Why Culture? (Breadth)
Take a look at our program factors again:
1. Talent
2. Experience
3. Coaching
4. Recruitment/Retention
5. Culture
1 and 2 are difficult to change directly. I'm already engaged in improving 3, and it's hard to imagine that I have a lot of room to ramp up there. We are already strong in 4, the limitations mainly being a pool that lacks talent (1) and experience (2). We also have varied success integrating those numbers into our existing program, which leads us to and leaves us with our last item: culture.
Culture is probably the broadest and most abstract concept on the list. Those may sound like bothersome qualities to some. After all, who wants to talk about something so general and intangible? However, I think that's the wrong way to look at it. To me, broad also hints at a wide potential impact, and abstract points us to the mind where great depth exists. Culture casts a wide net and penetrates deep. For a program like ours, this is where we get the most bang for our buck. You have to be strategic if you can't pour in the extreme hours and energy. What better place to start?
Let's begin with breadth.
Culture impacts everyone. What we're missing in our program is not a messiah to take us to the promised land. Volleyball is a team effort. We need to improve as a team, and everyone needs to participate. The rising tide lifts all ships.
Culture impacts (1) talent. Contrary to what people may think, talent is not just something you are born with; it can be targeted and developed. When it comes to high school sports, we usually look at athletes and gauge the general level of athletic talent they were born with. This is typically based on how fast they run, how high they jump, and their level of hand-eye coordination. Size is another factor that we lump in with athleticism. I think such a determination is presumptuous. By the time they get to high school, they have 13-14 years of life behind them. Millions of moments have passed. Countless people have come in and out of their lives. A few (usually parents) have emerged as their primary influences. A discussion about nature vs. nurture is reasonable. However, it is unreasonable to attribute everything we see to innate characteristics (nature). For example, it seems evident that two athlete parents have an athletic child. Probably, but are those same parents also likely to emphasize sports to said child? Also likely; what's the impact? Not insignificant, I would think.
Can ability be created and cultivated? Is there really a way to teach and learn that can generate the results we like to attribute to God-given talent? Daniel Coyle's 2009 book, "The Talent Code," tackles these questions and answers with a resounding "YES." If such a methodology exists and can be adopted by an average person, then it has the potential to be integrated into an athletic program's culture and philosophy. Culture does not just impact talent; it can help create it.
Culture drives (2) experience. We all know the saying "ball is life." I strongly disagree with what this communicates to a young person. However, the "ball" aspect can be a significant component of mainstream culture, which can be a good thing. Furthermore, an athletic program's culture should involve elements such as enthusiasm/love for the sport and a mindset of growth/improvement. When those elements are there, players have more motivation to play and naturally do things that close the experience gap. When a program hits a certain level of success, and the circumstances are ripe, you might even start to see more early interest and preemptive behavior from people who want to join the team. Culture can get more people onto the court and keep them there.
Culture attracts and cultivates (3) good coaches. A strong culture makes it easy to show up every day and focus on the enjoyable aspects of coaching. Coaches, just like players, can burn out and require motivation to continue. An enjoyable culture provides the momentum to keep going and improving at our craft. We should probably do this anyway, but we're very human. Another benefit of a good program culture is that it entices players to return and take on coaching roles. Keep in mind that this is a two-way street. Coaches are also primarily responsible for helping to create the program culture. It can be a positive or negative cycle.
Culture (4) attracts and retains talent. Every program has a reputation, and success is more conducive to recruitment. People generally want to be a part of something that they believe will be worth their time; once a player is in, they need a reason to stay. Program culture plays a role in that. Whether it's wins, community, or something else, it has to provide some incentive. The type of culture is critical in this regard. While it may be easy to come up with something that is attractive to people in general and keeps them around, it's not so easy to attract and retain a specific type of person to achieve a group's specific goal(s).
As a younger coach, I understood that a successful volleyball team would necessarily be about more than volleyball. What I failed to understand was when you are not flush with talent, size, and experience, "more than" cannot just mean "volleyball+." You can't just build character on the side or hope their mental faculties grow with their understanding of the game. Those things are harder than mastering volleyball, and that already takes forever. Meanwhile, even if our primary identity is that of a volleyball team, there are significant elements of family, business, and general organizational principles that play a major role in how we perform. More than that, there are significant elements of individual behavior and sentiment that are impossible for a serious athlete to ignore. In my opinion those things and how they connect to each other, deserve more detailed attention. Focusing on a cultural framework is not the easiest or fastest way to improve. It's not simple and requires a lot of groundwork, but when it is in place and operational, it provides the bandwidth for everything that needs to go right. If you have a team 6.5 feet across of club players with All-American parents, then there might be a little less building required, but for most of us, we need that extra bandwidth to process all the good stuff. The cultural net needs to be wide.
Breadth is important because everything is connected. If everything is connected, then a lot of things are more important than we make them out to be. If those things are important, then they also deserve more emphasis than we typically give them. Doesn't this ultimately lead to a "ball is life" philosophy? Not if enough of the things you emphasize are of concern to everyone, and not just volleyball players, but that's a topic for another day.
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