Establishing Core Values
A blueprint on how to create Core Values that meet players' needs and yours
First off, I apologize for missing last week’s post. I got caught up working on a video project and did not have access to the internet. However, I am super excited to announce that I will be starting a new interview series where I talk to experienced coaches about their craft. The first part is chock-full of incredibly interesting and informative content and I can’t wait to publish it for you. So keep an eye out for that in the next week or two!
It’s the beginning of the fall soccer season for most coaches so I thought now would be a good time to address a prescient topic that I particularly like: Core Values.
For anyone who doesn’t know, Core Values are essentially the operating software of your team. The hardware is the physical skills and attributes of your players, the software is their beliefs and attitudes.
Obviously a coach can influence both of these spheres, but changing an individual and group’s behavior and mentality can be difficult – especially for young players. A great first step in creating a well-harmonized and coachable team is establishing Core Values at the beginning of each season.
What is a Core Value?
Core Values have been talked about in a lot of different places. A simple Google search will provide you with plenty of examples and anecdotes about the influence they have – but to save you 5 minutes sifting and clicking I’ll share some of my favorite Core Value content:
A short video with Steve Kerr talking about the link between culture and Core Values:
A podcast where Steve Kerr talks about the Warriors’ Core Values.
And a document that highlights the University of North Carolina Women’s Soccer Team’s Core Values.
But when it comes to content about actually creating Core Values (and implementing them on a day-to-day basis through real-world interactions) it seems like the content is lacking. So here are my guiding thoughts:
Team Meeting
A team meeting should be held at the beginning of each season. I like to hold a meeting with my players and then a separate meeting with their parents right afterwards. This way I can create a list of Core Values with the input of the team before sharing it with our families.
Now running a successful team meeting has many different components, including the creation of Core Values, and will have its own article in the future.
Your Own Core Values
To begin with, it’s worth mentioning that Core Values are not set in stone. What I believe to be cornerstones for my team’s behavior has evolved over time as I’ve learned more about what language works best for my coaching style and beliefs. So please do not be overwhelmed or anxious if you don’t feel like you’ve perfectly encapsulated an idea – it as an evolutionary process that you will go through many iterations of.
Some organizations have Core Values that operate from the top down. But it’s my firm belief that everyone should have a say in creating agreed upon values and that players have a key role in that process.
That’s not to say everything should be left to them – you are the leader of the group and will inevitably play a key role in their behavioral development. Therefore it’s worth spending some time thinking about and developing one or two unalterable Core Values that you want the team to abide by.
Here are some questions to help guide your thinking when you consider what Core Values you want to implement:
What do you want your team to be remembered for?
What kind of players do you want to coach?
What do you want your players to say about their experience?
What are three words to describe your ideal team?
What kind of coach do you want to be?
What does the ideal behavior of a player look like?
These questions won’t magically give you complex ideas boiled down into simple-to-use language, but they will help guide you down that path.
Creating Core Values With Player Input
Each of my teams I coach is unique and different from the others. Therefore the Core Values they come up with may differ, but the process we use to arrive there is pretty much the same.
First, you need to make players know what a Core Value is. So, just like when teaching a technical skill, it’s important to explain what a Core Value is, why it’s important, and give examples.
Here are some slides I’ve used in an old team meeting to help achieve those objectives.
After explaining what Core Values are and providing examples, I show a few questions to the team and have them come up with their own. Here are a few questions which can be helpful to show:
Pretend we’re 10 weeks into the future and the season has ended. What do you want to be able to say about how the season went?
What does an ideal teammate look like in your eyes? How do they act?
Why do you want to play soccer this season?
How do you want the coach to act?
Using Small Groups
Team meetings are a great way to leverage Principle Two of Good Coaching and build social relationships between players. Especially when it’s the beginning of the season, you need to get players comfortable with talking to each other and using their voices. So after players have a few minutes to write down some answers to their questions, have them share their answers.
I like to put players in partners and compare what they’ve written down. After a minute of that, I’ll put them in groups of 4 and they can see where they agree or disagree and consolidate their answers. Then they do the same thing in groups of 8, and eventually we’re a whole team with the coach leading a discussion about what everyone wrote down, what they like, etc.
When this is happening, make sure what they’re talking about is being written down on a whiteboard or somewhere else that is visible. After you have everyone’s attention and everyone contributed to what’s being written on the board, it’s time to start grouping their answers into categories.
As an example, players might want these things written down on the board: Being kind, not yelling at each other, showing good sportsmanship. Then you can step in as the coach, look pensively at the board, and say “Hm, these three things are all kind of related. Is there a word we can use to describe all of these? What about the word ‘respect’? Does that work?”
Eventually you do that with all of their answers that have been written on the board and by the time you’re done you’ll have a small handful of Core Values that you can refer back to for the rest of the season.
But this step in the process also opens up an important moment for you…
This is when you implement the Core Values that you want the team to have.
While you want to leave enough space for players to create and have ownership over their own Core Values, you also want to make sure you still have control of the ship (so to speak). While you can strong arm your own Core Value or add it on to the end, it’s more effective if you group the players’ answers so your chosen Core Value seems like a natural outcome.
Continuing the example, let’s say the phrases “paying attention” and “listening to the coach” are written down on the board. You can group those two together and say “Okay, what about ‘Focus’? Focus seems like a good Core Value to have.” And then all the kids shout and say “Yeah, that’s a good one!” So even though you might have come up with Focus as a Core Value when you were going through your own set of questions, the players believe that they’ve come up with it on their own.
Wrapping up Core Values
Through this process you will arrive at a small handful of Core Values that you can refer back to and build on through the season. However, creating the Core Values is the easy part – actually implementing them on a regular basis, using the players’ behavior as the impetus to do so until the Core Values have been internalized and actualized, is much more difficult. So this will be a topic that we will return to…
…but for now, keep an eye out for the new coaching interview series! And if you have any Core Values that work well for you, please share them with me! I’m always wanting to improve my coaching, so if there’s something that works for you let me know by responding directly or shouting out in the comments.