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Why is it important to study your culture?

Why is it important to study your culture?

We all know it’s important, we talk about it, say it is what separates the good from the great, but it is often hard to put your finger on. I am talking about “culture.” Culture is synonymous with sport, teams that rise to the top often are credited with having the best cultures. This week, Coach Dawn Staley, head coach of the University of South Carolina’s 2022 NCAA Women’s Championship basketball team explained “culture matters.” This is no surprise, as the best sports teams and organizations are described as having a shared identity, openness to change and meaningful interpersonal dialogue. Yet, understanding what makes the culture of an organization or team unique can often feel elusive. Using rigorous research methods, we can begin to systematically unpack a team or organization’s culture to explain what is going well and what needs to be improved. Culture can be described as the shared beliefs, attitudes and behaviors of a collection of individuals. This means every team and organization has its own unique perspectives, values, decision-making processes, not to mention its challenges. Since an organization’s culture is defined by its people, self-examination can reveal the culture of an organization, but more importantly, this means once a culture can be quantified, people can take meaningful action to change t

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Why are Sports Organizations Reactive to Cultural Problems?

Why are Sports Organizations Reactive to Cultural Problems?

Scandals in sports are occurring at an alarming frequency. A quick google news quiery reveals there are no shortage of stories: in the NFL, women staff and executives were promised an improved work-place culture that has fallen short; the Washington Commanders were fined $10 million dollars for having a culture that is “highly unprofessional” including bullying, intimidation, and multiple allegations of sexual harassment of women; and in the NHL it was found the Chicago Blackhawks ignorned a 2010 sexual assault accusation. While these cases are not dissimilar, each instance of malfeasance required each organization to retroactively take actions to correct illicit behavior, pay restitution, and adopt new policies. The question that must be asked is, “how do we shift sports organizations’ from being reactive to proactive?”The allure of winning at all costs sometimes motivates actors within sports organizations to violate industry rules and practices. Dismantling this behavior requires sports organizations and teams to prioritiz

Partnership - Kenyon Swimming & Diving

Partnership - Kenyon Swimming & Diving

Kenyon Swimming and Diving is recognized as one of the premier NCAA Division III swimming and diving programs for nearly half a century. The Men’s program won an unprecedented 31 consecutive NCAA national championships from 1979 to 2010, and 34 in total, while the Women’s program has won an equally impressive 24 national championships since 1983. In 2022, the Women reclaimed the NCAA title, the first time since 2009. Kenyon has produced countless individual national champions, all-americans, and NCAA postgraduate scholarship winners. IntelliSport Analytics is partnering with Kenyon Swimming & Diving to study the culture of the programs to help it remain one of the best swimming & diving programs in the United States.

Servant Leadership

Servant Leadership

When working with a recent National Governing Body (NGB), IntelliSport discovered that integrity and authenticity were significant factors that determined how the NGB’s coaches rated their overall satisfaction with the NGB. IntelliSport recommended that the NGB focus on behaviors, policies and outcomes that would directly improve the integrity and authenticity of the NGB. Integral to achieving this objective will be if the leadership can adopt the characteristics of servant leadership. This leadership paradigm focuses on how leaders can shape the norms and values of an organization and its people by focusing on moral and immoral behavior. This type of leadership takes form in six areas: Empowerment: leaders encourage their followers to be empowered, which encourages self-confidence and a feeling of personal agency. This allows for the free flow of ideas, and self-directed decision making which elevates the ability of individuals to act independently and with confidence. Stewardship: These are leaders who are willing to take responsibility for their own behavior as well as the actions of the organization. These leaders also seek to set an example for others to follow and place a premium on the value of teamwork, social responsibility and loyalty to others. Authenticity- This leadership characteristic is grounded in a willingness of leaders to follow through on promi

Authentic Leadership

Authentic Leadership

In the last few weeks we have witnessed coaching leadership failures across the sporting landscape that resulted in organizations firing their coaches. In the NWSL, over the span of two months, three teams (North Carolina Courage, Washington Spirit, & Racing Louisville) dismissed coaches for verbal and sexual abuse, among other undisclosed reasons. The NFL Oakland Raiders Head Coach John Gruden recently resigned following the revelation he sent emails that included misogynistic and homophobic language disparaging the NFLPA’s union leader. These coaches were fired because they failed to identify and regulate their behavior. What is problematic is that their choices not only led to their dismissals, but also significantly hindered the teams and the athletes they were responsible for, creating unnecessary barriers to achieve high performance on the field of play. The NWSL’s players association highlighted these challenges when they released the following statement on Twitter. It points out how the failures of the coaches led to players carrying a burden of abuse onto

Be Data Informed

Be Data Informed

I made the decision in Spring 2021 to leave my post as Associate Head Coaching of Swimming & Diving at the University of Pittsburgh — it was one of the hardest decisions I have ever had to make. I had wonderful coaching colleagues and I had exceptional relationships coaching the men and women on the teams. We experienced some incredible highs: breaking nearly every single varsity record, achieving the highest ACC and NCAA finishes in program history, and I had the opportunity to travel the world to recruit the best swimmers and divers available. Yet, gnawing at the back of my mind was how I could make a larger impact on collegiate athletics, and perhaps the larger sports landscape.In my decade plus experience as a coach and professor, I became acutely aware of barriers that were preventing not only teams, but also sports organizations from achieving high performance and meeting the needs of its individuals. As I sought ways to describe what I was witnessing, hearing and researching, I found myself articulating a need to help leaders better understand their employees and student-athletes. The complexities of collegiate athletics creates certain negative externalities, that is, unwanted outcomes that stray from the espoused missions of athletics departments and sports teams. I started IntelliSport Analytics to help leaders untangle the complexities of athletics, and to provide them with strategies to avoid the pitfalls of organizational inefficiencies and flaws.</

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