Little league lessons pt 3 (compete and win)

This past weekend marked the end of another long soccer season. I’m the coach of my daughter’s U12 team and the assistant coach for my son’s U8 team. This is a reflection on 3 things I’ve learned that apply the team you have built around you. This is the last of three posts –

1. The importance of teaching foundational skills and strategies.
2. Why it is important each player buy into the team.
3. The value of every team member believing the team can compete and win.

3. Convince the team they can both compete and win.

Once again time for true confessions. The past few seasons my teams have not been good. They have been less than good. I hadn’t won a game in several seasons. It got to the point (multiple times) that I questioned whether I knew anything about soccer, coaching or leading despite coaching with a state champion high school soccer coach for several years at the varsity and JV level.

The reality was that the players I had, by the luck of the draw, simply weren’t as good as the other teams we played. No matter how well you instruct and coach, talent ultimately wins.

This year, though, things were different. I had several very gifted athletes. Not necessarily great soccer players, but very good athletes who could learn to play effectively with some tools (see point 1) and within a system.

One of the big challenges I faced was keeping the team believing that they could compete and win during the early part of the season when losses came much too easily.

Are you buying what you’re selling?

I admit that I occasionally doubted if we could win during the season. We started off a roaring 0-2, but I saw improvement. We had a double-header where I truly believed we would get our first win. We lost the first 4-2 after being ahead 2-0. The 2nd game though we tied 2-2 to a really good team. It was at that moment, that the team began to believe.

Part of being a good leader is choosing to buy into what you are selling. If you don’t believe that you can have a profitable, award-winning studio, then you can’t get your team to believe in that. If you tell your team that they can do great things, but don’t believe they have the ability, they will eventually see through the lies. I had to make sure I truly believed that we could not only compete but win.

That double-header pushed us toward our last regular season game against an unfamiliar opponent (a team from a neighboring town). That team was less talented, and we won going way…5-1. Our first win of the season!

Is there a stick to measure your achievements against?

All season long I preached to the team that we were playing toward the season ending tournament. The tournament was where we would put together all of our skills, strategies and hard work and come out on top.

We ended our regular season 1-3-1, but we were playing for the tournament. Our goal was to win.

How does your team measure success? Do you have ways for them to be able to easily assess if they are competing and winning? I know that some studios are hesitant to share numbers and finances, and that is understandable. Your staff members, however, aren’t stupid. They know when things are great. They see sales coming in (or not coming in), and they see how you act around the studio.

Instead of making them guess how good or bad the situation is, let them in on the picture (even if it’s just a part of it). Let them know when things are good, or if things need to improve. Let them have a solid way to measure your studio’s success.

Reward the team for wins.

When they meet the goals you have set – when the win – reward them.

Our goal was winning the tournament. That alone would be a great amount of satisfaction, but we wanted to up the ante. So we promised three things:

• 1st, 2nd and 3rd place would receive trophies/medals.
• If we didn’t win the tournament, but did win two games we would give them a pizza party.
• I would shave my head if we won the tournament.

These three things were plenty of incentive.

We started the tournament against the team we tied 2-2. At half-time the game was tied 0-0, and gained the advantage of a hard blowing wind. About 10 minutes into the 2nd half, the other team scored. We fought and fought, but we came up short and lost 1-0.

Again, it was time to both encourage and challenge the team. I had to push them to be prepared mentally – to not let down or give up. We were guaranteed 2 games, so we had to come back and play again. This was the real challenge – would we play hard despite not having a chance at the championship? We did.

We played our next team tough ended in a 1-1 tie. In overtime penalty kicks we won! We advanced to the 3rd place title game. Once again, we played tough against a team we had played twice and lost to twice. We ended regulation with a 2-2 tie. Once again in a penalty kick shootout, we came out on top with the 3rd place finish.

They missed out on my head being shaved (thankfully), but earned the pizza party and a medal.

It’s amazing how it doesn’t take much more than the rewards for a 11-year-old to honor a staff of adults. They love meals and a party. They even like silly trophies or other awards. People want to be recognized for their hard work and feel good about their accomplishments.

You also have to be ready to encourage and prod in the midst of a tough goal. Don’t let discouragement set in and rob you of achieving great heights.

How do you reward your staff when they achieve set goals?