Tag: destination unstoppable

WYC 092 – Winning Championships through Superior Culture – Maureen Monte talks reaching Destination Unstoppable

Maureen Monte builds winning teams by harnessing the untapped talent in the locker room or the conference room and aligning it with success. Her approach has been honed with over ten years of experience in large companies, tech startups, and sports teams – from San Francisco to Singapore. She believes there are three universal truths about teams:

  1. All teams struggle
  2. There is untapped talent on every team
  3. Most teams haven’t defined what success looks like

She has authored a book Destination Unstoppable – about helping a hockey team win the state championship. It is more than a sports success story. It is a team success story – and the world runs on teams.

Website: www.maurennmonte.com

Facebook: Link

Twitter: @maureenemonte

Listen Now:

Listen on iTunes: iTunes link

Listen on Stitcher: Stitcher link

Listen on Google Play Music: Google Play link

Quote

”We win games because we have great team chemistry” – Mark Dantonio, Michigan State football coach

Building Winning Teams

  • Maureen has worked with IBM on building successful teams. She has studied the Clifton Strengthfinder to understand how each individual is gifted and can contribute to the team’s success.

How did the opportunity to work with the Cranbrook Varsity Hockey Team come about?

  • It was a talented team but struggling
  • She started at the top to see if the coach was part of the problem. He was not.
  • First step – Define success – Start with the what. Then define the how. Brotherhood, discipline, focus, unselfishness were all areas they identified as lacking. Then she had the players turn to each other and tell them ‘I refuse to let you fail.’
  • Next step – Evaluate the players’ strengths. 18 out of 25 had competition in their top 5 strengths.
  • The key was helping team tap their untapped talent on the team.
  • The coach made heroes in every role. The 3rd string goalie had the strength of harmony. The coach gave him the job of helping resolve conflict between the top 2 goalies.
  • Another back-up player had the strength of being analytical. His new role was to look at the other teams and analyze what was going on. He now added value.

2 keys to turn this team around

  • The coach bought in
  • The kids had a desperate desire to win, so they were willing to try something new

Using the Clifton Strengthfinders tool in a sports environment

  • The boys loved learning what others on the team were thinking
  • In a perfect world – start with the coaches, then the captains, then the whole team
  • The strength finder looks for patterns of excellence. It is 34 different strengths that involves how you think to solve problems, how you execute tasks, how you relate to others, and how you influence. It takes 35 minutes and costs $15 per person to identify your top 5.

Connection between success in business and success in sports

  • Defining success is key
  • Mark Dantonio, Michigan State football coach: ‘We win games because we have great team chemistry’

Biggest surprises about this experience

  • None of the kids afterwards talked about winning the state championship. That moment had come and gone. Being valued by the teammates and coaches, and the unstoppable mindset they had created is what they valued most.
  • One kid’s biggest strength was he was a learner. So he took on the role of making sure if a kid had a runny nose or cold, he would separate the water bottles so the other kids didn’t get sick as well.

What’s your favorite strengths?

  • Ideation – Thinking of new ways of doing things
  • Individualization – Each individual brings something unique

Favorite leadership book and/or quote?

Destination Unstoppable book

  • maurennmonte.com – Get 20% coupon for book
  • Great story, and great resources on how to build a winning culture

Today’s Sponsors

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WYC 086 – Championship Culture – Live from the Way of Champions Transformational Coaching Conference

Interview with 3 J'sWOC screenshot
Today’s episode is a bit different from the norm, instead of interviewing a great coach, this week’s episode is a compilation of the interviews I did while at the conference. There are a few sound bites with me sharing a lesson I learned, and definitely don’t miss the 18 minute interview with the leaders – I call them the 3 J’s – Dr. Jerry Lynch, John O’Sullivan, and James Leath. So hopefully this is a great way for you to be able to absorb a little of the great content even if you weren’t able to make it out to Colorado. Also – just FYI – they are planning to do 2 or 3 more of these conferences around the country next year, so stay tuned at changingthegameproject.com or wayofchampions.com.

Listen Now:

Listen on iTunes: iTunes link

Listen on Stitcher: Stitcher link

Listen on Google Play Music: Google Play link

Coaching Mastery – with John O’Sullivan

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Many of you know that I work closely with John O’Sullivan and the Changing the Game Project. John’s is an internationally known writer and speaker, as well as a former professional soccer player and longtime coach. We share a lot of each others content as we work to transform youth sports and make it a better place for coaches to coach, and for players to play.

This week – for the first and only time in 2016 – John is releasing his amazing online video series called “Coaching Mastery.” He first ran this course in the Fall of 2014, and since then coaches from nearly every sport, from over a dozen different continents, have called it one of the most unique and inspirational coaching courses they had ever done. I was lucky enough to be one of the select few coaches John offered it to last year, and the things I learned really blew me away.

See, this course is not your traditional X’s and O’s course. It is all about things such as the psychology of performance and leadership, how to build a winning team culture, and even how to educate your team parents so they don’t drive you up the wall. He has some amazing interviews with some of the world’s leading experts in sport science and psychology, coaching, and leadership. The things you will learn in this course will take yoru coaching, and your teams, to a whole new level.

This course is truly one of a kind.

If you are interested in this type of coaching, John has asked me to invite all of you to his FREE video series, where over the next 2 weeks you will learn many of these things, and hear from some amazing experts. You also get a free eBook copy of his international bestseller Changing The Game: The Parents Guide to Raising Happy, High-Performing Athletes and Giving Youth Sports Back to Our Kids just for registering for the FREE series.  All you have to do to get over an hour of this one of a kind coaching and leadership training, plus a free book, is go here and sign up:

Click here to get started

I know I am looking forward to the 2016 version of Coaching Mastery and I am confident that many of you will get a ton from this free video series. Its all new content, and I can’t wait to get started.

Again, if you want to join, just sign up here.

I look forward to hearing your thoughts on this course.

(I am an affiliate for this course, so if you decide to sign up – please sign up through one of the links above – Thanks!!)

Interviews & Sound Bites from WOC Conference

  • Craig – Description of how to create self-affirmation 3×5 card
  • Craig – Description of fun Rock,Paper,Scissors,Cheerleader Energy Builder
  • 18 minute interview of Dr. Lynch, John O’Sullivan, and James Leath: Self-affirmation; Building Energy levels at the beginning of practice; Building championship culture in our families; Taking ONE action; Simplifying your playbook; the importance of relationships: Video Link
  • Craig – 11 attributes of culture: Dr. Jerry Lynch uses the acronym STRONG FACTS to list the steps to build championship culture.
    • Selflessness
    • Trust
    • Respect
    • Oneness
    • Never Quit
    • Gratefulness
    • Fearlessness
    • Awareness
    • Confidence
    • Thoughtfulness
    • Sacrifice
    • I summarize the last ‘S’ in the acronym, Sacrifice, from atop the Flatirons at Chataugua
      • ‘The pathway to greatness is through suffering’
  • Interview with Maureen Monte: Author of Destination Unstoppable – Team success; Focus on the human system of success
  • Interview with Alicia Steinhilber – From Nashville FC Youth Soccer – Discusses the Iceland Thunder Clap and the New Zealand All Blacks ‘Haka’; Playing with the heart; Eye contact with your audience/team
  • Interview with Athletic Director and 2 basketball coaches from the host school Shining Mountain Waldorf School – Mike Hawkes, Tim Crouthers, Chris Bremner – The power of positivity; Learning to teach vs. spitting out information; Building confidence, especially in females; Eye Contact and being in a circle to start practices
  • Interview with Kevin Peters – Be a storyteller
  • Interview with Josh Severns – From Nashville FC Youth Soccer – Building culture is a process not an event. Trust takes time to build. It start with being a good example; Meditation and breathing.
  • Interview with Kevin Kirk – Golf Performance Center at the Woodlands – The power and influence a coach has
  • Interview with Tony Libert – Parents and coaches – Release the game to the kids; ‘Coaches are a flashlight not a search light’
  • Nate Sanderson, girls High School basketball at Springville High School and Breakthroughbasketball.com coach, shared a powerful 4 minute video from his team’s state championship game last year – the amazing thing to watch in the video is observe what the teammates do for each other after any mistake. Nate’s quote: ‘We needed to interrupt the negative thought process in the midst of games, so we implemented what you see in the video.’
  • There are more than a dozen other great videos taken from the conference, check them all out here: WYC Facebook page

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