In today’s workplace, across all sectors, organizations are trying to create a positive and productive environment, one where stakeholders feel a deep sense of commitment to the mission and to one another, as well as a deep sense of engagement.  Even in the biggest and most prominent companies, there is still a realization that resources are limited—most especially human resources. Every organization aspires to goals beyond their resources (e.g., Amazon is huge and successful, but trying to get bigger and better). Thus, creating a culture of excellence where the members of the organization “row as one” is essential. Creating a culture infused with quality of life—at work and away from work—where people feel engaged, supported, and cared for becomes an essential organizational asset.

Here are four qualities of a great work environment and why it matters to mission and margin:

1. A great work environment is an engaged work environment. We’re not burnout, stressed out, resentful, or demoralized. We are motivated to go the extra yard, to give the extra effort.
2. A great work environment is a kind, helpful, and collegial environment.  We like each other. We wish each other well and do anything and everything in our power to help one another achieve our shared goals.  We have congeniality—we’re nice to each other; we also have collegiality—we’re willing to give and receive constructive criticism and to use critical and creative thinking and problem solving to get the most from our available resources.
3. A great work environment benefits its customers. When we create an engaged, kind, and collegial environment the customers we serve are the direct beneficiaries. We exist for our customers—whether they are students, patients, or any other type of client that uses our products and services.  As they say in school settings, “feed the teachers so they don’t eat the students.” Similarly, we could assert “feed the doctors so they don’t eat their patients”; or, “feed your administrative assistants so they don’t eat the doctors.”  We serve our customers better in a great work environment.
4. A great work environment attracts great people. Salaries and benefits matter; state of the art facilities are important for pride and productivity; but there is no substitute for great people. Total care for each employee means that others will want to work with us. The single best indicator of a great work environment is whether there would be a line of people signing up for any position in which we have a vacancy.

Whether you’re going from bad to good, or good to great, continuous improvement requires a commitment to continuous change and adaptation. I recently returned to the book Switch: How to Make Change When Change is Hard.

The authors of Switch argue: For anything to change, someone has to start acting differently. Simple, but not easy. But there must be clarity about what we want START, STOP, CONTINUE, or IMPROVE.  Switch presents three important reminders to consider about making change:

1. What looks like resistance is often a lack of clarity about what to do better or differently.   What changes can your organization make to more optimally provide clear direction for one another about what they want to do better or differently (and/or avoid doing)?
2. What looks like laziness is often exhaustion. What changes can your organization make to engage stakeholders’ emotional and motivational side so they can more optimally manage our energy and avoid stress and burnout?
3. What looks like a people problem is often a situation problem. What can your organization change in its situation or environment to better help each stakeholder group to overcome their challenges and more optimally contribute to their shared goals?

In summarizing, the authors argue that successful change requires three things to happen at once: 1) changes in the situation; 2) changes in heart (motivation); 3) changes in mind (clarity of what is expected). These are some important steps in creating a great place to work—for those you work with and those you work for. What is it that your team or organization needs to START, STOP, CONTINUE, or IMPROVE to create a truly great environment to work?.

I returned recently to a book from which I have drawn deeply over the years: The Adversity Advantage, by Paul Stoltz and Erik Weihenmayer.

It’s a powerful resource that takes a somewhat counterintuitive look at adversity and hardship, arguing that while we often spend our lives trying to prevent adversity, suffering, and hardship, that in fact, the most powerful, impactful, and defining moments of our lives come from these very experiences.  They aren’t arguing that we should seek out adversity (although many people do, including me when I purposely take on a marathon or a killer bike ride or mountain to climb). Rather, adversity and suffering simply are an inevitable part of the human experience. Thus, we do well to have an intentional approach regarding how to make sense of, and get the most positive results from the adversity we experience.

For far too many individuals with whom we work are what I might describe as adversity-adverse—that is, they truly operate with an opposition to anything that is difficult, anything that requires sacrifice, anything that is not well-matched to their learning style, or their timetable, or their belief about how the world should work.  This is certainly true of many of the youth we work with in K-16 education and sport settings.

Unfortunately, in my opinion, these young people are adversity-adverse because they’ve been wrapped in bubble-wrap by parents, teachers and coaches who see their job as removing adversity and promoting self-esteem. Far too parents—especially in the most affluent communities we serve—operate as either helicopters or bulldozers, hovering to protect or removing any obstacle to their child’s success.  They engineer every setting to find the easiest, the best, the most successful. They shield kids from any disappointments, failures, or any situation where they won’t get a trophy, or award, or praise. And yet, for the coaches and workplace environments we serve, the most sought-after qualities are toughness, grit, perseverance, and an optimistic, can-do attitude–the attributes that come from the experience of adversity.

I would also say that one of the other major culprits in the creation of the adversity-adverse are our colleges and universities, which have created a utopia that is most unlike the “real world.” Colleges and universities realize that students (most often, the parents of students) are the customer, the folks who are paying the bill—and it’s a big one! So, the job of the colleges and universities seemingly has become to keep the customer happy. If the student gets a bad or even average grade, get locked out of a class, doesn’t get the part in the play or team, or have the best food and exercise facilities, then they’re out of there!  Many colleges have gone away from early morning classes; many also have gone completely away from having any classes on Friday. Why?  The customer doesn’t like getting up early on Friday after a late night of partying on Thursday. I get it: college costs a lot of money and there are lots of options; keeping the customer happy is important. And yet, most of life is about doing what you don’t want to do, when you don’t want to do it. No wonder employers are struggling to recruit and retain college grads who won’t bolt for a new gig as soon as things are difficult, aren’t fun, or aren’t customized to fit the needs of the employee.

Like any broad characterization, my portrayal of “parents” and “students” and “colleges/universities” is broad, and doesn’t represent all, for sure. However, in our experience at IEE, it is significant enough in its scope that at every level of education, and in every sector of the workplace we see the adversity-adverse as a significant barrier to optimal performance.  Perhaps this explains why half of all students who get into college don’t graduate and why half of all marriages end in divorce.  When the literal or figurative honeymoon is over and the hardships and hard work emerge, many bail out in search of an easier pathway.

Bottom line: adversity is part of life; those who embrace and master it thrive; those who don’t struggle—if not in the short-term, certainly in the long-term. Pain, suffering, and adversity are a core part of every major philosophy and religion, as well as the main subject of literature and history. As the saying goes, “you can’t get out of it, so you better get into it.”  In our work to promote Optimal Performance, we are helping those we serve to better understand what optimal performance indicators and practices around adversity.  This book is a great resource for seeking more optimal performance around the hardships and adversities that we will encounter.  I especially recommend the chapter on “suffering well.” As Helen Keller famously said, “character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, vision cleared, ambition inspired, and success achieved.”

Compassion means “to suffer with”. As a father of four young children, as a teacher and coach, and as someone who works with high school and college students, I’m suffering with my colleague and this community over their loss.  I’m also able to feel compassion for this young women, who aspired for excellence and fell prey to the trap of perfectionism. When your life and life’s work is dedicated to excellence and ethics, perfectionism is an all-to-common personal and professional hazard. Many of the most accomplished performers are also the least happy, the least satisfied, and unfortunately, the most plagued by their own self-rejection and self-loathing. At times I have most certainly let my best instincts for excellence morph into perfectionism (I am grateful to a friend who put me on to the work related to perfectionism; it’s helped me and those we serve).

A resource that I have found very helpful, which I recommended to my colleague is the book, The Pursuit of Perfect, by Tal Ben-Shahar. (Not surprisingly, his course on happiness and perfectionism is one of the most popular at Harvard. I also have enjoyed his books on happiness as well).

For any individual, any teacher, parent, or coach who is passionate about excellence, you simply must be informed about the dangers of perfectionism and this resource is as good as they come. It presents solid but accessible theory, trustworthy science, and some practical tools and strategies. I draw upon it significantly in my own life, and for those we consult in school, sport, and workplace settings. I recommend it for parents, coaches, teachers, and those in youth ministry–especially those working with or in high-performing schools and competitive settings.

It’s important to remember as you think about the topic that perfectionism is always bad, always disordered. “Optimalists” is the term Tal Ben-Sharar describes as the ideal. This is closely aligned with our work at IEE where we talk about is Optimal Performance–optimal is the middle between too much and too little. Optimal Performance is optimal for 1) the circumstance or situation, 2) the goal or expectation, and 3) the persons abilities and sensibilities. Finding optimal isn’t easy, it’s art as much as science. And if you desire personal best you must be able to self-correct quickly or risk letting perfectionism ruin you.

The Pursuit of Perfect provides numerous practical examples of signs and symptoms of perfectionism, like:

1. An expectation of a perfect journey. Everybody else experiences loss, setbacks, problems, or unforeseen challenges. But not the perfectionist. They expect things to go perfectly, and when they inevitably don’t anxiety and self-rejection and a host of other toxic emotions result.

2. Fear of failure. This isn’t just your normal pre-performance nerves (this is a big game or challenge and i’m nervous and excited). This is debilitating, panic attack anxiety, which believes that my identify and self-worth is on the line. If I lose or fail, all is lost.

3. An all or nothing mindset. You either took first or you lost. You either got an A or you failed. No recognition of growth and improvement. No satisfaction in the journey or the thrill of good competition and what it brought out of you.

4. Focus exclusively on destination. The quote says, “the journey is the reward”–not for perfectionists. It’s all about arriving–getting that A, winning that championship, getting that scholarship, or new house, etc. All of the joys along the way, the growth, the relationships–the journey–is devalued. (Unfortunately, they get very little joy when they arrive either, since they’re usually on to the next thing).

5. Procrastination: It takes lots of energy to write the perfect essay (or email), create the perfect project, do the best most impressive thing you’ve ever done. So there’s no good time to start, and so we procrastinate. Perfectionist lose site of just getting something done, and what happens when you find good enough. As they say in the Done Manifesto, “done is the engine of more.”  You can improve something, innovate off of or from something. If we’re procrastinating, it’s often a sign of perfectionism.

Tal Ben-Shahar outlines many other signs and symptoms, and some very helpful character strengths and habits to develop the capacity to help individuals find optimal, including:

1. Developing an attitude of gratitude, which helps one to see everything as a gift–including our challenges and setbacks. Moment to moment mindfulness and gratitude begins to draw attention to the good things that are happening in our lives–even if they aren’t easy.

2. Developing a growth mindset, which values improvement and growth and sees challenges and failure as opportunities to grow, not as the end of the world.

3. Embracing adversity. We don’t have to seek out adversity; we do need to learn to embrace it. It will happen and often its from our adversity that we grow and learn the most and find our deepest and best selves.

4. Striving for optimal.  There is arguably nothing more important–and beautiful–than finding optimal. When asked how he carved his beautiful Angel, Michelangelo famously said, “I carved away everything that wasn’t angel.” It’s what all great artists do–be they sculptors, musicians, or chefs. They carve away the excess. For every circumstance, for every person, for every goal or pursuit we simply must seek to find the optimal or ideal response. Not too much, not too little, just right. Simple, not easy.

Suicide is a tragedy and represents an extreme response to the forces of perfectionism. But depression, anxiety, and unhappiness are very common results from perfectionism. The lack of joy, lack of happiness, lack of gratitude, lack of mindfulness living are especially prevalent among those who hold high expectations for themselves, and those who are held to high expectations by well-intended parents, teachers, coaches, and spiritual/religious mentors. High expectations are not the problem; our mindset for pursuing them is the problem. Forget perfect. Find optimal.

Over the course of this year in my work with several different high school and college athletic departments around the country, we have been working on the topic of gratitude. When it was first introduced to me by a collegiate athletic director, I thought, “Wow, interesting topic to focus on for high performing student-athletes who are strong, healthy, smart and blessed in so many ways with gifts and abilities.” And yet, the more I explored the topic with and for coaches and student-athletes the more I realized the relevance of this topic to their quest for optimal performance–as students, athletes, and human beings. As important, I’ve realized the central importance of this in my own life.

I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s not easy for any of us to be grateful–especially those most blessed with gifts, talents, abilities and good fortune. For most, it’s not a natural instinct or habit. In fact, we often have to REMEMBER to be grateful. Robert Emmons, whose work focuses on gratitude, has a quote that for me captures the essence of what we need to remember; he says, “gratitude is the recognition that life owes me nothing and all the good I have is a gift.”  When we forget this we slip into an entitlement mindset, which essentially says, “I deserve this.” “I’m owed this”.  Life doesn’t owe you good health, a good grade, playing time, food to eat, warm clothes or anything else. It’s all gift; and when we remember this we’re grateful for everything.

But here’s the thing that is so difficult about gratitude: we often only remember and give thanks for what we have when it was taken away and given back–or simply taken away. You take food for granted, until you’re hungry; you take your health for granted until you’re injured or sick; you take your time as a student or athlete for granted until it’s over. This story on Dean Smith, the great UNC Basketball Coach, hit me hard on so many different levels. As he suffers now from dementia, so many of his wonderful gifts are being taken away. Would I, or did others appreciate his gifts when they were there? Hard to say if we ever fully appreciate anything or anyone. But it’s clear we appreciate Coach Smith’s gifts more now as they are taken away from him–and us.

The word “compassion” means “to suffer with”: I don’t need to be Dean Smith, his family, or one of his former players to suffer with him as many of his amazing gifts are taken away. When and if we can suffer with others, I believe we also develop a gratitude mindset. If you’re healthy, go sit with somebody in the training room whose season (and maybe career) is done and is working through rehab. Bet you’ll feel grateful for you own health. Bet you won’t think you “have to go to practice”; bet you think “you get to go to practice.” Lose your job and see how grateful for you are to “get to go to work at your next job.” It’s almost as if compassion and gratitude are interconnected: the more you suffer with others in their pain, the more grateful you are for what you have–especially if they’re suffering with something that you treasure very much (imagine parents suffering with a fellow parent who has lost a child).

Abraham Lincoln said, “most people are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.” Gratitude is a mindset, a way of framing and re-framing constantly so that we remember that everything we have is a gift. I’m mourning the loss of Coach Smith’s gifts, but finding myself more grateful for what appears to be a great coach and a better man.

I was at a sports banquet yesterday and one of the coaches shared about how they had made attitude and effort a core focus for the team.  As a team he wanted them to focus only things within their control. Of all the things within our control attitude and effort are at the top of the list–in sport and in all aspects of life.  Attitude and effort are something we work on a lot here at IEE. In school, sport, home and workplace settings, people know attitude and effort are important; but what they often struggle with is the how–how to define it, how teach it, how to develop it, and how assess it.

I had recently developed some teaching materials on attitude and effort for some of our client/partner organizations involved in high school and college athletics (Division I, II, and III) and thought I would share it as example of how we at IEE work to foster optimal performance by creating an intentional culture of excellence and ethics (just click the link to access): Attitude + Effort = Improvement

Too often coaches and athletes put so much pressure on winning that the joy of competing is lost. Great competitors love to compete; they love the game, the competition and the opportunity to push themselves. Competition isn’t the problem; our approach to competition is the problem. Competition literally means “to strive with.” Unlike how many approach it, competition is actually a highly evolved form of cooperation: when I give me best, it pulls out your best and together we strive for new levels of excellence.

When our external coaching and internal self-talk results in a mindset that is afraid of failing and obsessed with mistakes, performance suffers–and so too does the psyche of the performer. A quote from the article describes Gold in the following way: “She demanded perfection from herself and became consumed by her flaws.” Not a great recipe for success–and a sure path to the lack of joy that often plagues athletes of all ages. In our work we focus on the idea of “optimal performance”. Optimal means ideal–for the person’s capabilities and expectations and for the circumstances. Perfectionists see only a win or a loss, all or nothing proposition. Optimal performers strive for excellence through continuous improvement, perseverance, and by loving the process as much as the outcome.

Her new coach, known for “candor and positive reinforcement” brought her a sense of “calmness.” Candid feedback: “that’s not fast enough; try again” “better; that’s faster. nice” Feedback that is specific, helpful, useful creates a sense of calm because it provides an individual very specific things upon which to focus, which are within our control.  Feedback like, “You suck; that was awful; you just don’t want it bad enough”–only increases the fear and self-rejection that a struggling performer already has. In coaching approach that is candid with positive reinforcement, every circumstance and situation is simply an opportunity for growth and improvement. Observe a practice, rehearsal, classroom or workplace coaching session (or sit around a table where kids are doing homework with parents) and listen for praise and polish that really contributes to optimal performance; it’s hard to find, but so powerful when done well.

The coach taught her “it’s not the perfect skater that wins, it’s the best skater”–the one who can overcome less than ideal circumstances and performance, but still manage to keep moving forward. Great performers “fail forward” thinking about what to fix and do better in the future, not the pain and frustration of the past. Coaches who help performers focus on “the next play” teach the ability to quickly move on to what comes next, informed by the past without being plagued by it.  Optimal performance pursues excellence recognizing always that the real world of performance is much more difficult that our perfectionist minds allow for. In school, athletics, work, and life we could all use to “release some of that perfectionist quality and switch to a focus on excellence.” We know what inadequate performance looks like; we need a picture of what optimal performance looks like; then we keep focused on continuously improving toward more optimal. As a coach in Kansas was fond of saying, “just get a little better each day.”

A few examples:

At a piano recital last spring the daughter of our friend got stage fright and broke down in tears, unable to play her song. She returned to her seat, a couple of others went ahead. Then the teacher and the Mom gently invited her to give it another go. She did it. Afterwards I wrote her a heartfelt note saying that it was one of the best demonstrations of courage I’d seen in a kid her age, since as the quote says, “courage is not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it.”

At a school event, a child forgot the lines he had memorized. He started, stopped, said aloud, “wait a minute”; looked up (into the old mind vault) and then said, “got it”! And then said his lines perfectly.  So many other kids who didn’t stumble at all, but his stumble followed by his beautiful recovery is the one I remember.

A child who stepped up to a spontaneous request to read aloud for a group of adults, who stumbled on a word—that frankly most of the adults couldn’t pronounce. He tried three different times, shrugged his shoulders and moved on to finish the rest of the reading. Lots of adults I know wouldn’t have shrugged it off and just moved forward.

No, I don’t sit there secretly hoping that kids will stumble and get embarrassed. I love when they nail it.  But I don’t like the fear in their eyes and the look that says, “if I don’t win or nail this or get an A, I’m going to fall to pieces.” And, I especially love when they experience adversity and learn and grow as a result. Unfortunately, so many parents, teachers, and coaches are so wrapped up in looking good and feeling good that they fear and avoid these moments (and pass on this fear).

 But what about their self-esteem?  Okay, let’s not rehash the same old polarizing themes of this debate: it’s bad; it’s good. Here’s my take on self-esteem: it’s like an emotional carbohydrate that we take in through our experiences:  we need it in our system, but there are simple ones that burn fast and cause you to crash, and there are complex ones that burn slowly and are vital for optimal performance.   The simple sugars of self-esteem include constant praise, stickers and stars, inflated grades, and a trophy for everything and anything. The complex carbs of self-esteem include authentic challenges, real adversity, and the careful praise of the effort, attitude, persistence, growth and improvement.

 Books like Carol Dweck’s wonderful work on Mindset present the research on the importance of having this “growth mindset.”

  A “growth mindset” sees challenges as opportunities to learn, grow, improve in a way that expands our capacity to perform. Whereas a “fixed mindset” is one where we believe  you’re born with “fixed” amount of ability or capacity for performance and every experience puts our “fixed” abilities to the test. If I fail, it shows 1) I don’t have what it takes and 2) there ain’t nothing I can do about it!  This is why I love quotes like:

Hard work beats talent when talent won’t work hard.

The harder you work, the luckier you get.

Opportunities are usually disguised as hard work,

so most people don’t recognize them.

These aren’t just cheesy quotes, they’re optimal performance truths.  We cannot develop our full potential without real challenge. You want to see yourself as a strength and conditioning coach—your goal is to develop exercises that optimally stretch and strengthen the muscles you’re targeting: too much and you get injury, too little and you get atrophy.  You’re not a helicopter, a bulldozer, or the tooth fairy; you’re a strength coach, using every single experience of life to develop inner strength and capacity.

 Toward that end I recommend the following:

-Don’t praise ability, talents, and giftedness (you’re so smart, athletic, artistic, etc., etc.).

-Form the habit of offering Praise that is specific and process directed (good effort, great detail, strong finish) and Polish (I like to improve it we might…. How could you improve that outcome…what would you do differently…).

-Praise effort and attitude, growth and improvement, persistence and courage.

-Teach and reflect about the process and product, the journey and the destination.

-Reframe loss, failure, mistakes, and adversity as opportunity for growth and improvement.

-Reframe successes as confirmation of the right direction, not as arriving at the destination.

-Be on the lookout for “epic failures” (a lost game, a flubbed speech or solo, or a failing grade) and teach from it: 1) you’re still alive, 2) you worked your way through, 3) you’ll know how to handle that next time, 4) you’re stronger, more confident, and better prepared for the future BECAUSE of this.

 One of my favorite examples for folks of all ages is Lewis, the main character from the movie, Meet the Robinsons; listen to the lyrics of this song and think of Lewis as an Other-Study of what a growth mindset looks like. Just keep moving forward!

This entry was written by guest blogger, Eric Martin. Eric is a Sr. Learning Specialist with the Human Resources Team at Sauer-Danfoss, a global leader in the mobile hydraulics industry.  He serves the learning and development needs of the employees at the facility in Ames, Iowa.

The Task

Sauer-Danfoss has a strong workplace culture with a rich history of dedicated employees, a commitment to teamwork and the on-going growth and development of our employees. With locations spanning the globe, there is an intentional effort to build global and local teams by developing employees and leaders through a wide variety of learning opportunities. Our site houses a mix of local and global employees including Engineers, Production, IT, Sales and Marketing, Human Resources, Procurement and Finance.

Every two years the Ames location requires all employees to attend a mandatory training to review several of the Human Resources policies including; harassment, workplace violence, diversity and ethics. These are a fairly standard collection of HR policies found in nearly every company large or small.  In some companies, these are briefly covered in a new employee orientation session and checked off a list in the employee handbook and placed on a shelf somewhere, seemingly forgotten in the glaze of information overload and nervous energy of a new hire.  At Sauer-Danfoss we are dedicated to building a safe and positive workplace culture for all of our employees and not allowing these important aspects of policy sit in a manual on a shelf.

The Challenge

My challenge was to deliver a refresher workshop to our nearly 1000 employees in 32 sessions spread across three different shifts.  My goals were to not only to refresh their memory of these important policies but to deliver it with fresh strategies.  We all know how excited people are to engage in learning when it is a mandatory class on HR policies!  Not only did I want to keep them engaged in the learning process focused on the policies at hand; I wanted to deploy additional learning tools that would provide an opportunity to build on our existing strong and positive workplace culture.

The Solution

I was very fortunate to partner with IEE to develop a comprehensive training session that not only covered the required policy review, but also creatively wrapped several IEE culture building tools around the standard polices.  This instructional design technique provided a strategy to cover the required “what” (HR policies) and engage the learners through dialogue, discussion and reflection with the “how” and “why” (culture building and safe environment).

In a short period of time, all of our employees were talking about the importance of moral and performance character in their own role as well as the larger company goals.  Each class created a Compact for Excellence to outline our own expectations and behaviors in order to be as productive as we could while treating each other with respect and care. I encouraged our employees to use this tool in their own department meetings and planning sessions, reminding them the importance of setting intentional group norms and expectations. Perhaps the richest conversation came from the Excellence & Ethics Drivers & Preventers exercise.  Together, small groups of employees brainstormed numerous factors that contribute to, as well as detract from, a positive respectful work environment. Participants then discussed ways that they could positively influence each of these factors.  This helped to bring a HR policy into action and create personal ownership in the process. It was no longer just a standard policy but something tangible that they could individually and collectively see how they could positively impact the culture of our organization.

The Plan

I am eager to work again with IEE to integrate these positive workplace culture teaching and learning tools into other on-going courses that we teach including the new employee orientation and on-boarding programs and our leadership development curriculum.  A few of our other sites have expressed interest in bringing these tools at their location as well.  The best feedback I received during this training process was from one of our third shift leaders who contacted me a few days after the session and said, “You nailed it.  My team asked me if they could participate in more classes like this–you know you nailed it when they want MORE required training!”

The study involved significant embedded observations with the team, interviews with coaches and players, and the analysis of significant data gathered from microphones that the coaches wore in practice and games.  (Imagine that coaches—or parents or teachers—somebody recording and analyzing your every exchange! It was amazing). I remember a point when a team member contacted me very concerned because the coaches had been yelling and screaming at practice and he had great concern that would present the coaches in a bad light. You can’t be a coach dedicated to ethics and whole-person development if you scream and yell, right?  Some on our team absolutely believed that to be the case; I was not one of them. Coaching intensity is essential for high performance; I firmly believed that there was a place for yelling and displays of passion and emotion. I reserved judgment until studying the tapes and integrating it into my lived experiences with the coaches and players.

What we found was very nuanced:  coaches screaming at the whole group regarding attitude and effort; coaches exhorting players to play harder, be tougher, to do it over, to do it better; coaches harping on little details.  Like a parent disciplining a child, they almost always went to players that they had gotten after to explain further their expectations and motives for getting on them.  What was NOT part of the yelling was equally important.  They were not attacking players personally; they were not cursing; they were not denigrating them, embarrassing them or confronting them.

Coaches offered sound insight into our questions regarding the type, timing, and intent their yelling and overall motivational strategies. They could differentiate why they communicated with one player one way and another player another way. It was not indiscriminate yelling; it was not vitriolic rage and personal attack; it was differentiated instruction. They knew when to speak softly, how to comfort the player and the group, and then how to move their teaching to crescendo with effect.  As a former athlete and coach I certainly did not think the yelling was inappropriate, let alone abusive.  I absolutely felt that it represented an intensity necessary to bring out the potential for excellence in the individual players and the team. These weren’t  5-year old t-ball players; they were competitive, elite student-athletes.

In 1964, in an attempt to define pornography and obscenity, Justice Potter Stewart famously said, “I know it when I see it.”  When the video of Rutgers basketball coach, Mike Rice, went viral this week I knew abuse by a coach when I saw it.  I was not only aghast to see Rice yelling homophobic slurs at his players, kicking them, shoving them, throwing basketballs at their chests, legs, and head; I was angry as hell.  I love and defend good coaches. There’s no defense of Mike Rice’s behavior. He’s a bully and his tactics were abusive. Period.  Here are the two main criteria by which I draw this conclusion on the Rice tape, which was not my conclusion in the tapes from the basketball study discussed above.

1. Bullying involves a real or perceived imbalance of power, where the one with power attacks the less powerful or powerless.  Rice had the power: not only because he determined who would play and how much they would play, but because he held the ultimate power: the scholarship.  Complain to the assistant coach or AD and you’re done. But they could still transfer, right? Remember, we’re talking real or perceived power. No doubt the players had more power than they believed or used. (As I watched the tape I literally wanted one of the players to charge the coach and knock him on his arse!).  As in cases of domestic abuse, the belief that somebody holds power over you is real.  And really, if you believe that should you try to get out of the situation that the coach will tell the next inquiring school or coach that you’re just soft, a head-case, or not a character-guy, one can see why the players believed the coach has the power and thus endured this bully.

The powerlessness of the players in this case and in other similar is made worse by the complete and utter moral failure of the athletic director to stop the abuse.  When the AD chose to become a bystander to the abuse, he became part of the abuse. And what was the message to the players when the assistant coach brought concerns to the AD and was subsequently dismissed?  I highly doubt they thought the AD was a neutral arbitrator. Tim Pernetti is hardly the only AD who has failed to protect the student-athletes. Far too many AD’s—and frankly speaking the NCAA itself—are deeply compromised by the conflict of interest that exists between their job to protect and promote the well-being of student-athletes and their job to make lots of money off of college athletes.

High school and AAU coaches don’t stand up to these coaches because they want their players to get scholarships (and they often covet a chance to follow one of their players into the elite coaching opportunities). Parents are also often accomplices to these crimes because they are over invested and beholden to AAU and high school coaches and they choose to ignore or justify these bullying behaviors to get or keep a scholarship or to get their kid to the professional ranks.  So when you can’t trust your coach, assistant coach, AD, high school coach and AD, AAU coach or your parents I think it’s not so hard to believe that they believed they didn’t have power to stand up to Coach Rice.  My disbelief and frustration that the players didn’t just deck the coach, quickly changed to anger at those who created and sustained the reality that made this possible.

2.  Bullying usually takes two general forms:  psychological and physical.  You’ve got both on full display in the Rice video. The instruments of psychological abuse are verbal and emotional in nature. The humiliating, dehumanizing, vindictive exchanges exact a deep emotional toil. I can already hear it from “that coach” or “that parent”:  “Come on, man; these are big boys. You’re not going to tell me he hurt their feelings.”  College athletes are amazing physical beings; but they’re still essentially young adults and they’re most definitely human beings.  Years of working with athletes at all levels makes me absolutely convinced that psychological abuse is real. I’m not convinced that his tactics “did no harm”;  and I am absolutely sure they did not do “maximum good” in pursuit of excellence or whole-person development. And maybe the tape doesn’t show physical abuse, but it clearly shows physical intimidation and a persistently aggressive and hostile atmosphere which most definitely was unjust, unfair, and unhealthy.

I’ve already heard current and former coaches hedging on this case, mostly by decrying Rice’s use of homophobic slurs as always and everywhere wrong, but then claiming that you need to build relationships if you’re going to drive kids hard in pursuit of their best. Going out for pizza and a movie so you can continue your abusive practices isn’t my idea of balancing pursuit of excellence with whole-person development. This is akin to an abusive husband taking his battered wife out to dinner or on a lovely vacation. It doesn’t undo the abuse; it makes it worse by revealing the deep-seated hypocrisy and manipulation at play.  Bottom line: coaches must view student-athletes as an end, not as a means to an end.

Unfortunately, I think the type of behavior we observed from Rice is far more prevalent than most would want to admit. And, in my experience, female coaches are now often as likely to engage in these tactics as men.  Let’s be clear:  every coach who kicks over a garbage can, breaks a clipboard, throws their team out of the gym, or screams about poor execution or effort isn’t an abusive bully.  So too, every player who gets upset from constructive criticism, doesn’t like the coaches style, or a coach getting after them hasn’t necessarily been “abused.”   But we can’t simply operate under the “that which does not kill us makes us stronger” mentality of coaching. And just because your coach did it and you turned out alright doesn’t make it right either.  The ends don’t justify the means. All that motivates is not moral.

Three practical suggestions for moving forward:

 1. Develop an approach to coaching and player development that integrates the development of performance character and moral character (Bulldog Playbook, page 82). This idea grew out of the basketball study described above. Great coaches develop both excellence and ethics. Moral and performance character are interconnected, inseparable, dynamic forces that coaches must balance. You can’t unhook them; you can motivate in a way that violates respect and decency; so too if you love players you must push them. Mike Rice’s approach unhitched performance character from moral character.  Develop both moral and performance character with intensity and intentionality; beware when the weight of your foot is disproportionately on either—especially performance character.

2. Make this a topic of an Intentional Culture Conversation amongst coaches, staff, trainers, and administrators. It is essential to discuss the line between abuse and motivation, about the balance of excellence and ethics, and about how we empower all stakeholders to stand up, speak out, and stop abusive coaches.  The pursuit of excellence that also seeks whole-person development is as much art as science. Assuming we all understand and agree on the standard is foolish.  We must beware of simple, easy, and obvious answers—which are often also wrong. There isn’t one right or best coaching style. But we won’t get to a shared way without a shared dialogue. Student athletes at Drake should have a place where they can make sense of the Rutgers situation and to understand why living the Bulldog Way is different and better. A Bulldog Way Intentional Culture Conversation on this topic for student-athletes would provide the forum for such a discussion.

3. Define abusive coaching behaviors so you’ll know it when you see it.  Once you think about coaching that balances moral character and performance character, and once you’ve engaged in an Intentional Culture Conversation, then I recommend creating a checklist outlining a checklist of coaching behaviors that constitute your definition of bullying. Because it’s such a complex and nuanced area, many will not want to define the abusive, bullying behaviors. But this is a mistake that lets the bullies hide and the puts the good coaches at risk of being misunderstood (think of the coaches in our study above). This will create an awareness of what to look for, of what to avoid, and will more quickly allow stakeholders to speak up to fix the problem or to better clarify your standard. For example, here’s my coach’s bullying behaviors checklist:

Does the coach….

• Ridicule, embarrass or demean players
• Make verbal attacks personal
• Exhibit intimidating, threatening, and/or aggressive confrontational style with players
• Humiliate players publicly or privately
• Engage in emotional games, like not talking to a player, or having them sit away from the team after a bad performance
• Grab, push, shove or hit players
• Make clear to players that there is no way out or around the coach

Mine isn’t the only checklist. But take note of how even this simple checklist forces you to accept or reject mine, which ultimately leads to the clarification of your own.

Players don’t always appreciate (or even like) coaches, especially since most of coaching is getting more out of you than you think you’re capable of, pushing you beyond your limits, targeting your weaknesses for development .  A good coach is like a good parent: your kids don’t always like you; they often resent your standards and expectation. But if you do it the right way for the right reasons years later they understand and appreciate you—and usually adopt your standards and values.  But a bad coach is like a bad parent: they leave pain, scars, and resentment that last a lifetime.

The Bulldog Way explicitly talks about “acting with integrity,” “desiring the best for and best from each other” and “maximizing our potential.” We must recognize that these are often in tension with one another. The Rice situation at Rutgers shows what happen when this tension gets too great and the “center cannot hold.” It’s a fine line between motivation and abuse—it’s also a slippery slope, which is why we must be intentional.

The study involved significant embedded observations with the team, interviews with coaches and players, and the analysis of significant data gathered from microphones that the coaches wore in practice and games.  (Imagine that coaches—or parents or teachers—somebody recording and analyzing your every exchange! It was amazing). I remember a point when a team member contacted me very concerned because the coaches had been yelling and screaming at practice and he had great concern that would present the coaches in a bad light. You can’t be a coach dedicated to ethics and whole-person development if you scream and yell, right?  Some on our team absolutely believed that to be the case; I was not one of them. Coaching intensity is essential for high performance; I firmly believed that there was a place for yelling and displays of passion and emotion. I reserved judgment until studying the tapes and integrating it into my lived experiences with the coaches and players.

What we found was very nuanced:  coaches screaming at the whole group regarding attitude and effort; coaches exhorting players to play harder, be tougher, to do it over, to do it better; coaches harping on little details.  Like a parent disciplining a child, they almost always went to players that they had gotten after to explain further their expectations and motives for getting on them.  What was NOT part of the yelling was equally important.  They were not attacking players personally; they were not cursing; they were not denigrating them, embarrassing them or confronting them.

Coaches offered sound insight into our questions regarding the type, timing, and intent their yelling and overall motivational strategies. They could differentiate why they communicated with one player one way and another player another way. It was not indiscriminate yelling; it was not vitriolic rage and personal attack; it was differentiated instruction. They knew when to speak softly, how to comfort the player and the group, and then how to move their teaching to crescendo with effect.  As a former athlete and coach I certainly did not think the yelling was inappropriate, let alone abusive.  I absolutely felt that it represented an intensity necessary to bring out the potential for excellence in the individual players and the team. These weren’t  5-year old t-ball players; they were competitive, elite student-athletes.

In 1964, in an attempt to define pornography and obscenity, Justice Potter Stewart famously said, “I know it when I see it.”  When the video of Rutgers basketball coach, Mike Rice, went viral this week I knew abuse by a coach when I saw it.  I was not only aghast to see Rice yelling homophobic slurs at his players, kicking them, shoving them, throwing basketballs at their chests, legs, and head; I was angry as hell.  I love and defend good coaches. There’s no defense of Mike Rice’s behavior. He’s a bully and his tactics were abusive. Period.  Here are the two main criteria by which I draw this conclusion on the Rice tape, which was not my conclusion in the tapes from the basketball study discussed above.

1. Bullying involves a real or perceived imbalance of power, where the one with power attacks the less powerful or powerless.  Rice had the power: not only because he determined who would play and how much they would play, but because he held the ultimate power: the scholarship.  Complain to the assistant coach or AD and you’re done. But they could still transfer, right? Remember, we’re talking real or perceived power. No doubt the players had more power than they believed or used. (As I watched the tape I literally wanted one of the players to charge the coach and knock him on his arse!).  As in cases of domestic abuse, the belief that somebody holds power over you is real.  And really, if you believe that should you try to get out of the situation that the coach will tell the next inquiring school or coach that you’re just soft, a head-case, or not a character-guy, one can see why the players believed the coach has the power and thus endured this bully.

The powerlessness of the players in this case and in other similar is made worse by the complete and utter moral failure of the athletic director to stop the abuse.  When the AD chose to become a bystander to the abuse, he became part of the abuse. And what was the message to the players when the assistant coach brought concerns to the AD and was subsequently dismissed?  I highly doubt they thought the AD was a neutral arbitrator. Tim Pernetti is hardly the only AD who has failed to protect the student-athletes. Far too many AD’s—and frankly speaking the NCAA itself—are deeply compromised by the conflict of interest that exists between their job to protect and promote the well-being of student-athletes and their job to make lots of money off of college athletes.

High school and AAU coaches don’t stand up to these coaches because they want their players to get scholarships (and they often covet a chance to follow one of their players into the elite coaching opportunities). Parents are also often accomplices to these crimes because they are over invested and beholden to AAU and high school coaches and they choose to ignore or justify these bullying behaviors to get or keep a scholarship or to get their kid to the professional ranks.  So when you can’t trust your coach, assistant coach, AD, high school coach and AD, AAU coach or your parents I think it’s not so hard to believe that they believed they didn’t have power to stand up to Coach Rice.  My disbelief and frustration that the players didn’t just deck the coach, quickly changed to anger at those who created and sustained the reality that made this possible.

2.  Bullying usually takes two general forms:  psychological and physical.  You’ve got both on full display in the Rice video. The instruments of psychological abuse are verbal and emotional in nature. The humiliating, dehumanizing, vindictive exchanges exact a deep emotional toil. I can already hear it from “that coach” or “that parent”:  “Come on, man; these are big boys. You’re not going to tell me he hurt their feelings.”  College athletes are amazing physical beings; but they’re still essentially young adults and they’re most definitely human beings.  Years of working with athletes at all levels makes me absolutely convinced that psychological abuse is real. I’m not convinced that his tactics “did no harm”;  and I am absolutely sure they did not do “maximum good” in pursuit of excellence or whole-person development. And maybe the tape doesn’t show physical abuse, but it clearly shows physical intimidation and a persistently aggressive and hostile atmosphere which most definitely was unjust, unfair, and unhealthy.

I’ve already heard current and former coaches hedging on this case, mostly by decrying Rice’s use of homophobic slurs as always and everywhere wrong, but then claiming that you need to build relationships if you’re going to drive kids hard in pursuit of their best. Going out for pizza and a movie so you can continue your abusive practices isn’t my idea of balancing pursuit of excellence with whole-person development. This is akin to an abusive husband taking his battered wife out to dinner or on a lovely vacation. It doesn’t undo the abuse; it makes it worse by revealing the deep-seated hypocrisy and manipulation at play.  Bottom line: coaches must view student-athletes as an end, not as a means to an end.

Unfortunately, I think the type of behavior we observed from Rice is far more prevalent than most would want to admit. And, in my experience, female coaches are now often as likely to engage in these tactics as men.  Let’s be clear:  every coach who kicks over a garbage can, breaks a clipboard, throws their team out of the gym, or screams about poor execution or effort isn’t an abusive bully.  So too, every player who gets upset from constructive criticism, doesn’t like the coaches style, or a coach getting after them hasn’t necessarily been “abused.”   But we can’t simply operate under the “that which does not kill us makes us stronger” mentality of coaching. And just because your coach did it and you turned out alright doesn’t make it right either.  The ends don’t justify the means. All that motivates is not moral.

Three practical suggestions for moving forward:

 1. Develop an approach to coaching and player development that integrates the development of performance character and moral character. This idea grew out of the basketball study described above. Great coaches develop both excellence and ethics. Moral and performance character are interconnected, inseparable, dynamic forces that coaches must balance. You can’t unhook them; you can motivate in a way that violates respect and decency; so too if you love players you must push them. Mike Rice’s approach unhitched performance character from moral character.  Develop both moral and performance character with intensity and intentionality; beware when the weight of your foot is disproportionately on either—especially performance character.

2. Make this a topic of an Intentional Culture Conversation within your family, your team, and amongst coaches, trainers, and administrators. We developed Intentional Culture Conversations for use in our work when the topic clearly has the potential to contribute to or detract from the mission and goals of the organization, but where the topic is complex and not clear-cut.  In this case an Intentional Culture Conversation must be engaged regarding the line between abuse and motivation, about the balance of excellence and ethics, and about how we empower all stakeholders to stand up, speak out, and stop abusive coaches.  The pursuit of excellence that also seeks whole-person development is as much art as science. The discussion may not lead to clear and obvious policy, but to ignore the issue and hope it doesn’t eventually emerge as a problem is just foolish. Assuming we all understand what is expected is ridiculous.  We must beware of simple, easy, and obvious answers—which are often also wrong (for example, no yelling by coaches, no intense coaches, get rid of the scoreboard, or make all sports like intramurals).  Let this terrible incident be the start of something good. Start the conversation.

3. Define abusive coaching behaviors so you’ll know it when you see it.  Once you think about coaching that balances moral character and performance character, and once you’ve engaged in an Intentional Culture Conversation with your stakeholders, then I recommend that you create a checklist outlining a checklist of coaching behaviors that constitute your definition of bullying. Because it’s such a complex and nuanced area, many will not want to define the abusive, bullying behaviors. But this is a mistake that lets the bullies hide and the puts the good coaches at risk of being misunderstood (think of the coaches in our study above). You may not get agreement on everything, but you must be prepared to identify it—for coaches, for players, for parents, for AD’s.  This will create an awareness of what to look for, of what to avoid, and will more quickly allow stakeholders to speak up to fix the problem or to better clarify your standard. For example, here’s my coach’s bullying behaviors checklist:

• Does the coach….
• Ridicule, embarrass or demean players
• Make verbal attacks personal
• Exhibit intimidating, threatening, and/or aggressive confrontational style with players
• Humiliate players publicly or privately
• Engage in emotional games, like not talking to a player, or having them sit away from the team after a bad performance
• Grab, push, shove or hit players
• Make clear to players that there is no way out or around the coach

Mine isn’t the only checklist. But take note of how even this simple checklist forces you to accept or reject mine, which ultimately leads to the clarification of your own.

Players don’t always appreciate (or even like) coaches, especially since most of coaching is getting more out of you than you think you’re capable of, pushing you beyond your limits, targeting your weaknesses for development .  A good coach is like a good parent: your kids don’t always like you; they often resent your standards and expectation. But if you do it the right way for the right reasons years later they understand and appreciate you—and usually adopt your standards and values.  But a bad coach is like a bad parent: they leave pain, scars, and resentment that last a lifetime. It’s a fine line between motivation and abuse—it’s also a slippery slope, so be careful and get intentional.