Question: Ryan, what off-ice issues are important to the health of our teams?
Answer: a believe that there are two simple, but not necessarily easy “reads” of where your team is today that will influence its success tomorrow.
Mark Eppler, in his 10 Leadership Musts, shares a story about Listening to the Engine. Eppler writes, “I met a railroad engineer recently, the guy who actually drives the train. I told him that as a boy I loved seeing the engineers, whistle rope in hand, leaning out the window to inspect the tracks as they drove by. ‘Actually,’ the man said, ‘that’s not exactly what they were doing.’” He went on to tell me that the primary reason the engineer sticks his head out of the cab isn’t to check the tracks but to listen to the engine. ‘He’s so familiar with his machine,’ the engineer said, ‘he can easily catch something wrong with his ears alone.’ The best way to keep your engine [team] on track is to listen...really listen...to it daily.”
How many times in our family, sport or corporate team do we NOT pay attention to the signs of the times? Our people or our players are talking and we aren’t listening.
NHL coach Pat Quinn said, “they say that coaches lose the room...but I don’t agree. Coaches don’t lose the room; players start listening to a different voice.” Whose voice is your team listening to...and are you listening to see how your engine is running?
Many of you know of my passion surrounding what I call the HUNGRY Spirit. A number of years ago I visited Washington, D.C. with my wife Jenni, where I spoke to 200 executives. I played for the Washington Capitals from 1978 to 1982, so for us it was amazing to return to see the core of the city again. We discovered one significant change in the National Mall: the addition of the World War II Memorial between the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument. As we walked around the periphery the words of author Walter Lord etched into the east wall, describing the impact of the Battle of Midway June 4 to 7, 1942, inspired me:
“They had no right to win, yet they did and in doing so they changed the war...Even against the greatest of odds, there is something in the human spirit, a magic blend of skill, faith and valor that can lift men from certain defeat to incredible victory.”
Is your team internally and collectively HUNGRY? Do you have a plan to help encourage your players’ ‘HUNGRY spirit? Are players playing because they have to or because they
want to?
As coaches, we are always asking our players to make good “reads” on the ice. These are two good “reads” that we coaches must make to ensure the health of our teams!
Ryan Walter played 15 seasons in the NHL and is now a coach with the Vancouver Canucks. Join Ryan in July 2009 on his Leadership/Coaching Cruise – find out more at www.leadershipcruise.com and sign up for Ryan’s free e-newsletter at www.ryanwalter.com |
