What You Do to Yourself, You Do To The Team

Most of a coach’s job is made up of work that takes place when no one is watching in a stadium or on TV. It is done during practice and in locker rooms and away from the eyes of everyone but those on the team. The reason for this is simply because problems that arise during competition are typically technical problems, as Ronald Heifetz likes to call them. Meaning they can be solved quickly and assuredly, for example changing your defensive set up after giving up 4 touchdowns on Sunday Night Football. 

However, the most important challenges we face usually tend to be more adaptive challenges. It is these very challenges that a good coach lives for. They must solve a problem that doesn’t have a clear solution and it requires a high level of leadership. In college, my coach called these “teaching moments”. One of these specific teaching moments occurred multiple times during my college career when someone would show up late to a team function. We had a strict attendance policy that required every person to be 15 minutes early to every team meeting and on one of the few times someone was late the following phrase was uttered: 

“What you do to yourself, you do to the team.”

What this meant was that the punishment for breaking a team rule fell on the entirety of the team and not just that one individual. We would all have to run laps because of one person’s mistake. Now the problem of tardiness lies in the lack of respect and trust it instills in your fellow teammates and this is far from a technical issue. So a good coach enrolls the whole of the team to solve the issue by including them in the punishment and forcing them to increase a teammates behavior amongst themselves.

Most individuals would tend to feel guilty for involving their teammates in the punishment and if this takes place on a team with great culture, most teammates would undoubtedly encourage and inspire the individual to be better. Voila!! An adaptive challenge solved in an unconventional way that requires leadership from the coach on down to the captains and players of the team.

If you’re savvy enough to tie a catchy phrase to your coachable moment, then you have a lesson that will stay with your people for their entire life. Lasting change is the true mark of leadership and something we as coaches of fitness wish to install in our members.

Cheers to effective leadership.