Last Updated on Wednesday, 04 June 2014 22:39
By Kevin Hartzell
Let’s Play Hockey Columnist
I suspect the very reason many of us have chosen for and believe in team sports for our youth is that our youngsters we love and care about will learn the many important concepts involved in “team.” This includes the concepts of teamwork and the leadership skills needed to be productive and effective team members. Our youth will eventually graduate to “real life” teams of many kinds and the skills they learn will be put to work on these various teams. The teams they will graduate to will include small teams like marriages and bigger teams in corporations, community organizations or even government.
I write this June column as a challenge to coaches and teachers to challenge ourselves to do what we do better. I cannot think of a better topic than that of the development within our teams of active participation, positive dissent and leadership. These are the very skills our students will take with them to every aspect of their lives.
The skills we teach through our youth and amateur sports are critical to our children’s future successes. The skill sets our youth develop are also critical to the success of our society as a whole. To these values, most of us have no trouble agreeing.
These very value sets are why Kevin Ziegler and I (and others) are setting out to do more teamwork/leadership camps around Minnesota and our country. We need better teammates and leaders if our free society is going to continue to flourish. That said, we are seeing a lot of problematic issues currently within our society, including our government agencies. I have looked at these issues simply from the aspect of sound functional or dysfunctional teamwork. The issues seem somewhat obvious to me and some of the future solutions can be addressed through our mentoring of our young people through team sports.
One of the very important aspects of “team” that we do not give enough attention to is participation. I don’t mean participation in the way of showing up and being on a team. I mean participation as in being a real part OF THE team – a part of the team that directs and leads at all times. AT ALL TIMES!
I suspect we have all been on a team of some kind where we felt we didn’t have a voice or maybe were too new to the team to share our voice and energies like we should. We teachers and coaches should not let this happen. If one were new to a fire department team and even if in one’s first fire, we should expect that if this individual team member saw something dangerous that they would speak up. Not doing so could put someone’s life in jeopardy. I think we all can agree that the new team member, though new to the job, had better actively participate.
This is one of the first and most important lessons every team members should learn and be encouraged to feel comfortable with – their engaged participation! This means that every one of our team’s mantra should be that EVERYONE is a leader. If everyone actively participates, everyone can actively and positively alter the course of the team, both on the competitive field and off.
Just as importantly, we need to teach our team members not to just participate, but to feel OK with disagreement which is part of leadership. It is healthy to disagree. It is healthy to question why. I know as a coach, it is healthy to have fellow staff members give their feedback. Sometimes that feedback concurs with a current thought, but sometimes it challenges that thought to look at things differently. That’s part of leadership!
No one I have known is better at this than a coaching colleague of mine Andy Jones. Andy is currently an assistant coach at Clarkson University. While working together I might say blah-blah-blah. Andy would first listen. It is important to listen. Then it would be my turn to listen as Andy might say something like the following; “Hartz, I think you really said three things there. Your first point as I heard it was such and such, and I agree because I think such and such. Your second point is right on because of such and such and I think you should continue to pursue that. But your third point, you might want to give more thought to and here are my reasons for thinking this.”
He would continue and it would be my turn to listen to his view and to consider an alternative based upon his feedback. That in part is why we had such a good staff, because we as colleagues would fully participate with our views and what I call positive dissent – the positive questions we raised to one another.
As coaches, teachers and parents, we need to do the following with our teams:
1. Set a great example by listening. Listening acknowledges the values of other team members.
2. We need to encourage all our team members to likewise listen.
3. We need to encourage and even demand that every team member participate; be willing to both listen and share feedback and support the team effort.
I have developed some tactics for nurturing active participation and leadership within my teams. I learned over time to do this with my amateur teams, but I also employed these tactics in Norway with my pro team where they were equally effective. For example, if something on or off the ice needed to get done, I might pick a random player and give only him the instructions of the task needed to be done or even the drills for the day.
I then watched how he led his team to get it done. I watched with equal interest how his teammates responded to his being in charge. I watched the flow of information, who listened and who didn’t, who supported the mission and also who didn’t. I paid attention to who asked questions to clarify the mission and then who offered ideas on how to best get the job done. I watched to see who actively participated and who did not. I learned much about the dynamics of my teams by paying mindful attention to these tasks and how they were executed within my teams.
Just think about the scenario of giving this task to a new sophomore on the varsity team. He or she might feel shy about being the lead, but if you are developing a real team, not only does the sophomore need to know they need to feel comfortable to “participate” and lead, but that it is required. The more senior members of the team need to likewise understand that as leaders they need to respond with their support.
In this scenario, it is important to watch the upperclass leaders. Do they support this possibly nervous sophomore with positive questions and then ultimately offer their support to get the tasks accomplished? Leaders will lead and leaders will follow a good mission with their support. Their support includes listening, asking questions and supporting the task the team is engaged in, no matter who the “lead dog” is.
This tactic worked equally well with my Norwegian pro team. I would call into my office two players who maybe didn’t feel like “team leaders” and put them in charge of their respective teams for the day. They would lead the drills for each team. They would organize their teams for various competitions and also any off-ice activities for the day or week.
These strategies got these young players out of their comfort zone. Being in the lead gave them confidence in leading and allowed me to encourage real team cooperation within the team. And it was always obvious to me who the strongest team leaders were. The strongest team leaders supported the team’s tasks with their support of the leader and with their mindful questions and attention to detail in support of the mission.
Teams need to respond to whatever the situation is at any time. It shouldn’t matter who is leading at the moment; the team just needs to get it done. Even a sophomore on the varsity has to be ready to lead. It might be a situation on the ice, where this young sophomore has to verbally communicate in the D-zone. It might be a social situation away from the rink. At that moment, whatever that moment has to offer, s/he has to know it is their duty to speak up and lead or follow if needed.
We coaches, teachers and mentors need to encourage this. We need to teach this. Leadership and being a great teammate ought to be job one for us in competitive sports. Most of our athletes will never make a dollar playing their sport, but all will be part of various teams throughout their lives. Our goal should be better and stronger marriages and families, better and stronger corporate teams, and better and stronger community organizations.
And make no mistake, too many coaches concern themselves way too much with the challenge provided by the other team. The real challenge is getting your own team to function at its very best. If your team functions at its very best, then you can take whatever results come your way.
Kevin Hartzell is the head coach of Lillehammer in Norway’s GET-Ligaen. A St. Paul native and forward for the University of Minnesota from 1978-82, Hartzell coached in the USHL from 1983-89 with the St. Paul Vulcans and from 2005-12 with the Sioux Falls Stampede. His column have appeared in Let’s Play Hockey since the late 1980s.
