What other people think of you is none of your business (I think Mourinho could have said that), Leadership is about having an unshakeable faith in your goals, vision and in your power to make positive things to happen together with your floorball team, these are also the things, good leaders are able to feed back to the team, to give more energy and keep a clear direction.
Just remember that hard days will always come, but never last, but strong people always do. Hard times are just opportunities to learn for the future!
Hard times build great leaders and floorball players. During the hard times and pressure, your leadership ability and skills are tested. Are you, or can you always be in control of things?
“If everything is under control, you are going too slow” /Mario Andretti, race driver
“The only thing that we cannot control is our supporters” / José Mourinho
“Pain is temporary. Quitting last forever”. /Lance Armstrong
Great leaders and teams create castles of the stones others throw at them, but it’s impossible to build a castle of success on a foundation of excuses.
The team spirit within the team will most of the times increase when you have another team to compete against or a common “enemy” outside the team.
This is something Mourinho is using many times, creating enemies outside the team to make the team stronger inside. I think Mourinho has already couple of scenarios ready, Barcelona is the favorite to win the La Liga in everybody’s eyes and the referees will give advantage to Barcelona… (this was written before the season started) Try to Google some of those sentences and see if you get any hits.
“I knew this would happen long ago, but I do not care. I know because I know who controls the game, and if you look at their statements, then you understand why they have made this decision. I worry about playing on a Saturday night at 22:00 then on a Tuesday in the Champions League. Barcelona [does] not want to play on the Saturday because they play on the Wednesday before, and because of this we need to play on a Monday.”
As a leader you need to take responsibility for the extreme we and them situations that might occur in sports. A common fight against an “enemy” outside the team will strengthen the team spirit, but might in the long run create an unhealthy hostility against other teams or groups and it should not be necessary to do this in youth teams. You should focus on the challenge or compete against the situation rather than an enemy outside the team.
If you look up the word, norm in Wikipedia, you will find the following explanation. Social norms are the behaviors within a society or group or, the rules that a group uses for appropriate and inappropriate values, beliefs, attitudes and behaviors. So the norms will affect both the direction within the team and the co-operation within the team.
Three categories of norms
You can divide norms in different categories, here are some examples.
– Describing norms – steers the behavior in the floorball team.
– Valuing norms – helps the team prioritize among wanted behaviors.
– Discrete norms – not visible when they are followed, but if someone breaks against a norm, it will be visible.
– Internalizing norms – These will be adapted by the floorball team members and new comers, and often live for a long time, therefore norms are also stable.
In order to develop, visualize and strengthen wanted norms, you can use teambuilding activities and feedback as your tools.
Norms are usually connected to behavior during practice, game, before/after regular season and social situations. One of the common norms in all of the teams will be the expectation of how hard you are expected to work during a practice or game.
Norms within a group of monkeys
Here is an experimental example with monkeys and how they create, and handle norms within the group.
– There is a group of monkeys living in a big cage, the monkeys get bananas that are hanged up in the tree that’s located in their living area, after the bananas are hang up in the tree, one of the monkeys head up for the bananas, monkeys do that it’s natural : ), but when he does that all the monkeys are flushed down with water, they get really wet and that’s something monkeys don’t like. After a while a new monkey’s heads up for the bananas, with the same result, wet monkeys. After repeating this several times, the monkeys understand the message, they continue with theirs, without trying to get the bananas in the tree. A new monkey is placed in the cage and he immediately heads after the bananas, but before reaching there, he is stopped and beaten up by the other monkeys, because they know the consequences! Step by step all the “original” monkeys are changed to new team members. For every new monkey the same procedure is repeated, he heads after the bananas and get stopped and beaten up. Even if all the monkeys are changed to new “team members” they are still stuck to the norm, don’t touch the bananas in the tree, without knowing why, it’s just the way it is, and has always been. Do you recognize this in real life situations?
Norms tend to live for a long time
We are many times following rules, norms and guidelines because we think they make sense, but logic can sometimes be “old fashioned” and not relevant anymore, but the norms can create a culture within the team or club, positive or negative.
How does it look like in your floorball team or club? Is it clear why you do, or not do things or why people act in certain ways?
What kind of old norms does Jose Mourinho find in his new team, Real Madrid and what has he left behind in Inter for Rafael Benitez and now Leonardo?
Outspoken rules
If norms are more invisible, rules are more outspoken and visible. Rules can like the norms be divided into some categories, here are some examples.
– How or frame rules – framing in what’s okay and what’s not, in general.
– Priority rules – when you need to choose or make own decisions, you know the team priorities
– Time rules – eliminating co-operational losses
Mourinho’s rules in Real Madrid
When José Mourinho started his voyage with Real Madrid, you could read about some of his rules in the news papers.
– Don’t come late, I will not wait for anyone.
– Training begins 9:30. Those who come late are locked out from the rest of the team and get to practice alone.
– The bus leaves always on time. If a player is late, his left at home, even if it’s a minute’s delay.
“I’m not waiting for someone, even if it would mean, that we get to play the match with a man less” /José Mourinho
Injured players should arrive at the training ground an hour before training starts. After examination, the physician should then report to Mourinho about the situation.
The practice is always 90 minutes long. And the Real Madrid players should be prepared for a tough season. Hard workouts, but with a lot of ball involved.
And finally, mobile phones may be used also on the bus. But the signal must be on silent, so the rest of the squad is not disturbed by incoming calls.
Feedback to Benzema about following the teams rules
Spanish Marca writes that Mourinho repeatedly held talks with Benzema about discipline and the team rules. Last time Mourinho needed to upbraid him in front of the rest of the squad.
“If it was just for you, I would have the practice in the middle of the day, because you come here at ten, half asleep and at eleven, you have already fallen asleep again” / Mourinho
Did you know that a space shuttle uses more energy the first three minutes after a start, than during its entire voyage round the world? So make sure you have the right amount of energy and the right direction, when you start of, because you are fighting the forces of gravity like old behaviors, norms, thinking and habits. (See the category A. About Mourinho Leadership “The Model”, how each piece in the leadership model is connected to each other)
So far we have been talking about motivation to do something. What a bout the motivation to continue within the same team, stay in the group? Motivation to stay in the floorball team can be divided into two categories:
– Forces that attract team members to the team (task oriented, to win games tournaments)
– Resistance towards splitting up (force inside the team to continue as a team)
Zlatan Ibrahimovic left Inter for Barcelona in order to be able to win the Champions League. Inter with Jose Mourinho won Serie A, Coppa Italia and Champions League, the year Ibrahimovic left.
Mourinho left Inter for Real Madrid but, most of the Inter players stayed in the team, even if there were a lot of rumors about transfers, but not many of them showed up to be true in the end. The force to stay in the same team was stronger than the attraction of other teams, except for José Mourinho.
Research shows that a high turnover among players/employees is expensive, time consuming and affects the satisfaction and communication negatively among the players in the team.
When it comes to changing the coach it looks like the change is connected to negative results in case of continuous change of coaches.
“The magic triple we won with Mourinho, no one can take that away from us, and we have the same team as last year, so no one can say we can not do it again” /Javier Zanetti
There is a general model to talk about individual motivation. The closer a thing is to your “heart” the more it will motivate you (internal motivation), or in other words give you more energy to perform.
Motivation in stone age
But first we need to move, a way back in time. Actually to the first people on earth, what was their motivation?
To survive, they needed to get food to survive, if you did not find any food your own body/you self would suffered, in the next step the motivation came from helping your own family, and after that your “relatives/other family” and maybe “friends”. That was the basic, but when you have achieved that, you could get some extra attention by being the best hunter (your professional role), and you might got a better position in the “team” because of that.
That’s way back in time so what do I know? But it could have been that way.
Motivation in modern times
If we translate it to modern time, could it be that the same basics are still there? If your own body is threatened or you see an opportunity that will gain you, you will react, right? You will try to run away/fight or grab the opportunity, because it’s about you, you are the most important for you! Things that will affect you will always create energy and motivation.
Just think of the headings or the first pages of the newspapers, each heading is formulated so you would react and buy the newspaper. “Top 50 people earning most in your town”, “The new flue, read how you will be affected”, “Ketchup causes cancer, you might be affected” If you don’t buy the newspaper or visit the website the “heading” makers have failed…
Players on the transferlist
Players that are on the transfer list or affected about “changing team” rumors will in many cases perform outstanding, sometimes they will perform poorly because they are too affected by this and choose to escape/run away. Either way the situation has created energy, but as in the second case it was misdirected.
What we care about, will motivate us
The things that are closest to a person’s heart that will create energy/motivation to do something will differ between people, but below you find general things, that motivate people, things that make people react in some way. You need to figure out this picture for each and one of your players to be able to motivate them, by understanding their closest to “heart things”. The closer the things are you the more reaction it will create, the order can vary between persons and there are of course many other things to put in there.
Your own body / You
Family, relatives and friends (teammates, here or further away)
Traits and talents
Opinions and values
Social position, professional role, performance, possessions, looks etc.
Club, nation, culture etc.
This a general picture and as I wrote earlier, it can vary a lot between people or in this case team members.
Why do you do things, what are the motives?
What about the floorball practices, why are your players coming there? What are their motives or their “closest to heart subjects”? Some of the answers you have already read about, but you need to explore this more in your own team, to understand your participants.
See the first 15 seconds, to get the explanation, to why the Waterboy, chose that particular class.
What motivates a floorball coach?
What then motivates a floorball coach? What motivates José Mourinho? After winning the triple with Inter he declared immediately after, that his work was done, he had created history with the team and that he needed new challenges in a new team. (Real Madrid)
I think José Mourinho finds his motivation and energy in aiming for the big titles, creating history and building up underdog teams to champions (maybe it’s hard to call Real Madrid for underdogs, but for the moment, they are behind Barcelona).
– Porto was struggling, Mourinho made them winners of the Champions League
– Chelsea hadn’t won the Premier League for 50 years, before Mourinho arrived.
– Inter were struggling in the Champions League, last victory was from 1965. With Mourinhos lead they won the Serie A, Coppa Italia and Champions League.
– Real Madrid has won the UEFA Champions League 2002 and La Liga 2008, so it has been a while a go for a team of Real Madrid’s caliber, that’s why Mourinho is in Madrid, this is his challenge and motivation, to get the big titles back to Madrid.
So by explaining why and finding subjects that are important for each person you can motivate others. What you are then doing, is to make them to take a “step over the line” from passive to active team members. It’s when this is done, you can expect real results.
You can have expectations on results, but if the players have not taken the step over the line, you will not see any results, it will rather be explanations, excuses and external factors, to the missing results, and many times a sacked/fired coach after a while.
This could be shown, when you are introducing your game set up going from 1-2-2 to 2-2-1 or 1-3-1. If you don’t manage to explain why this is the best system for the team, you can have players not “stepping over the line” and therefore the results might not be there.
A practical example – Penalty Shot
Let’s have an example, a penalty shot. If you would not have pointed out a penalty shooter, what reactions would this situation create inside your players?
Most of them would see this as a threatening situation (they are personelly affected) and would make anything in their power to avoid the situation (excuses, tired, small injury, I usually miss the goal on practice, and moving the responsibility between the other team member, you can take it etc.) Why would your players want to take the penalty shot (step over the line)?
1. Your own body / You
2. Family, relatives and friends (teammates, here or further away)
3. Traits and talents
4. Opinions and values
5. Social position, professional role, performance, possessions, looks etc.
6. Club, nation, culture etc.
Egoistic reasons, I want to be in focus (1.). I do it for the team and my team mates (2.). I get an opportunity to expand the professional role (I will get the opportunity next time as well) (5.). I do it for my nation (6.)
The players that find these why reasons inside themselves, will probably be more successful than a player that’s forced to take the penalty shot, they might just ask themselves, why me?
The answer to why
Other areas to think about regarding the why explanation, is when you are choosing drills to your practice, why this drill? When you have the answer for yourself, you might need to explain it to your players as well, or?
If you manage explaining why and finding subjects that are important for each person you can motivate others, you will make them “step over the line”. This will be shown in:
– All team members are personally committed and interested in the success of the team
– All players understand why they are in the team (their role) and what affect they have on the whole team performance
– Leaders and coaches continuously communicate why, and try to connect it to each of the players “closest to heart things” (success of the team should be a common interest for each player)
…and therefore everybody realizes that their contribution will make difference for the team and themselves, from the top scorer to waterboy!
