At soccer practice this week, I came up with a great idea for my 3rd/4th grade girls team. As coach, I have great ambitions for my team this Spring — I want them to do more than chase the ball all around the pitch whilst squealing. So, I need to teach them to think just a little bit about strategy , and about what they need to do together .
I hit upon the idea of distilling soccer strategy down into a few pithy sayings. I’m calling it "Soccer in 16 words."
Despite what I know about the dangers of reducing complex ideas into short sentences (e.g., mission statements, corporate values statements), I thought that this would be a great way to get my players thinking about what they each should be doing with the ball once they get their foot on it.
Tomorrow’s game will be the true test…but the girls left practice feeling really excited that they now "know so much" about soccer strategy– all because I could get it down into 16 words that each player can remember . And execute. And shout to her teammates from the sidelines. And use to confirm that she played her own part well.
So this got me to thinking, can I distill down a strategy for moving towards Organizational Authenticity, in 16 words?
Here’s what I came up with:
Organizational Authenticity in 16 Words
Walk the Talk.
Point towards purpose.
Reflect on our future.
Learn, to adjust.
Care a lot.
So that’s sixteen words. If we give ourselves some leeway, and allow maybe 5 more words, is there anything we should add? Let me know in the comments, below.
(And no, that’s not me in the photos. Being a mom as well as coach, I was the one taking the photos.)