May the Force be With You

On a personal note this week has been a very tough week for my team as we faced many challenges within our team and as a coaching staff working with one of our team leaders we had to make very important decisions that took the risk of possibly losing some games and even worse crushing the morale of our team. As a team our whole goal is to be champions and the decisions that we made had to be made for the betterment of our team and as coaches/teachers to teach these women very valuable life lessons. Decisions are what we have to do as leaders and sitting in class listening to how you establish a culture and shared meaning I could not help but reflect on what was happening in my own organization. Although I do not want to disclose all the inner workings of what transpired, the discussion in class was exactly what I needed to understand what was occurring.

I took the time to even talk about it with my coworkers and used the force field analysis and Lewin's theory about good and bad forces. We definitely had a change of force in our organization which called for a huge change. This was definitely a negative force that was getting increasingly stronger and affecting the teams goals. Once as a decision was made to correct the situation I was amazed to see how the force dramatically changed. This actually made me real proud of the team and we knew as a staff that we made the right decision. Which as leaders, with these decisions you often take risks and you never know what the outcome will be. My coworkers and I even through all this looked at ourselves and remarked, "it must be real hard to be a head coach". The positive shift has been one of the most amazing things that I have witnessed in my coaching career and I am extremely fortunate to be a part of it. I like having the visual of stasis and using it as a tool to understand when I need to increase good energy or to be more aware of negative energy that is causing change. Also, I could not help but agree more with the statement of how humans change only when they want to or have to. In my field of work this is definitely a lesson that I have to understand and came to life this past week.

This week has also defined us as a team and has established or resurrected the culture of our team as  a family. As a team I think now we have  a shared meaning and with all of the hits our team has taken up until this part of season it has been great as a teacher to see how these young women are learning so much and how they crave to learn more. This is not about basketball... it is about their character and who they will become when they have played their last game. It is also very fascinating to see change happen right before your eyes. I do know that change happens slowly, but sometimes circumstances allow it to happen at a speedier rate and if everyone is committed and believes in the leader with total buy in you can see some amazing things!