team culture

Off to Eugene for Sam in the pole vault at the NCAA Championships!  The women's vault will be Thursday at 4:45 PM PST.  She's had a great senior year and is ready to compete well at Hayward Field...message her and wish her good luck!

At the time of this post, the annual volume spreadsheets are done and have been emailed to the incoming people.  Right after this posting, emailing all the returnees will begin.  So by evening's end all should have their schedules.  Read through all four tabs in the spreadsheet.  Note: the weekly dates listed in the spreadsheet are the Sunday that begins each week.  Mileage is tabulated from Sunday-Saturday.  Each Sunday night or early in the week you are reporting on the blog your mileage from the previous week.  Ask questions as needed.  Make sure you understand the plan!

All reporting of weekly mileage should now be to the comment section of the blog.

continued return to running schedule:

mon - stretching & mobility + light aerobic running

tue - stretching & mobility + light aerobic running

wed - stretching & mobility + light aerobic running

thu - stretching & mobility + light aerobic running

fri - stretching & mobility + light aerobic running

sat - stretching & mobility + OFF or crosstraining

sun - stretching & mobility + light aerobic running

From the Janssen Sports Leadership Center…

4 THINGS YOUR LEADERS MUST DO TO CREATE A CHAMPIONSHIP CULTURE

As a coach, you likely already realize that your team’s culture is absolutely essential to your program’s success both on and off the playing field. While your leadership is certainly critical to building and sustaining the kind of winning culture you need to be successful, your team leaders play a HUGE role in molding, managing, monitoring, and maintaining your team’s culture. Because your leaders often have the most contact and credibility with their teammates, their strong, continual influence shapes your team’s culture in a multitude of ways. YOUR TEAM LEADERS MUST DO THESE 4 CRITICAL THINGS TO HELP YOU BUILD A CHAMPIONSHIP CULTURE:

1. TEAM LEADERS MUST HELP CREATE THE CULTURE

Your team leaders play an important initial role in helping you create the kind of winning, high-performance culture you need to be successful. Culture cannot simply be created and mandated by one person but must be co-created in a collaborative effort between the coaches, leaders, and team.

Together you must co-create your culture by first envisioning the goals and standards you would like your team to achieve. You must collectively decide how your are going to treat each other, what you are going to expect from each other in terms of commitment, what kinds of attitudes and actions are appropriate, and how committed you are to each other and winning. Your leaders are critical not only in helping you co-create the kind of culture you need to be successful - but they are also important in selling this culture to the rest of your team.

 “The most successful cultures are shaped by the leader’s own vision of how things should be done and influenced by her actions and behaviors; it’s the tone from the top.”
Marty Parker, Author of Culture Connection

2. TEAM LEADERS MUST CHAMPION THE CULTURE

Once your team leaders help you create a winning culture, they must then Champion or drive the necessary culture throughout the rest of the program. As the primary Champions of the culture, your leaders must eat, sleep, and breathe your culture and be the best examples of it. Your leaders must lead the charge as they first embody the culture in every way imaginable and then encourage everyone else to live up to it too. Not only must your leaders live the culture at the highest levels themselves, but they also need to continually inspire, challenge, and support their teammates to do the same.

Because of their passion for your program’s cause, your leaders create a palpable sense of energy, excitement, enthusiasm, and urgency toward achieving your program’s Vision. Their teammates can sense your leaders are there to do and accomplish something special – rather than just being there for something to do. In short, effective leaders drive behavior by both their words and deeds. They determine which attitudes and actions are necessary to move your program toward the goal, then model the way themselves while inspiring and motivating others as well. They continually look to move the needle in a positive direction.

As former IBM CEO Lou Gerstner said, “If the CEO isn’t living and preaching the culture and isn’t doing it consistently, then it just doesn’t happen.” The same principle applies for leaders and coaches.

“A leader doesn’t just get the message across - a leader is the message.”


Warren Bennis, Leadership Author

#3 and #4 to come next week...