Goal Setting: Four Simple Steps to Success

It was a hot and humid July day in the summer of 2012.  After twice being turned down for the job in 2007 and 2009, I was offered and accepted the head baseball coaching position at Denison University.  It was a super exciting time for myself and my family. On this particular July day, Lowrie and I visited Granville and Denison. The school and the town were beautiful; however, the baseball facility was in bad shape.  As I showed Lowrie the field, for the first time in our marriage, she gave me a look.  It was a look that said, are you sure this is a good idea?  The field, press box and the surrounding area were in really bad shape.  Plus, keep in mind, we had just come off of winning back-to-back National titles at Marietta College.  We had reached the pinnacle of Division III baseball.  Here are just a few of the challenges we now faced:

  • Stabilizing a program that had four head coaches since 2007.
  • Overseeing a program that was financially unstable.
  • Reigniting current student-athletes who had become apathetic to baseball.
  • Leading a program that earned a record of 29-46 overall and 14-17 in conference the previous two seasons.

So, what do you do when faced with a new challenge?  I’d like to share with you four steps that can help guide you on your journey.  My hope is that whatever endeavor you face, you can apply these lessons and strategies to your situation.

Step one: Face Reality:
I know there is a HUGE market currently for positive thinking.  While positive thinking is definitely better than its counterpart, negative thinking, positive thinking alone won’t be the answer.  What needs to be done is to face reality.  This sounds so incredibly simple; however, I am amazed how hard this is for many people.  When facing reality, one needs the clarity to see a situation exactly as it is, not any worse or better.  This takes work.  People wired with a negative predisposition will tend to over exaggerate the situation.  They make the situation so bleak that they feel any amount of time, effort, and energy will be a waste of time.  The overly positive person will be blind to the challenge.  They will be so busy trying to put a positive spin on things that they oftentimes miss opportunities to improve.

In our situation, we needed to face the reality that of the 375 Division III baseball programs in the country we were somewhere in the bottom 40%.  It was what it was.  We wanted to face it head on.  The mindset was, “This is where we are, now let’s get to work.”

Step two: Develop a vision
Everything happens twice: first in the mind, then in reality.  It’s critical to get a crystal clear image of where you are going.  When creating a vision, it is imperative to begin with asking powerful questions.  Here are a few:

  • Where do you want to be in 5 years? 10 years? 20 years?
  • What will be the values and behaviors that will drive the organization?
  • Who can you benchmark and learn from?
  • What are the likely obstacles and pitfalls?

The vision for our program is to develop Denison Baseball into a national caliber program at an elite academic university.  We have a five-year goal to swing from the bottom 40% of programs to the top 20%.  In ten years, we want to be in the top 6% of programs nationwide (I won’t bore you with the details of 6% but it has a meaning).  We bench marked other “academic” universities that are successful.  Elite level academics and high performing baseball programs do not have to be mutually exclusive; they can exist.  Also, we studied and analyzed the programs in the top 6%.  From there, all of our actions and behaviors have been structured around first acting like an elite program before actually becoming one.

Step three: Take Action
I once asked a very successful entrepreneur if he regrets any of the decisions he made?  He paused before he said, “No….not really.  You just take a look at the information then you DECIDE to make it work.  We’ve willed our way to a lot of our success.”  The best vision in the world is meaningless without action.  The start is what stops most people.  Once the plan is in place, execution and resolve kick in.  It becomes battle a of will and perseverance.

How do you create positive change in an organization that has struggled academically, athletically, and socially?  We started cleaning: literally and figuratively.  My first month on the job my wife (coaching is a family affair), assistant coaches and I scrubbed the press box, pulled weeds, organized our inventory, and removed trash.  I will spare you the ugly details of the work; it was far from glamorous, but if we were going to instill pride in our student athletes I felt it was necessary to start at the ground level.  The baseball field is our laboratory; in order for our student-athletes to excel in the “classroom” we needed to provide a fresh, clean start.  From there, we started relentlessly communicating the vision for the program and painstakingly began the process of developing a championship culture.  I define culture as, “the invisible hand that is guiding your program 24/7 365.”  There is nothing more important than the culture of a program.  We know this, respect this and understand that culture can change at any moment.

Step 4: Evaluate and Adjust
After facing reality, creating a vision, and taking action it is a must to evaluate your current situation.  A lot of people float through life without ever doing the hard task of evaluating the results.  This step is very similar to step one: facing reality.  Let me warn you, this is a difficult and oftentimes humbling process.  Creating a vision is fun; then the reality kicks in that despite the hard work and trials you may be knocked off course.  It is natural to be off course; however, problems will occur if you fail to adjust and adapt.

Talk about humbling.  My assistant coach and I painstakingly ranked the 375 programs again this summer.  It’s not an exact process but we feel like we are now in the 22-24% range of all Division III baseball programs.  We have not hit our goal, yet.  I just completed my fourth year at Denison.  We’ve had success but not the success to warrant a top 20% ranking.  That’s our reality.  Should we be proud?  Sure. Should we be satisfied? Absolutely not!  However, this exercise allowed for us to reexamine our program and make adjustments.  One of those adjustments was looking for help with our offense.  Keep in mind, I’ve been working with hitters since my time at Marietta and I demoted myself after 13 years! We can do better in this area and I refuse to let my ego negatively affect our program.  We’ll keep pushing, learning and adjusting until we get it right.

Conclusion
This simple four-step process can be used to pursue any goal or objective.  Your goal this week should be to either set a new goal or perform an in-depth analysis of an already established target.  Please remember, most people lack the discipline and courage to self-evaluate at the highest level.  What a huge competitive advantage for us!  Enjoy your journey!

A note of thanks
I want to sincerely thank everyone of you. Your support has provided me with the courage to share my thoughts.  I write from a place of learning, not teaching.  One of my favorite things about writing this newsletter is putting myself out there.  It is much easier to write after you’ve reached the pinnacle of your profession; by no measure or metric am I a leader in my field.  However, I hope you can appreciate and learn from my pursuit of excellence.

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Get out of your comfort zone: 10 things to do to ‘shake it up’

For the past year, every recruit and family that I sat across from, I deliver this unsettling message.  “At some point, and maybe several points, during your collegiate experience you will consider transferring.  There will be a time when you think you made the wrong choice.”  Why do I believe they will want to transfer at some point?  The reason is we are going to knock them out of their comfort zone.

Being in the comfort zone is extremely dangerous. Please allow me to share an example from sports.  It never fails, every year we are working with one of our players on something new in their fielding, hitting, or pitching.  Inevitably one of the players will respond, “this feels weird; I don’t feel comfortable.”  This comment is far from uncommon and the questioning of the new technique is completely understandable.  However, the response from the athlete from that moment forward is critical: they can go one of two ways:
Response one: They decide to “bite down.” They develop a growth mindset and start to look at the experience as a journey.  There are bumps, bruises and hardships along the way; however, these wounds are only temporary.  A decision is made that it will not be easy, but they will triumph.
Response two: “Poor Pitiful Me” syndrome kicks in.  They start complaining to anyone who will listen.  They will long for their personal instructor, high school coach, or summer coach.  Next, they develop built in excuses: “I can’t hit because they messed me up.”  Eventually a victim’s mentality is formed.

My Advice to Parents:
Many of you who read this newsletter have children, how you choose to handle this situation is critical to their development.  If your child is lucky enough to be in a competitive sports program be thankful.  Your son or daughter’s coach has the ability to challenge and push them in a way you cannot.  Embrace this.  Show empathy.  Explain that you too know what it is like to be thrust into difficult situations; that these situations are extremely challenging.  I would speak of the virtues of courage, grit, and trying new things.  I would tell he or she that I am proud of them for having the fortitude to valiantly attempt new endeavors. Remind them that you love them and that in no way is their self-worth determined by “playing time” or skill competency.   On the other hand, I would avoid enabling and giving them an easy out.  This is one of those “game changing” moments in your child’s life.  Ask yourself two questions: One, what would a more experienced parent do in this situation?  Two, what lesson do I want my child to learn from this?

My Advice to Coaches:
Two things: one, keep pushing.  It is becoming harder and harder to put young athletes in difficult situations.  Many coaches are living in fear.  It is easier not to “rock the boat” than it is to do what is right.  In society’s defense, there have been some horror stories of coaches in the past few years that have made our jobs tougher.  If your heart is in the right place, stay the course.  No one said it was going to be easy.  The following quote from Andrew Wiggins on his coach, Tom Tibodeau should provide you with strength, “He’s going to bring out the best in me.  He’s a hard-nosed coach.  He’s tough.  And that’s what everybody on this team needs.  We need our coach to take us out of our comfort zone.” The second part is we must show empathy.  It’s not easy to leave your comfort zone.  We have to recognize this and realize that it often takes time.  It is important to be slow to label our athletes: “uncoachable,” “soft,” “entitled,” or “lazy.”  Oftentimes these labels are completely wrong.  The problem is we lack the skills and knowledge to reach them properly.

My Advice to Everyone:
Have you noticed virtually everyone agrees that living in the “comfort zone” is not a great place to be?  Have you ever found yourself encouraging others to take risks; however, if you truly self-reflect, you are not following your own advice?  It all starts with the leader.  How can we ask others to do things we ourselves are not willing to do?  Here are ten simple (although not easy) things we can try this week to “shake things up.”

  1. Drive a different way to work- Are you in auto-pilot mode? Many times we hop in our car and just begin going. We fail to see the beauty around us.
  2. Engage a conversation with a complete stranger: The news and talk radio have many of us feeling like there is no hope for our country/world. This is B.S.  I had an amazing conversation this week that warmed my soul. Give it a try.
  3. “Thank ‘em up” At the end of every practice, training session or game we have our players thank each other.  At first it was like pulling teeth; now, our guys love it. Go out of your way to thank others and encourage those you lead to do the same.
  4. Read/watch something that goes against your point of view. You normally watch Fox News, watch CNN. Listen to NPR, tune into Rush Limbaugh.Crazy huh? Our country’s biggest issue is an extreme lack of empathy. If you stay in your bubble nothing will change.
  5. Pick up a new activity- Love to run but hate to strength train? Stop running for a week and start lifting. Hate to run but love to lift?  Put down the protein shake and start hitting the track.  Have you always wanted to try boxing, grappling, or karate?  Go do it?  What’s stopping you?
  6. Wear something different- I find myself wearing the same five polo’s every week? Switch it up? Throw on something different.  Does this sound silly?  Sure.  But try it, it can make you feel alive.
  7. Search for professional development opportunities: As a baseball coach, going to a faculty writing workshop was hard.I was a fish out of water. But I loved it. Also, I went to a Tony Robbins seminar last year.  It rocked my world. Try something different!
  8. Wake up 30 minutes earlier- You really want a challenge? This is really hard for a lot of people. But is it THAT hard? No.Give it a shot for a week.I bet you end up enjoying it.
  9. Count your calories: Keeping track of calories is quite simple (not easy) now with apps and websites like myfitnesspal.com.  Getting out of the comfort zone of eating what I want/when I wanted was difficult for me.
  10. Put your phone in another room. Do you really want to rock the boat?  When you are home, avoid being in the same room as your phone f or one week. Pay attention to the greater engagement you have with those in your company.

Conclusion:
Growth cannot occur in the comfort zone.  It’s our job as leaders, coaches, and parents to; first, challenge ourselves and second, challenge those we lead.  The goal this week is to “be aware.”  It takes presence and courage to know if you are “going through the motions” or if you are pressing forward.  We can do this!

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