If you do things well enough that other people can see it, feel it, and say it back to you, you are doing things the right way. "
Coach Greg Carvel
In a podcast interview, National Champion Hockey coach, Coach Greg Carvel from the University of Massachusetts talks about how he has built a championship culture through the way he recruits, trains, and leads his athletes. When Coach Carvel was hired as the head coach, they were the worst team in the country, and just 5 years later, they won their first national championship in 91 years.
UMass hockey has created a distinct culture that helped them go from last to first, and it focuses on character over skill. Coach Carvel says, “Culture relies heavily on leadership, and leadership trickles down.
John Maxwell says, “Everything rises and falls on leadership; everything.”
Identity
They created an identity based on 3 words: Fast, hard, and prepared, and he wanted them to play to their identity so well that the opposing coach said their identity in the post-game press conference.
SOMETHING(s) TO THINK ABOUT: If you do things well enough that other people can see it, feel it, and say it back to you, you are doing things the right way. What is your identity, and can people - the people you lead and the people you touch or impact - tell you and others what your identity is?
Leadership trickles down, and if you can get the people you lead to believe in you, they will follow you anywhere. What you do as a leader is important, and it starts with having a clear vision or blueprint that everyone knows and can buy into.
Clarity of Vision
Leaders control the culture, and leaders control the vision. Carvel says the first thing a leader has to do is have a vision.
He says you might have your vision, but you have to be able to articulate and sell it to the people you lead to the point where they fully believe it too. Charity of Vision is when everyone knows and believes in your standards or expectations.
Do the people you lead know your vision, what to do, and what your expectations are?
Then, take care of your people. Fight to bring in good people, and fight harder to keep them.
SOMETHING(s) TO THINK ABOUT: What is your vision, and how will you share it in a way that people will buy in?
Get Good People
Carvel says after you have defined your vision, the next step is to get and fight to keep good people. The people provide the character, and the character builds the culture. He shared a quote that says, "People should be your greatest commodity, your greatest resource in a high-performance environment, people are the center of everything when it comes to high performance."
He says they don't recruit the best hockey players - they recruit the best people they can find. They try to amass character. He uses the phrase: Cumulative character is the backbone of championship teams.
SOMETHING(s) TO THINK ABOUT: What kind of people do you want to add to your team, how will you recruit and retain them, and how will you coach them up so that they know your identity, culture, and values?
Core Values
They have 5 Core Values: Integrity, Commitment, Compete, Connection, and Unity. He says Connection is the most important value because they use connections to build unique relationships, and his goal is to create unique relationships with everyone in the program. He calls it uniquely seen. He shared a quote that said:
"If you feel uniquely seen, understood, valued, and appreciated, then that will hook you into being committed to that team, leader, and program. This is how positive emotion works."
SOMETHING(s) TO THINK ABOUT: What will be the 3-5-10 Core Values that will guide and direct what you do?
Culture
They call their culture a Peak Performance Culture, which is a high-trust, 0 bs culture. They use the book Legacy to teach their culture. They do everything they can to keep bad characters out of their locker room.
They rank character:
1 = You do everything right
2 = Have potential but they haven't fully matured yet
3 = You are always in trouble
They squeeze the twos. When you squeeze them, they either go down to a 3 or up to a 1. When you are a 3, you feel suffocated, but when you squeeze a 1, they want more.
Have a vision, know what you want your culture and identity to be, define your core values, and then get the right people around you.
To listen to the podcast, click here: Walker Podcast
To watch the video, click here: Character and Culture
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