In every team sport, there are players who never achieve greatness as players but become immortal as coaches. If there is a secret to success as a coach, it would most probably be that the best coaches can motivate players better than others can.
Motivation is a major factor in any success story. If you're trying to succeed in any intensely competitive field, motivation is what gets you up in the morning ready to go again. But motivation is also what gets you to go to sleep at night when you would rather be relaxing, unwinding, doing something unrelated to your work.
Motivation is the key to success in any field from running a chain of hotels, restaurants, coffee shops, delivery services, or
South Africa online casinos. The key to success in all these fields is having a highly motivated staff of workers who see the success of the enterprise as reflected onto themselves.
Few things succeed by individual effort alone. So, the manger or managers, the boss, the person in charge, in all these endeavors is like a coach. Every coach knows that motivation is a key factor in their success. Yet, some coaches or managers are able to motivate their employees and others aren't.
Great Coaches; Mediocre Players
In American baseball many of the best coaches-which Americans call managers-never played a single game in the highest leagues. But in all the years in the lower leagues, travelling long hours by bus, sleeping in less than excellent accommodations, eating in fast food restaurants, these highly motivated men learned something new every day about the game but more importantly about the men who played the game.
Phil Jackson was an average bench player on great teams but he also observed the elements that made great players. When he had the greatest player of all time, Michael Jordan, on a mediocre team, he showed Michael how the team would improve if Michael embraced the complete team concept. Under Jackson, the Bulls won six championships.
Never Give Up but Accept Reality
Bill Cowher was the coach of the Pittsburg Steelers in American football. He took the team to the championship game-called the Super Bowl-the crowning achievement in American football. His team lost. As he made his way toward where his wife and daughter were waiting for him he saw that his young daughter was crying. He leaned over and whispered into her ear, 'that's all right dear. You can't win them all'.
In the face of what might have been a devastating loss, he found an inspirational way to look at the loss. It fueled motivation for the following season.
Here are a few factors in successful motivation:
Show appreciation for each individual's contribution
Communication
Guide players or workers through both the ups and the downs
The greatest motivators develop self-confidence in their charges where it didn't exist before.
Communication
In the modern world, it is harder to speak to young athletes than it has ever been. It might serve us well to look at some of the best motivational statements ever made by players and coaches.
Boos don't block dunks - Kobe Bryant
Skill is only developed by hours and hours of hard work - Usain Bolt
Coaches who let a championship team back off from becoming a dynasty are cowards - Pat Riley, coach of the Los Angeles Lakers
I think that the good and the great are only separated by the willingness to sacrifice - Kareem
It isn't the mountain ahead of you that wear you out; it's the pebble in your shoe - Ali
If you're not making mistakes then you're not doing anything - John Wooden, famed coach of UCLA basketball team
It's what you learn, after you know it all, that counts - John Wooden
The most valuable player is the one who makes the most players valuable - Peyton Manning American football champion
Never give up, never give up, and if the upper hand is ours, may we have the ability to handle the win with the dignity that we absorbed the loss - Doug Williams champion player and coach
Leadership is more about responsibility than ability - Jim Tunney, coach
A common mistake among those who work in sport is spending a disproportional amount of time on x's and o's as compared to time spent learning about people - Mike Krzyzewski, championship basketball coach
Great Players and Coaches Have Many Things in Common
There are literally hundreds of great motivational quotes by coaches and athletes but in this sample we can see a few common threads.
Hard work and sacrifice are valued but are tempered by the realization that everyone else is also working hard.
Little things may make a big difference.
Observation and openness to new information and insights is invaluable.
Always learn about people. This is probably the single most important aspect of great coaching: you coach people, you communicate with people, you motivate people.
A True Story of a Coach Out of Touch
There was a young man from a working class Chicago family who had the dream of playing football for Notre Dame, one of the storied college football teams in the US. This young man was neither physically strong nor big enough to play on the team but he was allowed to play on the practice squad.
As his last game with the team approached, his teammates wanted their coach to let him play in the final game but the coach adamantly refused. The players, with dignity, entered the coache's office one by one and 'resigned' from the team so Rudy could take their place.
The coach had so not understood his team that an issue of such importance to them flew past him completely. The players had to force the coache's hand just to get Rudy a chance to play two plays at the end of the game.
A Glowing Legacy
Rudy was the first person in his family to graduate college but he motivated his siblings and all of those younger than him graduated college.
