“Coach! How are we going to win this game?” Bryon asked.
It was halftime of the state AAA championship game and Byron was the star point guard leader of the Western Wildcats. His frustration was real as they were down 15 points.
The Coach took a deep breath, looked at Byron and the team with his resilient eyes, and spoke in his strong confident voice, “We are going to need to do 3 things to win this championship game. It is the same 3 things we focused on to start the game. 1st we need to get more production from our all our players,” Coach spoke as he passed out the halftime scorecard. The scorecard measured their hustle stats – rebounds, deflected passes, and every free ball they were able to secure.
Coach paused as the team compared their personal metrics to their goals to start the game. The hustle stats didn’t lie. It was a glaring gap in their performance. Each player could see their performance ranking and the changes that needed to be made.
Coach then continued,” The 2nd thing is we need to set our goal to cut the lead in half by the end of the 3rd quarter. We need to cut the lead down to a manageable 7 points.” The team was fully engaged and agreed with Coach’s goal. Taking small measurable steps was a realistic goal to get back into this championship game.
“3rd, is we need to be more aggressive. Our intensity is awful. We are playing in slow motion. We need to get more action. Get into motion and create some movement. Once we create that movement, it will keep rolling forward. We are going to start the 2nd half in a full-court press. If you are not ready to play you are coming out of the game. We need high-energy players to finish our mission,” Coach declared.
Coach called the Wildcats together to break the halftime huddle and send his now confident team, equipped with championship winning mindset, back onto the court. As the 3rd quarter began, the Wildcats were ready to change their performance.
Did you know that everything you needed to know about driving productivity as a Performance Coach is captured in this quick snapshot of a Coaching basketball story?
Here is the breakdown of 3 Keys to drive productivity.
- Have a Scorecard – The players need to readily see the big score – Your KPI – Key Performance Indicators like your sales or revenue goal. The players need to see and be accountable to the key metrics that will drive that critical KPI that will determine your success. Visibility within the team brings competition and accountability. No one likes to be that outlier, and team members take pride on being on the top. It is naturally human tendency. Show them the scorecard.
- SMART Goals – This is business 101 for driving productivity and achieving goals. It is the constant grind of developing and driving simple action plans that determine if your leadership and business result is successful. Practice and get great at setting and executing SMART goals.
S- Specific
M- Measurable
A – Agreed Upon
R – Realistic
T – Time Bound
If your goals and action plans don’t meet these golden standard criteria then it’s time to rethink your strategy.
- Get into Action! – The third key as a performance coach is how to influence and inspire your team into action. I love Newton’s 1st Law of Motion– A body rest will stay at rest unless acted on by an outside force. A body will stay in motion unless acted on my an outside force. You as the Performance driven Coach need to always get your team into action. The best Coach’s drive productivity by always getting their players into motion.
You ready Coach? It is your turn to evaluate how you are using the Big 3 to drive productivity in your leadership!
It’s GrowthTime!
—Coach Q
More from the Power of Performance Growth Zone? Learn the “Wheel of Performance”
