When you are already a high performing team and have had success nationally, and on the world stage, the challenge to do and be even better is potentially quite hard.
Cara Heads-Slaughter, Olympian, USAW Senior International Coach and Founder and Head Coach of CH Fitness and Performance, a Washington DC based, USA Weightlifting Community Development Training Site, is committed to helping her Performance Team be even better, on and off the platform.
e.t.c coaching consultants have been thrilled to help Cara, and the 30+ athletes in her Performance Team (Team CHFP) explore the concept of ‘Even Better’ through a series of facilitated conversations. These conversations were designed to give each and every athlete a voice to explore and contribute to their Even Better agenda.
Even better and culture are two inextricably linked concepts. For this series of Even Better conversations, it was assumed that culture is how things are done in and around the training and competition spaces at CHFP. It is the way athletes and coaches behave on Team CHFP. Culture is not what the Team thinks, or wants to do, it is what they do. Culture is a measure of the observable behaviors the Team promotes and accepts as best practice. Inevitably the behaviours the Team has been using have either been consciously or unconsciously agreed upon by them. Behaviours are potentially the defining factor in the Team's success and a reflection of their values.
This series of conversations was designed to enable Team CHFP to use their words to describe the culture they want to train and compete within. Having established the ideal culture, the Team were able to create a common set of values. In turn the value statements served as the reference point to align a self-determined behavior framework to help team members commit to modeling the behaviors associated with those values and enhance their high-performance culture.
The scaffolded conversations facilitated by Sarah McQuade, over 6 weeks, engaged directly with athletes who attended remotely and in-person at the Trainer Center. They focused on:
1. Understanding Who We Are
2. Enhancing Our Culture and Identity
3. Being Even Better
Team CHFP are now in possession of a co-created and fully supported culture statement, value statements and a behavior framework.
The feedback in the short time since the final conversation has been overwhelmingly positive. Cara Heads-Slaughter commented that:
We've gained a culture statement that we believe in and can use as our value compass. I've already seen a change in the team. People are talking to each other, they're talking to me and they are communicating. I’m seeing team members behaving in a ways that align with the work we’ve done and our newly established values. It’s so cool to see and I'm excited to keep building from here.
Thank you Team CHFP for trusting us to guide your pursuit of Even Better!
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