"Human beings are motivated by purpose, autonomy, and a drive towards mastery." -James Kerr, Legacy
Recently I have been thinking about how to create a better, more driven environment within the culture of our team. I have a few thoughts here or there about how to facilitate "autonomy" and "a drive towards mastery", but I want to dig a little deeper on "purpose".
I think on the surface, conveying purpose is pretty simple. For pretty much any sports team you have a nice underlying purpose of "be the best team we can be". It's accessible and easy to understand. For other purposes, as a voice, you can say things like "This is important to us", and "This matters", when referring to different things you find important. All this is great, but I feel like this isn't a particularly strong way to provide motivation.
I think this is because me saying "X is important" misses two major things:
1. The listener may not know why X is important
2. The listener definitely won't feel why X is important
When I'm saying "X is important" to the team, what I'm really trying to say is 1. X matters because of A, B, C reasons, and 2. I want us to feel a sense of urgency and importance for thing X. So how do I convey important stuff on a deeper level? Such that it really can be a motivator?
I think that a better way to provide purpose on a deep level is by using storytelling. I'm not saying that every huddle should be storytime, but I think using stories as a medium has a lot of potential benefits. For teaching, stories can be a good way to keep everyone engaged while explaining both the A, B, C reasons AND provide a sense of how we should feel about it. For culture, having a verbal history told through stories is a critical piece of identity that can provide long-term motivation.
On using stories to improve engagement in teaching science:
http://www.npr.org/2017/08/11/541644222/tyler-dewitt-how-do-we-get-kids-hooked-on-science
On storytelling in general:
https://www.ted.com/playlists/62/how_to_tell_a_story
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Quick Hits:
- To outplay, first you must outwork
- Power rankings are dumb / I'm not sold on Sockeye yet, and I'm not selling Ironside either
- On the flip side, I'm picking revolution to win worlds in the women's division
- The level of skill on display in the U20 YCC final was eye-opening
- Chicago needs more coaches, specifically skilled/elite coaches coaching high school. How do you provide purpose to potential coaches?
Recently I have been thinking about how to create a better, more driven environment within the culture of our team. I have a few thoughts here or there about how to facilitate "autonomy" and "a drive towards mastery", but I want to dig a little deeper on "purpose".
I think on the surface, conveying purpose is pretty simple. For pretty much any sports team you have a nice underlying purpose of "be the best team we can be". It's accessible and easy to understand. For other purposes, as a voice, you can say things like "This is important to us", and "This matters", when referring to different things you find important. All this is great, but I feel like this isn't a particularly strong way to provide motivation.
I think this is because me saying "X is important" misses two major things:
1. The listener may not know why X is important
2. The listener definitely won't feel why X is important
When I'm saying "X is important" to the team, what I'm really trying to say is 1. X matters because of A, B, C reasons, and 2. I want us to feel a sense of urgency and importance for thing X. So how do I convey important stuff on a deeper level? Such that it really can be a motivator?
I think that a better way to provide purpose on a deep level is by using storytelling. I'm not saying that every huddle should be storytime, but I think using stories as a medium has a lot of potential benefits. For teaching, stories can be a good way to keep everyone engaged while explaining both the A, B, C reasons AND provide a sense of how we should feel about it. For culture, having a verbal history told through stories is a critical piece of identity that can provide long-term motivation.
On using stories to improve engagement in teaching science:
http://www.npr.org/2017/08/11/541644222/tyler-dewitt-how-do-we-get-kids-hooked-on-science
On storytelling in general:
https://www.ted.com/playlists/62/how_to_tell_a_story
------
Quick Hits:
- To outplay, first you must outwork
- Power rankings are dumb / I'm not sold on Sockeye yet, and I'm not selling Ironside either
- On the flip side, I'm picking revolution to win worlds in the women's division
- The level of skill on display in the U20 YCC final was eye-opening
- Chicago needs more coaches, specifically skilled/elite coaches coaching high school. How do you provide purpose to potential coaches?
I think the Chicago high school scene is a victim of geography. The established teams are far away from where the highest density of skilled coaches are. Very hard to get a team started at schools in the city, especially when there is no one internal to get the ball rolling.
ReplyDeleteI agree with that. Another thought that I've heard is that the 9-5 work culture of people in Chicago means that people aren't as available to coach. I think the combination of those two things is the main barrier. But those things aren't likely to change anytime soon, right? So what's a path forward, in your opinion?
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