By: Nick Kacher
Imagine stepping into a hot, crowded room with mats on the floor, pads on the walls, pullup bars, ninja-warrior equipment, ropes and 75 elementary school kids that are ready to explode after a day in the classroom. Now imagine being the one responsible for organizing and leading this gaggle of kids through a practice…all while their parents watch, judging your every move! Despite what you may be thinking, this is not a lost chapter from Dante’s Inferno. No, this is just a weekly snapshot of me coaching our community’s youth wrestling program.
After years of losing my voice from yelling, losing my hearing from blowing a whistle, and losing my hair because I pulled it all out; I learned some valuable lessons that I have since applied to other areas of my life. When I was young, naïve, and ignorant I thought I would just tell those 75 kids what to do and they would do it. HA! I thought if I could yell loud enough to scare them a little, but not upset the parents, we would be on our way. HA! Finally, it struck me that maybe actions speak louder than words. I needed to really show them what I expected and model the behavior I wanted. HA! I was flummoxed when none of these worked.
I knew the problem could not be me - I was a great coach, just ask me. I was convinced that I was unlucky and happened to get 75 poorly behaved, unmotivated little kids whose parents only signed them up to get them out of their own hair for a couple of hours. Yet as a couple of seasons went by, the practices became smoother and smoother and I went from just trying to survive each practice to actually enjoying the practices along with the kids. While there were many things I learned along the way, I think the thing that made the biggest difference, my key to success, was figuring out a way to lead the kids to do what I wanted them to do…not because I wanted them to do it, but because they wanted to do it. In other words, I wasn’t simply telling them what to do, I wasn’t just showing them what to do, I was motivating them to want to do it.
While there are entire books written on the subject of leadership and motivation, here are three quick thoughts that I try to remember when coaching,
1) Motivate around the input not the output. Some people focus only on the results, the wins and losses, the championships, etc. We can never guarantee results, but we can control our effort. This slight shift in focus and how you talk about things will often lead to great results.
2) Be consistent. My consistency is motivating for my athletes. People will be happy to follow a leader with consistent expectations, consistent discipline, consistent routines, and consistent praise.
3) Allow those you lead to take control. I am not trying to create 75 followers when I go into that wrestling room. I want to create 75 leaders. I gained control of that overcrowded wrestling room not by gripping harder, but by letting go. I assigned leadership rolls to kids, parents became involved, I enlisted more coaches, etc. The more responsibility I can assign to my athletes, the more input they have, the better things seem to go for the entire program.
I wonder if any of these tips might work at your law firm? If not, at least I helped you become a better wrestling coach this week.