I love, love, love football and I am pretty fond of analogies. So, in light or our discussion last week about using the “pilot” approach to getting a training program off the ground, I thought we might talk about some training goals.
Regenerate – As a small business owner who works a jillion hours a week, I feel slightly hypocritical talking about this topic but is very important for your employees – your team – your players. Down-time is a time to get everyone on your team healthy. Employees and management alike. In today’s construction and oil and gas industries we are pushed to do more with less and this includes pushing your employees to work more hours, longer days and/or weeks. However, it’s important for them to spend time with their family, friends and loved ones. Our seasons as construction and oil and gas industry players get very long, especially if we are dedicated and successful. Encourage your team to stop every once in awhile and focus on other things besides work. Nothing brought this point home more poignantly than having recently attending the funeral of a co-worker, who died too young.
Replenishing/Recruiting – Recruiting for some of us is so important to build the foundation of your team for the next season and years to come. It can be as easy as networking with prospective players, sending emails and keeping in touch to as rough as placing that dreaded “ad” in search of specific team players. Regardless of the approach you take make sure to ask them about things other than work. It is important that they feel that you value them as people as well as potential players.
Strength – Make sure that your employees feel empowered as much as possible. Allowing them to make key decisions develops a strength within them that will carry them through the season. Implement employee support systems within your company that translate to the field. This can be as simple as having an open door policy that allows your empowered employees to discuss decisions they are about to make, or have made, to implementing a mentor program to providing training opportunities for all player levels. It is great to see those fabulously framed “inspired messages” on the wall, but if the message is not tangible or accessible to your employee players it won’t be any use to your team during the season.
Flexibility – Functional flexibility is key to you, and to training your management and your players. It is important to be aware that not everyone approaches a task or processes training information in the same manner you do. Showing flexibility with your managers models for them that it is okay to allow a flexible approach in managing and training your players.
Core Stability – Core stability should be the centerpiece of your organization. It is so important for your management and players, and yet it is one of the most overlooked aspects in training them. You might consider including your company’s core concepts, missions, or goals at the beginning of every meeting or training opportunity so that it does not become an afterthought in your organization. Remember, however, that words are words. For every core concept, mission, or goal statement you reinforce, it better be backed with “action.” The core is the bridge of your company with you at the helm, your managers and players in the middle, and your product and services symbolizing the other side of the bridge. If the middle of the bridge is not strong, then the bridge will implode on itself. Dare I say it, with the arrival of the Generation Y’ers on the job site, core stability MUST become a focus for your company. It is imperative they be made to feel valued. If you incorporate five minutes every day to core stability, you will see improvement in your players’ productivity on the field.
Speed – Training goals need not focus only on straight away speed, but on efficient running form. How you plan to make it down the field for the long-haul. You have the time to slow down and perfect deficiencies in players’ communication and technical skills during “down” times. Rainy days or the slower periods throughout the season are prefect times to meet these training goals, but not if you are not prepared. It is important for players to sharpen their skills. It will eliminate injuries and improve their efficiency and production on the field.
Agility – This goes along with speed, but you also want to focus on your players’ change of direction ability. It is important to encourage and grow their ability to think on their feet, to use their critical thinking skills to address issue that are always coming up in the field.
Conditioning – In football terms, conditioning means the amount of oxygen that a player can breathe in at a given time. What does oxygen do for a player’s body? It feeds the vital organs and allows for maximum cognitive ability. This easily translates into business terms. Who or what serves as the oxygen in your business? Whoever that person is, or whatever that process is, is solely responsible keeping the vital organs of your business thriving and ensuring your players are operating at maximum cognitive ability. Think about that for a second. That is a huge statement. In football, athletic conditioning is a year-round process because if you wait until August to condition your athletes, it will be too late.
What are you doing to condition your players?
Initial Reads – I love this one. In the business world “initial reads” are employed from the board room to the field. It’s that initial assessment, that gut feel if you will. The ability for you, your managers and your players to not only know what they are seeing in front of them while in the board room or in the field but that they understand the progression of a play as it unfolds in front of them is immensely important. The ability of your players make that “initial read” and to use their critical thinking skills to complete a task often means the difference between safe or unsafe work habits, success and failure, and customer satisfaction or dissatisfaction. They should know where they are going and how to adjust to the movement of the play in front of them so that the adjustments needed are second nature to their movement.