One of the frustrations that I have as a Coach/AD is that there are times when I feel like I have no clue what is going on in some of our programs. 
I try hard to get to as many games and practices as I can but as I’m coaching my own program, and I have three young kids, there are only so many opportunities to connect with coaches and athletes.
The other frustration that I have is that some coaches can be very, uh, needy, I think is the word. If you let them, coaches can create a lot of work for the Athletic Director or Administrative Assistant. Whether it be last minute flowers for moms on Senior Night, or submitting results to the newspaper, some coaches need help, helping themselves.
Last school year, I read the short business classic, The One Minute Manager. The book is a short parable that teaches three management techniques: one minute goals, praisings and redirects (or reprimands in the original version). Here is a quick YouTube video that gives a pretty good rundown on the book:
After reading this book, I realized that using one minute goals could be an effective means to accomplish several outcomes:
- Provide a framework for coaches to address our department core values or their program’s core values
- Check in with coaches so you have a better idea of what is going on in the program and what coaches are doing to address ongoing issues
- Help coaches solve their own problems
- Creates objective criteria for end of the year evaluations – it helps you support your coaches in my opinion.
How we go about doing this is that I ask our coaches to analyze their program and select three issues that they would like to address in order to improve their program. These issues can be problems, something related to core values, weaknesses in the program, scheme related, etc. Once they identify those three issues, I ask them to come up with an action plan for addressing those issues or accomplishing their goals. I then schedule a weekly walkthrough, walk and talk, meeting, etc., with each coach so I can check in on their progress.
The important thing here is to be INTENTIONAL with your one minute meetings. If I have four winter sports (Boys Basketball, Girls Basketball, Wrestling and Swimming) I would try to do one a day around the same time for each sport, each week. This is tough to do for walk-on coaches so scheduling a weekly drop-in prior to practice might be necessary.
I plan on writing a separate post on Gabrielle Oettingen’s book Rethinking Positive Thinking but I think it would be wise to discuss her goal system of W.O.O.P:
- Wish – What do you want to see in your life personally or professionally? Imagine something challenging yet feasible in a day, week, month or year.
- Outcome – What is the #1 benefit you would experience as a result?
- Obstacle – What obstacle stands in the way of you achieving that wish.
- Plan – What can you do to get around the obstacle? What is the #1 most effective thing you could do?
There is compelling research that supports why the above is much more effective than just a goal by itself but I’ll save that for another post. In any case I would suggest coming up with some sort of template for an action plan that your coaches can follow.
Whether you use this method or if you have another way to help coaches set goals and work toward achieving them, it is important that you have a habit loop built so that you will be intentional about checking in with them. As I mentioned earlier, I like to try and schedule this on a set time and day of the week so that I know on Wednesdays, I go by the locker room 10 minutes before the end of 5th period.
This coming year is the first time that we will have implemented this system across the entire athletic department and I’m excited to share what I learn from this “beta” version. As I begin to get feedback and start squashing some bugs (technical bugs), I’ll be sure to update the blog with our experience.
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