Is your time more valuable?

It is a beautiful Saturday morning and my wife and daughters are heading off together, breakfast first and maybe some shopping. Just to spend some time together before a return to college next week splits them up again.

 

It’s Saturday though and I can’t go, because this morning I have training with the U8s. I get up early, plan the session, get the equipment and head off.

 

Three players show up. I feel sorry for them and for their parents who have taken the time to drive them to training.

 

I feel sorry for the coach who I called to interrupt on a Saturday morning to collect the sign-in sheet and the coach who was trying to get his baby to sleep when I called to collect the keys of the gates so we could train.

 

I wondered why those who had decided to give today’s session a miss hadn’t contacted the club? That way a call could have been made earlier to rearrange the training to another day.

 

As I drove home, I reflected on how many times in the past this has happened, not just to me, but to pretty much every volunteer coach that I know – in pretty much every sport as well.

 

Yep, that’s right, volunteers. Coaches who don’t get paid for doing this. Who have plenty of options on where to give their time and energy – but who choose to give it up for their community.

 

I called back an hour later to see how the U10s were getting on and to keep an eye on how the three U8s who turned up to train earlier (and who just wanted to play) got on in the older group.

 

I’ve been doing this for over thirty years so, I’ve come to acknowledge that there will be days like today, but I also could see how coaches could so easily decide that they could spend their precious time doing other things. Their time is as valuable as anyone else’s after all.

 

I also laughed at the coincidence of a memory popping up on the very same morning of a brilliant piece by Alison Belbin entitled “A Coach’s Plea to Parents.”

 

Alison, coaches a girls team in Nanaimo in British Columbia (or at least she did when she penned the piece) and among the many paragraphs in her article that stood out for me was this one.

 

“I am not a professional. I am a parent who loves the game and has the desire to pass that on. I accepted the role I was offered; not for a paycheque, not for status, certainly not for praise. I accepted this role because I have been where your daughter is now. I see myself in her missteps and in her triumphs. I have felt them all and I feel them all over again through her. I, too, have been bruised by a ball, pulled muscles in tough tackles and played with a broken heart. I also had coaches who believed in me, just as I believe in your daughter.”

 

Her sentiment I am certain, applies to many good coaches of boys and girls (and I have coached both for a long time) but the essence of her article also shows there is a fine line for a volunteer coach between the enjoyment they get from doing what they do and the question of whether they should bother with it any more.

 

In a wider context, the morning’s events were a reminder to me to be much more aware of the efforts others put in and if I make a commitment then it’s unacceptable for me to ever simply fail to fulfill that without explanation or communication.

 

And then I sat down to plan the evening session for the next age group, wondering how many would show up this time?

 

Believe to achieve

I got a text today from my brother who, as it turns out, lives on the other side of the world.

As the texts flew over and back he responded to a reply of mine that was filled with some self-doubt, by quoting the following lines.

“This is not a time for resting on your laurels, or for dreaming with closed eyes. Because your dreams are all ahead of you. Get up and follow them.”

They were lines he said, that recently a friend had sent to him as words of encouragement.

Of course I recognised them as lines from one of the poems in my book ‘Dance in the Rain’ and it was a reminder to me that we often can make a much bigger impact than we might imagine.

As it turns out over the past few weeks I also have had some out of the blue messages from people who explained how much they liked some of the pieces I have written.

And that is such a compliment it is difficult to describe what an immensely positive impact it made at a time, when I admit I was beginning to question again.

I suppose everyone has times in their life when their self-belief is not at its highest.

I guess for some people, those moments come more frequently than they do for others.

So I have come to understand that when those moments of self-doubt do come along, it is important to take on board the words of encouragement and support of those who offer it.

But on their own, they are not enough because, at the end of the day it still involves action on your part.

While I was in the gym this week training I repeatedly read the words written on the wall in front of me – “I think I can, so I will.”

It’s a simple message really, but one that sums up perfectly how important it is for us to match any kind of support and encouragement we might get, with a huge dollop of our own self-belief.

I was reminded of a story I read once about an American baseball team who had been on an amazing run when all of a sudden they hit a slump and as the losing run continued the players began to believe they were somehow jinxed.

Searching for inspiration their coach heard about a preacher who was drawing huge crowds every night and who was reportedly so good that he could perform miracles.

The coach grabbed every baseball bat the team owned, trekked out to hear the preacher with the bats in a wheelbarrow and when he returned he told the players that the bats had all been blessed by the preacher.

Believing their bats now to be blessed, the players were inspired on the field once more and went on to win the championship.

Blessed bats? The players believed they were and therefore believed in themselves once more.

A reminder to us all that we unless we believe we are capable the results will never reflect our capabilities.

Teamwork makes the dream work

Over the past week I was thinking a bit about teamwork and how great teams can so often go on to accomplish so much.

 

 

As a sports coach who works primarily with young players, one of the key messages I would always have tried to ingrain in them, is the importance of the team.

 

Yes, it is important for individuals to develop and grow and get better, but in so many cases it is when the individual focuses on self and not the team, that things begin to fall apart.

 

While I have always preferred team sports because I was never an outstanding athlete in my own right, I love and have so much admiration for the discipline and determination that athletes who compete in individual sports have to master.

 

But what I think many people fail to recognise is that those in a team environment need to show the same type of discipline and determination.

 

The only difference really is that the goal a team is working towards is not a set of individual targets, it has to be a common team goal.

 

Andrew Carnegie summed it brilliantly when he said:

“Teamwork is the ability to work together toward a common vision. The ability to direct individual accomplishments toward organizational objectives. It is the fuel that allows common people to attain uncommon results.”

 

That’s a saying that applies in real life, in work, in community, just as well as it does in sport.

 

As part of a team, I have discovered that my talents, combined with the talents of others will often make a formidable combination.

 

As a youth sports coach I often find that people mistake my emphasis on development over results, as if I don’t really care about winning.

 

They couldn’t be further from the truth. I always want to win. That is always the goal – but to try to get there I would rather my team lose and give 80% of excellence than win with 120% of just adequate.

 

In developing young players, I genuinely believe it isn’t about getting the results at any cost. It isn’t about cutting corners, for me it is always about the learning curve for them – and the ultimate pursuit of excellence.

 

That is no different away from sport and in work I am of the opinion that, as Ed Sullivan once said – if you do a good job for others, you heal yourself at the same time, because the joy you get from that is a spiritual cure.

 

It never should be just about getting the job done. It should be doing the job to the very best of your ability. About doing work that you can be proud of.

 

When you set that as your standard then you realise that the pursuit of excellence is a way of life.

 

It includes going beyond the call of duty, stretching our limits and holding ourselves responsible for being our best.

 

And when you have a whole team working with that kind of a philosophy, well then that’s when you start to see really fruitful results.

 

In the past week I’ve been lucky enough to have witnessed that in both a work setting and in community and I’ve realised that when you are part of a team with a shared vision, drive and determination, it really can be something special.

 

Or, as I would often say to the youngsters I coach.

 

Teamwork, really does make the dream work.

 

 

 

 

 

Don’t underestimate the value of a good PRO

Sports clubs and community groups and organisations often give little thought to the position of Public Relations Officer (PRO). More often than not it’s the last officer’s position filled at the Annual General Meeting – that’s even if it is filled at all.

And that’s a mistake! Well, unless you are in a secret group, club or organisation who don’t ever want to communicate with the public.

For everybody else, it’s time the position began to get some serious thought.

The reality is that most clubs, groups and community organisations at some stage require publicity of one kind or another. Whether that’s for a fund raising activity or other event at the club, they need to get the message out to as many people as possible – and that’s where the PRO comes in.

Amazingly however many groups and organisations are so wrapped up in their own work (often great work it must be admitted) that they assume media outlets should publicise their event without even having been contacted.

And it’s not just in cases like that either. Often community groups and organisations or sports clubs are involved in activities that a media outlet might find interesting enough to seek details on without prompting.

On occasions like that the PRO is more often than not the first point of contact and if they are unavailable or unhelpful then the chances are an opportunity for publicity has been lost.

Media outlets are often criticised by various groups for their lack of coverage of various events or activities, but much of that criticism is unwarranted.

In these days of cutbacks, most media outlets are operating with fewer staff than they’d like and with greater demands on those staff.

They cannot be expected to know about something if they have not been informed, yet many groups assume they should know because everyone in their own particular circle knows.

Similarly if they are given the runaround when they seek information, they are less likely to be inclined to be in a hurry back to give a club or group publicity.

Chasing people and making lots of phone calls might be a worthwhile use of resources when on the hunt for a big news or sports story, but to have to contact a half dozen people to find out about the Christmas bazaar or get a few lines of detail for a match report is not.

In the same vein, well-written press releases – ones that don’t require significant time to edit into something comprehensible – are more likely to be used than poorly constructed ones.

A well-written release will stand a chance of being published as it was sent, and often will serve to whet a reporter’s appetite to delve a little deeper and give a story even greater prominence.

Of course it is an advantage if a PRO has access to technology and can, for instance, send e.mail – but it’s not the key thing.

It’s more important for a PRO to be accessible, to be helpful and have access to information from within their group or organisation so they can pass on that information promptly on request.

At the end of the day what many groups and organisations fail to realise is this – the publicity they get is only as good as their PRO.

Perhaps if they did, a lot more thought would go into the filling of that position at Annual General Meetings.