The Power of Accountability

After an eight-month hiatus from writing these opinion blogs, I wanted to review some very interesting team culture points that we used this year in our team. In my first year as Head Coach for the Lenoir-Rhyne University Men’s Soccer program we had an astonishing amount of success (None of it was down to me, honestly!) . Finishing third in the South Atlantic Conference (SAC), and gaining a berth to the NCAA regional tournament for the first time in ten years. Another brilliant feat was how five highly talented, (and more importantly) fantastic human beings garnered All-Conference/All-Region honors for their sterling performances throughout the year. Concluding with a rather embarrassing thumping by reigning National Champions Pfeiffer college, overall, I was very happy with how the season went. Before you begin to sigh in anticipation of what other accomplishment bombs I may drop throughout this blog…that will be it…I assure you! On the subject of full disclosure, I am by no means professing that in my first year of being at the helm, we have all the answers, cracked the code, and suddenly feel the need to profess all my wisdom on LinkedIn. Nothing annoys me more than reading the cavalcaded lessons spouted by newly-successful people. The point of this blog is to explain how one of our core culture values facilitated the success we had as a team this year. I am writing about it because it worked, it was tangible, and almost palpable throughout the entire year. The culture value I am talking about is “Accountability.”

This is not a cutting edge, progressive management strategy that is new to the world of college athletics. In fact, it may even be the most talked about culture characteristic in every organization on the planet. Used by management consultants, corporate CEO’s and primary school teachers alike, this whole notion of making people accountable for their actions is nothing revolutionary. However, the difference between people who preach it and practice it shouldn’t be underestimated. The reason I say this is because our team made it work! Yes, our job as coaches was to give them direction and focus on how we would go about achieving our goals, but they had absolute ownership of it.

The players’ knew what kind of coaches we were, they knew we weren't the old fashioned disciplinarian dictators, nor the weak-willed push-over, but most of all, they understand our philosophy; a more hollistic/human approach to coaching. Not only that, we told them that we had no time for creating punishments, developing disciplinary regulation or "telling people off." "You are College student-athletes and the time for behaving like teenagers has come and gone." Like every support staff in every organization, we have team rules, codes of conduct and guidelines. If discipline ever becomes an issue then we haven't recruited well enough and the responsibility is mine. This may seem unnervingly laissez-faire for some of you reading this, but that is because it is my philosophy and always has been. As a coaching staff, we wanted to create an environment that rewarded success, good performances, and good grades, not condemn bad behavior. By shifting the ownership of their success and failures to the team rather than the individual, every single player becomes empowered. Our theory was this; By allowing them to take ownership of their success and failures you make them responsible for their actions and don’t restrict their development through fear of making mistakes. After all, isn’t that what college coaching is all about? Producing the best all-round people to achieve success in life after higher education. This approach is more befitting of the "quiet leadership" personified by the great Italian, Carlo Ancelotti. A manager who has won everything in top flight football yet continues to be undermined by the headline hungry media for being "too soft" with his players.

So this is how we implemented accountability! For the sake of brevity (and trade secret confidentiality), I wont go into full detail, but a rough outline should give you a good idea of why one particular change worked so well. The first thing we altered was our approach to coaching and the players approach to learning. It was important to identify this on the front end so everyone within our program was on the same page from the beginning. We wanted the players to understand that not all of the answers will be delivered in the sessions. Football is one of the most dynamic and flexible sports there is. In a short segment taken from our coaches notes, I stated that, "We will be challenged by situations both on and off the field that will not be in any book, not covered in training sessions and be new to us all. The strength in our response will be our ability to recognize it, take responsibility in making a decision and then executing to the best of our ability. You are not position specific, you are not playing in your zone only, the picture on the field is constantly changing and we must adapt to each scenario." As a coaching staff, we emphasized player adaptability, cognitive-decision making, socio-affective relationships (On/off the field) and scenario planning more than anything else. We wanted to teach our players to become strategic thinkers on the pitch during training sessions so they didn’t look for answers on the bench during games. This took time, effort, and most of all accountability! It is a difficult task to reverse a players’ mindset that looks to his coach to solve in-game problems. However, once a player perfects this skill, they are in complete control of their own performance. Our half-time team talks became self-explanatory and our post-match analysis became concerted and collaborative. Once we had changed the accountability mindset, the players then became more driven and committed to achieving the goals we had set out at the beginning of the year. My job was not to motivate, but to channel and align this energy in the most effective way I could. With a team of intelligent football players, who are accountable for their actions and highly self-motivated, the coaching staffs' job becomes much more strategic in nature, allowing you to focus on the tactical and psychological aspects of the game. Coaches may be apprehensive to implement such a technique due to the “lack of control” or because it challenges some of the traditional philosophies. But in order to realize the full potential of your team you must allow it to flourish in an open environment where each player feels in control of their own success and failures. In a time of huge growth for the football industry in the U.S., I encourage all coaches to think about the ways in which they can empower their players through ownership and accountability. Intelligence, strategic thinking, and self-motivation are all traits that will help a young player in football and in life.