Spare some change?

Week of 10/26/15 – Change and Turnaround

When it comes to leadership during a time of change, I have some relatable experiences that sit with me. I truly believe that times of change truly expose our critical thinking skills and values when it comes to how to deal with others. I think that people naturally reject change and try their best to avoid it at all costs. This is probably because people are most comfortable while experiencing balance and a predictable lifestyle. It is much easier for our bodies and minds to experience things that we are comfortable with. For this very reason, leading a change in an organizational structure can be one of the hardest things to do.

I think back to my experience as a youth sport director. There are many philosophies when it comes to athletics. No one is perfect but some have more validity than others. I will use ice hockey as my example. I started coaching ice hockey about four years ago. During this time, USA Hockey was undergoing a reinvention of their image and approach to youth development. They unveiled the American Development Model as a blueprint for youth sport development in ice hockey. The program was built upon the ideas of age appropriate training and long term athlete development. USA Hockey and the US Olympic Committee poured millions of dollars and a lot of time into the materials and research conducted. The outcome of the research was that we need to be introducing kids to specific activities during appropriate periods of their development. This is all backed up by current sport and medical research. This made perfect sense to me at the time and I couldn’t see any downside to implanting programs built upon the principles of the ADM. Was I ever wrong?

As you may know, there is a traditional coaching philosophy that focuses on physical and mental toughness, physical performance, and success. These elements take the form of a “win at all costs” coaching philosophy that does not take into account the physiological make-up of the athletes, the social and emotional development, or the implications that a negative role model will have on kids. We’ve all heard it before, a coach saying “you don’t deserve water. Water is for the weak.” Truly nonsensical stuff. In most places, this is the way things are still done today. Everybody coaching the way they were coached when they were kids. Well, when you try to institute a change in developmental philosophy, you can expect to get some push back from coaches like these. That is exactly what I experienced. I came into two programs and instituted the ADM for the first time. In both cases, the community was resistant to the change and questioned every little thing I was doing. Times like these really test your character and attitudes about change. It would be much easier to let things go on as they have been. If we truly believe that a change will make a different, than nothing can deter you from making that change. I truly believed in the benefits of the program I was instituting and needed to communicate these benefits to the community. This starts by educating key stake holders and gaining their support. Once I was able to gain the support of some of the coaches in the program, I utilized them as leaders who could share the same message I was passing along to the rest of the community.

This method really helps when dealing with difficult personalities. Some people just won’t accept the change and maintain a blindness to information that causes them to question whether or not a change is worthwhile. Eventually, these people find themselves in the minority and without much support. It is not about forcing ideas upon difficult individuals, but instead framing the message in a way that they can understand. Some people only understand a change when they are forced to. The next step of implementing change is to ensure its sustainability. I was able to achieve this by mobilizing those same leaders who supported me and placing them into leadership roles. Once they experienced the benefits of the program and fully understood how to orchestrate the program, they were capable of leading the program without me in the picture. Of course, I would still be involved to train more coaches, but these key leaders are the ones who will go on to promote the program moving forward