I reinvented my program from the inside out, starting with me, and the winning showed up.
Providing clear standards and expectations is a gift that coaches can offer. The comfort that comes from knowing what’s likely to happen, and what will happen after that, is real.
An important part of well defined standards is “what it doesn’t look like”.
If the downside outcome is achieved the real or imagined booooo you hear is the same voice that says, “I know you’ve got this!”.
Get back after it knowing your people are in your corner and will be behind you no matter what.
Play “the right way” each and every time?
The ends justify the means?
Unless everyone knows exactly what the right way is we won’t achieve that, and no-holds-barred, win at all costs isn’t ok either.
Like most things on a spectrum, reasonable performance and appropriate behavior is somewhere in the middle.
When it’s clear that it’s cheating, however, the answer is obvious.
Even if the people don’t know you’re skirting the rules–official or unofficial–the game will know (Rule #98).
True prosperity comes with honest success.
Oh yeah, everyone thinks that’s the right thing to do.
Everyone says it’s true.
I’ll get everyone together and we’ll get it done.
Is “everyone” really all of the people? Who’s important, and who is optional to be in the group of everyone?
If you need everyone on board you better be sure that everyone knows what’s happening. And if you don’t need everyone then just ask the people who are crucial.
So, there is probably a really good way to do the thing that you need to do. Others have done it before, I’m sure, and you can get a lot from their experience.
You can research the best way to do this thing, you can rely on your own experience or you can ask a friend.
In my experience, I find that relying on my own best practices, for that thing or other similar things I’ve done before, is the best way to get a satisfactory result.
If I think about the way I like to do things, the way the best things have worked out for me, I find that there aren’t really an unlimited way to do things…
So, do something, see how it feels when it’s done, redo it, and go from there.
The best way to practice, is to practice.
Remember that time…? It seems like it was easy, right? You showed up and got it right.
Probably not.
Your successes are likely more complex than you remember them.
You worked hard, you considered options that ended up on the cutting room floor that you don’t even recall now.
Sometimes we think our former selves had it easier, or the competition wasn’t as tough as it actually was, or we were just better then…
Give yourself credit and get to work on the complex concern in front of you now.
Nothing is automatic.
Learning doesn’t happen for students because a teacher works hard or does their best.
Learning doesn’t need permission either. It’s going to happen if the conditions are right.
The teacher (formal or otherwise) can do the condition-creating and push the odds higher, and a motivated student surely helps.
The fun part is that we often learn something completely unexpected.
Keep looking for the learning.
Each time you state what you’re all about, what you stand for, you set yourself up to fight for that moment to moment.
If you are “all about” discipline, for example, you then need to be ready not only to be disciplined in your actions but to fight for the belief that discipline is important.
It has to work.
“Learning from the past” should not be a random thing. We should have a planning process, make and execute plans and look at them after they are executed. Ask, “What worked?”, and do more of that and less of what didn’t work.
When someone says they learned their lesson, it’s often simply because a thing didn’t work out, and not often enough because we took the time to review our plans and our actions.
Take time more often to learn–the good and the bad–intentionally.
What happens when a team just loses it’s mojo?
Is this simply a “that’s what happens sometimes”, situation or can it be fixed?
Finding the cause, or lighting a spark…is one more important than the other?
Go back. Go deep. Go internal. Ask good questions about why this team plays or works on the things it does. What are the values at the core of the project or program? What’s its collective WHY?
If you can find the seed of its existence and agree that it’s one worth working for, then you can determine the actions that the group must take to move forward, to achieve and take steps in the name of the WHY.
Identify the WHAT, too. What will you do? What things will you not do? Keep track regularly and enlist a tracking system to hold the whole group to.
These small things are the only things…one piece at a time a team can bring itself back to creating a great future.
Have you heard someone talk about a tactic, a coaching idea of some sort, and implemented it in your program to no avail? It didn’t work.
You’ve worked something in to a practice, or with a team and loved it. Then, you try it again and are not satisfied?
There’s no simple one-size-fits-all response to these situations. Try it again? Do it differently? Changing a variable might change results, it might not. The most value is in your inspection of the situation. Your testing is important, and your consideration of the “why” and the “how” is just as important as the result.
Make a plan, execute, look back and assess. Then, plan again. “Try something new” is only one possible option.
Coaching Made Easier 