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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