This presentation was created and given by Dr. Andy Driska at the 2017 MSU Summer Coaches' School. The presentation helped sport coaches and leaders work through ideas concerning ways to build their own team culture within their programs.

1. Building Team Culture
2017 Summer Coaches’ School
Michigan State University
Institute for the Study of Youth Sports
Andy Driska, Ph.D.
driska@msu.edu | @AndyDriska

2. Culture: The X Factor
Success is attributed to a
positive or winning culture
“We have a winning culture in
this program. It comes from the
players and everyone
involved.”

3. Culture: The X Factor
Success is attributed to a
positive or winning culture
“We have a winning culture in
this program. It comes from the
players and everyone
involved.”
Failure is attributed to a
LACK of positive or winning
culture
“We need to change the culture
of this program. We don’t know
how to be successful and that
needs to change.”

4. Culture: What is it?
“The ideas, customs, and social
behavior of a particular people or
society.”
Oxford English Dictionary

5. Okay, but what does that look like?
The layers of an onion
Model of Organizational
Culture
Edgar Schein
Professor of Management
at M.I.T.

6. Culture: Layer by Layer
The Surface:
Artifacts & Symbols
Slogans
Facilities
Equipment
The Team T-Shirt

9. Culture: Layer by Layer
The Surface:
Artifacts & Symbols
Not just things, but also
experiences
Guest speakers
Team trips

10. Culture: Artifacts & Symbols Layer
YOUR TURN
What are some
artifacts or symbols
that you have seen
that have been
successful?

11. Culture: Layer by Layer
The Management Layer:
Espoused Values
Things we state that we
believe, that guide our actions,
that give us purpose
Vision & Mission
Core Values
Team Purpose
Team Goals

12. Culture: Layer by Layer
The Management Layer:
Espoused Values
Also includes coaching and
management styles
Authoritarian or Democratic?

13. Culture: Layer by Layer
The Management Layer:
Espoused Values
Also includes coaching and
management styles
Rewards and Recognition
What kinds of actions do
coaches or managers
reinforce?

14. Culture: Espoused Values Layer
YOUR TURN
Do you have a team vision
or team mission
statement?
Do you have a team
purpose?
Do you have team goals?
What are they? Or what
might they be?

15. Culture: Espoused Values Layer
YOUR TURN
What types of actions
from athletes do you most
commonly give
recognition for?

16. Culture: Layer by Layer
The Core Layer:
Assumptions
Human nature, life, success &
failure, talent & learning
Things that we take for
granted and don’t give much
thought

17. Culture: Layer by Layer
The Core Layer: Assumptions
What are some assumptions
unique to sport cultures?
• How people are motivated
• Trust & reliance on others
• Who can play this sport (and
who can be good at it)
• How you become successful
(talent vs. effort)

18. How do cultures change?
Three Important Questions

19. Question #1
Do cultures change from within, or do
they change from the outside-in?
Explain your answer.

20. Question #2
Are leaders alone enough to change a
culture?
Explain your answer

21. Question #3
Will changing a team culture create anxiety or
worry with team members?
Explain your answer.

22. Culture Change
A Four-Step Guide

23. Culture Change: A Four-Step Guide
Step #1 Team leaders must be
committed to changing the culture.
Coach Driven… A.D. Supported
(?)

24. Culture Change: A Four-Step Guide
Step #2 Identify key
partners
• Change agents
• Leverage
• Athletes who are most
likely to be success stories
from the new culture?

25. Culture Change: A Four-Step Guide
Step #3 Work through the
layers of the onion
• Artifacts and symbols
• Espoused values
• Assumptions
The outside layers are the
easiest to peel, but
assumptions take time.

26. Culture Change: A Four-Step Guide
Step #4 Manage change
anxiety
• We desire certainty & stability
• Change puts us in an unstable
state, anxiety is a normal
reaction
• However, unstable states are
necessary for change and
growth
• How can you guide athletes
through the fog of change?

27. How can the Summer
Coaches’ School help?
Planning the next 36 hours

28. Workshops to help with culture change
Espoused Values:
• Planning for program success
• Dealing with athletic politics and
“proving culture”
• Building mental toughness
• Goal-setting
• Skill development & optimal
conditioning
Assumptions:
• Finding strength in our differences
• Communication
• Life Journeys dinner

29. How will this work “in my
backyard?”
The best coaches learn something from
every situation.
How can you connect what you learn
here to the work you do every day?
Sometimes what you learn can be used
right away. Other times, you learn
something that won’t be useful for 10
years.
Talk over your ideas. Bend new ideas to
fit your program. Take something good
from every session you attend.

30. Thanks for your attention!
Now go do great things.
MSU Summer Coaches’ School
June 19-20, 2017

31. Session 9: Goal-Setting & Communication
Itinerary - 12:30pm - 3:00pm
Part 1 – Goal-Setting Exercise
(about 75 minutes)
5-minute break
Part 2 – Communication
Principles and Practice (about
70 minutes)

33. Goal-Setting: Four takeaways
1. I will identify and prioritize specific
goals for myself and for my team.
2. I will have a basic understanding of
how goal-setting works.
3. I can tell the difference between a
clear goal and a vague goal.
4. I will have a basic idea of how to run
a goal-setting session for a team.

34. How do goals work?
“Goals are motivating.” Yes… but
how?
• Goals direct your attention. They
tell you what path to take, but
more importantly what paths NOT
to take.
• Goals give us a target for how
well we should perform. This
helps us to manage and direct the
right amount of effort to meet
them.
Goal-setting is a cognitive strategy
– something we engage in
deliberately and consciously.
But those big picture goals, those
visions of success – those are
often more emotional for us. Our
thoughts are drawn to them, we
don’t have to engage in them
consciously.
Goals need to have emotional
meaning.

35. What types of goals do people naturally have?
• Improvement
• Mastery
• “Better than I was yesterday”
People with goals like this are
called
TASK-ORIENTED or
MASTERY-ORIENTED
• Winning
• Showing superiority
• Defending your status
People with goals like this are
called
EGO-ORIENTED
Which way are you?
Is one better than the other?

36. Is one orientation better?
The best athletes consistently show
that they are high in both forms of
orientation.
They are super-competitive – they
hate losing with a passion that most
people do not have (strong EGO
orientation)
But they also have a focus on
constantly getting better (strong
TASK orientation)
High EGO/low TASK athletes are
great in 50/50 situations, but may
not want to step out of their comfort
zone
High TASK/low EGO athletes love
to improve but sometimes when
they compete it’s like they aren’t
aware it is a competition
Low TASK/low EGO people have
probably self-selected out of sport
altogether

37. Is one orientation better?
The balance of your goals will be
shaped by your orientation
Be aware of the balance!
Conclusion:
It’s good to have both kinds of
goals

38. Goal-Setting: A Menu of Options
PURE Goals
Positively stated
Understood
Relevant
Ethical
SMART Goals
Specific
Measurable
(Aggressive but)
Achievable
Relevant
Time-bound
SMARTER
Evaluate
Readjust
SMARTEST
Exciting
Satisfying
True to your passion

39. So, what makes a good goal?
First:
Goals should be SMART
SMART Criteria
Specific
Measurable
(Aggressive but) Achievable
Relevant
Time-bound
You, on New Year’s Day (a poor goal):
“I will run a marathon.”
Better:
“I will run a marathon in the next three years.”
Even better:
I will run a marathon in the next three years. I’ll
build up to it using a 10K in year one and then
a half-marathon in year two. It means
something to me because running is something
I loved as a teenager, but I want to tap into it
now for my health and for my social life. I plan
to devote 2-3 days each week to a serious run.
I think the Detroit Marathon will be the one I
plan for.

40. So, what makes a good goal?
Outcome
Goals
Performance Performance Performance
Process Process Process ProcessProcessProcess
Outcome – daydream, vision of
success, big-picture goal
Performance – more
controllable, dependent on your
own performance or team’s
performance, often measured
objectively (AKA free throw
percentage, race time)
Process – very controllable,
daily or weekly target or metric
to keep you on track towards a
performance goal (if we want to
improve free throw percentage,
then a process goal would be
how much time and focus we
place on practicing free throws)
Second:
Goals should be diversified

41. Goal-Mapping Exercise
Materials:
• Sharpie
• Lots of post-it notes (use one
post-it note for each goal)
• Lots of space at your table

42. Goal-Mapping Exercise
1. Revisit the big goal or your vision of
success from the blue-sky exercise.
Write that on one post-it note.
2. What performance milestones
along the way do you think should
be achieved?
• Think in the sport realm
• Think in the academic/school culture
realm
• Think in the life and family realm
• Arrange these performance milestones
underneath and around the vision of
success.
3. Pick one performance milestone…
• What process milestones would we need
to hit in order to achieve this performance?
• What daily targets do I need to see? What
weekly targets?
• Arrange post-it notes under the
performance milestone.
4. Choose one process milestone…
• What must be done to hit this daily or
weekly target?
• Who must be engaged in order to hit this
target?
• Arrange these post-it notes under the
process milestone

43. Goal-Mapping Exercise
Continue on your own…
• For each performance milestone, map
out process milestones and strategies to
hit that process milestone.
Give a 1-minute show-and-tell to the members of
your group
• Start with your outcome goal, and work your
way down one performance pathway, all the
way to the process achievement strategies
We need to prioritize. Starting with each
performance milestone, mark it as either:
• Critical – needs most immediate focus
• Important – needs some focus this year, or
could be monitored
• Wait – can wait until next season

44. Goal-Setting: A Review
We learned that…
• Goals work by directing your
attention and giving you a target
• People have different orientations
to success (task-oriented and
ego-oriented)
• Goals need to be SMART
• You need to have levels of goals
• You need to prioritize goals
before you achieve them
Next questions
• How can we use goal-setting with
an individual athlete? What about
an entire team?

45. Communication
The Value and Skill of Asking Questions & Listening

46. Four Takeaways
1. Convince you that questioning and listening is
the best way to drive a change in athlete
behavior.
2. You’ll improve your questioning skills – ask
better questions, be comfortable with
awkward silence.
3. You’ll be thinking of many different situations
where you can use questioning.
4. Combined with goal-mapping, you have two
skills you can use tomorrow.

47. Listen to my questions and write your answers
I will ask you several
questions in the next
10 minutes.
Write answers in your
notes. Try your best
to keep up.
Keep silent until the
end of the exercise.

48. What happened for you?
Did I give you the answers?

49. The GROW model: 4 types of questions
Goal – What do you
want to achieve?
Reality – Where are
you now?
Options – What could
you do?
Will – What will you do?
GOAL
OPTIONS REALITY
WILL

50. I need a volunteer.
It would especially help if there is a problem you are
working on that maybe I could help you with.

51. Things to observe
1. Watch Andy’s body language
2. What questions work… and why do you think
they worked
3. Watch the responses to the questions and the
body language

52. Practice Time •Five minutes
•Coach asks ONLY
questions – no
advice!
•Observer watches
body language,
notes what
questions work
•Give feedback to
coach at end of five
minutes
•When Andy calls
switch, switch roles
OBSERV
ER
COACH
ATHLET
E

53. Four Takeaways – Revisited – How did we do?
1. Convince you that questioning and listening is
the best way to drive a change in athlete
behavior.
2. You’ll improve your questioning skills – ask
better questions, be comfortable with
awkward silence.
3. You’ll be thinking of many different situations
where you can use questioning.
4. Combined with goal-mapping, you have two
skills you can use tomorrow.