Latest / Yips and Giggles / Team Culture & Cohesion
Transcript
- Speaker 1: guys. Welcome to our podcast. Speaker 2: She finally realized that it was all mental. Peyton: Thank you all so much for listening. Give us a follow at Yips and Giggles on Instagram and TikTok, where we'll be posting episode content every week. You can also find us on our YouTube channel under Yips and Giggles. Check back next Tuesday for another episode. In the meantime, don't take life too seriously and have a laugh on us. Speaker 2: Welcome back to Gips and Giggles. This week we are getting into team culture, cohesion, and leadership. We get into the different aspects of a good team culture, how to detect a bad team culture. We'll be giving examples of some great coaches and leaders that you might learn from if you are a coach, and of course, how important communication is within a team. So if you're a coach or player, you might find this episode helpful to... Really learn how to build a good team environment to ultimately perform at your best. All right, we're back for episode nine. Lost track. What is it in Portuguese? Come on Anya, your lessons have prepared you for this. Speaker 1: Nice. Whatever. Speaker 2: I put you Speaker 1: I blanked. I literally went through all of them. That's so bad too. That's so bad. Like that's the first thing you learn. And today we will be speaking only in Portuguese. Speaker 2: Everybody buckle up. Would like Russian, Portuguese or English? I will be doing English. Anya will be doing the other languages. Yes. ⁓ that's funny. Yeah, no, I'm excited for this one. I feel like it's a really important topic to talk about that I feel like is not talked about enough. ⁓ When when you look at team culture and and leadership and things like that, it's like, yeah, this is this is pretty important, guys. I'm not going to lie. It's pretty important. ⁓ Speaker 1: Yeah, I feel like like people always say like, ⁓ yeah, the culture was toxic or ⁓ the culture was great. But then they don't go into specifics about what was so good about the culture and how you how you build a good team culture. ⁓ So, yeah, I'm I'm really excited for this episode because it is really, really important. Like it can make or break a team, honestly. ⁓ my God. You can be like, sometimes I look at certain teams and I'm like. Speaker 2: Yeah. Speaker 1: how like they have so many good players on that team. Like college professional doesn't matter the sport. And I'm like, how are they not winning? Yeah. Like and then sometimes you look at a team and you're like, yeah, like they got like, you know, a bunch of solid players, but it's nothing crazy. And they're just dominating people. And I think part like a lot of it comes down to team culture and like unity and being able to trust in each other. It's like it's a super interesting phenomenon. Speaker 2: Right. Yeah. really is because like, I feel like even on college and professional teams, like you can have similar talent, but I do think that culture very much determines who is going to, you know, be one step ahead on the table or, or the rankings or whatever. And again, it does make or break a team and what's happening off the court or pitch field, whatever you're playing on. Is just as important as what is happening on the court. And I, I just don't think a lot of people understand that, especially, you know, if they're coming from an individual sport and going on to a team, it's like that, you know, we've talked about that a little bit and it is a very different dynamic. And I even think back to our team. It's like, were times when we had such good players and a lot of talent, but we couldn't win those big matches because. of what was happening behind ⁓ closed doors. You know what I mean? It's not all about the talent. It's a lot about culture. And that's what we're getting into today. Speaker 1: Yeah. And there's a big difference between a team of talented individuals versus an actual cohesive team where they're united. Such a word. United, unified, togetherness. The buzzword. Speaker 2: ⁓ that's not worth. It just adds so much more motivation, like when you're working towards a shared vision or a shared goal, like and again, like there's so many benefits to being on a team, like from a psychological standpoint as well. It's like you have that. Yeah, it's fun. It's a lot better than doing it alone. It truly is. And for the most part, I feel like it's just like a sense of belongingness, which everyone really needs, like in their everyday life. And so I think when you are on a team and it's done the right way, it can really give you a good sense of wellbeing and better mental health, especially, you know, when you're going through tough times in your sport. Speaker 1: One of the first things, like again, people always use the word like as a buzzword. Yeah, for sure. Good team culture. But what does it actually mean? ⁓ I think it's, you know, the shared values, the standards, the behaviors that shape how a team can interact with each other, how they prepare, how they compete. ⁓ but like just in more generic terms. Speaker 2: Right. Speaker 1: It's just, it's just like, almost like the atmosphere on a team, right? Like the, the, the interactions between the players and between the coaches and just like that feeling of comfort and trust versus, you know, bad team culture could just be a feeling of discomfort, toxicity. Speaker 2: You can feel it when you're on a team that doesn't have a good culture. And even from like an outside perspective, you know, if you're like a fan or something, you can see it. Like even if it's like, even if you're just watching your favorite team or whatever, you're like, ⁓ well, they're not really communicating very well. And they're not really, you know what I mean? Like you, can definitely tell. ⁓ and I think one of the biggest components of it is having that mutual trust and Yeah. Kind of that you can rely on your other teammates. And there's a level to it where communication is probably one of the most important parts of it, because I think it fosters that trust and it fosters, like, you know, role clarity. And you guys can decide on what your shared mission is, what your shared goals are, your values. I think communication is such a big part of it. ⁓ which we'll definitely get into, but at the same time, like you said, it's, it's really just like pushing each other as well, but in a supportive way, right? Like you don't want to be like hounding, hounding a team member for at practice every single day. And it's sharing the successes and making sure that you kind of celebrate those. And yeah, again, I think it boils down to communication. It's like, when, when you have that climate of trust, it's. It just makes it so much better. And coming from our own experiences, we know that. And at the same time, when you have that honest communication, I think it not only creates that trust, but it also makes it to where you feel like you can go up to your teammate and be as authentic as you can be towards them. It's like, OK, how am I going to help this teammate or how are they going to help me? And how am I going to give them feedback in a way that I know that they're going to take it well rather than like, back off. Like, you don't know everything. You know what I mean? Like, I feel like a lot of people get stuck with with those sorts of things. But yeah, I do think it's learning how to communicate is huge. Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's like definitely the number one driver of like if you think of other characteristics that you see in good team culture like accountability Yeah, like you said again trust role acceptance collective identity respect. Yeah, like all of that feeds from communication like that needs to be the most solid building block because otherwise you're not gonna be able to build up these other things and you're gonna have a bad culture which looks like Speaker 2: That's a big one. Speaker 1: Passive aggressive behavior, ⁓ complaining about playing time a lot, clicks, talking behind each other's backs, gossip, not trusting each other. Yeah, not trusting each other, not trusting your coaches, fear of mistakes. So again, like. But all boils down to communication, if you can establish a way and again, you know, it's easier said than done. Speaker 2: That tends to be a Speaker 1: Yeah. And sometimes even if you are doing the proper communication, you still can't control the way people react to certain things. And if they're, you know, pretty set in taking any form of constructive criticism as attack. Yeah, like there's nothing you can really do about that, but you can do the best you can at trying to set the foundation of like, Hey, we're going to speak openly and honestly, and we're not trying to attack each other. just trying to help each other. Speaker 2: a knock on them. Yeah. Speaker 1: Yeah. We're a team. We're trying to help each other and we're trying to help ourselves achieve our end goal. Speaker 2: Right. And kind of going off of that with the communication aspect, there actually was a study that looked at NCAA doubles a while ago and they actually looked at kind of the intra-team communication. like doubles partners, how were they communicating in these matches? ⁓ They were looking at verbal and nonverbal communication. you know, talking in between points is obviously like verbal. You're, talking about strategy. You're talking about what you want to do next. And then, you know, nonverbal could just be, you know, giving somebody a fist pump or even like a high five or something or like some sort of cue that you give them. ⁓ and it was actually interesting. They found that the doubles teams that ended up winning actually had two times as much communication, ⁓ going on during the match. So it makes a difference. Even during the match versus outside of any competition, obviously. That's important too. But yeah, even in match, it's like you need to be talking to each other, ⁓ especially in doubles, which I know you know a lot about. Speaker 1: Yeah, we both do. Yeah, you do. Yeah, that was I mean, yeah. If you don't know what's going on on the person in the other person's mind. Yeah. You miss a shot and you're like, ⁓ man, she pissed at me. Exactly. Like a person doesn't say anything versus them saying like, it's OK. That was the right choice. Yeah. And you're like, I feel like I can recover from my mistake faster. ⁓ huh. I'm not worried. ⁓ huh. Speaker 2: It gives you a bit more confidence to actually take that risk that you need to take as as a partner, as a doubles partner. I feel like that was a huge learning curve because I feel like in juniors, I saw a lot of toxicity within doubles partners. It was like people literally wouldn't speak to each other for the rest of a match. If like one person like missed a really important ball and they would just like shut down. Speaker 1: Yeah. Speaker 2: just like, this is so bad. So bad. This is so bad. Speaker 1: So bad, ⁓ my gosh. Speaker 2: I mean, I hope they weren't doing it when they were like. Speaker 1: 17. Speaker 2: going into college, you know, like that, would be pretty bad. I'm talking more like, you know, tens, twelves, fourteens, maybe where it wasn't. Speaker 1: And, and while we're on the topic of, of college, I think, cause obviously like this episode is applicable to both collegiate and professional and like any team, right? But I think there's some really unique dynamics within college team culture specifically, because there there's a couple more things going on. Like there's, there's scholarships, right? So sometimes people are, might, may feel the need to prove their or yeah, prove their worth and prove the fact that they do deserve that scholarship spot. There's ⁓ obviously like playing time competition. You're trying to get in line up. You're trying to get more playing time. Maybe there's like a weird hierarchy sometimes on teams of like who's a senior versus a sophomore and who's getting more playing time or not. And kind of like we talked about people who are not playing can consult. heavily influence a team and a team's culture, but we'll get more into that a little bit later in the episode. ⁓ You're constantly being evaluated, right? Like you're at practice every single day. Again, like you're competing for the lineup spots every single day. There's like this, I mean, it happens in like professional teams too, but there's this aspect of turnover, right? So like people are graduating, people may be entering the transfer portal. ⁓ There's new people entering every single year, freshmen. ⁓ So I think a really important thing to mention with that is that the culture needs to be rebuilt every single year, right? Because you just have new variables entering every, not to like call people variables, but like, you new variables entering every single year. And there's also just again. Speaker 2: Yeah, you can just drop the. Speaker 1: But you had a good culture one year and then one like one or two people leave and one or two people come in. And it honestly can be a completely different team dynamic. ⁓ yeah. No matter how good it was the previous year. And you need to constantly just be building and resetting and focusing on the core values that you guys want to pursue and the habits that you want to build as a team. And I think just the last thing to mention is obviously, again, there's there's a high time demand. with travel competition, academics, training, and teams, especially in college, spend so much time together. Like so much time together. you'd want to have a good team culture, because otherwise, if not, you're spending like what, 70 % of your time in like a toxic environment. That's not good. Speaker 2: Yeah. And you're not spending actually that much time together on, you know, practice and things like that. It's more so outside of that. It's like you guys are eating together. You're you know, if you're in college, you might be going to classes together. It's it's so much more outside that's actually going on rather than actually within the sport. And yeah, like when you put it that way, when you put all of those things together, I say them. I feel like it's Sam's going to make an appearance. ⁓ no. ⁓ stupid microphone. I just feel like, you know, when you mentioned all of those things, it's like, oof, it is kind of difficult to get everyone on the same page and kind of create that team culture. But I think, you know, when it is good, it's great because you guys have to go through so many things together. Like you, Speaker 1: This is boring for ⁓ Speaker 2: Even if you have a team, good team culture, sometimes you guys still might not be, you know, winning. might be going through some losing streaks. You got to deal with that. You might have some bad injuries on the team and maybe you're losing someone really important to an injury. there might be lineup changes. There's so many things that you have to kind of go through as a team. And so if you don't already have that strong team culture, it's like, well, how are you guys going to handle that? And You worry about if you do have kind of a weak culture, it's like, okay, what kind of behavior is going to come out of this? Are people going to start blaming other people and blah, blah, blah? It's all going to go downhill from there. I think starting with a team culture at the beginning of your season is probably one of the most important things that you can do, honestly. Speaker 1: there's a thought process of solutions rather than the blame that you were talking about. And I think players just perform better when they feel like they're supported. There's like that aspect of almost psychological safety. For sure. And they aren't as afraid of making mistakes and they know their teammates will have their backs no matter what. So yeah, I think those are obviously some really key points of how culture can affect the team. But the big main question is like, can talk as much as we want about how good team culture like really helps a team perform, but how do you build team culture, right? That's the hardest part. And sometimes you can do all the right things and it still won't turn out great, but you need to do the right things. You can't just expect you to, you know, as a leader, as a teammate, as a coach, for you to say to your team and be like, Yeah, we're just going to have a culture of accountability. Yeah. Working hard. Trust. Like we're going to show up for each other every single day. And then you're just going to expect that to happen. No, there, there needs to be. There's it takes a lot of work. Like, yeah. There needs to be so many things that need to be done and constantly reinforced every single day in order to build up that culture little by little. ⁓ So I think there's a lot of like roles of different people within culture. There's obviously coaches, there's leaders, there's teammates, there's people who are playing, there's people who aren't playing. So let's start with the coaches, right? How can coaches shape team culture? I think... I don't, I don't want to say like they're the most integral part, like, you think about it from a quote unquote point of authority, they probably have like the most authority within a team, right? Especially within like a college team. Right. And they can honestly make or break a culture. They, have this vision they have for the team and then they pass it down to the leaders on their team and everyone else. And it's just hard, I think for coaches. when again, have this vision and they have these standards that they wanna implement, but they just say them and they don't really know how to reinforce them and put them into practice. They're just kind of empty words. It's like slogans and mission statements and not actually actionable stuff. Speaker 2: Yeah, like what? OK, you've said the what? And now it's like, OK, how how are we going to do this and how are you going to consistently drive that into your players? And I mean, in the simplest of terms, it's just about making sure that everybody's on the same page. And a lot of that is making sure that you have shared your vision with your, you know, team. And that sounds really simple, but. Well, at the time people don't. Speaker 1: Well, I feel like it's also like after you've shared your vision, don't just like share it one time and then never bring it up. Right. Ever again. Yeah. And like you say like, OK, yeah, like we have this shared vision. We, you know, want to like work really hard and be really positive in practice, for example, as part of that vision. That's how we're going to do it. And then you say that and then people are like, I don't know, being negative or like slacking off in practice. and you don't do anything about it. You know, like you need to walk the talk as a coach. Also, as this is applicable, obviously to like leaders and like everyone else on the team, too. But yeah, as a coach, like you say you want something, you say you want players to do something and force it right. And I'm and by like enforce it, I'm not saying like have like strict punishments. You know, things that. Yeah, but like, I mean, obviously it depends on the situation, but like. Speaker 2: It's outlining the expected behaviors of your team, like what you want from your team and what you don't want from your team. And and I think that also kind of goes into like there's lots of different types of leadership and styles of leadership. And I think coaches and or managers. Sometimes they make the excuse that they can't do a certain leadership style because of their personality, right? And in my opinion, sometimes you need to think a little bit outside the box and go outside of your comfort zone as a coach and be like, okay, well, this is how I'm going to lead this team ⁓ and make it more of a strategic choice rather than making it comfortable for your own personality. And some people just have inherently very good personalities for leadership, you know, like Some people are very confident, very charismatic and inspirational. And actually one coach that I have found to be honestly unbelievable is Emma Hayes. And so she, for those that don't know, ⁓ she currently is a coach for the US Women's National Team. ⁓ I think the She Believes Cup is actually going on right now. And she was also named FIFA best women's coach twice. ⁓ she got the Ballon d'Or for women's soccer coach of the year in 2024. She was at Chelsea for like 12 years. ⁓ she was a very long time for a coach like that. That's impressive in itself, but she literally won seven women's super league titles and like five FA cups. So, you know, her, her results are showing like that's pretty impressive. for themselves. That's for sure. ⁓ But I think she is honestly for any coaches that are listening, please go like watch some of her videos, watch some of her speeches, watch her ⁓ in press conferences. She's very good as well or like huddles, you know, after after games, she's unbelievable. And I think a lot of people can learn from her. But I actually wanted to I'm going to play a clip. Speaker 1: ⁓ a clip. Speaker 2: don't play club because, and this isn't even like one of her best, like this is just very recent at the She Believes Cup. So this was after the US has won against Argentina. And so this was before they were about to play Canada, which they also won that match as well, I believe one nil. And I think they played Columbia today actually. So this is not like a planned like pre-match talk. This is just her in a post-match huddle and she still is like amazing at speaking. just. just wanted to give you guys a little taste. So it's a win. Right. And remember as we. They make it scrappy. into a hair-pulling contest. It's not pure. But what is important, what is important for everybody, is to make sure you don't feel disappointed. We have won the first game. That's step one. And we have positioned lots of you, might not have had the experiences of playing against Argentina, for you to be reflective and say, actually, if we get a team like that in the World Cup... What have I learned? So step one's done. We've won the first game. and that includes the analysis of it. Not because we don't believe in the analysis of it, because it's next game. And all focus is on Canada. And we might weave some of these pieces in, but with quick turnaround, it's next game, next action. And I think I'm looking at you all so that you're in a position to go, you know what, we've got our first three points on the board. Now everything goes into Canada, alright? And we stay together as always. We lift each other up. Good start. Solid. Well done. I love her. Speaker 1: I feel like I'm ready to run through a wall. Speaker 2: Literally like, and that wasn't even like a pitch coach. Like put me in like, it's just, she has so much confidence in what she's saying. And I love the part where she's like, what, what have you learned? Especially for players who, you know, aren't super experienced or whatever and learning from that game. But then also, all right, we're moving on. next game. Like we're not gonna, we're going to learn from that. And obviously they'll do their analyses and things like that. But now we're focusing on the here and now and what the next game is for them. And she's just so good. Speaker 1: It's like staying on tasks and being super encouraging. But also it's kind of like, like Lauren mentioned in, her episode, like neutral thinking. Yeah. Like we're not getting too high. We're not getting too low. We're just staying on task. Like, like just super focused and locked in on like what we can do. We make mistakes. That happens. It's fine. We just, know what we need to do and we're just going to execute. Speaker 2: Exactly. Yeah, and she's so good. I watch so many of her clips. And she actually has a book that I really want to read that kind of goes all into her leadership playbook and everything. So I think that would be so good to read and highly recommend for other coaches out there. yeah, when she was at Chelsea, she was huge about it. mean, she's huge about it at every team she's at. But she spoke a lot about team culture. And she always said that. she was big on developing a culture rather than a philosophy, which I think is pretty powerful. In my opinion, I would sort of see a philosophy as something to kind of live by, whereas a culture, it's more of a collective belief and an effort that a team has. So I think even that's important to kind of distinguish between. Again, we talk about communication and she was, she's so big on having that constant dialogue with the players because yeah, again, it's going to be hard for a head coach or a manager to talk to every single player every single day. That's just not, that's not realistic. so being able to have a trusted staff and people that you trust is huge because then you can actually just delegate that communication to your assistant coaches or your other staff who is also around your players every single day. And I just think that that's huge. And she also talked about, you know, we've kind of discussed this earlier, but, know, not blaming other people and making sure that you get that feedback. You have those checks and balances so that everyone is communicating. Everyone's receiving that feedback, constructive feedback, and then everyone knows what they're supposed to be doing. And that in a sense is role clarity, what we were talking about, which I think a lot of people don't realize is such, mean, honestly, think role clarity has probably that in goal setting probably has one of the biggest effects on team culture in my opinion and in the research. Speaker 1: When you have an idea of the role that you play on a team, it also brings the sense of belonging, right? Versus when you're confused and uncertain about what you're even doing on this team. And I think that also just helps build that again, that culture, that trust ⁓ on a team where people feel like they belong and people are more motivated to help out their teammates and push themselves and really just work hard to make the team succeed. Speaker 2: Right. And I feel like she also talked about professionalism. Like what would you say professionalism looks like to you? Speaker 1: I think it's doing the little things. Yeah. Every single day that you don't want to do, but you know, you have to do like, think it's literally just knowing what your responsibilities are and showing up and doing them even when you don't want to do them. That's, that's literally like what it boils down to. It's like, knowing you have to do something and doing it. Speaker 2: But I think it's also like, yeah, it's just this simple stuff, like not showing up late, showing up on time. Speaker 1: It's I'm telling you, it's not like the big things of life. You know, scoring the game winning goal every year. Like, no, it's the little things that's showing up on time. Yeah, it's, you know, stretching after practices like it's making sure you do a proper warm up. I'm sure you get enough sleep. Speaker 2: Right. You're not. Right. Yeah, it's crazy how people just can't seem to get that sometimes. But she did talk about that a lot, which I think you kind of have to foster that within a team. And you also have to lead by example. Right. Like if you're a coach and you're showing up 20 minutes late for no, mean, some people might have good reason, but if you're doing it all the time constantly, it's like, well, then can I just show up late? Like, know what I mean? ⁓ so it's just setting those standards. then she also talked about, you know, during her coaching or coaching role right now with the U S women's team, she talked about just how to be, how to be a great leader. And I thought a really good part of it that she talked about was having empathy and actually trying to understand players and, and your staff, which I mean, it just. It just makes the environment so much better. Like you're you're connecting with people. And again, you can't really rely. I mean, you can, but you can't really rely on your personality that much. Like you really need to develop those skills of empathy and connection to kind of get everyone to their best potential, if that makes sense. And I think a lot of coaches get caught up in that. It's like. Just because you have a certain personality, you know, it takes a little bit more than personality to be a good leader for your team. Like advance your skills. Like you're still learning day to day as a coach. You could be coaching for five, 10 years and you're still learning. And I think it's, you know, like I said before, go watch Emma Hayes speak, go watch what she does on a pitch. Like you can learn from other coaches. There's nothing wrong with that. you can take courses or, you know, get certified in certain things to become a better coach. And I think that's where lot of coaches are like, well, I'm, you know, I'm the coach. Like that's that's who I am. And that's and it's like, no, no, like you can actually do more than that. You know what I mean? Speaker 1: Yeah, I think like for me personally, at least I think the the best leaders are the ones who listen before they speak. Yeah. So again, like the empathy point, right? Like it's not just them talking a lot. It's them listening so that they can understand where a player is coming from, where a fellow coach is coming from, whatever. Have that empathy and have a full understanding of that situation before they even say something, before they make a decision, ⁓ before they just make a judgment on someone without knowing what exactly happened, maybe in a situation, whatever. ⁓ Like, yeah, coaches can keep learning from other coaches. Coaches can learn from their players. Like, listen to your players. Like, you can learn so much from your players, too, and vice versa. learn. Like, we all as again, not to get too deep, but like as a human society, we all learn from each other. Same thing in the corporate world. Like, your boss can learn from you. You can learn from your boss. Like, it's... Speaker 2: Yeah, 100%. Speaker 1: doesn't serve people when there's this super rigid hire. I feel like teams like obviously, obviously there needs to be someone that does have that final authority. Yeah. Right. Because then it would just be like, no, nothing would ever be able to get done. Right. But it can't. I mean, there's different leadership styles. But I feel like in today's day and age, like this authoritarian, like super authoritarian leadership style probably doesn't work the best. Like, again, you need to be able to put your foot down. Speaker 2: Yes. Speaker 1: in certain situations and be like, yeah, no, that's not going to fly or, know, you're done or we're doing this. But it's a collaboration. We're constantly learning. We're constantly evolving. We're constantly trying to get better. And everyone has interesting, unique perspectives, interesting, unique ideas that we could all learn from. Speaker 2: Yeah. And I think it's, it is interesting because I feel like some coaches and managers, sometimes they'll take that approach where they're almost like a friend. And I think you have to be a little bit careful with that. I think it can work, but I think you do need to be careful with it because you know, what happens when you do have to make tough decisions and then that player is like, ⁓ but we're so like close and you know, whereas other coaches might just take a step back and be like, No, I'm not going to even like, you're not my friend. I am your coach. You know what mean? And I think, you know, you can find almost like ⁓ a middle ground, but sometimes certain styles might work better in different environments. And I think that's something that you have to learn as a coach and you might have to adapt based on the team that you're at. ⁓ it's also a thing of like, you're not always going to be right. Nobody's perfect. Nobody's always 100 % right. so you have to be willing. ⁓ willingness, willingness is huge. You have to be willing to admit that you have made a mistake and you have to be willing to accept feedback. Cause if you don't, you have zero growth mindset. Once you ever, you're not going to grow as a coach and you're certainly not going to grow your players. You know what I mean? Like it just all. And that's the last thing you want. That's your pretty much, that's pretty much your goal. You want to grow your players. Speaker 1: Do you have a question for you? Do you think culture can be like recruited? like, in college, right? You get recruited. I mean, in pro teams, you get like scout, but like you talk and like you determine which players you want. might not want. ⁓ Do you think you can judge a person's character off of a few interactions with them and recruit culture? Speaker 2: I think you can definitely recruit culture, or at least you can try to. ⁓ You can recruit a certain character that you want to be on your team. And it's going to be hard to do that if you're in a different country or something and you're just talking on the phone. But I think it's very important for coaches to talk to other coaches or just other staff members that have actually been involved with this player to truly get a full picture because you know, one account of a person might not tell the whole story. So I think it is exactly, I think it is important to get multiple sources. because at the end of the day, like I said, you are spending more time in a locker room or a treatment room together or having meals together than you are out on a court, out on a pitch, out on a field. So Speaker 1: Positive or negative. Right. Speaker 2: I think it is definitely possible to recruit a certain character to develop your team culture. But if at the end of the day, that person doesn't turn out to be who you pictured them to be or wanted them to be, then I think that's a teaching moment. And I think that's when you need to talk to that player and say, Hey, these are the expectations. These are the behaviors that we are going to have on this team. That's going to work towards. the goals that we want to accomplish by the end of the year. And if you don't get on board, then. Speaker 1: Sucks to suck. Like if you want to dumb it down to the most basic principle, it's literally just that. Yeah. Like, you know, rewarding effort, rewarding leadership, rewarding, like doing, making the right decision and it not turning out well. And again, that doesn't mean like punishment, but that means like you need to address certain things if you see them continue to continuously come up. Right. I think a lot of the stuff that we talked about with coaches. can also be applicable for just team leaders. Right. Cause it's a lot of the same leadership principles. ⁓ but I think leaders have a little bit different of a role compared to coaches. Well, obviously cause a they're, they're playing, but I think they, kind of serve as the bridge between the coaches and the team. Right. So I think like, like the coaches and the leaders and the team all need to work together, but Speaker 2: Right. Speaker 1: the leaders and the coaches, like the leaders should be translating kind of, they should be on the same page as the coaches, right? So again, we need to have those common goals, ⁓ but they should be the ones that are able to kind of like translate those goals, those shared visions into the team, right? And start embodying them and start trying to help drive that expectation, that culture across the team. And even when, Like maybe the coaches aren't doing the best job at supporting this team culture and building this team culture. That doesn't mean that the team leaders like just drop the ball. Like then they have to be the ones to try to instill this shared vision, these standards within the team. And I think it's important to mention that leaders doesn't mean just captains of a team. Anyone can be a leader on a team. Older players, younger players, like people who play constantly, people who are quote unquote bench warmers. Like anyone can be a tone setter on the team. It's not just about like power and authority. It's more about how you influence people. And I think there's different types of influence, but all are equally as important within a team. Speaker 2: Yeah. And I mean, at the end of the day, I think leaders can make a coach's job so much easier. Like they don't have to worry every day like, ⁓ is this person doing what they need to do and and things like that. And I think it is interesting. And I really love the idea of having not only a captain, because I think a captain is important, but also almost like informal leadership roles on a team. And so Again, you'll have the obvious leaders and you'll have the captains. But when you really look at the team dynamics, there's probably a lot of people on one team that can serve as a leader in a different way. So you might look at it as you could have like a motivational leader. So that's somebody who you can count on to kind of encourage teammates and encourage the team and motivate them. Even, you know, even if you are dealing with bad injuries on the team or those losing streaks and things like that. And so you can just kind of designate that person as the motivational leader. And I think a lot of the times it'll depend on a person's personality. for example, in tennis, you might have somebody who is really loud on the court or is like always pumping everybody up and they're like on court five, they're like, let's go, whatever your team is. And so I think that's. almost something that you can give to that team member as, as their role. And it also probably makes them feel not special, but valued, you know what I mean? And so not just having a captain, having leaders underneath that captain that they can kind of count on. And another example might be like a social leader. So, which I think is very important. So things going on, you know, off the field, off the court, they can help deal with conflict there. someone who is trusted on the team by everyone and is very good at listening. And so, you know, there's, different character traits that I think can fit into certain leadership roles within a team. But again, you're always going to kind of look to that captain who is going to make those decisions and is going to be that liaison between the team and the coaches, which is obviously still very important, but you can have, can have the subcategories of leaders too. Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. I like that. ⁓ Being able to trust any type of leader. Right. It should just be someone that you can come to with any issue. It should be someone that you can rely on to celebrate your successes. ⁓ It should be someone that you can look to to lead by example. ⁓ I don't know. What are your red flags? Speaker 2: ⁓ I think, well, I think a pretty extreme red flag right now is I have heard that players are going and playing pro tournaments during the spring team season. Speaker 1: ⁓ yeah, that's been a big conversation. Speaker 2: So, yeah, completely removing yourself from the team is probably not the best ⁓ thing to do for the team culture. I I'm surprised that coaches are letting players do that, ⁓ especially when it's during the team season and the matches have so much importance ⁓ with it. And I think that is culture that does not need to be normalized. It's like, okay, well then why are you playing college tennis? Speaker 1: Yeah, that's literally what I was gonna say. Why are you here? Speaker 2: I don't get it. Speaker 1: Just go pro. Yeah. Speaker 2: I mean, I understand like if you're a good player, you want to play pro tournaments and you want somewhere to train or you, you know, you don't have to pay as much if you're out of college. So I understand if they want to come to college and they get good competition, they have, you know, a good support system. They have strength and conditioning, nutrition, everything. They've got everything, you know, where, where they are when they go to the college. But it's like, Okay, well you actually have to be a part of the team now too. Speaker 1: Yeah, like I think someone who did it really well was, I don't know if you remember her, because I think it was the year after you graduated, but Diana Schneider, who played for NC State, she was like unreal. She's like really, I don't even know what her ranking is right now, but she's like really good. She's like top, top, in the world. But she came for one year to NC State and like obviously like she was good enough to go play pro tournaments. Oh God, yeah. Speaker 2: I mean, she was ridiculous. Speaker 1: I feel like she played like almost every single match in the spring. And like you make a commitment to a team and like they're providing you with resources. So you kind of have a commitment to go play for that team. Otherwise, like, especially like during the spring team season, like how are you just not playing in the team matches? I wonder like what kind of environment that would Speaker 2: That's good. Speaker 1: Not a good one. ⁓ Speaker 2: Like, especially if it's only like one or two people that are doing it. It's like, OK, well, wanted you. You're obviously like a huge part of this lineup. I assume she was playing line one, I assume. I mean, it's not like she's getting bad competition like playing one, especially, you know, at an ACC school, you're getting some very good matches. So. Speaker 1: ⁓ yeah. Yeah. Speaker 2: I think that's good that she at least showed up for them. Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. ⁓ Speaker 2: I think those are kind of the red flags and that's obviously a pretty extreme one that I hope does not become the norm. But I think also in a sense, it's like, how can you actively build that culture? And yeah, I think it's so simple to just have conversations with your players, but make like regular team meetings, but also individual player meetings. And again, That's difficult for larger teams. So for like football or even, you know, soccer, it might be difficult. Speaker 1: That's when you have like the extra coaching staff that's responsible for certain parts, that they can be responsible for the players that they interact with the most. Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. ⁓ But yeah, just having those meetings, it's like you're just getting face time with the player and the coach and you can kind of clear up anything you need to clear up. And I just think it's so helpful to just have those scheduled times rather than, you know, a player being afraid to go in and talk to a coach because they feel like they're bothering them or whatever. And ⁓ I think it's also about Speaker 1: just be available. Just be available. Make it known that you're available. Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. ⁓ But I think it's also like finding things to bond over. Like I'm trying to think of any team bonding. What team bonding stuff did we do? Speaker 1: I mean, we would have like team like dinners, like going over to like an upperclassman's house. That was fun. We would have like picnics like at the end of the year. I know like when we were traveling sometimes we would do escape rooms. Speaker 2: Yeah, those are fun because those are like, you do actually have to work together. If you don't work together, like you're not getting out of the room. Yeah. And we're all very competitive. So we have to get out of the room. Yeah. Speaker 1: Yeah, those are fun. Those were so fun. actually want to do them. They were so fun. Something that we did my like last year I was there, my master's year was we started doing this like, like almost like Secret Santa, but like with snacks every time before a road trip. like everyone would get a name of a person like randomly sent to them and Like you wouldn't know who has you. You only know like the person that you have and we'd show up like to the bus or with just like these little like snacks for that person. And sometimes even like a little note. It was it was like fun. It was like exciting. Like, ⁓ who has me? Like, what's next? Are they going to bring like you trying to? And it helps like you get to know your team better to like towards the end of when we were doing that, like people knew like what everyone's favorite snacks were like people with like their Starbucks drinks or like. you their little like gummy, like whatever people liked. Speaker 2: There's super stories behind it too. ⁓ yeah. Like why that was their favorite snack. Speaker 1: Yeah. And like, mean, I don't know. I thought it was fun. Like, I thought it was cute. Like, it was great. Yeah. I don't know. Yeah, I know that. It was was it made it. I made it. It made me excited to like travel. Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. And like what's better than food? Yeah. But I mean, at the end of the day, it's like. I feel like anyone who is a part of a team and who really wants to be a part of a team is saying, like, what can I give to the team rather than what can I get from the team? And that's that's a very, very powerful question to ask. And I think a lot of coaches should kind of frame that question. Speaker 1: Exactly. Speaker 2: to their players before a season even starts so that they get on the same track of, let's be thinking as a team rather than an individual and keep that team orientation going. And yeah, it's important. Speaker 1: Yeah. And I think along those same lines, going back to the shared goals and the shared vision, like, let your players help you craft those shared goals as well. Like, ask them, like, what goals do we want to set for our team this year? And when they feel like they have responsibility and ownership in those goals, they're also more likely to want to work harder and strive for those goals and not be in that individual mindset and kind of shift to that collective mindset. Speaker 2: It's collaborative. It's a collaborative process. And I think this episode is important for not only teammates to listen to, but coaches. I hope they got something from it. Because I always find the psychology of coaching really interesting. Really interesting. not only... Yeah, we'll definitely get into coaching and... Speaker 1: Do like a whole episode on that? Speaker 2: definitely more into those leadership styles that we were talking about and maybe even more examples of different coaches that have been successful and why they've been successful. So yeah, I think that's definitely an episode that we can get into in the future. Speaker 1: guys. ⁓ Speaker 2: See ya!