In this new series, the GSC team will review some of the top coaching books on the market today and hopefully encourage you to read or even to share books or other materials that have impacted you and helped you become a better coach.
The first book that we are reviewing is "You Win in the Locker Room First: The 7 C's to Build a Winning Team in Business, Sports, and Life" by Jon Gordon and Mike Smith. Mike Smith is the current Defensive Coordinator for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and former Atlanta Falcons head coach. Jon Gordon is a consultant to many businesses and sports teams.
The first C that the book tackles is "Culture." Culture is an important piece of any team's winning strategy. We've talked about creating a positive culture in previous blogs.
Jon and Mike talk about how important it is to involve the entire organization in building a great team culture, not just the players and coaches, but everyone in the training room, on the administration side, assistants and supporters. John and Mike talk about how important it is to get everyone to share the same beliefs, values and goals. One of the ways to do that is to get people to read the same materials and share messaging.
One of the interesting things about this book is that Mike Smith talks about his successes, but he also talks about his mistakes. He talks about how it's important not to focus on goals for the team, but on achieving milestones and focusing on the process. He also talks about how quickly culture can change and how it's up to the coach to make sure that maintaing culture is more important than the outcomes.
The second C the book talks about is "Contagious." This refers to energy levels and how both positive and negative energy can affect the entire group. Jon Gordon talks about how important it is to stay positive and share that energy constantly with the organization. Contagiousness can be shared verbally and non-verbally.
Two of the themes that are addressed in this book and developed further in additional books by Gordon are those of Energy Vampires and the No Complaining Rule. Both concepts help teams stay positive by recognizing team members that tend to go negative and sway the positive focus of the group. The No Complaining Rule changes the team mindset to be one of appreciation and forward progress as opposed to being stuck in negative and limiting behavior.
In our next blog, we will touch on the next two C's from "You Win in the Locker Room First": Consistent and Communicate.
