Archives for October 2019

One Special Way to Connect with Your Team

Something was still missing. He wanted something more for the upcoming season and for his players. Over the last fifteen years this coach had mastered the technical and tactical parts of his game, becoming one of the most well-respected coaches across the country. So when he reached out looking for help with his culture I got excited.

After talking for over an hour learning about his team and his own journey in coaching, he identified the biggest area he wanted to grow his culture—leadership. The players on his team were followers and compliant to nearly everything he asked of them, but they weren’t ever leading. He then asked the trillion-dollar question, “What’s the best way to develop leaders this year?”

My answer was simple, “Go first.”

So often in an effort to bring leadership development into sports we can focus heavily on others. Our intentions are good and strategies are positive, but at their core is the idea we need to change others—they need our fixing.

My encouragement to this coach was to first start with himself.

Going First

The next week the leadership team sat down in the coach’s office with an article in front of each person titled, The 7 Qualities of Great Leaders. After everyone had read the article, he posed a question to the group, “Which of these qualities do you think I have the most room for growth?”.

Silence filled the room.

After nearly a full minute of awkward silence one of the least outspoken leaders tried to deflect the question by saying, “Well I think you are really good when it comes to preparation and organization, but I am sure you could keep improving.”

The coach persisted, “Thank you, but I need you to answer the question. Your honest feedback is critical to my growth as a leader and vital to our success this season.”

After awhile, players started to slowly share feedback on the coach’s obvious struggles with patience. The more players spoke the more this coach embraced the feedback and dug deeper asking them to share specific examples of the negative behaviors.

By the end of the thirty-minute leadership meeting, his leaders had identified his area for growth, clarified specific negative behaviors, and agreed to support the coach as he worked to improve in those areas.

This coach also modeled a growth mindset to his leaders, setting the stage for successful future conversations with them about their own individual areas of growth.

But something more impactful happened throughout the conversation—the relationship with his players deepened.

Lead with Your Strengths, Connect through Your Struggles

People seem more interested in being perceived as a great leader, than actually becoming a great leader. We try to fake it, until we can make it. People see through it and it builds walls to real relationship. Our real story is what people will connect with.

Years ago, I had reached a critically low point in my relationship with a few players. My own decision to open up and share my struggles as a coach and admitting some of my personal struggles to these players was a turning point in the course of our relationships. Instead of these players respecting me less, the players opened up and admitted to some of their own struggles and fears.

Trust and respect are not built by presenting a strong front at every moment, they are built by finding appropriate times to share the struggles and challenges our life entails.

-J.P. Nerbun

How You Can Create More Leaders This Season

“Leaders create leaders by passing on responsibility, creating ownership, accountability, and trust.”
—James Kerr, Legacy

No More Team Talks

Rugby coach Graham Henry had been coaching for 30 years, and every game, he gave a team talk. Then, one day in 2005—early on in tenure as Head Coach of the New Zealand All-Blacks Rugby Team—Tama Umaga, the team captain, asked him to coffee.
Tama didn’t beat around the bush and directly asked his head coach, “Why do you give those team talks?”

Henry became uncomfortable by the question, but he explained how they provided inspiration and direction for the team.
Tama’s response was, “Are they for you or for us?”

The point was made, but it was a difficult one for a head coach of 30 years to swallow. Henry accepted this feedback and started to approach pre-game talks with a player-centric approach. He started to consider it their time, and it was important they could prepare mentally the way they needed to. Never again did he give a pre-game team talk.

The New Zealand All-Blacks Continue Their Domination

Only last weekend, I watched in amazement as the New Zealand All-Blacks dominated Ireland in the quarterfinal game of the 2019 Rugby World Cup in Japan. Approaching the upcoming semifinal game, the All-Blacks team looks ready to continue their dominance of international rugby by winning a third-straight Rugby World Cup.

One cannot help but look on with admiration at arguably the greatest sporting organization of all time. When you look inside their success, it’s quickly apparent that the most important quality of the All-Black’s culture is being a player-led team. However, the concept of being a player-led team is foreign to most people, as few have experienced or seen this in action.

What’s a Player-Led Team Look Like?

While there are many aspects to the All-Blacks’ player-led culture, here are two of my favorite examples that will shock most coaches:

1. There are no team talks on gameday. This tradition has continued even after Henry retired as Head Coach of the All-Blacks.
2. Players run a practice every week before a match. As the week before the match progresses, the balance of communication and leadership shifts from coaches to players. It is common for their “leadership council” to run a practice or training session before the weekend match.

Now if you are considering implementing these strategies to become a player-led team, slow down! These strategies work because they are supported by systems that empower the players to take personal responsibility, support each other, and hold their teammates to a high standard. One of the most important systems that the All-Blacks use is their leadership council.

The Leadership Council

The leadership council (or “captain’s council, as we sometimes call it) is a system that has effectively helped coaches in our mentorship program at the collegiate, high school, and youth levels. Its purposes are to:

1. Develop Leadership Skills
2. Decentralize Command
3. Create a Positive Experience
4. Provide Support and Accountability
5. Become a Player-Led Team

The leaders are selected by the players, but this is done so intentionally by having them create a job description. When they are selected, they are each assigned their own group or unit to lead, support, and mentor over the course of the season.

This system can transform your team culture when it is implemented with supporting systems both on and off the field, thereby creating a space where players are encouraged to communicate with and support each other.

Leadership is not obsolete or unimportant. In fact it is very important, but we need to develop in in real time—not in classroom lessons or curriculum.

Send us an email if you are interested in discussing how mentorship can help you implement a Captain’s Council and other systems.

Works Referenced
• https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2015/oct/30/rugby-world-cup-final-australia-new-zealand
• Legacy by James Kerr

How Sleep Deprivation is Hurting Athletes and Six Habits for Better Sleep

The Cost of Wakefulness

In 2003, researchers from Penn and Harvard Medical Schools wanted to see if people could avoid the “recommended” amount of sleep without suffering serious negative consequences.

Over a two-week period, the researchers studied four groups of people. Group 1 went three days without sleep. Groups 2, 3, and 4 received four, six, and eight hours sleep every night, respectively. All the groups were continuously monitored and tested for behavioral, physiological, and mental changes.

For people who like to avoid sleep, the results were not positive. The researchers saw significant deficiencies in all cognitive and physical tasks, with no noticeable difference between four-hour and six-hour groups. The most alarming result was that the four-hour and six-hour groups produced performance deficiencies equal to two nights of total sleep deprivation (as reflected after Nights 1 and 2 from Group 1’s results).

Essentially, sleeping just two hours less than the recommended eight hours for two consecutive nights led to the same negative consequences as back-to-back all-nighters.

The researchers also discovered another startling fact: People were unaware of the deficits. So often, people pride themselves on being able to go without sleep, but these people don’t realize how significantly the lack of sleep is hurting their performance.

The Benefits of Sleep

Research has shown that when people get a certain amount of sleep (e.g., 7+ hours for adults; 9+ hours for teens; 10+ hours for children), the health benefits are immense. As world-renowned sleep scientist Matthew Walker says, “Sleep is the single-most effective thing you can do to reset your brain and body health. Sleep is a life-support system, and it is mother nature’s best effort at immortality.”

The truth is that, as parents and coaches, we don’t take these benefits seriously enough. Typically, our priorities are:

1. Exercise
2. Nutrition
3. Sleep

However, sleep is the most important, and it is the foundation for performance and a healthy life, as illustrated below:

As I have previously written about in coaching articles, not only do we ignore the importance of sleep in our own lives, but we also push our athletes and children to do more training and eat the right things, rather than prioritizing and supporting healthy sleep habits.
Just look at some of the important reasons to get 8+ hours of sleep a night:

• Sleep extends the time it takes to reach physical exhaustion by 30%.
• Sleep significantly improves information and memory retention.
• Sleep improves muscle strength and cardiovascular function.
• Your ability to cool the body, perspire, remove lactic acid, and achieve muscle recovery all depend on getting the proper amount of sleep.
• If you sleep less than 8 hours, 70% of your weight loss will be muscle mass, not body fat!

No training program or diet can boast those types of results! However, to achieve them, we must focus more of our energy on ensuring our children and athletes get the proper amount of sleep.

Six Commitments for Better Sleep

It’s harder than ever for kids to get the right amount of sleep. Phones and screen time have presented a new barrier on top of the increasing volume of training sessions and homework. Between the additional workload and the easy access to screen time, it seems impossible for kids to get the necessary amount of sleep in today’s world.
Here are six commitments to consider making as a family or as a team to help your children and athletes get the quality and quantity of sleep that they will need to perform at their best in all areas of their lives:

1. Keep the Room Dark, Quiet, and Cold: Research reveals these 3 conditions are most important for high quality sleep. So get blackout curtains and make sure the room is between 65 and 70 degrees.
2. Power-Down Ritual: A hot shower lowers your core body temperature. When followed by some light stretching, mindfulness activities, or reading, this can provide an ideal mental routine to help you sleep.
3. Leave Phone in Other Room: Get a traditional alarm clock or set your phone’s alarm volume to maximum and put it in the next room over. Not only will you stop wasting time looking at your phone before bed, but you will also be more likely to get up after the first alarm rings and not hit the snooze button.
4. Consistent Bedtime: Due to our internal clock system, researchers have proven a regular routine helps people fall asleep and wake up easier.
5. Avoid Caffeine: It stays in your system much longer than you realize, so avoid it at all costs in the afternoon and evening.
6. Beds Are for Sleeping: Researcher Matthew Walker believes great sleep habits need to be conditioned. By getting rid of the television in the bedroom and avoiding other activities (like homework) in bed we condition ourselves to associate the bed with sleep.

Expect Some Resistance

These simple strategies might face some resistance from wary teenagers. But the outcome can be undeniably beneficial!
For instance, the Texas Tech basketball team introduced their own smart phone policy for the NCAA tournament last year: No cell phones in the rooms on the night before the game! When asked about the policy, the players credited it for helping them reach the NCAA Championship game.

My recommendation is to work with your team and/or child to implement some small changes, which will give them some control while still stressing the benefits of cutting down on screen time.