What Do You Value As A Team?
What do you hold up as something that is very powerful in your own organization? What do you celebrate as something worthwhile? The idea of adding value to something on your team or organization is important to explaining and developing an organization that follow and is built on your own principals. In a bunch of different organizations in sports you can see where successful coaches have built their own systems and placed value on different characteristics. The important thing to this is having values that you want to see within all in the organization.
Think of all the coaches who I have read over the past several years who have placed value on particular things. Coach Wooden had his own system of the Pyramid of Success, in which he explains very specifically the principles of his own program. Mike Matheny put together his own “Matheny Manifesto” which spelled out his own thoughts on leadership and coaching. Most of these thoughts and musings focused on how he believed in several things that religiously that you can put into practice on your own. What is great about his philosophy as well is the fact that he was also able to look in youth sports and see the large number of poor coaches and really try to find a way to correct it. Many more go this way also.
Finding what you value is going to help you not only have a focused idea of you own organization but will also help you when it comes to planning and coordinating your own values. Yes if you run an organization you may have some idea of what is important to you. But if you have not really thought it out and planned and put into words either verbally or written then how will you be able to articulate exactly what is going to be of the most value to you as a leader? What is more important than just having your core values is the idea that you should be consistently looking at those values and asking how you are making them so that they will work for you as an organization. Reflecting and thinking about what they mean to you and implementing them with everything that you are doing as an organization.
These mission statements should be short and clear when it comes to what you are looking for. The statement should also be something which is celebrated and coordinated within all on the team. If someone does something that is good why would you not celebrate that during a meeting or before practice. When you see someone who is doing good the leader of the organization should be thinking of building these individuals up instead of just letting small stuff slide.
Find a philosophy, adjust it to meet your own needs, make sure that it is what you value and what you stand for. Different organizations will have different ideas, as they should be. Leaders will vary their own approaches but if you do not have a philosophy think about how much will vary from year to year or month to month. Who will you hire? Who do you want on your team? With some form of a philosophy you will have the guidance enough to make sure everyone on your team has a similar approach to what they are doing. Which ultimately is the goal to have a united team.
As I write this out, I want this to be my own philosophy, what do I value? What do I want my teams to look like? What do I value? This is such a difficult question to ask yourself. I value a number of different things. But I can tell you that my teams will all look around the same because I have a way of doing things. What is really interesting is that they all end up looking about the same without having a philosophy I think about what am I doing in terms of building it. I have a philosophy but I need to get it down.
Things I value as a leader include some of the following (I am hoping that as I write this all out I can narrow down what I want to value): Creativity, taking initiative, dedication to others and the team, being their for others, hard work, showing up early, enthusiasm, loyalty, self control, confidence, competitive greatness, poise condition, having the ability to adjust to different situations. Being prepared for any situation, being open minded and flexible in your own thoughts and actions a willingness to try new techniques and methods. Having some form of team identity. Having an interest in making the team better, having the ability to have open trusting conversations within a group of people. Caring for others.
I know that John Wooden had his pyramid but I am wondering and honestly searching for the potential to have a different kind of structure. I wonder what I can develop that has not already been made? Rules don’t always work for me as I don’ t think that I believe in all or nothing. Pyramids are nice and appealing for people to follow but what if there was another way? This is something that I want to explore more deeply. What if I have a system that would easily convert to other teams. A system that is easy to follow and set up. One that brings me back to my own principals when the times get tough. One that can help guide people to greatness!
