Your Voice Will Eventually Hold Your Team Back

Read on my website / Read time: 4 minutes

Moving from good to great requires a counter-intuitive approach from the coach.

Less action. Fewer words. Less authority.

There’s a pivotal moment when you can no longer be the one who drives the bus toward your team’s potential.

That doesn’t mean it’s time to resign. It means it's time to create space for your players to step into. Your program will never be great unless your players start driving the bus.

This process of shifting the equity in the team culture to transform an organization from a coach-led to a player-led environment is something I call Optimal Team Ownership (OTO).

OTO is the artistic process of shifting equity in the vision from the coach to the players. All elite cultures became elite when their players were the main drivers and gatekeepers of the vision, so it’s important for a coach, even from the beginning, to find ways to empower the team and its players. You might start with 99% of the equity within a complete rebuild, but the utopian goal of all cultures is to get to a 51-49 split.

Coaches should always have the majority stake, but the 51-49 split is where dynasties live.

Every team starts miles away from this 51-49 split, but the job of the Developer is to gradually bridge the gap. You won’t hit this Day 1 because there need to be multiple iterations where trust is built, small wins experienced, and leaders developed.

And here’s the thing, a coach’s implementation is pure artistry.

There’s no way to know exactly when you can give a little more equity away. Sometimes, you’ll give too much and have to reel it back. And there’s no way to quantitatively calculate the equity distribution.

This is pure artistry, and the very best Developers have iterated enough to reach this grandmaster level.

But regardless, there is a moment in your team’s development where you alone cannot push the group any further. Where disciplined thought–understanding and executing the vision without empowerment–has its limits. And it’s here that all of us can take our hands off the wheel and allow our players the opportunity to drive the bus toward a greater potential.

Here are 5 tactical ways you can increase OTO within your environments.

1. Leadership Committees

Elevate your team’s leadership equity by creating a committee to speak and meet on its behalf.

Create or have the players vote on who will represent the team and have that group meet regularly with the coach. The point is not for the coach to funnel his message through the committee to the rest of the team. The point is for the players to funnel their message through the committee up to the coaching staff.

Building toward the 51-49 split requires that the players feel heard and play a key role in moving the team closer to its potential.

2. Give Them Control Over a Moment During Practice

Sometimes, the best thing to do at training is the thing the players think will help them for the weekend.

Again, this is art. You may not get to this place right away, but if there is a level of trust, then asking your players what they need in a specific situation is fundamental. Sometimes, it will be extra shooting, more competition, or just cutting a session short for tired legs.

The bigger win is that you're giving the players agency and providing evidence that their voice matters.

3. Give Them Control Over a Moment in the Match

What part of the match can you just give to the players?

Examples can be the warm-up, the team cheer, or even a moment in the game (i.e., creating a corner kick routine). These are all actions where you not only transition ownership but create responsibility for how it turns out. Do you think a team might be more invested in a corner kick routine if they created it?

If your players can learn to own a piece of the match, they can eventually learn to be the gatekeepers of your culture.

4. Impromptu Player-Led Team Talks

Let them run a meeting.

You can give them a little time to prepare or have them deliver a talk on the spot. Sometimes they won’t even need to be prompted. Some of the most impactful team talks I have given are ones that piggybacked off the talk my players just gave.

They won’t have all the answers, but that will matter less than their ability to own and believe in their answer.

5. Ask What They Think is Best During a Culture Rep

When players are at their most vulnerable, ask them what comes next.

The next iteration is infinitely more powerful when it's player-led. If you just experienced a tough loss and know the answer is just to take the next step–let your players’ voice provide clarity on the next step. Have them verbally reiterate the team vision in their own words in an extremely vulnerable moment.

Your message has more power when others speak it.

Final Words

When you no longer drive the bus, you are still the GPS.

When your team takes a wrong turn, you can get that back on course. In many ways, the journey to the 51-49 split might be less arduous than staying there. That’s what makes all sporting dynasties all the more impressive, but give you a clue into why they eventually end.

The bigger takeaway is that you can develop better people and players with your leadership alone, but to create a special organization, it must be more than just you.

And that means empowering your players' voices while turning the volume down on your own.

Want more? Then let’s get you signed up for my free weekly newsletter! Join our 1.6K+ readers for exclusive insights, strategies, and resources on development that can unlock the better coach within you.