Vault: Effective Communication

You’re Doing Something Wrong If You Have To Ask For Loyalty

How do you develop loyalty when it doesn’t exist? How do you transform an organization’s or team’s culture? What things are loyalty killers? These questions are ongoing challenges for all of us who seek to move ourselves, our teams – and others – from good to great. The Godfather, Michael Corleone, built his empire on …

Your Team Culture Is Held In The Conversations

A newly minted friend in the US, William Sheldon, spoke about culture recently. He said, and I’m paraphrasing here, ‘culture is held (or staged) in conversations.‘ Culture is defined, and lived, in the way we talk about ourselves and each other; it’s found in our interactions. Think about that for a moment. Read it again… …

The Nature Of Memory

There’s a big difference, to me, between coaching-speak and athlete-speak. Similarly, between scientific babble and real-talk. All the stuff I wrote on neural pathways is classic science-talk. My apologies. I don’t enjoy writing or speaking like that. Allow me to rephrase. … In Made To Stick, they ask readers to give some thought to the …

Iconoclasts: Raising The Bar On Excellence

Sundance Channel has a great series called Iconoclasts. This is an original series that features “intimate, unpredictable portraits of creative visionaries whose passion for what they do has transformed our culture. Get an inside look at their lives from fellow creative pioneers and discover how their work has raised the bar on excellence.” That description …

TLC: You’ve Gotta Have Rhythm To Coach

It all starts with some TLC. Not tender loving care, that is, but knowing the difference between a teaching activity, learning activity and competing activity. Let me explain… TEACHING vs. LEARNING vs. COMPETING In order for a coaching staff to run more effective practices, coaches need to apply a little TLC. T = Teaching Activity …