And then one day, almost out of nowhere, it does."

The post, titled Think Like A Farmer, listed 7 things a farmer does to help their crops grow:

1 - Don't shout at the crops.2 - Don't blame the crops for not growing fast enough.3 - Don't uproot crops before they've had the chance to grow.4 - Choose the best soil and environment for the crops.5 - Irrigate and fertilize your crops.6 - Remove the weeds. 7 - Remember you will have good seasons and bad seasons - you can't control the weather - only best prepare for it.

After reading this, I thought about the kids I coach, my own kids, the teams I lead, and how I lead my house.

What do I hope my kids say about me when I'm not around or when they are grown?

I hope that I have created a loving environment filled with hope, joy, and peace. I hope that they understand why I have high expectations for them and that they know and feel the support I have given them to help them achieve those expectations while creating and striving for their own goals.

I still yell (probably too much), but I'll try to do better. I'll recognize that they will grow at their own pace, and I will recognize my role in that process. Then they fail to do something, I will make sure that I have done all I can to help them. I will make sure that the environment I create is the best environment for learning and growing. I will fill their buckets, help them recognize and know how to remove the weeds in their lives, and help them remember that The Hero's Journey is a never-ending series of ups and downs and to enjoy the ride!

Performance Enablement: A Key to Attracting and Retaining the Best Talent

The transfer portal is affecting sports at all levels. There are so many options for today’s athletes and parents, so retaining your top talent should be one of your top priorities.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there were 11 million open jobs at the end of October 2021, while there were only 7.4 million unemployed people. This huge gap provides employees with leverage in demanding great workplace experiences.

According to SHRM, companies must deliver outstanding employee experiences if they want to attract and retain desirable talent. It is incumbent on every company that values skilled employees to find a way to offer the employee experiences that our 21st-century workforce demands.

The same can be said for coaches and their programs. There are so many more options for athletes, from the youth through the high school levels. To attract and retain the best talent, coaches need to look at how they can provide the best experience possible.

Performance Enablement is a framework that can help you grow and keep your best players.

Performance Enablement helps you help your athletes accomplish their individual goals while working together to accomplish team goals.

According to Forbes, there are three parts to Performance Enablement:

1 - Collaborative Goal Setting 2 - Coaching through Check-ins and Feedback 3 - Individual Growth and development

Goal Setting

You have to start out with your own vision and goals of what you want the team to accomplish, and establish and clearly communicate the performance expectations that will drive success. Help your athletes do the same. Examine [with them] their goals and their ‘why’ or greater purpose for doing what they do.

Ask: Why did you choose [basketball] as your sport? What are 3 goals you have for this season? What is your favorite part about playing [soccer]? What do you hope to get out of this season? What are 3 things you need to do to achieve your goals? What are 3 things that can keep you from achieving your goals?

Then see how you can align the goals for the individual and the goals for the team. Hopefully, you can both see how your goals work together, and how the success of the individual and the success of the team is dependent on each other.

Check-Ins

Second, regularly check in on your athletes and provide meaningful feedback while also seeking feedback from them. The check-ins should be a 2-way conversation. You should be able to communicate what you are seeing from them while also allowing them to communicate what they are seeing and experiencing so that you can work together to find solutions and achieve all your goals together.

The key to Performance Enablement is that these check-ins are focused more on future performance than past performance. Learn from the past, but focus on what you can do better in the future and what that looks like.

Ask: How do you feel like things are going? What is something you feel good about? What is something you are still struggling with? On a scale of 1-5, how do you feel things are going?

Growth Plans

The third part is providing skills development as an ongoing activity and focus. Growing skills and IQ should be built into everything you do.

Effective coaching is knowing what your athletes do best and allowing them to do that as much as possible while having a plan for how you will communicate, address, and grow weaknesses. When you lead with strengths, your athletes can grow their confidence by experiencing success.

By collaborating in creating goals for the team and the individual, creating a culture where check-ins and feedback are normal parts of your routine, and having a clear action plan for how you are going to help your athletes grow individually and within what the teams need, you create relationships that are harder for your athletes to leave.

You are learning more about them and their needs on an individual level, you are showing and communicating to them that you care about them as athletes and people, and you are showing that you are willing and able to help them grow into the level of athletes and people they want to be.

SOMETHING(s) TO THINK ABOUT [When you have athletes and families wanting to leave]

1 - Have you talked about goals with them? Do you know what their individual goals are? Do they know what the team's goals are? Have y’all talked about how their goals and the team's goals are aligned?

2 - Have you been checking in with them and providing them with effective feedback? Have you asked them how things are going? Have you given them the opportunity to give you feedback?

3 - Do you have a growth plan for them? Have you looked at their strengths and weaknesses and put together a plan for how you are going to help them reach their goals? Have you communicated that with them?

For more resources, click here: Performance Enablement: A Key to Attracting and Retaining the Best Talent