System of Care
As a coach, your schedule is packed. Efficient use of time and maintaining effective relationships is key to your success.
This can seem incompatible with the CARE piece of our philosophy at the Impactful Coaching Project. Strong relationships take time. At times, it doesn’t seem like there is enough time to get to know everyone individually and develop a deep relationship.
Not only that, but a common refrain also we have heard from coaches over time is that it’s not their job to be the athletes friend and they can’t baby everyone. In our opinions, the CARING piece of our philosophy is not that. In fact, it is the opposite.
Tim Elmore says to gain buy in from this generation of student---coaches need to know what they are talking about and be authentic. At the end of the day, you can't fool people. If you aren't authentic, a relationship can't develop to a level depth that will lead to trust and care.
An important, and often overlooked, piece of exhibiting CARE is the development of a transactional relationship. Sounds a bit weird, right? Transactional is a harsh word that doesn’t imply anything to do with the heart or making a deep impact on someone’s life. However, in order to build trust, both sides need to know they are going to do what they say. Outlining expectations and actions and falling through are essential to trust. And is the first step to transformational coaching (more on this in a later article).
So, with time being so short, how do coaches create a system to do it well and in a personalized way? Keep in mind that this is for naught if you don't know what you are talking about within your sport, you aren't being authentic, and you have not been consistent on following through on what you said you were going to do. With that disclaimer, here are a few ideas:
Have all coaches walk catch one player after practice for 2 minutes to check in, chat, or even just joke around.
Text one player after each practice with an encouraging word.
Build connections on social media with your players.
Have small group meetings once a month (or even every other month) to get to know one another. Share your stories with each other.
With smaller teams, have individual meetings.
Here are some clips Dustin talking about how he ended up doing 1 on 1’s and how it transformed his coaching.
Implement put ups into practice and /or team meetings. Put ups formalize a way to teach athletes to affirm one another in a genuine way that takes less than one minute. Here is an example:
One time a semester, have your coaching staff write letters to your team thanking them for their work.
A somewhat fair criticism of this is that we are talking too much about building them up and not pushing them. We think they go hand in hand. For one, 98% of human beings appreciate being affirmed and building connection. Second, this builds the environment that promotes toughness as outlined in a previous post.
These are a few brief ideas and certainly not an all-inclusive list. Every team and organizational is different so try one thing that you think could fit your context. We encourage you to be creative on easy ways to create connection and relationships to promote an environment and system of CARE in your program!