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Mar 22, 2011 ... of this evolution overachievement is still overachievement. The need for overachievement is still the same and what leads to overachievement ...
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FCS ADA | CORNER PERSPECTIVES ON WINNING: FROM A CAREER IN COLLEGE ATHLETICS First, let me say that if you have more resources than most people in your conference, win a lot of championships, your conference all-sports trophy and compete for the Learfield Sports Directors’ Cup, you can put this article down because it probably isn’t Hank Small for you. Go get a copy of the Wall Street Journal and do some work on your investment strategies, I trust that you are doing well. On the other hand, if you and your department are wearing yourselves out trying to win then I hope that there is a thought or two for you here. Overachievement I have seen the transitioning from the era where all of the college coaches were WWII veterans and the AD was a former football or basketball coach, to the present with all of our sports management graduate schools, MBA’s and athletics department CEO’s. Through all of this evolution overachievement is still overachievement. The need for overachievement is still the same and what leads to overachievement is still the same. Doing more with less is still the goal of all of us who are trying to help our athletes win contests and win in life. At a time when the worlds of business and athletics have merged the desire for maximum performance and the reaching of potentials has always been common ground. Leaders in both worlds have tilled this soil, each to the benefit of the other.

FCS ADA | CORNER

Motivation What I have seen is that both worlds realize that at the heart of overachievement is motivation and that the methods for motivation boil down to essentially two paradigms. The first we will call the “business” or “rational” model. It would go something like this: The coach says to the athlete, here is a scholarship, perform or else. The athletics director says to the coach, here is a contract, perform or else. The president says to the athletics director, here is a contract, perform or else. You can even go so far as to say, the parent says to the child, I am going to do this or that for you, perform or else. In this model there is a business transaction going on and this form of motivation is very common in our culture and around the world. I do not believe that any significant overachievement takes place under this paradigm and studies in the business world backup my assertion. Empowerment Peters and Waterman’s national bestseller In Search of Excellence, Lessons from America’s Best Run Companies, clearly showed that the rational model of business did not lead to excellence or high levels of performance. They backed it up with numerous illustrations from the corporate world. The excellent companies demanded extraordinary performance from each member of their team and their workers

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exerted extraordinary energy. What the rational model said was not possible, the excellent companies did routinely. How was this accomplished? The high performance levels were accomplished by an emphasis on people. While everyone agrees “people are our most important asset,” almost none really lived it. The excellent companies lived up to their commitment to people. They treated people as their most important asset with structural devices, systems, styles and values all reinforcing the theme. It is the completeness of the people orientation that led to success. In these cases, the lines between management and non-management blur and there is ownership, a true team effort. I believe that John C. Maxwell in his The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership would call all of this law No. 12, “empowerment.” Under this paradigm (also called the family paradigm), according to Maxwell, effective leaders buildup; give resources, authority and responsibility; turn people loose to achieve; help them reach their potential; encourage them; give them power. This is a shift from position power to people power where all can contribute to their fullest capacity. He believes that only empowered people can reach their potential. He also states that the main ingredient for empowering others is the leader’s high belief in people and strong sense of security. Those that best excel under this paradigm believe in themselves, their mission and their people. The person that epitomizes this style of leadership is a man who has spent a lifetime motivating people, Zig Ziglar. The business community and our athletics community has spent years absorbing Ziglar’s axiom, “You can get everything that you want out of life if you will just help enough other people get what they want.” As you consider the levels of authority and relationship within your department; player-coach, head coach-assistant coach, head coachAD, AD-staff and AD-VP or president; wouldn’t it be productive to have empowered people at every level? How would you rate your levels for quality of communication, relationship, management quality and leadership quality? It begins with you. How about empowered children if you are a parent? Why would you have one paradigm to motivate your children and another for your staff or athletes? Speaking of athletes, there is a great series that will assist you and your coaches in motivating millennials (and some of your coaches might also be millennials). It is Habitudes by Dr. Tim Elmore, of Growing Leaders. The series of four books helps the reader visualize things like icebergs, floods and thermostats and then makes application on how this visualization will help the reader achieve success in athletics and life. This is outstanding life skills training that fits in very well with the empowerment theme. Also, it will help you win. If we can develop our human resources to the fullest, our material resources will seem less problematic and I will “see you at the top” as Zig would say. Hank Small is the athletics director at Charleston Southern.

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