Anson Dorrance is the Woman's Soccer Coach at the University of North Carolina. In 42 years, his teams have won 22 National Championships. Championship coaches study championship coaches from all sports. Many coaches have studied Anson Dorrance and he has studied many of them.
 
For the great championship coaches, collaboration doesn't end with studying other coaches. They find a way in one form or another to create a collaborative environment with the people they supervise. John Wooden's players drafted their own training rules and provided valuable suggestions regarding strategy. Red Auerbach in leading his Boston Celtics to 9 NBA Championships utilized his players in all practices to design and alter their offensive plays.
 
 
Coach Dorrance's goal is for every player on his team to get better every practice. One of the specific areas that is focused on every day is decision making. Coach Dorrance uses collaboration to make this happen. In his fantastic book Training Soccer Champions, with Tim Nash he explains how he does it:
 
"In teaching tactical decision-making, I believe in making sure every player understands the reasons for choosing every tactical option. I also believe it's important to appreciate that it's a choice because there are always alternatives.
 
I encourage players that disagree with anything we are doing to come forward and recommend an alternative, because I want every player sold on our system. Their belief in the system will make it work even more. If they have a better idea, they are encouraged to make their case to me.
 
If it has merit, we go with it. We teach decision-making based on tactical clues. We have recommendations for the players based on our experience. But if the players are picking up the tactical clues of a situation, they have the freedom to improvise within the system and go outside of the recommended choice. We explore the depths of their knowledge and understanding with the Socratic method of teaching (Developed by Socrates over 2400 years ago, the strategy uses thought-provoking question and answer sessions to promote learning)., and we often preface the question with "Future coaches of America ... " This plants the seed that they are developing an understanding of the game so that they, too, can eventually coach it."
 
If you run a business like this your team members will be energized and engaged, and your processes will improve. Just encouraging feedback is not enough. Many people are intimidated. You should have a defined consistent process that demands feedback and follow up with folks who are not giving you input and find out why.
 
Do you just tell people what to do or are you explaining why? Are they giving you ideas? Is everybody improving every day?

​Legendary Georgia Women's Gymnastics coach Suzanne Yoculan led her teams The Georgia Gym Dogs to ten National Championships. Coach Yoculan did everything in her program at a championship level, including mentoring.
 
In her book, Perfect 10 with Bill Donaldson, Coach Yoculan wrote about her: "Fifteen Points of Pride for a Winning Program". Coach Yoculan described Points of Pride for mentoring and being a role model as follows:
 
"Community: Contributing more than a fair share to the communities of UGA, Athens, and Georgia is essential to be a Georgia Gym Dog. Participating in car washes to raise money, assisting Habitat for Humanity and similar activities are contributions to the community and we do them, but these are things any student can do.
 
Finding an activity that takes advantage of unique characteristics of athletes can be more meaningful. Young girls consider college gymnasts celebrities. Interaction between gymnasts and young girls, especially troubled or underprivileged young girls, can have a profound positive influence on the youngsters.
 
The Gym Dogs participate in the Athens-Clarke County Mentoring program, in which they are paired with young girls who need help in developing self-esteem or who need to know that someone who is highly regarded takes a special interest in them. The program is rewarding to both parties in the pair, providing opportunities to interact with young girls in a manner not normally available to gymnasts who have been so busy training prior to college.
 
Image: Coaches and gymnasts are role models for thousands of youngsters. Always keep this responsibility in mind and live up to it. Being a positive role model is essential in the mentoring program, and because of their popularity, college gymnasts are almost constantly under the microscope of public scrutiny. Accepting the responsibility for setting proper examples is a maturing experience."
 
In addition to both having won 10 National Championships, Coach Wooden, like Coach Yoculan made clear in his annual letter to the team what he expected out of them as role models:
 
"Remember that you represent others who are responsible for you as well as yourself and your personal appearance and conduct should not reflect discredit in any way upon yourself or upon those whom you represent. Cleanliness, neatness of appearance, and good manners are qualities that should be characteristic of those who are of great influence on young people and you certainly qualify for that category. Be a good example."
 
We all in some way can provide a good model to our youth each day.
 
Who will you influence today? How?

​Legendary Georgia Women's Gymnastics coach Suzanne Yoculan and Coach Wooden both won 10 NCAA championships. Both coaches were similar in their approach to goal setting which was a key to their consistent excellence.
 
Coach Wooden described his approach this way: "There is a tendency at times to set goals that are so idealistic that they are unattainable and thus become counterproductive. Goals should be difficult, but in the realm of possibility. My goal was to step up the quality of our effort, preparation, and execution and to strive to get closer and closer to full competency without worrying about the score."
 
Former player, the late great Dave Meyers, described Coach Wooden's approach: "Coach Wooden never limited himself by thinking about what's possible. He focused on the "right now" and was more involved with the better than the best. Let's get better, not worried about if it makes us best."
 
Coach Wooden set no limit on the performance level of his teams because he knew they could always improve, and he insisted that they did. Coach and his assistants built a master calendar before any practices started for the entire pre-season. The coaches calendared when every play, defensive concept/technique or new drill would be added and how much time would be allotted. Every element of their basketball system was accounted for in their incremental goal setting.
 
In her book, Perfect 10 with Bill Donaldson, Coach Yoculan described her approach to goal setting:
 
"You must establish goals for the athlete that go beyond any achievements she has attained in the past. Setting goals is motivating for the gymnast provided you lay out the intermediate steps for achieving the ultimate goals. These must all be clearly defined. Then motivation results from the melding of the desire, determination, and effort with the vision of pride and fulfillment of achieving the goals.
 
Every year, one of our team goals is to win the NCA.A National Championship, but because that goal is far away from the beginning of the season, we set other specific team goals that may be even more challenging initially. In gymnastics, individual goals are just as important as team goals. They include developing new and more challenging skills and improving consistency and execution. All our goals were precisely defined, and their achievement can be measured objectively and quantitatively. Most important, we focused on goals that we can control. You motivate by helping athletes achieve their goals."
 
Coach Yoculan and Coach Wooden both set difficult but achievable goals. A clear precise detailed incremental plan was defined and in both cases the achievement of the defined goals was within the control of the participants. External influences would neither help nor hurt goal achievementt, thus the goals were motivating not frustrating.
 
What are the defined fundamentals of your goal setting process? Do they frustrate or motivate the participants?