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Second Secret the Win Every Day Philosophy |
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The Win every day
Philosophy
There are other methods available to the inspirational
leader to value the members of the team.
When I was rowing, my coach, Ted Nash introduced to me the concept of
the "win every day" philosophy. Ted was (at that time) a seven time Olympian,
Olympic Gold and Bronze medalist and a true inspirational leader. In Ted's view, the process of getting to the
Olympics and winning a Gold medal was all about one day at a time. People were going to stumble along the way,
no doubt about it. They would set goals
for themselves and fall short, they would suffer all of the pitfalls inherent
in the push for a noble goal. Ted
believed, however, that if they suffered enough defeats, especially defeats on
a daily basis, their overall belief in themselves would be eroded enough to
prevent their eventual success.
Therefore, he would make sure both in his training regimen
and in his coaching, that there would be some "win" within the practice for
each of his people. He would, for
instance, not insist when rowers came in for the first practice of the year,
that they reach up and do 20 consecutive pull ups. He would evaluate the abilities of the
individual and set manageable goals that each athlete could attain with a
slight stretch of their perceived capabilities.
Furthermore, he would accentuate the positive in every
situation, even while correcting those things that needed to be corrected. He would always begin every coaching remark
by pointing out what was happening right with
the individual or within the crew before correcting what was wrong. For example, rowing is a leverage sport. What that means is that, like many sports,
including golf, tennis, swimming, football and baseball, the legs, back, and
arms, all have to work together to achieve maximum power through the course of
the most efficient rowing stroke.
Sometimes, rowers tend to use their back more than their legs, or their
arms more than their back, and so on. If
such was the case, (and using me as an example), Ted would say something like
this "Dan, your legs are going down with real power, I like that. Now, if we can just open the back a bit
earlier, you'll really feel the difference in speed." This as opposed to the Quintus Arrius
coaching style that might be something like this, "Dan, open your bleepety
bleep back faster. If I see you continue
your poor rowing, I will cut you from the team when we return to the dock."
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