Team Coaches are always looking for great team building strategies.  Well, recent research shows us that “reaching out and touching someone” goes along way in creating great team chemistry.

The fist bump, the high five, a quick hug or even the Bryan Brothers famous chest bump – are all powerful forms of non-verbal communication used by high performing teams.

Scientist at UC Berkeley recently analyzed physical interactions among every team in the NBA.  Michael Kraus led a research team that observed and coded every high five, hug and bump in a single game played by each NBA team early last season.  Basically, they found:

“With few exceptions, good teams tended to be touchier than bad ones.  The most touch bonded teams were the Boston Celtics and the LA Lakers … and at the bottom were the mediocre Sacramento Kings and the Charlotte Bobcats.  The same was true, more or less, for players.  The touchiest player was Kevin Garnett, followed by Chris Bosh and Carlos Boozer.”

The study corrected for the possibility that the better teams touch more simply because they were winning.  They found “Players who made contact with teammates most consistently and longest tended to rate highest on measures of performance, and the teams with those players seemed to get the most out of their talent”.

If you’d like to hear more about building team chemistry from one of today’s coaching masters, Phil Jackson, click here to listen to PCA’s Jim Thompson’s recent interview for Liberty Mutuals Responsible Sports series.

Coaches wear many hats – teacher, counselor, administrator, fundraiser etc. A daunting coaching challenge is to balance one’s focus on the big picture of the program with implementing the important daily details.  Yet striving for “stress free productivity” is critical for long-term success on and off the playing field.

David Allen’s Getting Things Done is a brilliant system.  It works yet it takes some time to get comfortable with implementing it.  Here are the 5 phases of Allen’s system.

1.  Collect.  Capture all the stuff that has your attention.  Carry a simple, portable, easy-to-use tool for capture — a small notebook, PDA or small stack of index cards.  Keep it simple and make it something you will use. Write down any tasks, ideas, projects, or other information that pop into your head. Get it out of your head and onto paper, so you don’t forget it.  At the end of the day put these notes into your desktop inbox for processing.

2.  Process.  Make quick decisions on the stuff you’ve collected.  Process your capture tool (from #1) and all other “inboxes” (email, voicemail, desktop inbox) at least once a day.  Look at each item (once) and do it (if it takes 2 minutes or less), trash it, delegate it, file it, or put it on your to-do list or calendar to do later.

3.  Organize. Once you’ve processed it – find a place for everything. Put things where they belong, right away, instead of piling them up to sort later. This keeps your desk clear so you can focus on your work.

From your inbox, stuff goes onto a list, into an action folder, or in a file in your filing system, in your outbox if you’re going to delegate it, or in the trash.

Keep this part simple.  Create a simple trusted organizing system.  Keep simple lists and add sub-categories by action if it helps you:  in the office, calls to make, on computer, errands etc.

4.  Review. Look at your lists and your calendar each day. Create a customized weekly review to clean up, update, maintain and improve your systems.

Regularly review the bigger picture.  Allen provides the following framework and timeframe for reviewing your various priorities:

• Runway Level – current actions (daily)
• 10,000’ Level – current projects (weekly)
• 20,000’ Level – current responsibilities (monthly)
• 30,000’ Level – 1 to 2 year goals (quarterly)
• 40,000’ Level – 3 to 5 year goals (annually)
• 50,000’ Level – career, purpose, lifestyle (annually+)

5.  Do. Make choices about what to do in the moment based upon where you are (office, commute, road), how much time you have, how much energy you have and your priorities.  Once you decide, focus on the task at hand.

For more on David Allen and Getting Things Done go to www.davidco.com.  To download a free copy of his workflow diagram, go to “products”, then to “free articles” and finally to “workflow diagram.

The question coaches ask a lot  is “How can I motivate my players?” The answer to this is twofold. First, it’s time that coaches STOP TRYING to motivate their players and start helping athletes CONNECT to their own motivation. Second, when coaches foster the right mindset, a growth mindset, in their athletes, then commitment and motivation will automatically show up without having to force it.

I’ve read Carol Dweck’s book Mindset: The New Psychology for Success and I recently participated in a talk she gave to Positive Coaching Alliance trainers.  Dweck’s research on fixed mindset and growth mindset is essential for every coach to understand. To summarize, a fixed mindset reflects a belief that talent is inherent and cannot be altered—meaning we have fixed abilities, be they athletic, academic, artistic, musical, etc. A growth mindset involves a belief that you can develop talent—that talent is not fixed. Typically athletes with a fixed mindset tend to fear real challenges. Competition is seen as a threat as it “measures” an innate ability that they are powerless to change.

On the other hand, athletes with a growth mindset welcome challenge. Effort, learning and confronting mistakes is inherent in their framework. Someone else’s growth and improvement presents an opportunity and not a threat.  They are empowered by the belief that they can work hard every day to develop their talents and maximize their own potential. Losing is an opportunity to learn and is therefore not a failure at all.

What does all this mean for coaches?  How can we make sure our athletes remain learners with a growth mindset?  Here are a few ideas:

• Watch your language!  Our words tell our athletes what we believe and what we value.  Praise effort, persistence in the face of set backs, learning, improving, strategy, choosing a difficult task, focus, overcoming obstacles etc.
• Present your staff as mentors in your athletes learning process
• Learn, teach and talk about how the brain works.  Let your athletes know that effort and learning increase the number of neurological connections in their brain.  This is what makes them better, smarter.  Check out Dr. Dweck’s site www.brainology.us – she calls it “the owner’s manual for the brain.”
• Read Dr. Dweck’s book Mindset: The New Psychology for Success.

If you had a “magic wand” and could have your program look anyway you wanted, what would it look like?  This wand is special and designed to give you exactly what you want – so be specific!

I originally learned this concept as “begin with the end in mind” from Stephen Covey’s book the 7 Habits of Highly Successful People.”  Now that I have kids, it’s all about magic wands and super heros!

Life is constantly changing and challenging us.  Around every corner is yet another problem, issue or concern.  We often look backwards for a solution.  We ask, “How did I handle this situation before?  Will that work again?  How can I improve on what I did before?”  Unfortunately, this approach often gets us more of the same – just a slightly different flavor or color!

Remember – if you always do what you’ve always done, you will always get what you’ve always gotten!  Not sure where this came from yet it pretty much sums up sports psychology!

Time for the wand!  You can have exactly what you want.  Start to look at your program this way.  There are no limits.

Clarity of vision is crucial to team success.  Once you have a clear picture of what you want, then you can put together a plan for achieving it.  Spend some time now (in the off season) and get clear on what you want in your program.  Be specific.

Create what you want this season.  Be open minded.  Ask lots of questions – like “What else do I want?”  Breakthroughs come from questions not answers!

Once you are clear – share it with other.  The more you put your vision out there (to assistants, administrators, players, parents etc) the more real it becomes.

So speak your vision to anyone who will listen!

Unfortunately, button pushers get a bad rap.  They’re considered rude, inconsiderate, disrespectful, intrusive, self-absorbed and insensitive. They are the difficult people in life.  Teachers send them to the principals office, coaches pull their hair out and bosses fire them.

I see it differently.  I believe my job as a coach, partner and a parent is to push buttons and to welcome my buttons being pushed.  Why?  I’ve found that the best at anything – sports, public speaking, sales or surgery, have the fewest buttons and the ones they have are really hard to find.

Attempting to protect athletes or ourselves from button pushers is to do them (and you) a disservice.  Our competitors are all about to pushing our buttons.  The more buttons we discover within ourselves and the more we learn how to manage them, the better we will be under pressure.

So how do you know a button has been pushed?  Here are some classic signs:

• Getting angry and upset at someone’s behavior.
• Feeling annoyed by something.
• Feeling taken advantage of
• Being rebuffed, spurned, made fun of or humiliated
• Feeling unappreciated, unimportant or devalued
• Feeling falsely or unfairly accused

Typically when one of our buttons get pushed it send us down an unwelcome path of anger, hurt or withdrawal.  Unfortunately these patterns do not allow us to learn about ourselves.  Remember, when a button gets pushed – you’ve just discovered another area for growth.  So instead of reacting when a button gets pushed, stop, breathe and reflect.  Stay calm – do not get angry or yell.  Cool off before you say anything.