New Team, New Challenge, Where To Start?

New Team, New Challenge, Where To Start?

12/02/14

By Des Shaw

So I was chatting with a fellow coach about the potential of taking a managerial position with a field sports team. It would be a season long gig and I would have complete control of how things would be done. In the past I have held managerial roles and similar coaching roles but never had complete control or it was only for a short period and not enough time to make a significant impact. So he asked me where would I start and what approach would I take?? As any coach or manager will tell you, you’ve got a base of knowledge and experiences that have influenced you, lots of coaching resources and coaching mentors that you can draw ideas from but at the end of the day you have to filter through all of the above and develop your principles and coaching ideals from these.

So after a long reflection on this topic and I have come up with some areas, thoughts or principles which I feel are important to practice and establish when heading into a new coaching job or dressing room more to the point.

Take It All In

Take an opportunity to firstly ask questions, observe and listen. Get an idea for the club culture, strong characters, previous failings etc within the club itself. This will give you much needed information to make decisions later on.

Know Thyself

Think deeply about what your coaching principles, ethics, and expectations are. Examples of this would be ‘It’s all about development of the younger players’ or ‘Performance is key, not the result.’ It is crucial that you know these before you start as they will be the foundations on which your team are built.

‘To know thyself, is the beginning of wisdom.’ – Socrates

Stay True To Thyself

Once you have an idea of your principles and expectations, you need to stay true to yourself and to your coaching style and principles. Far too often coaches fall into the pitfall of mimicking other successful coaches. If you’re not a passionate, animated coach like Mourihno (Chealse FC) or Davy Fitzgearld (Clare Senior Hurling Manager) they don’t try to be, players will see through you and you will lose them and become less effective as a coach. Coach your way and be confident in your methods and beliefs. Repeat and emphasise these on a daily basis; it will take time for player buy in and an impact  to be made but stay the course and it will happen for you!

Be Professional, Be Accountable and the Driving Force at All Times

Conduct yourself in a professional manner at all times; be organised, be on time, finish what you start, never get personal, do what you say; all are good staples of being a professional coach. If things are sliding in the wrong direction, your accountable, it’s a reflection of your work as a coach. Always be enthusiastic and energetic, bring it each session. Players or athletes love an energetic coach, it motivates them and they will strive to do better and improve in an energetic and positive environment. You must be the driving force of this environment. 

Turn Them Who You Want Them to Be

Get back to basics from day one. Focus on game fundamentals or technique, strength and conditioning, good nutrition, scheduling of sessions, simple tactics and most of all discipline. Simple non-wavering standards of punctuality, honesty in absence, two-way communication (responding to texts or calls), respect for club representatives, coaches, fellow players, club’s equipment are all crucial for creating an environment or culture that you want.  

Always Follow Through

It vitally important to follow through with whatever you say, especially with regard to discipline. No deviations. Ever! Players will quickly lose respect for you and will begin to see through you and your idol threats. Never ever let any player be held to a different set of rules, it’s a bottomless hole that you will never dig yourself out of. Often you will be met with resistance by some players at the beginning but if you’re consistent they will begin to pull with you rather than against.

'Words are meaningless without intent and follow through.' - Unknown

Surgically Remove Any Cancerous Elements

I believe everybody can contribute to the team, but if there is a truly resistant person or contingent in your team, I suggest removing this, as I call it a ‘Cancerous Element’ from your coaching environment. These elements can hold some power or influence in the team and will only be detrimental to what you are trying to achieve if you allow them to sway others to their way of thinking. Often when your standards are high and kept high these people like to resist, will disagree with everything you do or say and more often than not eventually will leave the team on their own accord because they realise this is not for them.

Create a Great Environment

You control the environment your players are subject too, so make it:

POSITIVE - Encourage players regularly and be specific. Use positive language, emphasise strengths and work quietly on weaknesses. 
CHALLENGING - Challenge players with lots of decision making both as a team and as individuals. Small sides games are perfect for developing this.
THOUGHT PROVOKING – Create problems or situations and encourage them find the solutions. Don’t always tell them what you are looking for or what you wish they would do. You create better decision makers this way. 
FUN – Coaches often think that fun is for kids to keep them engaged and that everything has to be serious at adult level. Do you think adults don’t like to laugh and joke about too? So throw in fun games or exercises into your sessions, it will break up the mood from constantly being serious and it can be a great way to bring you and your team closer together.

Check out this good atricle I read The Power of Positive Coaching about the current superbowl champions Seattle Seahawks' head coach Pete Carroll's (pictured above) positive approach to coaching.

Monitor Them

Try to monitor your players over the duration of your time in the job. Fitness monitoring is the most common for coaches to use. Performing a barrage of standard fitness tests with your team which can easily be replicated at different stages of the season. This will provide an indication of their fitness levels progression or regressions. and is a great tool for any coach for decision making purposes i.e. team selections. It also enusres that each player in the program is developing at the rate that, you the coach want. Do not fall into the trap of testing for testing’s sake or worse test once or twice. Build up a repertoire of standard tests that you can use in the long run, these can be used in monitoring your current players but also for the rest of your career to reference back to.

One on Ones

Have one to one meetings with players. This should be done regularly and will provide you an opportunity to get to know your players more personally. Emotional Intelligence is often overlooked by coaches when dealing with players. Remember players are people first; they have problems, issues, good days and bad days like the rest of us. Showing them you care about them and their development is hugely important. They will play harder for you when they know you care about them. This is also a great opportunity for performance appraisals; use objective records, video footage etc so it gives you and them a clear indication of how they are performing. You have got to be honest and direct in your appraisal or it will be of no benefit to them. To often I find coaches avoid this or worse they only give their subjective opinions in their appraisals of players which can never give a true refelction of performance.

Delegate Work

If you have selectors, assistants or volunteers then delegate the workload to them especially for training sessions. A common mistake made by coaches is to try and do everything themselves; set up, warm up, take the session, look after the equipment, referee, hands on coaching, observe, motivate and the list goes on….Delegate as much of the less important stuff to assistants in order to free yourself up to provide more hands on coaching and also to give you more opportunities to just take a step back and observe.

Do Everything Better

Build on what was done before and do it better. Whatever was done by predecessors in the past, make sure and do it better and to a higher standard.  Don’t drop these standards ever and you will in time, see the rewards from it. This ethos can be instilled in the players, to 'Do everything better' and by holding them to these high standards this will increase your chances for success drastically.

Reputation Follows after You

Whether you’re an aspiring coach or a well known coach already, remember that your reputation follows you wherever you go. So what I mean is, build a good reputation for yourself and it follows you. A good reputation will lead to other job opportunities opening up for you. Always do your best to improve yourself and the team even when things are going bad. Becoming complacent or indifferent as a coach can damage your reputation; word of mouth and reputation are everything for a coach when securing future work, so always give your best effort or your reputation will suffer. Players are often told ‘you’re only as good as your last game’ to avoid complacency and same goes for coaching you’re only as good as your last job. Reputation is everything!

So these are a few areas which I feel are important for a coach to be aware of when beginning a new job. If you can practice and adhere to these principles I believe you will be on your way to having a productive and successful year. There are probably many more items you could include in this list but these are ones which I feel are most important. If you have any more or disagree with mine, leave me a comment I’m always open to debate. So If I do choose to take up this role or another role this season I hopefully will be able to report back in the future with additions or modifications to the list for you guys.

Do Everything Better!

Des Shaw