Building a Culture: Expectations
The first part in an exploration of setting up team culture and values
Culture and team values. Not just words on a wall, but something to live in. It is not a magic process that happens every preseason, a button that gets activated. It can be messy. It is something that is worked at and occurs everyday, in both small and big actions.
Within the women’s team I coach, we have a part of our culture that I aim to reinforce or continuously invest in. It’s message is simple, but I believe it’s powerful: nobody is perfect.
There is no expectation to be 100% all of the time. We talk about this alot. If you’ve have a bad day and need to step out of training, that’s absolutely fine. There is no expectation to leave worries at the door, if you want a space to talk about them, that is encouraged.
When I discuss this idea with the group I often tell them that we’re not robots, we’re humans. No one is expected to be perfect as that is an unreal expectation, it’s impossible for anyone to live up to.
Instead it’s a space where people can be themselves, they can have bad days, they can have good days. This includes myself. Personally, one of most powerful aspects of this culture is that it’s improved my coaching. I feel less of a burden on myself to run the “perfect” session.
We have a leadership group within the team. The group includes a captain and vice-captain. The leadership group and I will often take turns in reinforcing this idea in different ways. One of the best has been direct messaging. This includes talking about it with players either at training or in the Whatsapp group.
It’s important to lead by example and I try to talk honestly about the struggle to remove the burden of self-expectation and the benefits of our team culture. This is where the notion of team values and culture is most important. Coaches are not removed from them. They are part of the team and therefore must actively contribute to the culture as much of the players. In return, they’ll benefit from it just as much as the players do.
This recognition that we’re human and beautifully imperfect is one aspect of our team culture and values.
Over the next few months, I will explore how we started to create the values and more ways we seek to make our culture more than just words.