Tag Archives: Leadership

Floorball – Waterboy Leadership

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We are a team

The statement “First-teamer will not be a correct word. I need all of you. You need each other. We are a TEAM.” That statement shows how important José Mourinho sees each player in his team. To not be eaten up by the competition from other teams and unhealthy competition within the team, he is creating a culture, where everybody feels and knows that they are an important piece in the team puzzle. Each player should act like a leader regardless of the rank or position within the team, with this I’m meaning the players take responsibility for their own role, results and therefore also for the teams results, they are leaders from their position, during practices, games and outside football. Each player is part of the leadership team within the team, no role is a small role!

Floorball feedback, value it

Maybe this is why Samuel Eto’o accepted to play in a “not central” role his last season 2010 in Internazionale and take a big defensive responsibility, instead of beeing in a central role, like he is playing now.
With this vision everyone needs to show “leadership”, take responsibility for the results, inspire teammates and therefore also act in a positive way towards their teammates, be a leader. No matter what your position is within your team within the team (defense, midfield, forward or a waterboy…), how old you are, what earlier experience you have, you have the power of showing leadership, no one can take that away from you if, you decide to do it. Make your players aware of this, this is what Mourinho is doing.

“For example, in my team I love to have Geremi on the bench because he’s a low-profile player who is ready to help, ready to fight for the team, ready to do the job I want him to do.” /José Mourinho

“Why drive Aston Martin all the time, when i have Ferrari and Porsche as well? That would just be stupid” /José Mourinho

You are a key player

Positive culture creates a positive spiral and positive spiral creates positive results. Remember every role is an important role! Think of an orchestra, one false tone from somebody and… or think of this example.

Xvxn if my computxr is old, it works vxry wxll, xxcxpt for onx tangxnt kxy. You could think it wouldn’t affxct this txxt, but somxhow it’s dxstroying it. Somxtimxs you might say to your sxlf that your xfforts arx not visiblx, you arx just onx small pixcx in thx puzzlx and no onx will rxcognizx if you don’t do your bxst, but bxlixvx mx, your xfforts will makx diffxrxncx, sincx a txam will nxxd all of it’s playxrs in order to function and pxrform wxll. So nxxt time you think your xfforts will not makx diffxrxncx, rxmxmbxr my old computxr, you arx a kxy playxr and your xfforts will makx diffxrxncx!

Floorball – Guided discovery

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Magnifying glass.
Most of us has once owned a magnifying glass, have you? I have. The original purpose of a magnifying glass is to visualize the details or make the details bigger. Did you use the magnifying glass for something else? I did…
I assume that you have at least once tried to create a fire with your magnifying glass, when you were young? How can this be connected to (direction) your vision, goals and focused areas?
Your vision goals and focused areas should do the exact same work as the magnifying glass, catch the energy within the frames and focus it to a point to create fire.

Youth Floorball shooting, goal scoring practices and drills

Are we looking at the same picture?

One of the most important things, when talking about vision, goals and focused areas is communication. How can you secure that everyone has the same target image or picture as you want or how do you know the player have understood your message or seen the picture you try to “paint” out for them?

There will be a lot of things that will make the picture to differ between your floorball players, experience, expectations, their own will, the language you are using including your body language and many other things. Therefore it’s important that you somehow get a receipt of their understanding and interpretations. If you also allow you players to comment or maybe add things to your vision, focus or goals, you will immediately get a stronger buy in from each and one of the players.

A message from the future

Why should you have a vision? The vision will give you guidance in your leadership, coaching, daily decision making, acting and communication.

When you talk about a vision, you and I might have different pictures in our heads. I will try to give you my picture. For me to start with a vision can be in whatever format, only your own fantasy can limit it. It can be everything between some bullet points on a paper to a short movie “from the future”. So the format is not that important, but how it’s perceived, it should create energy and direct it on the long term, and to be honest how exciting are some bullet points, even if they would do the work?

A vision can be a colorful multi-dimensional description of what you as the leader see in the future, you can in your own mind/head try to move couple of years into the future and describe what you see, feel, hear, regarding the team, achievements, team spirit, players, club, fans, results, behavior etc. A good way to describe what has happened in the future is to actually try to describe it as it would have happened, not in, should terms. Because as you have read earlier the pictures you create are important (sour lemon or basketball example). There is one more dimension to ad, our brains can not make difference between created realistic pictures and realistic pictures, the difference comes from our own values and belief…

I try to visualize the difference for you.

Vision 2014
– We should win the league 2014
– We should improve our team-spirit
– We should increase the intensity in our practices
– We must… etc.

Or…

8th of May 2014
I would like to welcome you all to this press conference. I can imagine you have a lot of questions after our victory in the League. If I just start to give you my point of view of the key success factors, after that you will be able to ask some questions to the players.

To start with, I think our victory would have not been possible without the fantastic team spirit we have in our team, everyone has a clear defined role, and all of the players have accepted this during this year/these years, we don’t use the word “first teamers”, we are one TEAM.

During this year we have increased the intensity in our practices which we also showed clearly in yesterday’s last game in the league. We were the strongest team in the end, we were willing to run the extra mile, and if you look at the amount of goals we have scored this season, it’s 89 goals and that gives you also the picture of an offensive, strong and quick team!

The setup, could be that you actually rig a press conference with the players in the press role. Do you feel the difference between these examples?

Guided discovery and all in

After creating a vision it’s important to also involve your floorball players, what do they think? Is this the correct way? Don’t just accept an yes, ask questions, why do they think it’s the right way, or why not, what did they find exciting in the vision (and not, why?), was there something that needs to be changed, added or deleted? In the end you are of course the one deciding about changes, but if you don’t listen to your players, you need to explain why you will do that, why you will continue with your “picture”, but in that case are you walking alone towards the vision or do you have your team with you on the trip? I can say that if the vision is well taught throug, prepared and tested on a smaller group before the presentation, and it’s attractive, you will only get positive feedback and explanations why it’s correct and therefore the players also feel that the vision is also theirs. Otherwise you sometimes get good input that will complement the vision, things that you haven’t thought about or didn’t feel were important, but for the team it was. Even if you make some changes, you will still have the same buy in from your team, in this case maybe even more, because they have added something and you as the leader have showed them that their opinion counts, respect!

José Mourinho

The same method applied on practices and drills.
“I use a global method, I use direct methods when preparing our organization, but I also use guided discovery where I create the practice, dictate the aim, and the players come up with different solutions” /José Mourinho

Floorball Positive Attitude

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The head coach of a floorball team has one main job. He/She has to get the most out of the floorball team during the season. Everyone wants to win the floorball championship or the league title, but the reality of the situation is that only one floorball team will make it, and if  that is the only goal you as the floorball coach and your team have, to grade your performance only by whether or not you have won it all, there are going to be a lot of unhappy floorball coaches and players at the end of the year.

Floorball practices for 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10 year olds

So ask yourself. Can you make your team better than it was at the beginning of the season? Can you put up a set of different goals, measuring development in different areas, where the league title of course can be one of the goals? Can you turn your floorball players and team into a cohesive unit? Can you teach your floorball players something about the game and teamwork and improve their outlook on life at the same time? Maybe the first thing you should work on is promoting a positive attitude within your team.

Floorball Communication Guidelines

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One good communication guideline I can give you, is that, always remember who or what you are speaking to, or about, and pay attention to the situation that you are in. You cannot use the same logic and vocabulary with a group of eight year old floorball players that you would with a team of professional floorball players. You might be able to yell at older players during floorball drills, but you can’t do the same thing to a ten year old floorball player or with a referee during a game.

Floorball game and passing drill practices

Above all, always, remember that the world does not circle around you, each floorball game and practice is just a practice, until you start to earn your living on it, then the stakes might be higher.
Every floorball player, parent, spectator, and game official has their own beliefs and sets of priorities. Very few of these people will bend to your desires just because you are a floorball coach. Be prepared to explain what you want and why, this will help you on you floorball coach journey.

Floorball Communication and Body Language guidelines

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Communication starts immediately in the first meeting with your team, players, new people, other floorball coaches, referees etc. the first impressions counts! Dress well, hold your head up high, look into their eyes when you are speaking, and always speak slowly and clearly. Treat everyone with the respect that you hope to earn or get back. (body language)

Floorball practices and drills for 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 years old

Listen when others speak and consider what they have to say before you respond. So you respond on the right thing. Ask questions as “receiver”, to secure that you have understood the message from the “sender”.
Make sure that you understand their point of view before continuing the conversation.  When you disagree, do so respectfully, clearly state your case and avoid repeating the same points over and over.