The Season: Part Two

Several years ago I attended a conference in Atlanta right after tennis season ended. The Wednesday after the Sectional my wife and I, and the two pastors that started the house church with us, flew from cold October in Indiana to beautiful autumn in Georgia. The conference was about leadership, specifically in the realms of church leadership and business leadership. The sessions were split, half were for pastoral leadership and half were for businessmen. And half of the things we did were just ridiculous. We set the world record for world's largest pillow fight, still have the pillows in my basement to prove it. We had a game of Dodgeball against the reigning national champions...the whole arena versus them. And my friends and I went out to eat at the best Mexican restaurant ever, sat outside in the night air, watched kids play in the dark park behind us. It was a beautiful time.

But why I bring this up is due to what one of the keynote speakers had to say. This conference was kind of a big deal, so they had brought in some cutting edge presenters. This guy's name was Kevin(?) Buckingham, and he was a leading business innovator. He was inviting companies, teams, and organizations to reevaluate their approach to personal growth and learning within their companies. His theory was that the best organizations and teams DO NOT spend their time trying to improve their weaknesses, but instead they spend the majority of their time maximizing their strengths. That way they have one or two go-to skills, and then let others handle the parts where they are weak.

So, as Bethany tennis began to share a vision of confidence and winning, I began to evaluate myself as the coach. Where were my weaknesses? What did I need to focus on and do better at? While certainly there is always work to be done for improvement, this Buckingham's theory rang in my mind. If I could maximize my strengths, and my team's strengths, that was where we could really succeed. But I had to be honest about my own strengths and weaknesses, and the team needed to be honest about theirs as well.

So strengths...well, first of all I am a vision caster. I like to set out ahead of the team what it can be. I do this in a lot of various ways, but one is by setting a season theme. Even as I drove back home from watching that Regional match, the theme for 2008 was settling into my head. I knew what we needed as a program for 2008 and for the future was to buy into a continued vision of competition and excellence. We needed a tradition of feeling that we could compete and that we had just as much right to the Sectional championship as anyone else. But that wasn't a tradition that we had at Bethany. It was new, it had just formed in the eyes of seven or eight guys. But it was necessary. For the Bruins, we needed to understand, grasp, and believe in this: "A New Tradition."

I took the new words and began to form symbols around them, a new logo to represent this new confidence and belief. To tie it to the idea of tradition, the old and the continued, I wanted to use symbols that can be seen as classic. So I used the old school badge with a wreath around it, and in the badge placed the classic tennis symbol of two crossed rackets. The symbol was meant to be our new logo, but also to portray our new attitude. We are making confidence and competition as classic and a part of us as this classic-looking logo.

Okay, probably more important than this change of look were the player meetings that we had after the season. We sat down, one by one, and had a coach's and player heart to heart. The first question I asked at most of these meetings was "What is your goal for next season." One by one the players answered, "To win the Sectional." Some even mentioned that they would like to shoot for the Regional title. What was awesome about this goal setting is that it was all team oriented. Like I've mentioned before, this group of guys began to set aside individual aspirations in order to serve the team. No longer was Jonny focused on beating out Jared for the #2 Singles spot, but instead his goal was to be the best player in the area at whatever position he ended up at, so that we could win the Sectional. No longer was Daniel or Mikey gunning to be the #1 Doubles team, but to secure every win they could at #2. This uniting for each other instead of against each was an important strength of this team. It allowed us to work toward a real goal and not have to deal with in-fighting amongst the group.

So, my strength was to set the vision out there before the group. And I also have a strength of setting out a general plan of how to achieve this. I knew that we needed to have time playing, so I set up times each week to have Open Courts. I knew that we needed to get stronger and faster, so I set up times each week to lift and to do footwork drills. Then I left the choice to do these things to the players.
I was working toward my strengths as much as possible, and things looked really good to me.

But unfortunately, a shocker, I have weaknesses as well. They lay in the details. Details like how do we do footwork practice when all of the gyms are taken? Details like I know that Matthew's backhand needs work, but what can I do to fix it? Details like ordering shirts, taking care of money, making sure that the workout schedule is up to date, etc. It boils down to the fact that I'm a creative person, and like most creative people, I get lost when it comes to systematizing and simply remembering things.

And another big weakness: I lack the ability to confront people. I know, it doesn't seem like I would need to be confrontational, but its something that plays in to the season as well.

I'd like to think that my weaknesses are limited to those two things. But I'm sure that their is more. You can feel free to list them for me in the comments section :-) Strengths would be nice too! Okay, just kidding, back to the story.

I wanted to face these weaknesses though, and get help. So I told the team the honest truth, I'm not great at helping people with their tennis mechanics. I've never been taught the mechanics of tennis. I was pretty much a self-taught player, I just watched others and tried to imitate what they were doing. I took a couple private lessons during high school for working on my forehand and my serve, so I can teach the forehand pretty well but the serve I'm not sure. Anyways, there was some work to be done with the mechanics of this team (and every team) in order for them to reach their potential, and I didn't see how I could do it. So I told every one to try to get to the Racquet Club, where paid professionals could help. That was my way of admitting weakness and hoping that I could find help.

The amazing thing was that guys jumped right on it. I think that Luke, Jared, Jeremy, Johnny, and Jonny all joined in the fall session at the Racquet Club less than three weeks after the season had ended. And JV players began to be involved as well, as Seth Krabill got involved in classes. This burst of energy and involvement showed me that we had a team that was dedicated. It showed me that they were willing to arrange their schedules around this vision. Even guys who couldn't make it to the lessons at the Racquet Club, for monetary or other reasons, began to come to the fall open courts here at the school. Daniel and Jonny especially kept playing until it was too cold.

I can't tell you how much this work ethic meant to me. The work is what cements the fact that the guys get it. I mean, I was pretty sure they understood and believed in our vision of a Sectional championship. But when they came out willing to work on it, to spend time on it, to make it a priority in their off season; then I knew that they really believed it. You see, action speaks louder than words. Our actions tell us what we really believe. Our actions can condemn us as hypocrites if we don't really do what we believe. But this group's actions showed what was going on inside their heads: They knew that we could achieve great things together, and therefore were willing to wholeheartedly pursue it. We pursued it through the standing military press and slalom courses for footwork. We pursued it through hours and dollars spent at the Racquet Club and Saturdays calling each other to come in to the Racquet Club and play. Our desire showed in our doing.

The pattern had been set in the late fall, I hoped it would carry over to the next season. We believed we could be good and were ready to work at it. Everybody was getting ready to compete, hopefully to win and start a New Tradition.