Two very different sailing teams but both there to do the same job. Artemis (left) was making the early running in Bermuda with six weeks left to go while Dennis Conner and Stars&Stripes (above) have already got the job done as they ferry family and friends back in from the racecourse in Fremantle after crushing Australia’s America’s Cup defender Kookaburra four-nil in 1987
Like the line from Cool Hand Luke, what we have here is a failure to communicate. It’s not the message we coaches and bosses have wrong, it’s the delivery. So, to improve the delivery, I offer this: 1. Build the trust. The top-down coaching has been replaced by one-to-one coaching. 2. If you want to get the best from players as individuals you need to build that relationship of trust with each and every one of them. 3. Don’t just give orders. You have to sell them. Look, I grew up on military bases, son of a U-boat commander. I understand (and believe in) doing what you’re told! But today you’re going to have to sell your lessons, not just give orders. 4. Lots of tricks, like starting with ‘I have got something that should help you’, before you share your experience and wisdom. 5. And not standing or sitting face to face when you have a discus- sion. Stand side by side, looking in the same direction – this makes it a lot easier to see the path forward together. 6. Be upbeat and positive, not like the legendary hard-nosed coaches of the 1980s. More and more we will be dealing with the here and now generation, not the nose-to-the-grindstone one. 7. ‘Email is shit’. Mr Bertelli told us this during the 2000 Prada programme. Little did we accept it at the time, but he was right, at least to a point.
Email lessons 1. Pick up the phone not the keyboard. Better yet, go see them. Spoken words build the relationship a whole lot better. Email is a last resort. 2. Less is more. Anything that takes more than 15 seconds to read has little chance of making an impact. Any report should be in an attachment, and you better push the self-interest button if it’s going to get a read. 3. If you are looking for a response, you had better ask for it. Find the self-interest. Ask him, in one of those side-by-side chats. Channel it and show him the path that works for him (and for the team). Later, check in with him on how it’s going. Check in every month or so. If you conclude his motivation is money, drop him and let gravity do its thing.
Don’t get me wrong, I am not suggesting team members can do what they want. Nope! Not on that page at all – teams and businesses need structure and focus. When ‘you don’t even know what you don’t know’, individual talent will only get you so far. In the coming years that message will have to delivered to the Millennials in more creative ways.
It’s just one part of coaching, setting the environment we can
coach, so we can pass on the knowledge and experience. Might be the hardest stage because we are trained and hell bent on the traditional stereotype of coaching. Of telling them what to do and how to do it, just to get frustrated when they don’t listen. It’s like the cart before the horse.
It’s not easy to get the best out of individuals who make up your team. That is your challenge, your self-interest. Because when you do you also get the best out of yourself. And thus your team.
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www.tylaska.com SEAHORSE 29
GILLES MARTIN-RAGET
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