Showing posts with label values. Show all posts
Showing posts with label values. Show all posts

The Double-Goal Coach: Positive Coaching Tools for Honoring the Game and Developing Winners in Sports and Life (Harperresource Book) Review

The Double-Goal Coach: Positive Coaching Tools for Honoring the Game and Developing Winners in Sports and Life (Harperresource Book)
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The Double-Goal Coach: Positive Coaching Tools for Honoring the Game and Developing Winners in Sports and Life (Harperresource Book) ReviewDiscussions of character in sports hinge on two sometimes competing beliefs. One holds that sports build character, the other that sports reveal it.
The case can be made that both ideas are valid. Character is regularly revealed in the way that players, coaches, parents and leaders of youth sports organizations (YSOs) conduct themselves on and off the field.
The "Sports Builds Character" belief is a trickier proposition. Who is to question that sports provides a wonderful setting for the development of poise, confidence, determination, resilience, self-sacrifice, courage? The list goes on, and it is not a coincidence that a strong involvement in sports was the common feature of those who tried to take back the plane on 9/11. Yet every Positive Life Skill associated with sports has a counterpart that can be learned equally well. And often more easily. If you can learn fair play and sportsmanship, you can also learn to cheat. If you can learn about commitment, you can also learn to quit on yourself and your teammates. Accountability and accepting responsibility: making excuses. Again, the list goes on.
Many of the adults involved in sports simply assume, based on their own experience, that the positive side of these character traits will emerge. In fact, without a concerted effort to use sports to teach positive Life Lessons, you might as well be flipping a coin.
Attention to these issues is a major focus of "The Double Goal Coach", the latest book by Jim Thompson. The author is founder of the Positive Coaching Alliance ..., an organization based at Stanford University which seeks "to transform the culture of youth sports so that sports can transform youth."
Like many books on the state of youth sports, Thompson chronicles the excesses. What sets the book apart are solutions to these problems based on research in the fields of education and sports psychology as well as lessons in organizational culture drawn from the business world. Theory then becomes practice through the presentation of many practical tools for establishing and maintaining a positive culture for youth sports. Coaches, parents and the leaders of YSO's will find things here that can be put to immediate use.
What is a Double Goal Coach? He or she is a coach who wants to win. Thompson makes clear that the Positive Coaching message is not anti-competitive or about "happy talk". This is not an invitation to go out and kick a ball around with Barney. Indeed, at a time when real competitions at Field Day have been reduced to (at most) a 50 yard dash, Thompson sees the competitive sports experience as an increasingly important, and rare, opportunity for the development of positive character traits - the second, and more important, goal of the Double Goal Coach. Because it's the character traits that will endure long after the ball's gone into the closet.
There are three elements to Double Goal Coaching. The first seeks to redefine winning, changing the definition from one based only on results (the "win at all costs" model, or waac - which so often becomes wacko!) to a "mastery approach" based on effort, learning, and a positive view of the value of mistakes. The essential difference in the approaches has to do with control. Results are so much in the control of others; with a mastery approach, control belongs to the athlete. What's interesting, though, is the research that shows that a mastery approach actually produces better performance than one where the focus is primarily on the scoreboard.
Next comes the concept of Honoring the Game. This is largely a proactive view of sportsmanship issues, based on what you do rather than what you don't do. Honoring the game involves developing and demonstrating respect for Rules, Opponents, Officials, Teammates, and one's Self (ROOTS).
The third element of the Double Goal model involves "Filling the Emotional Tank", motivation through encouragement and positive reinforcement. Again, the book provides a number of useful tools for coaches.
There is also a section of the book for Sports Parents. Thompson promotes the notion of the "Second Goal Parent", whose primary task is to be unconditionally supportive of their child, whose focus is on those Life Lessons and positive character traits, who recognize that their child's participation in sports belongs to the child, and who leave coaching to the coaches.
Thompson advocates a "systems approach" to developing positive cultures for youth sports, and his organization provides an integrated set of workshops for coaches, parents and leaders of YSOs. Where that's not in place, "The Double Goal Coach" will give the individual coach many ways create a more enjoyable environment for his or her team, and one where the players are much more likely to reach their potential as athletes. That a Double Goal approach will also be much more enjoyable and rewarding for the coach is no insignificant bonus.The Double-Goal Coach: Positive Coaching Tools for Honoring the Game and Developing Winners in Sports and Life (Harperresource Book) Overview

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Cookies: Bite-Size Life Lessons Review

Cookies: Bite-Size Life Lessons
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Cookies: Bite-Size Life Lessons ReviewThis is such a wonderful book. I was attracted to Jane Dyer's lovely illustrations and fell in love with the story. By using chocolate chip cookies, Rosenthal explains such things as envy, greed, cooperation, kindness, etc in a manner that helps children understand and gives adults a reason to smile. Today is my daughter's 6th birthday. Rather than take in treats that would be forgotten quickly, she gave her kindergarten teacher and class a copy of this book as a present. The teacher (and class) loved it. This book would be a wonderful present for a young child (say kindergarten to first grade) and a welcome addition to any libary. I cannot recommend it enough.Cookies: Bite-Size Life Lessons Overview

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Integrity: The Courage to Meet the Demands of Reality Review

Integrity: The Courage to Meet the Demands of Reality
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Integrity: The Courage to Meet the Demands of Reality ReviewThe Collins imprint of HarperCollins Publishers continues to pour out a very impressive stream of books that address ethical issues in business. Dr. Henry Cloud's book, "Integrity," published just a few weeks ago, is the latest offering in this genre. I found it to be a very encouraging, challenging and ultimately uplifting work. Henry Cloud, despite his background as a psychologist, manages to avoid the "psychobabble" one often encounters in reading clinicians who opine on business ethics. He anchors his thoughts in the real world of clients he has consulted with in helping them to address very real and concrete business issues that have deep roots in issues of ethics and integrity.
Dr. Cloud makes it clear that "integrity," as he uses the term, is much more than mere "honesty." Throughout the book he parses and elucidates six essential qualities and character traits that lead to success in the business world. He describes the kind of character that . . .
1) Creates and maintains trust
2) Is able to see and face reality
3) Works in a way that brings results
4) Embraces negative realities and solves them
5) Causes growth and increase
6) Achieves transcendence and meaning in life
"You will see how these character traits supercede gifts, talents and ability, and how the ones who have them succeed and the ones who don't, ultimately fail." (Page xii)
In this review, I will offer more quotations than I typically do in writing about a book. The reasons for this proliferation of quotes are that I want to share a fair sample of Dr. Cloud's nuggets, and he states the case very well in his own words. I could not improve upon them through more extensive commentary.
In talking with a wealthy businessman who is a personal friend, Dr. Cloud heard his friend comment on how he chooses to invest his money in businesses.
"I did not invest in those businesses. I invested in the people. I never invest in businesses I don't know anything about, but I will invest in a person. If I know their character, their history, how they operate, what kind of judgment they have, what kinds of risks are acceptable to them, how they execute, and things like that, and I know them well, I will invest. But I don't buy businesses I don't know anything about." (Pages 29-30)
Early in this book, Dr. Cloud gives us his expanded definition of integrity as it applies to the business world:
"And, the origins of the word we can see in the French and Latin meanings of intact, integrate, integral and entirety. The concept means that the `whole thing is working well, undivided, integrated, intact and uncorrupted.' When we are talking about integrity, we are talking about being a whole person, an integrated person, with all of our different parts working well and delivering the functions that they were designed to deliver. It is about wholeness and effectiveness as people. It truly is `running on all cylinders.'" (Page 31)
The author offers a very clear and helpful metaphor for the type of impact that this kind of person of integrity has on the lives of those with whom she or he interacts. Dr. Cloud posits that each of us, as we move through the waters of life, leave behind a wake, like that left by ships as they pass through the ocean. There are two aspects to the "wake" that we leave behind - the tasks we have performed and the relationships we have built.
"We leave a wake of people behind us as we move though their lives and their organizations. . . So, we must ask ourselves, `What does that wake look like?' Are a lot of people out there water-skiing on the wake, smiling, having a great time for our having `moved through their lives'? Or are they are there bobbing for air, bleeding, and left wounded as shark bait?" (Page 18)
In the chapter on Building Trust Through Connections, Cloud offers this profound insight that helps us to understand the difference between those persons and companies that command loyalty and those that do not:
"The human heart will seek to be known, understood, and connected with above all else. If you do not connect, the ones you care about will find someone who will." (Page 70)
Applying this principle alone in most companies today would dramatically reduce the costs of employee theft, turnover, recruiting, retention and succession planning.
In the chapter on Trust Through Vulnerability, Cloud talks about an early childhood experience he had with his mother that caused him to trust her more deeply than he might otherwise have been able to do.
"I needed a model that was strong enough to depend on, but vulnerable enough to identify with. That combination is what made it work. In essence, it said, `Hey, she is like me, in that she is afraid sometimes and feels like she can't do it. But, she does it anyway. She pushes forward.'
Her vulnerability is what made her power available to me." (Page 92)
In sharing What People In Touch Look Like, Dr. Cloud recounts an incident that happened on a retreat for CEO's, when a young "superstar" was given an opportunity to receive feedback from a more senior CEO.
"One of the more experienced guys looked up and said, `Want some feedback?' He said it in a way that left you wondering whether he was going to give sage advice or rail at the young man for being out to lunch in some way. There was just no way to tell from his poker face. But I will never forget the young superstar's immediate response: `By all means. Give me a gift.' He saw the feedback, whatever it was, as a gift because it could give him some reality that he did not know. I remember thinking, `We will be watching this guy's accomplishments for a long time.'" (Page 116)
Cloud then ratchets up the significance of this insight by suggesting a challenging way for us to put this principle of inviting feedback to a practical test:
"If you want to know your comfort level in this matter, think of going to the people you work with or are in close personal relationships with and give them 100 percent permission to be totally honest with you in answering the question: `What is it like to be on the other end of me?'" (Pages 116-117)
I must draw to a close this review, lest I run the risk of conveying Cloud's whole book to you via this Blog! I want to encourage you to buy the book as an investment in yourself and in your growth and success. But, in closing, I will share a final excerpt that captures the essence of what this book is all about:
"I just returned from an international leadership summit in which the leaders discussed their personal orientations toward growth. One global leader said that about ten years ago, he was near burnout and collapse, as his organization had exploded in size. But, he himself was dying. So, with input from his board, he made a huge investment of both time and money. He decided that every summer he would take six weeks away to study, refresh, get input into his soul, and re-create. He put the number two person in charge with orders not to call him `unless the whole thing were burning down.'" (Pages 222-223)
Dr. Cloud chose to protect the anonymity of this global leader. I do not know if he was referring to Pastor Bill Hybels of WillowCreek Church, but I have heard with my own ears Pastor Hybels share a similar story of taking intentional steps to prevent burnout by making the difficult decision to get away from daily pressures in order to carve out some time to recharge the batteries and to reinvigorate the soul. That is the very heart of integrity.
Most business leaders I know will find something of value in this book that they can internalize and begin to apply immediately - for their own benefit and for the benefit of all those who are "surfing their wake."
Enjoy.
Al ChaseIntegrity: The Courage to Meet the Demands of Reality Overview

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