Elite Performance Formula

    Every coach wants to win more games. Every coach would love to lift a championship trophy. There are coaches taking new jobs every year in pursuit of being at a place they feel gives them a better opportunity to do that.
    Every leader wants their organization to be successful. They want to exceed expectations. They want to drive revenue. They want to increase sales. They want to meet and exceed their KPIs.
    The bottom line is that everyone wants to win.
    Let's establish one key thing. It takes talent to win. I do not want the message today to get lost because people are hung up on talent. Yes, talent matters. Yes, more talent increases your odds.
I am going to give you a formula today that you can use to improve your results in anything you do. You can improve your results as a coach, a teacher, a trainer, a product manager, a sales leader, a founder... basically any position of leadership.
    As a leader, whether you coach a team, or you lead a business organization, you are tasked with goals. These are often an arbitrary number. Let's call those our Expectations. We expect to win a conference or district championship. We expect to win a state title. We expect to make the playoffs.
We expect to bring in $54 million in revenue this fiscal year. We expect sales to increase 8.2% in Q2. We expect our churn to be reduced by 5%.
    Once we have our expectations, we have to determine what the process will be to meet or exceed our expectations, and what system or systems will we use to align to our processes?
    This is where our Standards come into play. Everyone wants to be a part of the outcome, but not everyone wants to do the work required to achieve the desired outcome.
    What standards are you going to put into place? What are the behaviors and habits that people need to perform to lead your team to achieve the expectations? Your standards are going to become the process to achieve your goals.
    Now we get to the most important piece. This is vital. Setting High Expectations is important. Having Standards is important.

    But to truly be able to achieve at a high level, you need to have a system of Accountability to Your Standards. This system must align with your expectations.
    The level of accountability you have must align to the expectations you set.
Your performance and the performance of your team will rise or fall to the level of accountability you keep to your standards. If you set high standards to achieve high expectations, but you have low accountability to those standards, your performance will not align with your expectations.
    When someone does not meet the standards, what do you do? You can ignore it. You can just let it go. That is what many average leaders do. They ignore the standard.
    An elite leader asks a simple question. Was it a lack of caring, or a lack of clarity? Did they not perform at the level we set because they don't care? Or did they fail to perform because they weren't clear on the standard? These situations will be handled differently.
    This is were level of support comes in. Have we prepared our people through our training to exceed the standards we have set to meet our expectations?Do you need to retrain them? Do we need to coach them? What was the area they did not perform to our standards? And finally, if we retrain them, can they perform at that level?
    If not, we might need to let them go. If it is a lack of caring, is there something underlying that is affecting their performance? Will the investment we need to make as leaders bring them into alignment with our systems, or will the return not meet the investment?
    If we have high expectations but low standards, we will be disappointed. If we have high expectations and high standards, but low accountability, we will not be successful. We will be disappointed. IF we have low executions, it is impossible to have high performance on a consistent basis.
    The formula is simple. We need to set high expectations, align our standards to meet those expectations, have systems in place to hold people accountable to the standards, and then provide a high level of support to prepare people to perform to our expectations.

    Are you willing to confront when people do not meet your standard? Will you have difficult conversations? Most people are not wiling to do this because it's hard, and they are addicted to average. They aren't willing to be uncomfortable.

    What behaviors need to be confronted for the team you lead to improve their performance? Have you clearly laid out your standards? Have you trained your people?

A big piece of the puzzle is preparation. You have to do a great job of game planning for your opponents which will greatly improve your play calling ability. If you want to be more prepared each week, I highly recommend you check out my game and practice planning resource. I spent much of my career as a coordinator. I was an offensive coordinator and defensive coordinator, and coached at both the high school and college levels. I have made available all of our game and practice planning resources that helped us win more games. These have everything you need to be more prepared. They are editable and customizable, and are available as an instant download.  https://sellfy.com/p/AndN/ 

It includes everything from a scouting report template, to weekly practice plans and scripts, to a two-sided color call sheet, and more! Each of the nine documents are fully editable and customizable! Order today and start preparing for your first game right now! This helped us be able to be prepared to attack the defense and put more points on the board. It also helped us be much more efficient and targeted on the weekends when we were game planning. 

3 Keys to Consistent Accountability

Championship Level Accountability

Coaches that enjoy consistent, long-term success at an elite level have one very important secret to their success. These elite coaches are not accidentally successful. Success didn't just happen. They understand that success and high level performance comes from consistent, intentional accountability from everyone in the organization.

Consistent Accountability comes down to three principles. First, you have clear standards of performance. Your standards are clearly laid out and everyone in the organization understands the standards. Second is consistent accountability to the standards. Every single person is held accountable to the standard. Third, you care enough about people to have difficult conversations.

Clearly Defined Standards

Your standards must be clearly laid out, and everyone must understand and know the standard. If they know the standard and understand it, they will know when they don't meet it. The problem lies when they think they met the standard, but didn’t, and it wasn't clearly defined. This is when you, as a coach, have to teach the standard in a different way. The greatest teachers know that not everyone learns the same way. Most people tend to be visual learners, but others are auditory. A good percentage of athletes are a combination of visual and kinesthetic learners. This means they have to see and do before they learn a skill.

I once heard a coach say, "telling isn't teaching." Just because you tell someone something, doesn't mean they learned it. How many times have you heard a coach say, "well I told him." That is not coaching. That is telling. And that should never be our excuse. How do you know they learned what your are teaching? You have to obtain feedback. Instead of asking if they understand, ask them a question with a specific answer. If you told them to arrive by 2pm, don't say, "do you understand?" Replace that with, "what time do you have to be here?" If they say 2pm, you know they learned the expectation.

When you teach, you need to have coaching points. The business world calls them bullet points. What are your buzz words that kids must learn? This helps them to remember, retain, and recall information.

If your players don't know the expectations, how can they meet them? You cannot assume something is understood by everyone if you haven't laid it out clearly. You most likely will have to repeat the standard over and over again. But if you never define the standard, don't be upset when your players don't reach it.

Consistent Accountability

Every single person must be held accountable to the standard. There are two things I see in organizations that destroy trust. First, some athletes are held to the standard while others are not. And second, the standards change based on which coach the athlete is with at that moment. 

If you hold one person to the standard but you don't hold another person accountable, you are going to be frustrated. Your team is going to be frustrated. If you have a standard that says no one will wear earrings in the weight room, and you allow one athlete to wear earrings in the weight room, tomorrow you will have 5 people wearing earrings in the weight room. Permitting is promoting. Now you have lost the standard. You have two choices. You can either reteach the standard and tell the athletes you are going to hold them accountable and actually do it. Or, you can get rid of the standard. The best way is to consistently hold people accountable to meeting your standard. 

A standard that I see consistently violated on average teams is the "no one walks off the field" standard. You go to their practice, and you see guys walking off the field. Then you watch them in a game, and guys are walking off the field. If your standard is that you jog off the field, then hold guys accountable to the standard. Teach them the standard in practice. Don't wait until games to try to teach a standard. Do a drill in practice where they have to jog off the field. Remember, what you permit, you promote. 

The second issue comes when one coach holds an athlete accountable and another does not. I see this a lot with parallel squat. One coach is making sure athletes get to parallel, while another coach accepts a squat that is above parallel. There needs to be consistent accountability from coaches for standards of performance to mean anything. Each coach must be clear on the standards and hold athletes accountable. 

Care Enough To Have Difficult Conversations

A sure fire way to show an athlete you don't really care about them is to allow them to not meet the standard. I have seen this at a lot of programs and it always involves guys that are considered really good players. Coaches must be willing to hold their best players accountable. If you don't, you not only hurt the program, but you hurt the kid. When you let things go with your best players, accountability is lost for everyone. 

Nick Saban talked about how special his team was this year. It was special because his best players were accountable to the standard and led others. When your best players are your best people, you will have something special. But a big part of this came from those players having consistent accountability. They were held accountable to meeting the standards, every single day. They were coached with intentionality. 

Players will rise or fall to the level of accountability to the expectations. If you have high expectations and high accountability, you will have a high performing organization. If you have high expectations and low accountability, you will always fall short of your expectations. 

Players want structure and accountability. They want someone to care about them enough to set high expectations for them. They also want someone to care enough about them to hold them to those expectations. The biggest reason coaches don't want to have these conversations is that they don't want conflict. Listen, if you don't want conflict then don't be a coach.  Go be a gardener. But you don't have to confront mediocrity in such a way that causes a lot of conflict. There are athletes who will test you. "Will coach really hold me accountable?" When they know you will, they will rise to the level of the accountability to the standard. 

Players want you to see the best in them. They want you to love them enough to hold them accountable and push them to be their best. 

Meeting The Standard

If someone doesn't meet the standard, it is usually because of one of two reasons. First, they didn't understand the standard of performance. Second, they know there are no consequences and the act will be ignored. This is often when we say the athlete doesn't care. No, they care, they either don't think you are going to hold them accountable, or they are going to test you. Inconsistent accountability is a mistake a lot of coaches make. They have inconsistent standards. The standard changes from athlete to athlete and coach to coach.

Our standards must be consistent and unified across the coaching staff and everyone in the organization. The standard can't change from one day to the next. This confuses our athletes and isn't fair to them. It will also lead to failure. If the athlete doesn't clearly understand the standard, reteach it. The second reason is simple. Hold them accountable. Care about them enough to hold them accountable to meeting the standard and being their best.

As you prepare for your season, begin to evaluate your accountability. Do you have clear standards of performance, and are you holding your athletes consistently accountable? Do you care enough about your athletes to have difficult conversations with them?

I wish you the best as you prepare your team for the upcoming season. I hope this has given you some actionable ideas for your program. Clearly define your standards, and have a consistent, high level of intentional accountability with your players. It will make a difference in your program while having a positive impact on your players.

And remember, it doesn't matter how much or how little talent you have to hold athletes accountable.

Additional Resources:

A few years ago I was speaking at a clinic about our game planning and an FBS coordinator asked me after the talk to go through what we do. I shared with him our offensive game planning resource and he used it through the spring. He emailed me back that it was a game changer. It was an honor to have him use these documents. After speaking at clinics and hearing that more coaches didn't know where to start, I decided to make these available.

Here is a link to my offensive game planning documents: https://sellfy.com/p/AndN/ 

It includes everything from a scouting report template, to practice plans, to a two-sided color call sheet, and more! Each of the nine documents are fully editable and customizable! Order today and start preparing for your first game right now! At one time this was $99, but it is available right now for less than $13!

Here are a couple of screen shots to show you what our call sheet looks like: 

This shows you a small portion of it. It is a fully editable, customizable two sided call sheet. It gives you the ability to better organize and be prepared on game day. It helped us to be better play callers on game day. There are eight other fully customizable documents! Some of the top high school programs in the country use this, as do several college programs!

When I was a defensive coordinator we adapted this to our defensive preparation! 

Here is a link to the defensive game planning documents. It includes 12 fully editable and customizable documents. https://sellfy.com/p/AY1u/ These are what we used to post 6 shutouts when I was a defensive coordinator. Defensive coordinators at all levels of football are using this. Again, it is less than $13 right now!

And finally, I put together a special teams resource. This has everything you need, included drill tape, practice tape, and game footage. It includes teaching presentations and scouting forms just for special teams! https://sellfy.com/p/tJwz/ This helped us to build dominating special teams! 

I wanted these to be available at a very reasonable cost. These can help you to be more successful on the field and more efficient in the office! 

 Last year I got hooked up with CoachTube, and put together three courses for offensive football coaches. I put together two courses on RPO's, and a course on Building An Elite System of Communication. All of these courses will help you to score more points! 

https://coachtube.com/users/coachvint

All three of these courses are detailed, with everything you need to be more explosive and to score more points. 

The course on communication gives you a detailed approach to your gameday communication. I give you a system and a process to improve the quality of conversations, leading to improved play calling on game day. This course has received outstanding reviews from coaches at all level of football. A coach with multiple state titles told me this course helped them to be much more efficient and explosive this season. 

My two RPO courses take you through a systematic process of installing RPO's into your offensive system. RPO's put the defense in conflict, forcing them to defend all 53 yards of width and all 6 skill players every single play. I not only give you a system, but I teach you the methods to develop your own RPO concepts. 

https://coachtube.com/users/coachvint

New Book

Over the last several months, I have stepped out of my comfort zone and wrote a new book about faith and purpose. The book is available as a paperback on Amazon, and as an eBook for the Kindle App. The cool thing about the Kindle app is that you can read the book on any device. I invite you to read it, and discover the power you receive when you make a decision to walk with the Lord. Here is a link to the book: Finding Faith

Since publishing the book, I have received numerous texts, calls, and emails, from people who are going through similar trials and tribulations. They were feeling many of the same things I was feeling. The found comfort in the book. They also found they had a desire to change and to live better. They wanted more joy. 

I would invite you to read the book and discover the possibilities that God has planned for your life.

No Hats In School... Why Your Program is Lacking in Discipline

Many years ago I taught at a school that, like many schools, had a rule that kids couldn't wear hats in the building. My first day I noticed a lot of kids wearing hats. I told them to take off their hats. They all complied, but not without disdain for my request. Usually they would get out of sight and put their hat back on. The reason was simple... If you have a rule or standard that is not consistently enforced, the standard will not be met. It is that simple. It was very, very frustrating. The standard was that no students were to wear hats. That is very clear. The problem lied in the fact that there was no accountability. A few teachers enforced the rule, but most ignored it. The reason they ignored it is because there was no follow through from the leadership. If you aren't going to enforce the rule or standard at all levels, then get rid of the rule.

I tell you this because this happens in many athletic programs, schools, and companies throughout the globe. Leaders set rules or standards and then don't hold people accountable. Or, they hold them accountable selectively. They don't coach them on the details. They tell them to stand a certain way, and then permit them to deviate. They tell them to wear certain clothing, and allow them to deviate. They tell them to be there at a certain time, and when someone is late, there is not accountability. Permitting is promoting. When you allow it to happen you might as well be asking for it to happen. If you allow one to do it, another will. If you allow it once, then it will happen twice. Then three times. After a few weeks, a coach will have a bad day and  go off on their athletes for not meeting the standard that has never or rarely been enforced. The kids aren't the problem. The coaches are.

"If they don't know the standard, how can they possibly reach or exceed the standard?"

This is not a great way to build trust. It is not a way to build discipline. It is a great way to lose your athletes and drive a wedge between you and them. Before you get angry, ask yourself, "why are my athletes not meeting the standard?" It is one of two things. First, your standards are not clearly laid out. Your athletes don't understand what you are asking for. You are not coaching the details. The second reason is that you have permitted them to deviate from the standard. If you let them deviate from one thing, you need to expect them to deviate from everything.

This is where programs start to have issues with discipline. If you are having issues with discipline,  ask yourself the following three questions:

1. Are our standards clearly laid out AND understood? It is not enough to teach them, you have to make sure the standards have been learned. You constantly have to reinforce the standard. Ask your athletes to repeat the standard to you. Ask them to show you the standard. They can't meet a standard they don't understand. They also can't hit a moving target. If the standard is always moving they will never be able to hit it. You have to have clear set of verbiage for the standard. It has to be the same every time. If the standard is not consistently taught, it will not be clearly understood.

2. Have I permitted deviation fromt the standard? If you permitted deviation from one standard, expect deviation from other standards. If you tell them they all have to have a white t-shirt, and everyday athletes are missing the white t-shirt and you ignore it, expect a lack of discipline. How will they take your standard seriously? This is dangerous. If you don't hold the standard on the white shirt, how can you expect them to line up right on Friday night? How can you expect them to take a six inch step on your zone play? If they are allowed to deviate from the white t-shirt, they will believe they can deviate from other standards as well.

3. Are WE consistently holding people accountable to the standard? Is every coach holding your athletes to the standard, or does each coach have a different set of standards? There is nothing more frustrating as an assistant coach than holding someone accountable and feeling like you are on an island. It goes right back to the issue with hats in school. If the standard changes from coach to coach, athletes will lose trust and confidence in you and the staff. The standard must be consistent from coach to coach. If one coach has one standard on parallel squat and another coach has a different standard, there will be confusion.

If the answer to any or all of these questions sound familiar, chances are you are pretty frustrated. Whether you are the coach permitting, or you are the lone ranger holding people accountable, you are probably having moments of frustration. Your culture is probably suffering. If your culture is suffering, you will never play as well as you think you can. You will lose to people even when you have more talent. You will be inconsistent. Your players will question and lay blame when things don't go well. They will not trust you or what you are doing.

Why does this matter? Why do we even bother? The reason is simple.  Great programs have clearly defined expectations that are consistently upheld. They hold athletes accountable for not meeting the standard and constantly reteach and coach them on how to meet the standard. They try to meet the athlete at their level and bring them to the standard. They are willing to confront even when it might be uncomfortable. Because you are willing to confront deviations from the standard, the standard will be met. Your players will understand that if they do not meet the standard they will be corrected. Correction is love, and consistent correction builds discipline.

If you are struggling with this, the great news is: you can change. But the only way it will change is with action. You have to reset the situation. Set very clearly defined standards of performance. Make sure all of your coaches understand the standards, and explain them to your team. Then, hold them accountable to the standard, every single day. A reset is simply an opportunity to tell your team or organization that you did not hold them to their highest standard, and that will change. It will not be easy. There will be some pain. But the results will be worth the investment.

Several years ago we had to do this. We worked very hard to build a championship culture. We had a couple of very good seasons and we had a strong nucleus returning. We made the mistake of letting them slip on our standards. We did not hold them to a standard of excellence. We let them slide on little details. We thought, well, we are good enough to overcome these things. The problem is, the little things got bigger each day. One afternoon in April we noticed several guys straggling into the weight room late. A couple of these guys were our captains. During our workout we had another group of guys cutting sets. I went ballistic. I let them know this was absolutely the opposite of what we wanted. This was not meeting our standard. While I got my frustration out, nothing changed. The next day we had the same issues. We looked entitled and refused to work hard. They weren't getting deep enough on squat. They weren't locking out their bench. They weren't finishing when things got tough.

We pulled a few of the guys in and asked them why they were deviating from the standard. Their answers shocked us. "Because no one said anything." That said a lot right there. I thought, "we shouldn't have to." But I stopped myself from saying it. That's because WE NEED TO SAY SOMETHING! It's our job. It is just like when guys say, "we are not going to coach you on effort." Then don't expect great effort! You have to coach everything all the time. There is no other way to be successful.

As a coaching staff we made a decision to do a reset. The next day we brought them in and told them we failed to hold them accountable to our standards, and that would change immediately. We reset the whole deal. We retaught the standards. We told them why we were doing this, and that we would never again fail to hold them accountable to reaching our standards. Everything was redefined.

The reset was a defining point in that season. It was vital for our preparation to confront the problem and change. Without the reset we would have been mediocre at best. We would not have been successful as a program. Our players learned a valuable lesson and so did our coaching staff. You are entitled to nothing. When you build your culture and get things going the way you want them to go, you cannot coast. You can never relax. If you do find yourself slipping and standards not being met, immediately confront the issue.

Leadership requires confrontation. There is no other way. You can't ignore deviations from the standard and expect them to improve. And the confrontation does not need to be ugly. You can confront without building resentment. You can confront without trampling on someone's dignity.

Here is a simple 4 step process for accountability:
1. Confront
2. Clarify
3. Reteach
4. Evaluate

Confront- If the standard is not being met immediately stop the person and tell them they are not performing to the standard

Clarify- Make sure they clearly understand what is expected. Have them repeat the standard back to you.

Reteach- Demonstrate the standard. Make sure they can perform the standard whether you are looking or not.

Evaluate- Make sure they are performing to our expectations

It is up to everyone to enforce the standards. If it is important to you, find a way. If not, you will certainly find an excuse. Everyone must be invested in our standards. And if you aren't willing to enforce a standard, eliminate it. It will only lead to deviation from more important standards.

Every single day you are building a culture within your program. Are you building your culture by design or by chance? The biggest part of building culture is to set high standards and to have everyone in your organization enforce the standards.

Shameless plug of my Interactive iBooks!

Early this year I wrote a book RPO's and a book on Tempo. I want these books to be accessible without worrying about $$$. They are available as an apple iBook and on Amazon. The iBook version contains embedded video! These two books will revolutionize your offense! 

In my RPO book I describe in detail a systematic process to install RPO's. I go over first level, second level, third level, and multi-level reads. I show you how to scaffold the install and build a system that will fit what you are already doing. 

Here is a picture of the cover with some quotes from other coaches on the book:

 

Here is a link to the iBook version of my RPO book: http://itunes.apple.com/us/book/id1078061959

If you have an iPad or iPhone, buy the ibooks version! If you have an android or PC based device, I have a Kindle version for sale on Amazon. Here is a link to that version: Kindle Version of Coach Vint's RPO Book on Amazon. The kindle version has everything but the video.

The other part of this equation is adding Tempo. A lot of coaches ask me to help them install different elements of tempo into their offense. The book I wrote will take you through a detailed, systematic process of building tempo into your existing offense. Here is a picture of what coaches are saying: 

The iBook version for the iPad, iPhone, and Mac contains over an hour of embedded video! I give you a systematic process to build tempo into your offense. I show you multiple ways to communicate your concepts, including sign boards! Here is a link to the iBooks version: http://itunes.apple.com/us/book/id1075902270

It is also available on Amazon if you have an Android or Windows device. You can find it here: Coach Vint's Book on Tempo on Amazon

Combining Tempo with RPO concepts will change the game of football for generations. Any offensive system can adapt these principles without changing the structure of you offense. The biggest issue many schools face is simply thinking they can only use RPO's part of the time. You never have to call a run again that isn't protected by a pass concept. 

One of the keys to our success was tremendous preparation!The key to  preparation was our outstanding group of documents we used for all three phases. If you are looking for fully editable and customizable documents that you can tailor to your program, I have made mine available. 

Here is a link to my offensive game planning documents: https://sellfy.com/p/AndN/

It includes everything from a scouting report template, to practice plans, to a two-sided color call sheet, and more! Each of the nine documents are fully editable and customizable! Order today for under $15 and download them tonight!

Here is a link to the defensive game planning documents. It includes 12 fully editable and customizable documents. https://sellfy.com/p/AY1u/

And finally, I put together a special teams resource. This has everything you need, included drill tape, practice tape, and game footage. It includes teaching presentations and scouting forms just for special teams! https://sellfy.com/p/tJwz/

I hope you have found something of value in this post! I wish you the best as you prepare for your season!