Developing Dynasties: Evaluations

“Start with the end in mind.” As I think about where to start in my journey as a first year football coach, this is a quote that guides me well. There are so many different topics to discuss and tactics to debate that I had a hard time determining what to prioritize. I think the first conversation to have is around:

  1. What we are trying to accomplish (Mission Statement) 

  2. Why it matters (5 Why exercise) 

  3. How we know when we have accomplished it (Evaluation Plan) 

Team Mission Statement: The mission of the football team I am helping coach is to build great fathers and husbands. Now we enact the 5 why exercise: 

Five Why Exercise: 

  1. Why? Because sports is just a vehicle for driving us towards what we really need which is a community of responsible and competent men to lead their families in our communities. 

  2. Why? Because we need these men to serve in only the ways they can to help protect, provide, and be productive so that we can continue to grow and be prosperous. 

  3. etc…


Evaluation Plan: So, how do we know if we are meeting this mission statement or not? Do we do a survey 10 years from now? I think that we look at the characteristics of what makes great husbands and fathers and try to evaluate that in the here and now. Our football team has 4 culture values and 9 inequalities: 

Values: 

  1. Communication: We communicate clearly, confidently, and with a purpose. 

  2. Honor: We value others greatly and hold them in high esteem. 

  3. Integrity: We do what we say we are going to do. 

  4. Perseverance: When things get hard, we push through. 

Inequalities: 

  1. Gratitude > Grumbling

  2. Growth > Comfort 

  3. Process > Result

  4. Conviction > Emotion

  5. Passion > Passivity

  6. Toughness > Talent

  7. Victor > Victim

  8. Love > Fear

  9. You > Me 

Our belief is that our mission will be fulfilled if we can guide and mold our players to meet these values and inequalities. So, how do we measure these? First, a quick crash course in culture…

According to Edgar Schein, there are 3 elements to culture: assumptions, values, and observable artifacts. What this means is that the things we believe or assume about the world ultimately drive our very reality. Jordan Peterson once said that “you act out what you believe”. Our values and beliefs about the world ultimately determine how we behave and the decisions that we make which are OBSERVABLE. So, our goal is to try to connect certain values and decisions to the value and then find a way that we can measure it. 

Value #1: Communication

Behavior

Verbal: # of “uhms” 

Verbal: # of conversations deemed “Unconfident”

Verbal: # of times we practice active listening

Non-Verbal: # of times there is no eye-contact during communication

Non-Verbal: # of times hands on hips 


This is the evaluation of how we will determine if we truly value effective communication or not but there is also another element which is how we help train them to be better communicators as well. What we plan to do this year is to: 

  1. Have them reflect consistently through surveys and journaling

  2. Have them get up in front of others to teach 

  3. Conduct pre-game speeches 

  4. Conduct 3 training sessions on effective communication from John Maxwell 

  5. 1 other training on organized thinking such as logic 


Value #2: Honor

Behavior

Non-verbal communication: # of times eye contact does not exist between parties

# of times an upper-classman serves an underclassman

Quality of difficult conversations

# of times we uplift one another with words of affirmation

# of times someone takes extreme ownership and accepts blame


Value #3: Integrity

Behavior

# of violations of the contract


Value #4: Perseverance

Behavior

An assortment of 4th Quarter statistics in season 

Non-verbal: sitting or laying down after conditioning 

Non-verbal: Hands on hips or bending over after conditioning

HR monitors during workout sessions

Bench noise when falling behind in a game

Number of times a player is willing to have a crucial conversation to hold a teammate accountable to team rules


We do the same things for the inequalities and then come up with a score that we determine before the season that will point to us both objectively improving our culture and also meeting our mission statement.