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team-building

This tag is associated with 8 posts

How to Build a Championship Team

If you’re a boss or a coach, you want a great team. You want to build a champion! Here are some tips from Rajat Taneja of Electronic Arts. I’m struck in particular by No. 3, “Hire for uncommon strengths.” Too many people hire with the idea of avoiding weaknesses. Championship team-building involves hiring with strengths […]

Coaching Stages

No matter how long you’ve been coaching, you’re at a certain stage in your development. You’re either novice, intermediate or veteran. You’re variously fascinated with technique, or tactics, or motivation, or team-building, or practice planning, or something else. For the last several months, I’ve been drawn to the spiritual side of coaching. It began when […]

How Unity Creates Miracles

A few years back, a survey asked if we lived in a divided country. Fifty percent said yes, fifty percent said no. Not much takes place in this divided land without people taking sides and shouting at each other. Just take two big new stories, Jeremy Lin and Whitney Houston. The saga of Lin and […]

Language and Coaching

The other day on a cooking show, the host said she was making a classic French dish. “Classic French dish,” she said, “is code for lots and lots of butter.” Wow! That really made me think. I’ve heard the phrase “classic French dish” many times, but I never attached the same meaning to it that […]

Locked in a Space Ship

How would you like to go to Mars? A Russian research group has just wound up a 105-day experiment to test the ability of the crew to get along on such a trip. Here’s the reality of traveling to another planet: It takes time. And one of the concerns of scientists is whether people can […]

How to Complete Your Mission

How exactly did the Pittsburgh Penguins win the Stanley Cup? What elements went into their championship season?

Lots of them, of course. Good players. Good coaching. But there was at least one other factor, and an article by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette laid it out way back in September. The Pens spent part of their pre-season in Stockholm, Sweden, where, among other things, they participated in a city-wide scavenger hunt as a team-building exercise.

Creating a Team Culture

“A group becomes a team when each member is sure enough of himself and his contribution to praise the skill of the others.”  – Norman S. Hidle What  makes the difference between one successful season …and a successful program? The answer is culture. What are the shared values in your locker room? The standards? Is the […]

What Players Need Most From a Coach

“My goal in sailing isn’t to be brilliant or flashy in individual races, just to be consistent over the long run.” — Dennis Conner At this time of year in 1941, Joe DiMaggio’s epic 56-game hitting streak was in the early stages. Beginning in mid-May and continuing until well into July, DiMaggio got at least […]