Transcript
Speaker: Action. It takes time to create excellence. If it could be done quickly, more people would do it. John Wooten. Welcome to the Captains and Coaches podcast where we explore the art and science of leadership through the lens of athletics and beyond.
Speaker: I'm your host Texel Quilkin and today we're talking about 10,000 foot view of your season. I just wrapped wrapped up my lacrosse season. I'm going through my doctoral research and we dove into a topic that just hit me like a brick wall.
Speaker: we're going to take time to reflect on that today. I'm gonna put you back here. Think about the beginning of a season. Could be your team. Could be a team that you were on. Or it could be, I don't know, let's just call the 2004 USA Olympic team where you have more talent than the previous year.
Speaker: Better athletes. Better depth. By every measure, your team should be better. They should win the championship. But somehow, it's not clicking.
Speaker: Doesn't work out. Communication breaks down. Clicks form. The captains are frustrated. Parents start texting and everybody's asking the same questions.
Speaker: What's wrong with this team? Maybe nothing. Maybe your team is exactly where it's supposed to be in their developmental stage.
Speaker: Today we're talking about one of the most important frameworks in team leadership, and it's one most coaches never teach their athletes. It's called Tuckman's Five Stages of Team Development.
Speaker: Forming, storming, norming, performing, adjourning, ing-ing. Stay with me. Okay, here's the problem I see consistently in coaches and captains I work with. When a team struggles, the coach thinks they have a talent problem.
Speaker: The captains feel they have a leadership problem and nobody will listen. So it's their their their teammates problem. And most of the time, it's a developmental problem.
Speaker: The team's not broken, the team is just at a stage of development. Bruce Tuchman was a psychologist who published this model in 1965 and it's held up for 60 plus years because it describes something real.
Speaker: Groups don't become teams automatically. They move through predictable stages, whether you're aware of them or not. Every roster, youth leagues, college programs, pros, Olympians, same journey.
Speaker: So here are the five stages, forming, storming, norming, performing, and adjourning. And here's the thread I want you to hold on to the whole episode.
Speaker: Your job as a coach or a team captain isn't to skip stages or to ignore them. It's to lead your team through each stage.
Speaker: What that requires from you changes completely depending on where your team actually is. We're going to walk it in this episode. okay Stage one is forming.
Speaker: Call this the hope phase. Think about day one of fall camp, training camp. We're all showing up together. We either have some relationship, we know each other, or we know of each other, and we're all excited. It's day one of school, fresh start.
Speaker: We're all optimistic, too. We all believe that we could win the championship, or we should win the championship. Why not? Nobody's been tested yet. The roster looks great on paper and the playoffs feel inevitable for us.
Speaker: This is the forming stage and at the surface everything looks great. Players are polite, engaged, they're bought in, they're excited and underneath that they're all running the same internal calculus.
Speaker: Where do I fit in? Am I good enough to start? Will these people accept me? Conflict gets avoided because belonging feels more urgent than honesty.
Speaker: Nobody's rocking the boat because they don't know if they're even in the boat yet, on the team yet. So we don't want to call people out, so we ignore a lot of problems that tend to grow into big dragons or we're wearing a mask.
Speaker: So this phase is incredibly important and great leadership by the coach is necessary. For coaches, this is not the time for player-led everything. We can give them specific assignments or opportunities to leave within boundaries.
Speaker: But you need to take charge during this first phase of the team. Your athletes, they need this structure right now so they can get over those internal thoughts.
Speaker: Standards, expectations, roles, and culture are established in this first stage by the coach. There's an old line I love. Unclear is unkind.
Speaker: Your job in forming phase is to make everything crystal clear before behavior fills the vacuum and makes it for you.
Speaker: There's an opportunity for you to set your team captains, your team leaders up for success once the expectations and standards are established.
Speaker: Now, I welcome you to bring team captains in on establishing the said standards, but you have your set list and maybe one, two, three things that the team can agree upon that is established. But for the most part, the coaches are leading this leadership phase.
Speaker: For the captains, The trap of this this phase one is thinking your job is to hold every single person accountable. So you overstep or you overlead and you're yelling at kids for minor stuff versus communicating them, hey, that's not how we do things.
Speaker: I would encourage you to have conversations during this phase one or remind them of their bad habits versus yell and just try to stomp stuff out immediately.
Speaker: With a poor tone and aggressive behavior, it may do the opposite what we're trying to do and stop forming the team and create walls or clicks. That's not connection.
Speaker: You don't earn the right to hold someone accountable until that they feel they belong. So aim to establish a connection and remind them of how you do things versus barking and yelling and get on em Sit with the new kids, learn names, show them how you set up the field or or get water, this is how you do it. I'm going to show you how to do it. I'm going to watch you do it. And then i'm going to set you free.
Speaker: Learn their names, include them, and introduce them if anybody doesn't know Create this opportunity, this environment that welcomes failure and then provides feedback so we can continue to grow after for that.
Speaker: Standards are there. How you're holding teammates accountable is going to be very important. Okay, getting into stage two, storming, and this is we're going to spend most of our our time here. This is the reality phase. You're gonna hear me say this a lot, level set on skill set. This is going to happen during the storming phase. We need to bring everybody to a level of understanding of where they currently, their skill set is, where they are on the depth chart, and put them in a position to now listen to the the the coaches and the team leaders' feedback.
Speaker: This is sometimes the phase and stage where coaches panic and the captains disappear or captains turn into try to turn into dictators and tell you how it is.
Speaker: And it's also the most important stage for our whole model, allowing our team to come together. Okay, storming is when the the honeymoon ends.
Speaker: The first gut punch loss or conflict, the fight on a team that's external, it could be in social circles, that then brings itself into the the team.
Speaker: The masks finally come out and players tell them how they really feel about each other. the conditioning starts to turn up. It's not just getting our chili hot anymore. Now we're actually preparing for season. It's not the conditioning test.
Speaker: It's the conditioning to be prepared for the first game. Playing time now becomes a a live conversation. They're seeing, oh no, I'm farther on the depth chart or this new freshman came in bumped me down a peg or two.
Speaker: So there's all this opportunity for, and I call it opportunity, all this opportunity for conflict with great leadership to guide and walk them through how to have hard conversations or how to hold the mirror up on what their their actual position or standing on the team or their their tonality and how they're communicating to others.
Speaker: Someone thinks the captain's plays favorite or the coach plays favorite. That's going to cause a lot of conflict and turmoil underneath. How are peer-to-peer leaders confronting that and calling that out?
Speaker: Are they ignoring it? Well, if they ignore it, it's only going to grow. And then when coaches move on to the next phase, but there's this dragon still there, it's going to unleash and burn everything down.
Speaker: So we want to aim to have the hard conversations, have the difficult conversations versus suppressing everything down until it erupts in a church picnic or during a game when we we least need it.
Speaker: So he What I need you do to to hold onto from this podcast and this conversation is this. Storming is not failure. Storming is growth.
Speaker: You cannot build trust without tension. All this friction, we need it to really start the fire underneath the team. You cannot build accountability without disagreement.
Speaker: We can't stress test the standard, the rules in place. or a captain's ability to communicate without this friction. We're going to need those leaders down the line, so this is an opportunity for our leaders to learn how to lead.
Speaker: We cannot become a full team, a unit, until we've survived something together that tested whether we actually care, whether we actually are one unit.
Speaker: Very important phase as a strength and conditioning professional. I love to dose this in there and manipulate different conditioning approaches, tests to see where my leaders are.
Speaker: But guess what? I got high standards and high support to put lessons in place to teach these team leaders how to lead. Because the problem, it's not the storm.
Speaker: The problem often is that coaches treat every conflict like a culture crisis. And i don't know if you all have ever experienced that. I've been on teams, even in the off season, when a kid makes a mistake or something happens, an injury or an injury related to a behavior that's off the field.
Speaker: treated it like ah a crisis versus realizing that this is a kid and they made a poor decision So how do we approach it once we see that?
Speaker: So don't see every problem during this phase of storming as a culture crisis. That will shut down the very process that is building our team.
Speaker: If there is a crisis of off-field behavior, encourage and give the captains tools to go deal with it themselves. If they're unable to deal with it, okay, now it's time to call on the coach and we can have a one-on-one conversation.
Speaker: with them and the captains or a one-on-one with whoever we need to to establish that. Great coaches don't eliminate conflict. They teach teams how to navigate it.
Speaker: There's a difference between a disagreement and disrespect. Understanding that comes down to the standards that we've established of who we are as a team or who we're aiming to be when the going gets tough.
Speaker: And athletes can tell the differences between these two. And ah authenticity goes a long way for a team leader and a team coach. So if we are establishing standards and expectations, are the coaches holding themselves to that?
Speaker: Are the captains holding themselves to that? Or do they act a fool for one, two, three years, then they get the fourth year to lead and nobody wants to follow them because they did the exact opposite of that.
Speaker: Or they're actively pushing back against the coaches And then they want everybody to lead and follow them, not realizing the the the behaviors that they put in place that, hey, we're going to disrespect and not listen, or I'm going to disrespect and not listen to authority, but I need you to listen to me.
Speaker: It doesn't work like that. People see right through that. So athletes can tell the difference from the coaches and the captain's perspective. Okay, some notes for the Storm 4 are coaches.
Speaker: I don't want you to interpret every argument or conflict on the field, on the court, as a character issue. Sometimes those teammates, they have to work it out.
Speaker: I can name a half dozen fights on the field that I had as a player and a team captain. And now we're best buds standing at each other's wedding. So necessary sometimes for that conflict to happen and allowing the athletes to work it out themselves. If it continues after practice, well, then they need more tools or they need more time to resolve those issues.
Speaker: Big fan of the Entourage Method. method Hug it out. So aiming to to squash it as quickly as possible in the practice or within the drill so we can move on.
Speaker: We're acknowledging, that allows us to acknowledge the conflict. An understanding is only reached after confrontation. Bring it into the room instead of managing it in the hallways. Keep it on the field instead of letting it go to the phones.
Speaker: don't want to do that. If it gets to the internet and you get all these people in an echo chamber just piling on to what that kid said, that's bad news. Let's keep it away from the phones, on the field, on the court, in the room, so we can manage that situation and provide the perspective of tools that we need to as coaches.
Speaker: This allows us to teach our team about disagreements, how to have tactics, roles, be able to listen, and what standards of respect that we're bringing into conflict and confrontation. This is healthy conflict.
Speaker: And as long as it focuses on the team's goals and doesn't become personal, we're in a good position here. That's what we want to focus on is progressing the team goals, coming together as a team.
Speaker: And here's the leadership key in this stage from a coach's perspective. Shared leadership has to start emerging. I mentioned calling on the captains to go call kids out for off-field behaviors first.
Speaker: Now we're starting shared leadership between the coaching staff and the team leaders. If your captains are sitting sitting back and waiting for you to solve everything, That's a problem that you created in the forming stage, trying to squash everything or just ignore everything and until it becomes too big of a dragon for a captain to slay.
Speaker: all right Hey, Captains, this is for our our storming phase, and this is where you find out if you're actually a leader or someone with a title.
Speaker: And going to call you all out because many of you want this role. You want this logo on your jersey. You want the patch. However, you're not willing to practice, confront, or develop the tools to then keep this team together and truly come together during our storming phase.
Speaker: The move is is goes from complaining to problem solving, to exploding at your teammates and trying to get them to comply because you're louder and more aggressive and bigger and stronger to actually understanding and and coming together as a team.
Speaker: Anybody can identify what's wrong. so Do you confront the individuals that are involved in the problem or do you go to the phones, go to the hallways, or talk about it with the other seniors without addressing the one kid that it is an issue with?
Speaker: What kind of leader are you? And it's okay to be in that position if now we're willing to level set on our leadership ability, not just our sport ability, and learn how to tackle these and take them head on.
Speaker: And leadership takes reps. Leaders... help figure out what's next, not only for yourself, but also the teammates that are involved. And that friend versus leader tension, I talk about this a lot. It's it's inevitable.
Speaker: It's okay. Can you call your best friends out, but still maintain a friendship that you will be standing in each other's weddings? I guarantee you, if you choose to ignore and not have the hard conversation, then you won't continue to deepen that bond. will be a surface level conversation.
Speaker: pat I want to say pals. I love the word pals. Pals is connection. Just ah yeah buddies. Just a guy. or i Yeah, I know him.
Speaker: Versus best friend. Can't wait to hang out with him again. Man, I'm going to give him a call because I truly care about him. That's not how it's going to be. So the opportunity, it's going to hurt, but have the hard conversation because that's going to deepen the friendship and connection and then turn start to turn this into a team and a unit.
Speaker: You can't be everyone's best friend. You can't fight and worry about what what they're going to think of you and worry about, okay, I just want everybody to like me. Well, you're not going to be a great captain.
Speaker: Be aiming to confront them, and that's what true friendship is going to to to form when you start to hold them to a standard and yourself at the same time.
Speaker: And in storming, you've got to choose. Do I want everybody to like me or do I want us to come together as a team? And I'll quote Nick Saban here. If you want to be liked, go sell ice cream.
Speaker: Awesome. I think I'm paraphrasing that. I'll have to look up the the full quote there, but that one just came to me. So choose your standard, captains. Do you want to be liked or do you want to lead?
Speaker: The key shift that moves a team out of this storming phase we're talking about right now is going from testing and proving to problem solving.
Speaker: If we, our teammates on there are always trying to prove ourselves as an individual or test others and just have this constant conflict versus trusting one another, well, the whole season is going to be a massive storm and that is not fun for anyone.
Speaker: When you stop asking who's right and start asking, what do we need? That's when things start to turn away from the storm and into our next stage, which is norming, the buy-in phase.
Speaker: And this is where things start to click. And if you've done the work informing and thrt learn to thrive during the storming, you'll feel it before you can explain it.
Speaker: Players accept their roles, not just the star's role, not just the best, oh, they're the best player on the team, but you don't know where you fit. you're not You're no longer confused. You see the whole depth chart, understand your role, I'm going get X amount of time on the field, and I'm going to execute.
Speaker: The backup player understands why they matter, whether at practice or the the the smaller amount of minutes that they're going to get on the the field or the court.
Speaker: The second string is genuinely supporting the starting lineup. The bench gets loud and is excited when one of their other players does well.
Speaker: You gotta teach kids to be excited for each other during the storming phase. And people stop asking what's best for me and start asking what's best for us.
Speaker: Shared habits develop shared language and a shared identity. This is where culture stops being a poster on a wall and starts being how the team actually operates.
Speaker: For coaches during this phase, you start to step back. You hand off the pre-practice huddles to the captains.
Speaker: You hand off closing practice out to the captains. You let players solve the problems. You ask more questions and give fewer answers, more wellness checks than calling parents for, hey, what's going on here? Help me understand your kid. No, just a wellness check to the kids. how are you feeling today?
Speaker: And it's, yeah, ah check in on the sidelines before practice versus, hey, you need to come down to my office and we got to talk about this. A coach-led team can be good. I'm not saying it it can't be.
Speaker: However, player-led team can be great. And I talked about this on the Notre Dame podcast with Coach Ryan Wellner, defensive coordinator for Notre Dame Lacrosse.
Speaker: And one of his athletes just won the Heisman of Lacrosse. We'll call it that. And he was one of the leaders on the whole team. So he talked about the value and the aim to come together as a player-led team.
Speaker: And that shift from directing to facilitating is a skill. In the beginning of the the seasons that we're going through during a season, coaches, you will direct.
Speaker: But eventually, once we get into the norming, we're going start to drift back away from the huddle and allow are our leaders to lead. And we're facilitating certain messages, expectations, and we get to to to to motivate and have have more fun if we've done this right as coaches.
Speaker: And the more seasons that you have underneath your belt, you'll start to see this flow. And if we never reach that norm point, the seasons are extremely exhausting as a coach and you begin to question yourself in the off season.
Speaker: If you'd done this well and stepped into the norming and could sit back, call plays, and let the the the field generals lead, man, you can't wait to get back to season and really get the team up to this point again.
Speaker: So, for our captains. Your job here during the norming phase is to protect the norms. Standards have been established, expectations are there.
Speaker: You've either had a part in creating them with coaches or You've bought in, the rest of the players are bought in, and now we really need to hold each other accountable throughout the the length of the season.
Speaker: And I want to be specific on what that looks like because it's not speeches, it's not yelling, it's not shaming your teammates, it's consistency. It sounds like, hey, that's not who we are, that's not what we do.
Speaker: Finish through the line, that's who we are. It's simple, it's calm, it's repeated. Norms are happening whether you create them or not. Every team develops unwritten rules about how hard you practice, how you respond to mistakes, how you treat the younger players, and captains decide that those rules are by what?
Speaker: are by what they reinforce and what they let slide. And I want to do spend a a minute with this because a lot of senior captains will let senior friends pass on some things but not be afraid to jump on a freshman and yell at them for not running through the line, not touching the line, or forgetting this or that, or showing up on time.
Speaker: They'll let their friends slide, but then make sure the whole freshman team or junior varsity pays for what they ah the the standards they did not abide by.
Speaker: During the norming phase, if you are a team leader, you've got to call your friends out. That is going to be the sign of a good team. And they'll ah they may give you some guff or talk back to you in that moment,
Speaker: But if the behavior corrects itself, awesome. We're in line and we're truly continuing to push the team down the line. If you ignore that, this maybe the storm we felt went away, it'll start to bubble up and eventually it's one, two, three, four guys that are late or one minute late turns into five, turns into 10 to being like, I don't feel like going to practice today.
Speaker: And that's a more difficult conversation because you didn't say one or two things simply, calmly, and respectfully that, hey, that's not who we are. So even though we made it through the storm, we made it through our big conflicts, you got to hold the standard as a leader, even if it's your friends. And that's going to be the hardest part through this.
Speaker: So teams that get comfortable, this is conformity, this is getting too comfortable versus establishing a norm of who you are. That's where we get into trouble.
Speaker: ah You start protecting the group vibe and what your your opinions, oh, I want them to to like me or yeah, and they're they're my boy. And cohesion and comfort they These are two different things.
Speaker: And we need to understand that cohesion and playing together is the the goal. And maintaining that is very difficult. We've established standards, but now it's up to the coaches to keep the standards in line and set boundaries with their friends. And peer-to-peer leadership, one of the most difficult things, but they they're pushing back.
Speaker: Whatever excuse they have, don't take it. Tell them, hey, Leave five minutes earlier from your house Wake up earlier, whatever it takes, or make time for homework. Make time for your team.
Speaker: And that difference is what's going to prepare us and keep us in a norm versus robertting reverting back to a storm throughout the season. And that's that that's our goal, is to maintain the the respect and the the the passion for performance that we have throughout this.
Speaker: Otherwise, the the whole storming time, it's wasted. you want to waste all that that angst, that effort, the attitude adjustments, and the the passion that you have ah built as a team.
Speaker: And finally, we're in our last ah stage here, at least on the field. This is performing. The championship phase. This is where what we're we're building towards.
Speaker: Our whole goal. We can't just jump and fast forward to phase four. No, we need to to pour in. We need to stress test our team. We've got to suffer together. Shared suffering and become something special. Create a team motto that wasn't just some motivational poster board or something the coaches forced.
Speaker: No, the team came up with it and they built the identity. That's what we're building towards. So we have our championship phase now. And good on you if you've established this before season.
Speaker: From my experience, it's gonna happen at least mid-season on or for a lacrosse after spring break when we return return and we almost have to go through storming again to remember what it's like after a week off.
Speaker: I, as a player, never had a spring break. Just traveled two games during the spring. But now at the high school level, they actually get a spring break. So I digress. All right. So in purposely, i apply hard stuff to come back from it. So we go through more so storming and remind each other who we are as a team and reestablish the standards.
Speaker: It's a lot of side pillar work and dead bugs and things that they hate. It's fun for me, though. So. um Championship phase. Okay. this If you've done this right, it feels different than anything else. Communication is automatic.
Speaker: We are holding each other to a high standards and there's no pushback, fightback, or defensiveness. There's no blaming, complaining, or palms up behavior. It's, I got you next time.
Speaker: Trust is so high. Roles are clear. Players are anticipating each other before the play. They're thinking one, two passes ahead. They know exactly where the teammate's going to be, and they're there.
Speaker: They're not thinking. They're playing. The game. that's That's the most fun part. And they're adapting on the fly. They're listening to to coaches or making calls themselves. They're playing free.
Speaker: The team is genuinely greater than the sum of its parts. And Tuchman, going back to to his experience, his research, he called this interdependence.
Speaker: And that word matters. Not dependent on one each other. Not independence from each other, interdependence.
Speaker: They can work individually in small groups or as a full unit and the competency level doesn't drop. That's what a high performing act team actually does. My performance is relying on your performance and I trust that you're gonna get your job done and I know that you trust me to execute my job.
Speaker: For coaches, by this point, get out of the way. Focus on the environment. Trust the preparation. Give them the tools to succeed. Continue to shape behaviors to stay in line with the standards.
Speaker: Cue them up, coach them up, and have fun at practice. Focus on strategy versus the motivation and over-coaching here.
Speaker: Your team doesn't need you to fire them up right now. They're already fired up because they're clicking and feeling it and playing together. What they do need is your trust and continual trust in them.
Speaker: For our captains, the biggest mistake during the that biggest mistake performing teams make is thinking that they've arrived. Thinking that this is going to continue. Oh, we beat this team and played this well. It's going to just be that way from here on out.
Speaker: Definitely not. You got to reset every single game. You got to reset almost every single play, next play. They stop doing the small thing. They become complacent during performing times and you can't allow that.
Speaker: And that's exactly where decline starts and our performance starts to slip during the performing phase. Because performing is not a destination.
Speaker: It's a daily practice. And this is critical. One injury, one kid quits, one kid decides they're not part of this team. One loss, one mistake on the field and a performing team can slide right back into storming and start jumping on each other.
Speaker: Tuchman's model is not a straight line. Even though we're talking about it progressing through phases, at any moment, you can revert back and start to slip. I mentioned intentionally re-storming after spring break for my teams.
Speaker: Why? Because they detached from the sport. They took a week to to travel or go do a project or a mission trip or something. And now we've got to remind them quickly how we operate as one, as an organization, and two, as a team.
Speaker: So the the goal isn't getting into performing, it's recognizing when the team is slipping and knowing how to rebuild, having the tools to accelerate through all these phases to get back to the the high functioning performing team that they've they've they've seen it, they felt it, they know exactly what it feels like to to be successful.
Speaker: Finally, stage five. And this was added on to Tuchman's model about 10 years later, which is cool. And I completely get it. This is a journey.
Speaker: ah Call this the legacy phase. And I've been a part of many different programs as a a player. And legacy matters. Been part of many different programs as a coach.
Speaker: Some programs, coach legacy matters. So it happens every season, and it makes me sad, especially just thinking about the the team that we just graduated here. So the legacy phase, the final whistle blows, the season's over. Seniors clean out their lockers, and the team that spent, oh, I mean years, but particularly this season, six months building something real scatters. It's like that scene in Friday Night Lights where Billy Bob Thornton He's got the the the name magnets up on the board, and he's taking the starter off one by one, and they're telling the story of what what happened to to Billingsley, what happened to Chavez, what happened to Booby, and he's throwing the pieces into a box, and then they're you know overlaying the, hey, what happened to these guys?
Speaker: I've been in that position as a coach where we got to erase the names or we got to delete it from the spreadsheet or we got to mark it off on the the whiteboard and replace it or change the colors on the whiteboard for the starters.
Speaker: And it is sad. You one by one remember the good plays that these these dudes had. And so Tuchman, when he went back and revisited this 10 years later, he called this a journey.
Speaker: I sometimes call this mourning because I feel that loss, but I then get excited for the next guy's up, next man up. And why mourning? Because even when the season was something special, especially when it was great and you make a run towards that championship,
Speaker: this is this is loss the the seniors they lose this team yes they're gonna go on and and grow and be a part of something special and grow as individuals but there is loss here the the routines are gone the daily contact with the team disappears and people who never had to think about what this team meant to them suddenly feel the weight of this moment so for coaches This is not a logistic stage. It's in ah an emotional one. You want to see all those guys go off and and be successful.
Speaker: They may have been pains in your ass during the season, but there's still some mourning going on. And aim is to create real closure. That's going to be my guidance and my recommendation. It could be exit meetings one-on-one, sports banquet, celebrate the journey, not just not certainly not the record.
Speaker: ha Recognize contributions that each player did. Show a highlight reel of how they kept showing up and showing out. Tell the stories. Name the moments.
Speaker: And people, they they need to feel good about the the the effort and the energy that they poured in a to to your team.
Speaker: And for the captains, your job in this stage is is about legacy. Keeping your team together. I mentioned weddings before. And that's what it's all about for me. I could give highlight reel for all the the wedding parties that that I've been a part of from my my college teammates. And it's something special.
Speaker: And I do do my best as team captain to to make sure that we're all together. We had two players inducted into the Marymount, my school, my alma mater's Hall of Fame.
Speaker: And man, we showed up. And that was ah that was a special moment for everybody. So Show the younger players, if you're the team captain, how to to stay together and how to motivate. And I hope that you keep coming back to your games once you do go on and graduate.
Speaker: So legacy, it's not about what you accomplished as a player. It's what remains after you're gone. And people are going to forget goals, records, and all that.
Speaker: but they're gonna remember the the fun stories, the leadership moments, the call out, and how you helped shape and craft them as a a leader moving forwards.
Speaker: To close this out, and but this this has been an important one, I want you to apply this lens to past sports seasons, or even if you're not even a coach or a player, if you're in the business world, how this applies to teams that you've been a part of or had the chance to leading to lead.
Speaker: This is the takeaway. Stop judging your team by where you wish they were. Start leading them where they actually are. through each phase into the next one, aiming for us to thrive.
Speaker: And if your team is forming, they need structure and belonging, not accountability or speeches. If your team is storming, they need conflict navigation, not a lid on the tensions.
Speaker: or ignoring it, sweeping it under the rug. If your team is norming, they need you to step back and let shared leadership breathe. Give the team to the captains.
Speaker: And if your team is performing, they need your trust, not your interference or control. And if your team just adjourned, they need closure, not just a banquet.
Speaker: Make it more than that. Make it a special moment for each and every one them. So the the challenge I'd hand off to you whenever you're listening to this episode at your next practice or next opportunity, you get to connect with former players. Ask yourself, what stage are we actually in right now?
Speaker: Not what stage do I want them to be in? What stage the evidence tells you you're in Okay, now we know what tools we need to aim to apply to progress them or to hand them off so they can progress themselves.
Speaker: Because once you know where your team is in this journey, you know exactly what kind of leadership they need next. That's the work. that's That's always been the work.
Speaker: And if this landed for you, share it with a coach or a captain who you feel needs it. And if you want a deeper team development, shared leadership, and what it actually takes to build a captain, I've got plenty of resources for you.
Speaker: Captainsandcoaches.com. I've got online courses and launched a new workshop that traveled to colleges for, traveled to prep schools for, and just got an opportunity to lead a business through this.
Speaker: So that's at workshop.com. singular workshop.captainsandcoaches.com real excited for that that's been a lot of fun and this this is an anchor in our team development as we progress through it during a workshop so put people through that real time and hand off leadership and then drift away Say goodbye.
Speaker: Speaking of saying goodbye, thank you for tuning in. If you like this episode, be sure to like, subscribe, rate, and review, send this to somebody you feel needs it. Thank you for helping us raise the game.
Speaker: And peace.
