by Tyler Brandt, National Recruiting Coordinator
How often do you agree with a person who comes up with a solution to a problem that lands outside of your value system? It’s easy to say you are open to change and finding solutions, but that is often internally loaded with the condition that the solution fits within your concept of logical.
I have a coaching colleague of 20 years that is at the polar opposite of my political beliefs. We have great public Facebook banter discussing the reasonable acquiescence of the other side’s party to the beliefs of the warring faction. We don’t ever get anywhere because we both are looking at the issues from our perceived positions of logic that are constrained to our personal paradigms.
The question standing before you as a coach attempting to lead your athletes and team to the pinnacle of success is…….
Can you really see the most logical solutions to your program’s problems – without a shift in your personal paradigm?
What does this really mean to you as a coach? When people start talking about paradigm shifts everyone gets uneasy because they feel as if they are being told they are doing things incorrectly and ARE WRONG! This couldn’t be further from the truth. A paradigm shift is not accepting you’re wrong and someone else is right, it is accepting that there are multiple ways to attack a problem and be successful.
The problem that we as coaches often face is that we come across a problem and intentionally address it in-house because that’s our nature. “What happens in the locker room stays in the locker room” which is ok for things that happen in the locker room. However, when it comes to recruiting or logistics or budgets or any number of other things, it is not always conceivable to ONLY call upon your personal knowledge to attempt to affect a challenge in your own program. Generally speaking, whatever the challenge is – wouldn’t be a challenge if you had the knowledge, awareness or experience to keep it from becoming a challenge in the first place. Now that it is a challenge is it LOGICAL to assume that you have the wherewithal to address it?
The greatest leaders understand they are only one mind and a collective group of thought leaders or change agents will be infinitely more equipped to come up with a best practice for any challenge that arises. Why do we go to clinics or watch videos? As coaches we are looking for ways to improve what we do for our athletes and our teams. So often we need an outside set of eyes to view what we are completely invested in to get an unbiased, “COMPLETELY LOGICAL”, understanding of the problem so the best solution can be obtained, not the best solution I can come up with.
The only thing you will be accused of by going to an outside source or consultant is being incredibly smart. When you shift your paradigm to thinking that “I need someone to look at this to see if they see what I see” then you are on your way to absolute greatness!