Latest / Momentum Sessions / You Don’t Want Compliance. You Want Ownership. | Carol Hutchins

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You Don’t Want Compliance. You Want Ownership. | Carol Hutchins · Momentum Sessions

• 0:02
  SPEAKER_01: I thought I was just supposed to teach them how to play softball.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_01: I was all about winning games and pushing our kids to get better.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_01: By the last time I ever coached a game, I realized that the game isn't the point.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_01: It's a vehicle to grow young people up.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_01: Sports is education.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_01: It's the finest classroom on campus.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_01: I maintain to this day.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_00: We are honored to be joined by Carol Hutch Hutchins, the legendary former head softball coach of the University of Michigan and the winningest coach in NCAA softball history.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: I've got the down after 39 seasons.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: Is that correct, Coach?
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_01: 39 total.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_01: I had one year at Ferris State College, so I guess that would be correct.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_01: 39 is a head.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: So across 39 seasons, Coach Hutch built one of the most successful and enduring programs in college sports.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: Today, though, we want to go beyond the winds and explore how she built a culture that athletes felt responsible for, how standards became behaviors, teammates held each other accountable and players learned to put the team first.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: Coach Hutch, thank you so much for joining us.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: After 39 seasons, what did you understand about building a team in maybe your final few years that you maybe didn't understand when you first started?
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_01: Well, first of all, thanks for having me.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I love to talk about this stuff.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_01: I'm here to say that my first five years as a head coach, my second five years, you you're continually evolving.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_01: And if you're not evolving, you're you're you really should be done because you evolve all the way till the last moment.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_01: You're the leader of, well, I think of any organization.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_01: And um there's no question that when you start coaching as a young coach, and I became the head coach at Michigan after just a couple years of being an assistant, I thought I was just supposed to teach them how to play softball and how to, you know, we were here to win games.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_01: I was all about winning games and pushing our kids to get better.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_01: Um and by the last time I ever coached a game, I realized it the game isn't the point.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it we use it, it's a vehicle to grow young people up.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_01: Sports is education, it's the finest classroom on campus.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_01: I maintain to this day.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_01: The things that you learn by being an athlete and going through the hard and how you grow and stretch yourself is uh what good coaches should and are usually doing.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but I was just listening to a a podcast, and you know, it's all about connecting with your kids.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_01: You've got to be connected to them, you've got to build trust, and people talk about it all the time, but you can't throw your resume at them.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_01: You can't say, Well, I've won a national championship, trust me, because that didn't work after we won the championship and years later.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_01: The kids would come to Michigan because they knew we had a championship program, but building their trust took them getting to know me, but more importantly, me getting to know them and what makes each of them tick.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_01: And um, being connected to your people is one of the core tenets of leadership.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: Connection, a big part.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: Was there a particular team or experience that fundamentally changed how you thought about culture?
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think of it as a like a big uh light bulb moment.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_01: Um I think I realized over the years I was I did become very connected to my teams.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think in my very early years I would say I was as much.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_01: But I am a people person.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_01: I I coach from my gut instinct more than any other um software.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_01: And um I did have a connection with people.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_01: I tend to connect with people, and I just learned to let that to go with it.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_01: And I started having a lot of fun with our kids, and I will say, because a colleague said to me, Well, you can have fun, you win.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_01: And I said, thought to myself, maybe we win because we have fun.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_01: And whether it's teasing kids and getting to their core, helping them lighten up, um, laughing with them right after I got done blowing them up or yelling at them.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, my kids that come back and we they all come back.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, we have really our reunions are the highlight of my life when all those kids come back and they all come to my house.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_01: Uh they were all here.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_01: I said, I'm gonna move.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_01: You guys, how do you keep finding me?
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I haven't moved in a long time.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_01: But it it just makes me so happy that they when they come back, they want to be, they want to reconnect.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_01: And we talk about old times and we talk about other stories like when I drove the van, and of course I was a terrible driver, and how I'd be mad and drive off the road and stuff.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_01: And um honestly, we don't ever talk about the games unless something funny happened in the game.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_01: It's about their memories and their experience, but their experience was being a team, and we were part of it.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_01: The coaches are part of the team.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_01: We're part of it, we're integral part, but we are just as much a part as the shortstop, the pitcher, the bullpen catcher.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_01: We're all a part of the team.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: And I love that you said that the the team, the team, the team is a powerful idea, but slogans maybe don't automatically change behavior.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: What did putting the team first actually look like at Michigan?
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_01: I learned everything I need to know about Michigan.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_01: Not everything, but most of what I learned about Michigan, I learned from two guys, Bo Shem Beckler and Lloyd Carr.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_01: And I listened to everything they talked about.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_01: I listened to their press conferences, I read all their quotes, and I was very fortunate because I got to know both of them.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_01: And Bo much more so after he retired.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_01: But Lloyd was a very accessible head football coach and a true, and I mean just a true gentleman of life.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_01: I couldn't admire anybody more.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_01: And um, but Bo did, he talked about the team, and everything you do is a reflection of Michigan softball or Michigan football or Michigan whatever.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_01: And I had a couple core tenants when you came into the program, and your number one goal is to leave this program better, and that means everybody comes in and gives.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_01: Doesn't mean they necessarily win more games because after 05 and we won the championship, how are we going to be better than that?
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_01: But it's there, it's a sense of duty, and I believe strongly in a sense of you have a duty to this program, and you always represent the block M.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_01: You don't get to take it off after practice and go not be a Michigan woman.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_01: You're always a Michigan woman, it's 24-7.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_01: And if you don't like that, and kids would say, Well, that's not fair.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, there I want to be a regular student on the weekend, and I want to do this, and I want to be in a sorority.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_01: Like, you can do that.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_01: You can do all that.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_01: You just can't wear the block M and play softball.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_01: You have an obligation to a program, and it's a tremendous privilege.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_01: And it's not everybody's right, even though I recruited you, maybe I gave you a scholarship, but it's not your right.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_01: It is a privilege, you earn it, and you have to always earn it.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, that was the core basis of our program.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_01: And when kids, they're kids, so they're gonna fall off the balance beam, you know?
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_01: And they just understand the one thing I learned early in life, because my dad was a cop and he was a Marine.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_01: You know what?
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_01: You do have behaviors, you don't always do what you're supposed to do, but there's consequences, and we hold people accountable, we hold everybody to the same standards, and you have to have clear standards.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_01: You can't have a list of 30 different things.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, standards are the behaviors that you want your people to follow.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_01: And when they don't, there has to be some type of consequence so that they learn how to do it and it becomes a part of them.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: What were the small, maybe everyday behaviors that told you a player truly understood the standard?
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_01: Honestly, I'd sat in a lot of press conferences, you know, the last you know, half of my career, we became a TV sport.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, I would sit at the podium with my student athletes and listen to what they said.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_01: And I get chills just remembering it.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_01: And they they represented the program, but they they were buying into these were usually our star players, the ones that go to the press conferences, but they meant what they said.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_01: And I'll give you an example.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_01: My favorite quote of all the great quotes these kids have had over the years, and it was after we won the whole thing, and they looked, you know, we're in front of the whole ESPN interview room, and they asked my starting shortstop, who is from the state of Michigan, and she's now the associate head coach at Stanford, um, they asked her if this was her greatest moment, which I'm like, that's a dumb question, right?
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_01: But she said no.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_01: And I looked down the, I'm like, what?
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_01: What is she gonna say?
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_01: And she said, putting on my Michigan jersey every day is my greatest moment.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_01: And I thought that summed it up.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_01: That's how our kids felt.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_01: And probably not every single kid, but Lloyd taught me a long time ago, you're not gonna, you're not gonna get a hundred percent buy-in.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_01: Don't spend your time on it.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_01: But you gotta get you gotta get the majority because everybody else will just follow suit.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, he was right.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_00: In terms of creating um athlete ownership, a lot of the coaches on this call, that's a popular thing is how do I get more buy-in, more ownership?
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_00: You just kind of mentioned the buy-in part.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_00: What would you see or hear that made you think, wow, this team really has kind of taken ownership of this culture?
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_01: Kids holding each other accountable because when I walk out of the locker room, you know, what happens then?
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_01: And what happens on Friday night when they're they have the weekend off?
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_01: And um, you know, the very first time we get to town, we'd always have a big gathering and uh cookout, and actually we take the kids out to a boosters lake, and they just we all get to know each other, get to know our new team, get to know the parents.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_01: And then I always sat them down and just the team, and I said, you know, and it was always the first weekend on campus, school hadn't started yet, which terrified me.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_01: And we got all these freshmen, and we don't know, they're on college, they've never been away from home like this, they've never had such freedom.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_01: Take care of each other.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_01: You are not to go anywhere this weekend with the freshmen and leave them behind.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't care if they don't want to go with you, you grab them and you get them home.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_01: And we we learned to take care of each other, and our kids were really good at it.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, over the years, they took care of each other.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_01: Um, they didn't always have to like each other, but they had to love the program.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_01: And um, you know, we start by taking care of each other.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_01: And when the kids take, you know, I had I've had a couple kids over the years that didn't take care of something, and I ended up going up to the hospital to take care of it all.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_01: And there were consequences for that.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_01: It was not acceptable for our team captains to leave kids behind, and bad stuff happens, and that team ended up overachieving because they paid severe consequences for their lack of leadership and um not taking care of the program.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_01: And it's kind of like old folk folklore in our program.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_01: Teams 10 and 20 years later have heard of this, so um, I guess that's part of it.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_00: And then that accountability piece, how do you kind of teach athletes to hold one another accountable in more of a positive way, also?
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and you want them to, you want going to the coach with bad behavior, like the kid who doesn't go to her class.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_01: And our kids know that's not not cool and it's not acceptable.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, they'll come to me, I say, Well, this is what I think you ought to do.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_01: And I I'm I'm a mentor.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_01: I think you ought to give them a chance to rectify themselves and say, I'm not going to the coaches, but if you continue this behavior, I'm telling you that will be what we need to do.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_01: And um, you know, and be square with them.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_01: Like you're representing our program, and if you get in trouble and get suspended for a game, it affects our team.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_01: This isn't just your gig.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_01: And um, so I think us mentoring them with how to approach kids, and I put together over the years several, you know, we had team captains, we had leadership councils, and meeting with the leadership of each um class.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_01: So we'd have a representation from freshmen, sophomore, juniors, and seniors, and meet with them and just kind of hear what's going on.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_01: And they would they would confide in me certain things and um things that I think I have to handle, obviously, but um there are times when they have to learn to do it and that you know and how to approach a kid who's very unapproachable.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_01: And but more than anything, they have to build the trust of their teammates as well.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_01: You can't just walk up to them when they are um not doing things right and get in their face.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_01: You gotta talk to them in the locker room, you gotta ask them how their class was, you gotta inquire when they seem they're they just don't seem like they're happy or they're having a bad day.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_01: You have to be that that kind of teammate always.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_01: You have to be about your team.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_00: Goes back to that connection piece, laying the groundwork on that, and that kind of builds from there.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_00: How do you respond?
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_00: How did you respond when a talented player wasn't living up to the standard?
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_01: Depending on what what the case was, if they if there had to be a consequence, there was.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um if I just had to set them straight, and you know, to quote Bo, you're held to a higher standard than anybody else when you're the when you're the head coach, when you're the team captain, when you're the star player, because you are the benchmark, and people are gonna follow what you do because you have this status that you have because of your God-given talent, but it's your character and your integrity, which are measurable and improvable, and you have to take that responsibility seriously because you play in this program and we hold you to it.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_00: And in terms of you talked about choosing captains and having that, what did you look for when you were choosing captains?
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_00: And did your best leaders always have that you know specific title?
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I didn't actually choose them.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_01: I the whole team would vote on them.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_01: I was one of the voters and could probably be a tiebreaker.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_01: My all of our coaches voted, and all of our players voted.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_01: And for years we just would vote, you know, everybody throw in a ballot, and you know, whoever got the most, and we had kind of a you had to get a certain percentage.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_01: I don't recall what it was, but um usually I felt, but then I changed that format.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_01: But I did find that usually the people that I would have selected were selected, and we usually we didn't do it early in the year, we did it after we'd been in fall ball for almost the entire fall.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_01: We didn't have a team captain until the kids had been around each other long enough to know who was genuinely gonna lead and lead in the right way.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_01: But then after I did this, started doing it later in my career.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_01: I decided that I didn't think everybody should just vote for somebody.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_01: And I said, if you are interested in being the captain, you have, and I'd give them a deadline to put your name into the group email, and you get two sentences to explain why you're gonna run for captain.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_01: They were gonna run for it.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_01: And then we would take those people and I would give them an interview in front of a whole team where they would stand before the team and basically talk to the entire group in the room, put themselves out there about why they could and should be the captain.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_01: But I give them a limited time.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_01: I found that it created more of an ownership with with the kids who wanted to lead.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_01: And more than anything, if they stood in front of that room and said a bunch of stuff that they had not been doing consistently, everybody in the room knew it.
• 17:06
  unknown: Yeah.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_01: So that that was how we selected it.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_01: And I did, I really liked that process because it gave people uh a little more of an initiative to really think about this, not a popularity contest.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_00: What were some of the questions you would ask them in front of the group?
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't actually ask them, I let them get up there and tell us whatever they wanted to tell.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_01: I wanted to hear what they had to say.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_01: And some kids were really good at identifying their responsibilities that they would have as a captain because really they needed to talk about how we're gonna how we're gonna go from here to there.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_01: But um, and some kids got up there and just talked like it was a popularity contest.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_01: They didn't get they didn't get voted.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but no, I didn't ask the questions.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_01: My job was then to take what the kids that were voted and and then mentor that.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_00: For the coaches that are on this call, sometimes I've noticed they the a coach will talk about that.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um, they've got a culture that kind of where leadership isn't cool and kids don't really want to step up.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, how do you how do you start to make that shift where they get to practice some of these leadership things that actually becomes something cool, a way to serve beyond yourself?
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, how do you start kind of that motion of shifting that thought?
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I I think it is tough because kids don't like to do the hard and they don't like to be unpopular.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_01: They want everybody to like them.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, think of all the likes they get and don't get on social media, and it really um is part of the the deal, and more so than ever, and I'm sure today's world.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_01: But it it still comes back to um what we're doing, which is we're we have this unique and enormous privilege to be a Michigan student athlete, and getting kids to really understand that what's cool is leaving this program better, and what's cool, they like to win.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_01: And this is part of how you can become a great team, and great teams with great culture win more than great teams, players, great talent with no culture or little culture.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_01: Because if you don't have culture, the number one thing you do when you take a new job, ahead in softball, football, you got to change the culture.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_01: You gotta improve the culture, whatever needs happening.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_01: But culture is your number one um, it's your number one responsibility as a as a leader of whether I'm gonna take over um corporate headquarters of CEO of something, you know, we're gonna get a new athletic director.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_01: They have to come in and assess what is the culture of this department, and um that's what you do.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_01: And the culture starts at the top.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_00: And how do you develop athletes that you know aren't really naturally vocal or they're pretty much just want to be quiet and maybe a little bit reserved for their own?
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_00: How do you handle that specific case?
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I specifically uh I had a shortstop a few years ago, and uh, she's a quiet kid, really reserved, probably not you know at the parties, but she was pretty reserved, kid.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_01: And I couldn't get her to call.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_01: Like I'm a real adamant about if if you're gonna catch the ball, you yell ball, ball, ball, so everybody gets out of the way.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_01: And if you want the ball thrown to second base, you yell two, two, two, three times loud, louder, louder.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_01: I couldn't get her to do it.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_01: And I finally said, then you listen, she goes, it's just not me.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, you know what?
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_01: This isn't me.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_01: This isn't you don't get to be me.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_01: The duty of your position at shortstop is to be a vocal leader on the field.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_01: And if you can't do that, you don't get to be the shortstop.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_01: It's your duty.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_01: And it she got better at it.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_01: She got a lot better.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_01: So I believe that's how you have to roll.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_01: It doesn't mean you have to threaten punitive action with everybody.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_01: I had a kid come in the meeting, she had her hat on backwards, and she's slumping, and I go, everybody sit up straight, hats off.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know if you can do that anymore, but it wasn't that long ago.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_01: But no, this is we're in a meeting, and I want everybody's attention.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_01: I want everybody to look me in the eye, and I want I'm gonna look you in the eye.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_01: But you don't get to come in and it's it's not your your terms, it's not your personal standards.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_01: You have to adhere to the standards of the program.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_00: The buzzword right now, I feel like, is player-led team.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um, what do coaches maybe misunderstand when they say they want a player-led team?
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_01: A fellow I follow talks about it.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_01: If it has to be, if if if they just comply, like these are the rules.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_01: Show up on time and all the rules that you set.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_01: You don't want compliance.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_01: Compliance, like right in the middle of the spectrum.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_01: You want ownership.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: And getting and how to get that with your team is is not exactly a science, I can tell you.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_01: Um it's I think coaching is an art anyway.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_01: But um you want kids who want what you want, like I want to win.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_01: I want you to be good at what you do.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_01: You're the shortstop, you're a hitter.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_01: I'm always pushing you to be great, which who cares what I want.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_01: It's not about me.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_01: And unless you really are invested in that, you're never gonna be great because I can only get you to a certain point.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_01: And the rest of it, the great players, they don't need a coach to coach them in ownership.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_01: They're invested in it, they're the ones who come in early, they stay extra.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_01: Used to walk into the hitting building on Monday morning Monday afternoons, probably.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_01: We've been playing all weekend.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_01: Sierra Romero, the greatest player of all the great players I've had.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_01: She's four-time All-American, was the national player of the year.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_01: She's one of the top five in the NCAA in career statistics to this day.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_01: And she'd be in there with her ear pods on and hitting by herself, which a lot of kids do.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_01: But she because she only hit 500 on the weekend.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_01: If she was below 500, she was in there.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_01: And I didn't have to tell her to do that.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_01: We recommend it to all kids.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_01: You get the building, you can get into it.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_01: We recommend you work on your own.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_01: But you go in there and say you worked, or you can go in there and work on what you're not good at.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_01: Those are two different things.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_01: And um, there's only a getting kids to learn that if you're waiting for me to put you in the lineup, you're never going in the lineup.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_01: I don't put you in the lineup.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_00: If a coach wants athletes to take more ownership beginning tomorrow, what is one responsibility maybe you would encourage that coach to hand over to the team to start to build that ownership potentially?
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_01: Giving them some say-so, you know, we started letting them create some of our team, you know, standards.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_01: We'd be and then we'd have little groups and they'd come back with standards, and um it was all the same stuff we'd been doing for years, but now they were saying it.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_01: And they they were figuring out, well, what does it take?
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_01: What are going to be the issues that we could deal with in a season?
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_01: What are what are what can we do about it?
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_01: And they would set some of their own, you know, standards and goals.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_01: And then again, holding them accountable to it and holding each other, I think, is very difficult for that age group.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_01: They do it, but you have to do it consistently.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_01: You can't do things some of the time and say, Well, I do that.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_01: Because if there are times you don't do it, then you'd only do it sometimes.
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_00: When your athletes would go make the standard, would you sometimes see them come back with a higher level of standard than what you maybe had initially thought was needed or was um prescribed?
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I I don't remember that, but but very likely.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_01: I just found that when they I had them uh one year do a I did a culture survey with my leadership group, which was kids from each class, and had them rate us in the categories.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_01: Really, the the the 10 things that you can do that aren't have nothing to do with talent, like being on time and showing up for your teammates, and you know, those kinds of behaviors.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_01: And I we were not, I didn't think we had a really great um, I ranked us as average in all the categories.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_01: And I was surprised that my leaders ranked all the same thing as me.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_01: I thought for sure they would take a look at this and rank us really high and everything because kids think, oh yeah, we're working hard and we work really hard.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_01: And and I said to them, Well, and they said to me, we should have everybody take this survey.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_01: They it was enlightening to them.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_01: I said, No.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_01: How about each of you commit to being a nine or a ten instead of a five and a six in each of these categories?
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_01: How about you commit to that and let's see where it goes?
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_01: Whoosh for about a week.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_01: But I saw instantly better, our energy at practice just went up because it was the leaders who weren't giving us what we needed.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_01: And they were allowing it.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_00: Emily says, Thank you, Coach Hutch is amazing.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_00: She wrote that just now in the chat.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you, Emily.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_00: Um, Coach, yeah, as we wrap up here, when your players left Michigan, what did you hope they carried with them beyond softball?
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_01: The purpose is to go out in life, and uh most kids come back to me and regardless of what profession they're in, I have a number of kids in all doctors, lawyers, CEOs, you know, all of it.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_01: And they just tell me how well prepared for life they were when they left.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_01: That they run into people who don't have high standards, who are allow themselves to be average, and um you know, their jobs to make a difference in the world because when you leave here, your jobs to leave the world better than you found it.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_01: Whether you're part of a company or an educator, whatever you do, do your part.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_00: Love that.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_00: The your impact clearly extends way beyond the wins in the championships.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for sharing your experience and wisdom today.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_00: And coaches, um, on this call as well.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for showing.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_00: So, everyone, thank you very much.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_00: And Brian, let's see what he says.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_00: The team, the team, the team, Coach Bo.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_00: Great talk.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_01: It's still good stuff to me.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_00: And Liz, thank you as well, coaches and Coach Hutch, thank you so much.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_01: My pleasure.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_01: Enjoyed it.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, it's Matt.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much for listening.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_00: This conversation that you just heard originally happened inside of Momentum Sessions, a free community for coaches who take culture seriously.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_00: If you'd like to hear the full conversation, join future calls, ask questions live, and connect with other coaches working on culture and leadership, visit Momentum Teams.com slash sessions.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_00: We'll see you there.