SETTING YOUR CULTURE

Setting out your stall for your sporting team will be one of the most important facets of your coaching career. You may inherit a team or a club with a strong culture that is already set and forged across generations of players. Or, you may inherit a club or a team where the culture has eroded over time, fluctuated through peaks and lows or perhaps is in a stage of rebuilding.

Culture, or culture change can't be implemented by any one person or coach. It can however have a driving force instigated by an individual, but eventually you will need to gather a group of believers around you. This will be done by setting out a clear vision for what you believe will strengthen the culture of the environment. If culture is the ideas, customs, and social behaviour of a particular people or group, then you will have to agree what your club or team will stand for. What values will hold your environment to account? How do you wish, ideally, to be perceived?

I would like to give an example of a culture change that I helped to instill at a club that I am proudly involved with. This club had a culture of heavy alcohol consumption and substance abuse. This culture was driven by the coaching staff of the team and well supported by the senior players.

This particular season, a program from a nearby town supplied a number of players to the team. This brought a new outlook from players that wanted more from their football experience. There was also a change with coaching staff and the club board had installed my appointment as a fitness coach to view the team in order to make recommendations for a future program of which the club would be a domestic host base.

What I saw in my first weeks worried me. A dictatorial coaching set up, with the credit to the Coach following a win, and blame pushed on the players following a loss. A suicide attempt by a team member. Another player incarcerated for assault. This was as bad an environment I had ever been exposed to. But what really got to me, this environment was all that most of this playing group had known. It was normal behaviour. Accepted for what it was. This was a 10 year culture driven by the leaders.

Despite this environment, with a core of new players and extra coaching staff the team won the local premiership. The Senior Coach tendered his resignation and a number of players that participated in the Grand Final would wear different colours in the seasons following.

My initial appointment was to assess the state of the club in order to design and deliver an upcoming football program that would see players from the club travel to a nearby city to play in the highest State League football competition. When I reported to the board on the current environment, I highlighted that unless they were willing to implement and support extreme change, then the support from my then employer would be off the table.

The board recognised this as an opportunity for change. The team had been well financed for a number of years and the intention was to use the team as a vehicle for social change.

It was then to be communicated to the officials and players that alcohol was off the table. Coaches wouldn't be supplying alcohol to the playing group, alcohol was not to be consumed whilst away on travel duties. When communicating this it was important that the players could understand that the direction the new program was taking was intended to develop the people and the club. It was intended that the club would focus on developing the best people possible.

So the program was able to introduce new standards on what our ideal people would look like. What success would look like. Story telling was vital so that the playing group could imagine what success would look and feel like.

The clubs colours and crest became a focal point for the culture change. Leaving the guernsey in a better place for those who follow became a focal point for the culture change. Getting players to finish school and find employment became a focal point for change at the club.

A new mantra, Better People Make Better Players was installed as a key driver. It became the first words uttered and last statement made following each training session. So change was taking place. But the change didn't endear itself to all the players. 

After 6 months of the program that involved weekly travel and playing in the highest league in the State, indeed a large number of players did leave the club.

If you can't change the people - change the people.

We inherited a new group of players that were a mix of experience and age. We had youth that knew they wouldn't get opportunities from other clubs, former players returning to the club that had fallen out with the previous coaching group. We retained 6 premiership players. Our collective group knew that we were going to have a difficult season with a steep learning curve. But we also knew that by trying to be the best version of ourselves, that having pride in our colours and crest and leaving the guernsey in a better place, that we were travelling together on a path that would only lead to success.

Our developing side made finals that season. A achievement that I viewed a year ahead of what we had forecast. We won a men's and women's premiership two years into our culture change. Better People Make Better Players. Our culture change wasn't driven to win premierships, it was to develop good people. Finding premiership success is an outcome, not a goal.

What culture change will you implement at your club or team?

HR