Improving Communication

Coaching is communicating. To improve our coaching we must improve our communication daily. Here are a few thoughts on communication.

· Everything we do is a form of communication.
· 75% of marital problems are due to bad communication.

Why Communication is difficult?
· What you mean to say.
· What you actually say.
· What the other person hears.
· What the other person thinks he hears.
· What the other person says about what you said.
· What you think the other person said about what you said.

The Complete Message
· 55% is nonverbal
· 38% verbal
· 7% actual words

Joe Torre's 12 Keys To Managing

Joe Torre’s 12 Keys to Managing Team Players, Tough Bosses, Setbacks and Success

Key #4—Maintain Serenity
· Eliminate as many distractions as possible.
· There’s no avoiding pressure. It’s possible to be intense but not tense.

Five guidelines to help become more serene in your approach to your job

1. Focus on the Present
a. Hank Aaron said, “Each at-bat is a new day.” No matter what our line of work, we all endure slumps.
b. We can learn from past failures and mistakes, but we shouldn’t get stuck there.

2. Maintain Your Perspective
a. Sense of humor. Support of teammates. Knowledge of our abilities based on past performance. The realization that tomorrow is a chance to do better. These things make up the “big picture” viewpoint.
b. Struggling batters and pitchers benefit by learning from their mistakes. But they suffer from mistakes when they become so overwhelmed by self-doubt that they can’t stay focused enough to make useful changes in their approach.

3. Control What You Can, Let Go of the Rest
a. When you control what you can, you know you’ve done everything possible to succeed. That means hard work, total commitment, painstaking preparation, and squeezing every ounce of ability from yourself.

4. Feel the Fear, Succeed Anyway
a. Fear doesn’t have to destroy their ability to be patient, to make adjustments, to play with passion.
b. Our togetherness as a team reduces our stress levels, because we know we have one another’s support through the tough times.

5. Keep Your Cool
a. Challenge people without always having to raise your voice.
b. Practice patience in every endeavor.
c. Consistency yields calm: Don’t let yourself get too low over one defeat or too high over one victory.

"Why We Win"--Key Ingredients To Championship Team

“Why We Win”—Key Ingredients For Championship Teams

Ara Parseghian
· It’s good chemistry. It’s loyalty. It’s good personnel. A team will reflect the intensity of a coach.

Anson Dorrance
· There are several keys. One is to have a collective will. We had some teams with very average talent that collectively were just so overwhelming. That was the key. It’s tied into team chemistry, really. And tied into philosophy that we’ve sort of encouraged from the beginning—that concept of playing for each other. Playing for championships or titles is overrated. In my experience, teams aren’t motivated for championship games; they’re motivated for each other.

Joe Gibbs
· People. You don’t win with X’s and O’s. They’re needed. You’ve got to be good at it, but you don’t win with it. You win with people.

Chuck Noll
· People. You can’t do it without talent. You have to have talented players who are good people. Attitude is the thing that separates people by far. You have to be ready to work together.

Tommy Lasorda
· A championship team is when you have a team who will play for the name on the front of the jersey and not for the one on the back.

Sparky Anderson
· It’s the players. If you have good players, you’re going to have good teams. Even if you’re not there. But if you are a good coach at any level, it’s what you do with that good personnel and how you keep them focused to play.

Dan Gable
· You have a championship team when everybody is contributing close to what they’re capable of contributing. When you have a group of individuals clicking for what they need, and still understanding the total team concept, then you’re going to have a championship team.

Bill Walsh
· It’s the day-to-day hard work, and making sure everyone is working for the same single purpose.

Joe Paterno
· The expectancy. The key ingredient is to plan for it.