The ConnectorsMalcolm Gladwell’s 2002 book, The Tipping Point, shares why certain products, behaviors, and ideas spread like epidemics. The focus of the book is not about the brilliance of any specific product, behavior, or idea; but rather about how we can intentionally initiate and tap into the epidemic itself.
Of the many powerful ideas Gladwell shares, one of them has shown itself consistently in my leadership journey and the journey of those I’ve been able to observe. In The Tipping Point, Gladwell describes the three types of people that foster change: mavens, salespeople, and connectors. Mavens know what’s going on, but a lot of people are knowledgeable. The thing that separates a maven is their willingness to share their knowledge. Unfortunately, the willingness to share is not a given. Especially for someone possessing a unique product, coveted behavior, or revolutionary idea. Mavens, however, give openly and they do so with clarity. Salespeople sell. They convince others that what is being sold is not only desired, but needed. Salespeople communicate clearly and have the emotional intelligence to know when and how to best position the message or product being sold. They genuinely believe in what they are selling and are passionate about helping others by including them in the benefits. Connectors distribute and collect information, but more importantly they link one person to another. Connectors know who knows what, where to send others with questions, and how to get the information needed to move forward. They are critical to the spreading of an epidemic because they are the ones that share it with others. Turning our focus to leadership, the importance of mavens, salespeople, and connectors differs slightly from Gladwell’s epidemic application but it applies equally as well to teams. Why Should We Care? Teams are always a dynamic collection of individuals. None are the same and none are simple. The diversity of a team is its greatest strength. That is, when we recognize and support those differences. Mavens, salespeople, and connectors certainly provide a vast array of differences. Most leaders openly recognize the contributions of the mavens. Their wisdom and brilliance is typically viewed as the foundation of the team. In sports, this is often simply thought of as talent. There is no shortage of value placed on talent. The same can be said for most businesses as they are also on a constant hunt for the next superstar. Salespeople are also clearly valued in the team setting. Virtually every business has an entire division designated specifically for sales. As the leader of a team, it’s important to understand that your salespeople are not only those working in that division, they’re also your fans - the people that believe in, follow, and support your team. The connectors are the most undervalued team members because their contribution to the group is not easily measured. It doesn’t show up in new products or clients, like mavens and salespeople. And, in sports, it typically doesn’t show up on a stat sheet. But, it’s connectors that ultimately make a team, a team. Without connectors the group remains a collection of individuals. The connectors are the ones that help everyone appreciate the roles of each individual, celebrate each other’s contribution, and push the prioritization of the team over the individual. REAL TALK - Action Steps The talent, confidence, and unselfishness of a maven fits perfectly with the passion and brashness of salespeople on a team. The connector’s value of the team over all else melds the whole thing together. Teammates with characteristics of all three are what make a team special. Here are a few ideas on how to grow or foster each aspect of those great teammates.
Everyone on our team brings something to the table. Ideally, all possess a portion of the maven, salesperson, and connector Gladwell described. Pay special attention to the connectors. When teams are performing beyond their talent or skill level, it’s almost always a result of exceptional connectors at work. For more information on building excellence in your teams, visit us at www.bluecollargrit.com. We would love to know how we could help!
1 Comment
Addition By SubtractionAs a young coach, I always thought the answer was in more - more offensive sets to run, more defensive systems to play, more baseline out of bounds options to call. The sporadic jolts of success were enough to fool me into believing more was the way.
I would attend clinics or conferences, amazed by the success others were experiencing by doing all the things I wasn’t doing. I scribbled down notes, vowing to be better by committing to these new found secrets. Each session led to additions to my approach, and to our program. We read to expand our knowledge. We network to grow our contacts. Progress by expansion is the model we’ve come to accept. The more things we know, the better. The more people that know us, the better. Clearly more is better, right? Society loves to shove it in our faces - more money, more cars, more rooms, more things is how we express our success. It would be hard to argue if it weren’t so wrong. Why Should We Care? If we’re astute, as we travel down this path of more we will notice something that clearly separates the average from the excellent. We have to look below the surface, and know what to look for, but it’s always there. The problem is, we always look at the margin instead of the core. See, the difference isn’t in an offensive set or a baseline out of bounds play. It’s not in a great client or better pension plan. The difference isn’t in what anyone does, it’s in how they do it. Unfortunately, we don’t want to believe the simplicity of how the best do what they do. We want it to be about more, not less. Listen to an interview with someone that has sustained excellence in any field. The best leaders will always talk about the same things: building relationships, serving others, working hard, and being exceptional at the ‘fundamentals’ of their specific trade. Sure, some will say it in their own way with their own clever vernacular, but they all say the same things. You know what we do when we hear this though, right? Sure. We dismiss the reference to the basics as being obvious and cling to any marginal information or examples that provide us with the more we were craving. Everyone does it, everyone except the excellent. For some reason, they hear it a little differently. They see the drastic commitment to the few as the driving force it is. They quickly disregard the margins, realizing that’s a personal choice that can, and should, change from leader to leader. Those on the path to excellence are in tune with the foundation of the process, not the details based on personal preference. They’re examining the core, not the margins. REAL TALK - Action Steps The appeal to make additions to our system is not only significant, but necessary in order to progress and improve. However, we must be careful to avoid addition as our only means for growth. In fact, the opposite, subtraction, is a quicker path to excellence. Here are a few ideas on how to get, or stay, focused on the core rather than the margins.
Don’t be fooled by the simplicity of excellence. Adding seems like the answer, oddly enough, it hardly ever is. By thinking about removing the trivial we free ourselves to commit the necessary time to the critical. For more information on building excellence in your teams, visit us at www.bluecollargrit.com. We would love to know how we could help! Just Getting StartedIt seems everyone in the sports world now is “just gettin’ started”.
The player winning NBA Rookie of the Year this season will likely claim he’s “just getting started”. On a similar note, the 2nd grader winning the Carrysville Southeast All Star Elite Fall White Division Showcase MVP is also “just getting started.” The team winning their first NFL playoff game will surely proclaim they are “just getting started”. But, so will the 3rd grade Wee Tiger Flag Football Silver Division Runners-up. It’s such a popular calling card that there are even a number of songs titled “just getting started”. Country music stars Jason Aldean and Blake Shelton to Christian singer Jeremy Camp to rapper RJAE have all recorded songs titled “Just Getting Started”. There’s even a few movies with the title, one starring Morgan Freeman and Tommy Lee Jones. And of course, who could forget, High School Musical 3: Senior Year, Just Getting Started. That’s correct: High School Musical 3: Senior Year is … just getting started. Why Should We Care? While most people, and teams, seem to be pulled towards the motto we are doing everything we can to distance ourselves from it. I see the hope it attempts to provide and I understand the allure of embarking on a new, promising commitment to excellence. But, that’s not where we are and, I’m guessing, it’s not where you are either. We are not “just getting started”. Not even close actually. We’re still going. I’ll use our morning breakfast club workouts as a quick example. Most of our players began attending when they were freshmen, those beginning before that simply extrapolate the example. With one hundred eighty two days of school, we’ll use one hundred fifty as our number for breakfast club workouts each year. We don’t miss many days but with dead periods, gym conflicts, and personal schedules a few days throughout the year will be breakfast club free. The breakfast club is simply a one hour workout our players perform with a partner. Nothing fancy, or tricky, just consistent. If a player attends for 150 days for four years he will have devoted an additional six hundred hours of work to his game. That’s twenty five full days of development a regular breakfast club attendee gets that someone who doesn’t attend would receive. Now for the team implications. Our breakfast club typically has twenty to thirty players every morning. So, take those extra six hundred hours and multiply them by, we’ll say twenty-five. That’s fifteen thousand hours of breakfast club work for our team. Fifteen thousand hours. That’s not just getting started. We’re still going. (As side note, when we were truly “just getting started” Breakfast Club had one attendee for two straight years - shout out to Joey, our Breakfast Club OG) REAL TALK - Action Steps Don’t get me wrong, we all have to start some time. But, I’ve noticed a significant difference between the people who proclaim their start as a means to seek recognition and approval and the people who just start and seek the benefit of the process that follows. Here are a few ideas on staying fixed on the latter:
We do realize who isn’t saying “just getting started”, right? Correct, the people that have been doing it - quietly and consistently. Those people are still going. And, as long we are always “just getting started” we won’t realize the compound effects of still going. For more information on building excellence in your teams, visit us at www.bluecollargrit.com. We would love to know how we could help! Anonymous FeedbackBasketball season is just around the corner. As I prepare for the start of the season, there are numerous, very important items I have to be sure are taken care of in order for our season to get off to a clean start. As a high school coach you are the CEO of your program, but you’re also the secretary, custodian, and emergency contact.
Among all the tasks that must be completed, one of the most impactful for the development of our team is our practice evaluations. Each season I will invite several coaches, whom I respect, to evaluate and give me feedback on our players and our practice. These people rarely have basketball knowledge, so I often get asked how their opinions and feedback can help. It’s really pretty simple. The people I invite understand the process required to be excellent. That’s one of the best things about excellence, its habits apply to all fields. All of the feedback is useful, but maybe not in the exact way it’s meant or the package it’s delivered in. Why Should We Care? In the last fifteen years, we’ve probably had close to one hundred coaches in to watch and evaluate practice. Their feedback has provided our staff and players with phenomenal insights that we would’ve never recognized on our own. For example, a few personal areas I’ve grown in as a result of these evaluations are the tone of my feedback, where I’m physically standing while coaching in practice, the difference in detail I accept from different players, and lack of interaction between coaches during a session. I’m significantly better and our team has benefited equally from this, and many other, observer’s feedback. However, the changes weren’t immediate growth points - they began as pain points. The criticism of my tone when delivering feedback in practice was delivered as, “you sound pissed off all the time” when you are correcting someone. My initial, internal, response was something like, “yea, I am pissed - it’s the tenth time I’ve told him the same thing”. Though it wasn’t comfortable to hear, nor always true, the observation pushed me to reflect. There were numerous times in which I certainly did not intend to sound angry. I simply wanted to convey information and hope that the player was capable of doing what was expected of him. Fortunately, this feedback offered me an opportunity to move that from intent to reality. The same is true for the others noted above. Where I stand in practice was shared from an evaluator as “you look like you’re distancing yourself from the team”. In my reflection, this was accurate but it wasn’t intentional. There are certainly times in practice in which I feel like I need physical distance in order to see the big picture of our team play. But, I recognize that is not all the time. There are clearly times I need to be right in the mix with our guys - slapping fives, offering encouragement, and giving direction. This feedback simply brought awareness. Awareness that has allowed me to be more intentional with my daily actions and impactful with our team. Likewise regarding the lack of interaction with coaches during practice. The observer viewed this as a negative when he presented it to me. As we discussed it, I was reaffirmed with how we were spending our time in practice. Because our coaches were constantly interacting with the players, there was little time for them to engage with each other. Though, the feedback was perceived as a negative, it served to reinforce the actions we wanted modeled. Although I always know the coaches we invite to evaluate our practices and they write their names at the top of the assessment form, as far as we’re concerned the feedback is anonymous. The observations are what we are interested in - how are the behaviors being observed and interpreted by those outside ourselves and our team? From there, it’s our choice on how, or if, we want to use them. REAL TALK - Action Steps There is a popular clip on YouTube of Kobe Bryant talking about his belief that failure doesn’t exist. He points out that all the seeming failures we experience are really nothing more than data points for our next try. It’s only a failure if you quit trying. Feedback is very much the same way. Regardless of who gives it, feedback is simply data. Data to be used by you in whatever way you see fit. Once it’s delivered, it’s your job to process it. You are the one with the power to use or discard it. Here are a few ideas on maintaining this perspective and making the feedback you give and receive as useful as possible. Receiving
Giving
Feedback is critical to our growth and development. We are best served to treat it as anonymous, focusing solely on the data. All while recognizing that the choice of using, or not using, the feedback lies with one person: the receiver. For more information on building excellence in your teams, visit us at www.bluecollargrit.com. We would love to know how we could help! Love the FightAs part of our preseason conditioning program at Centerville, we will do a number of different workouts designed to physically better our performance on the basketball court. Anything from sprints on the track, hill climbs, weightlifting sessions, and Crossfit workouts could be on the schedule.
Of course, we play a lot of basketball too. We don’t like to make it too complicated. We believe the best way to get better at basketball is to play basketball. As simple as that sounds, it transcends sports. The preseason is obviously a time where we are not only trying to get players into the necessary shape to compete at a high level, but we’re also evaluating. Skill, potential, and possible roles are all things we look at as coaches. However, there is one trait we believe is critical for a player to reach his potential and a team to surpass its ceiling: a love for competition. Why Should We Care? A passion for your craft is no doubt a powerful motivator. A strong enough passion for something helps us view adversity as merely a part of the process rather than as a true obstacle to be overcome. One of the natural problems that arise for passionately driven individuals is that it often ends up being compartmentalized. I may be passionate for basketball, for example, so anything that has to do specifically with basketball, I’m all in for. The problem arises when I realize there are numerous things outside the arena of basketball that impact my performance within basketball. Sometimes this passion is strong enough to spill over and influence other areas of my life, but rarely will it have the ability to sustain my focus, discipline, and personal accountability long enough for me to reach my potential. People who are able to maximize their potential are typically not passionate about a specific thing - sport, occupation, or career. They’re passionate about a process. And, that process is always centered around pushing and challenging themselves. They don’t love basketball. They love the fight to become the best basketball player they can become. This is the mindset that transcends a sport or career. The world has enough people that are great at their sport yet terrible husbands, incredible at their job but absent in the lives of their kids, climbing the corporate ladder at the expense of everyone around them. This is a compartmentalized mentality with a selfish focus on one’s self. It’s also a clear indication of an external comparison rather than an internal competition. When we love the fight, the fulfillment is rooted in the process. When we love our job, our identity tends to get sucked into our position, status, or salary. The fight is the process. The struggle is the reward. REAL TALK - Action Steps Truly enjoying the fight isn’t something that comes naturally to most people. We are so conditioned to seek things that we conveniently disregard how we get those very things we seek. Awareness is the first step to change, so here are a few ideas on where we need to learn to love the fight.
Loving the fight is a form of embracing the process. Everyone loves the accolades and bonuses that go with being successful, but most people don’t love the fight. But, most people are not striving to be excellent either. For more information on building excellence in your teams, visit us at www.bluecollargrit.com. We would love to know how we could help! Questions of a TeamTeams were created for a single purpose: to do things an individual can’t do.
That’s it. From the hunter and gather days to the modern multi-million dollar, Wall Street companies, the purpose of bringing a people together remains exactly the same. If left to our preference, and ego, we would undoubtedly go it alone but we simply can’t. As a matter of fact, that’s exactly what many individuals continue to try to do while a member of a team. In spite of the ‘team’ label, in spite of their teammates, in spite of the urging of coaches - some continue to press against the foundational purpose of a team. Our choices prioritize ourselves over our teammates and our actions communicate our selfish interests no matter how much we try to conceal them. It’s as natural as it is ignorant. What we are pursuing is bigger than we can accomplish on our own, yet we still try. We continue to overestimate our importance to the group. We continue to spill over into the roles of teammates. We continue to attempt to save the team with our own valiant effort. All to achieve something that we knew from the start was only achievable by a team. Why Should We Care? While the purpose of a team is singular, the benefits of one are not. The key to realizing these benefits lies in the questions we ask ourselves. Even as a member of a quality team, most individuals are drawn to the selfish question: what can this team do for me? The answer offers many rewards, but fails to hold the substance necessary to truly support the needs of the team and ultimately ourselves. Teams are powerful, beautiful collections of individuals that exceed the sum of their parts. The whole is greater than the pieces. However, this is only true if team members approach their role knowing the answers to two critical questions: What can I offer? What will I sacrifice? A clear awareness of what we have to offer on a team not only creates a feeling of belonging, but allows us to contribute meaningfully to the group. Both are critical within a team. We must feel like we belong to the group and we must feel like we play an important role within that group. This supports the positive side of the ever-dangerous traits, pride and ego. Equally as important is knowing what we are willing to sacrifice for the team. A vital aspect of the team is the willing sacrifice each member chooses to make for the good of the team. The ‘choosing’ part is important. We can force sacrifices on team members, as long as we accept the limits it ultimately places on the performance of our team. Humility and servanthood blossom only by knowing, and embracing, this answer. From here, we are in a position to appreciate the full impact of being on a team. REAL TALK - Action Steps Since these questions are rarely posed openly, we’ll consider what actions may indicate a team member’s response to them. After all, we can tell far more by what people do than what they say anyway. Here are a few behaviors to keep an eye out for:
If we’re on a team, AND WE’RE ALL ON A TEAM, there are two vitally important questions to consider: What can I offer and what will I sacrifice? From there, and only there, we can truly become a member of the team. For more information on building excellence in your teams, visit us at www.bluecollargrit.com. We would love to know how we could help! Just Coach Your TeamI started my coaching career as a completely naive, arrogant, and ignorant twenty-two year old at my alma mater serving as the assistant to my high school coach and mentor, Dave Zeller. Coach Z was a legendary coach that was an All-American player for Miami, OH and a back-up to Oscar Robertson for a few years in the NBA.
He was set to retire just as I was finishing college and entering the teaching, and coaching, market. Actually, he did retire. That is, until I called him and begged him to return for a year so I could “learn how to coach”, as he would recite for me numerous times over the next year. Ever the servant, Coach agreed to return while warning me of the team's limited talent level and likelihood of a rough season ahead. The news didn’t sway my excitement as I looked forward to sitting on the bench and soaking up everything I could from Z. His meticulous preparation, personal gifts to lift his player spirits, spot on scouting reports, in-game adjustments to take advantage of what few advantages we had, and stoic poise on the sideline were even more appealing as his assistant rather than one of his players. I was given a backstage pass into the mind of a basketball genius for a season. And, I did my best to soak it all in. Why Should We Care? I remember several of the plays and am proud to use a few of them to this day. I remember our huddle break, which was the same as when I played for him and drove home the unselfish style he expected from his teams: “Hit the open man!” I remember the little notes he would sneak into a scouting report - “see me for $5” - just to be sure his guys were reading it. But, most of all, I remember the advice he gave me when I asked him how he managed to stay so calm and composed on the sidelines all the time. His response was simple and matter-of-fact, as if he didn’t realize the power of what he was saying. Of course, that couldn’t have been further from the truth. His response: “Just coach your team”. He added context by reminding me that when things are good to coach my team; when things are bad to coach my team; when the referees are terrible to coach my team; when parents are complaining to coach my team; when people are talking good about us to coach my team; when people are talking bad about us to coach my team. Watching college football games this weekend and the accompanying pre-game talks, halftime speeches, and post-game interviews; I couldn’t help but think of Coach Z and his advice. REAL TALK - Action Steps The ego is a dangerous thing. It fools us into concerning ourselves with areas of our lives that we can’t control. This, by default, distracts us from the few things that we can control. It took me many years to realize that it’s this attention to focus on the controllables that Coach Z was referring to the whole time. Here are a few things that garnered attention from coaches this weekend, and me often, that were beyond their control. Things that distracted them from just coaching their teams.
Sure, several coaches got to beat their chest and claim their dominance. They had the opportunity to rebuke the negative opinions expressed by others and make their egos feel good, but I can’t help to think that we would all be better off if they would just stay focused on coaching their teams. For more information on building excellence in your teams, visit us at www.bluecollargrit.com. We would love to know how we could help! Tolerating Those Who DoThe United States Military Academy at West Point has a code of honor which states, “a cadet will not lie, steal, cheat, or tolerate those who do.” Violation of this code for a cadet results in a formal investigation and a hearing process conducted by a group of their peers. Found guilty by their peers and the case will make its way up the chain of commands.
The first part of West Point’s Honor Code is as straightforward as you can get: do not lie, steal, or cheat. This is not only typically clear for a cadet choosing to join the academy, but also fairly easy to avoid for those at West Point. After all, character, to which all those points, is a significant factor in acceptance in the first place. The challenge, for most, is certainly in the second phase of the code: do not tolerate those who do. Although we may not like it, we can usually take responsibility when we have violated a code that we have chosen to accept. The problem, or question, is what are we going to tolerate? Why Should We Care? This is not a question for leaders within the United States Military Academy. This is the question for every leader of every team in the world. Whether you lead a Top 500 Company or a start-up, a Top 25 team or a Little League team, a congregation of a thousand or a family of five, the question remains the same: what will you tolerate? See, unfortunately you don’t get what you want. You get what you tolerate. Allow your child to be disrespectful, then they’ll be disrespectful. Allow kids to have their phones out at the dinner table, then they’ll have their phones out at the dinner table. Allow team members to show up late for meetings and they’ll show up late for meetings. Of course, not all of them. But, the performance of our team will always sink to the level of our lowest denominator. So, what we are tolerating ends up being what we are getting. Clearly those at West Point understand this point clearly. In their mind, doing it and allowing it are equally damaging. Consider that for a moment. Allowing a teammate to lie is equally as damaging as lying yourself. Permitting a teammate to steal is no different than you stealing yourself. Letting a teammate cheat is equivalent to you cheating yourself. Carry that thought on out … allowing a friend to be late is equally detrimental to the team as you being late; allowing a teammate to skip reps or not touch the line is the same as you not touching the line; accepting excuses from a friend is no different than you making the excuse yourself. What you tolerate is just as much an indication of your character as what you do. REAL TALK - Action Steps Drawing a line on what we tolerate requires courage. And, courage requires confidence in who we are and what we believe. With those in place, it simply becomes a choice. Here are a few options that may help you more consistently choose what you tolerate.
What you tolerate is a reflection of your standards, not someone else’s. We like to release ourselves from responsibility when we aren’t the ones taking action. Turns out, what we do and what we tolerate are equally damning. For more information on building excellence in your teams, visit us at www.bluecollargrit.com. We would love to know how we could help! Neither ExistKobe Bryant was a legendary basketball player. His size, athleticism, and skill set him apart from ninety-nine percent of all other players on the planet. Yet, what made him truly special wasn’t a physical gift or talent he developed. It was his mentality.
Kobe’s mentality was so well-known and well-respected that it was tagged with its own name: The Mamba Mentality. The name is as unique as Kobe’s view of competition. Take, for example, his take on whether he loves to win or hates to lose more. Kobe’s response: neither. He went on to explain that he believed an extreme in either direction was a weakness. Rather, he preferred to view every competition simply as an opportunity to learn. He wanted to know his own areas that were strengths or needed work. Every competition was nothing more than an experiment. His curiosity and want for growth superseded his desire for a specific outcome. Can you acknowledge how rare that is for anyone, let alone a hugely successful professional athlete that is compensated, and celebrated, almost exclusively because of those same outcomes? Pretty rare. Why Should We Care? It is this mentality to prioritize growth over outcome that fosters one of Kobe’s more poignant claims - that failure doesn’t exist. At first, the claim seems to be nothing more than semantics or a flippant, ridiculous comment to garner attention. Then he explains. “Seriously, what does failure mean? It doesn’t exist. It’s a figment of your imagination … The point is the story continues. If you fail on Monday the only way that’s a failure is if you choose to not progress from that. So, to me, that’s why failure’s not existent. If I fail today then I’m gonna learn something from that failure and I’m going to try again on Tuesday. And, if I fail, I'm gonna try again on Wednesday. It doesn’t exist.” It’s a powerful framework that robs failure of the fear it showers most people in. Knowing the story continues is reassuring and empowering. It evokes the courage to press the edges of our abilities and exit our comfort zones with no fear. Free of the need for the desired outcome, Kobe released himself to become the ultimate version of himself. Here’s the thing: Success doesn’t exist either. Just like failure, it’s a figment of our imaginations. And, from my experiences, buying into the reality of success is just as dangerous as that of failure. While the perception of success can breed success, it can also foster contentment and entitlement. Both of which are debilitating to our future production. Removing the concept of success from our mindset shines a brighter light on our process. It allows us to focus on becoming rather than arriving. The success we think we experience is nothing more than a part of the next process. REAL TALK - Action Steps In addition to a heightened focus on the process, eliminating the concepts of success and failure ultimately lead to acceptance. From acceptance we have the power to guide our lives in the best ways we see fit. Here are a few ideas on eliminating success and failure from your mindset.
Although we like to label experiences, and sometimes people, as successes or failures, the truth is they are neither. The experiences are all part of the process and the people simply becoming. For more information on building excellence in your teams, visit us at www.bluecollargrit.com. We would love to know how we could help! The CelebrationsSo far this fall I’ve watched two weekends of high school football and one weekend of college football. I’m happy to see our student-athletes compete and the college athletes showcase their talents against other equally talented peers. I’ve always enjoyed the community and team aspect of football.
The uniqueness of roles is appealing. There is very little overlap. In sports like basketball and soccer everyone pretty much does everything. Baseball and softball have clear roles defensively while all come together offensively in virtually the same role. In football, the clarity of role is refreshing. The quarterback takes the snap, hands the ball off, or throws it to a receiver. The linemen block. The running back runs the ball. The receiver catches the ball. The kicker kicks the ball. The team would be in trouble if, say, the linemen decided they would like to throw the ball rather than block or the running back would rather kick than run. It’s truly poetry when everyone fills their role to the best of their ability and the play works to perfection. Each player can take pride in doing their job and contributing to the success of the play. Enough successful plays and the team wins the game, not enough and the team loses. It’s a pretty simple equation. So, it makes sense that we should celebrate those positive plays throughout the game. The more of them we have the better, right? Why Should We Care? Celebrations are driven by emotion. Emotions evoke feelings that inevitably impact our behaviors. It would be great if we could separate the two, but unfortunately we’re terrible at doing that. And, it’s naive to think we will be better in the future. Our behaviors are central to our lives. They define who we are, as well as, who we will become. They determine where we are going and what we will accomplish. It’s our behaviors that dictate our priorities and identify our mission. These behaviors are initiated by either our identity or our emotions. One is inherently better than the other. If our emotions drive our behaviors then they will ride the same tidal waves as those emotions. The behaviors that we depend on to execute and perform will be the pawns of our feelings. As a result, our identity will merely be the varying reflection of our feelings. We will be who our feelings say we are in that moment. And, that rollercoaster is a really hard one to get off of. The other option is to discipline ourselves to allow our behaviors, then our feelings, to flow from our identity rather than the other way around. When we are in tune with our identity we establish a consistency in our actions that stabilizes our emotions. Thus, we free ourselves from the ebbs and flows of the emotional rollercoaster. Our performance is always best with option two. REAL TALK - Action Steps Back to the celebrations. Imagine the drastic fluctuation in emotions throughout a game. With every play benefitting your team comes a rush of positive emotions. This tidal wave, though desired in the moment, is something you will undoubtedly need to come down and recover from. Just consider how many of those plays could happen during the course of a game. We spend more time regulating our feelings than we do focusing on our responsibilities and our team. Here are few ideas on working from our identity rather than our feelings:
Competition is an emotional endeavor. Nothing is wrong with having them or sharing them. However, in order to be at our best we must regulate them. Allowing our identity to determine our behaviors and our behaviors to direct our emotions we set the stage for our best to consistently show up. Plus, we don’t look like we’re shocked to make a good play! For more information on building excellence in your teams, visit us at www.bluecollargrit.com. We would love to know how we could help! |
About bcI'm a teacher, coach, and parent seeking excellence while defining success on my own terms. Archives
March 2024
Categories |