There’s no doubt that you want a stronger culture and a successful program. This is oftentimes accomplished when you have athletes that are good leaders. This might manifest itself in the form of strong team captains, upperclassmen, or an overall atmosphere of all players taking responsibility for the team’s leadership.
However, whether the leadership on your team is currently where you want it to be or not, you can do something to make it even better.
Utilizing committees within your team is a creative way to develop better leadership skills among all your athletes while empowering them to accomplish tasks collectively.
If you have team captains already, committees can complement them. Committees can assist the team captains in carrying out certain responsibilities. If you don’t have good team captains, committees can lift them up and help carry the load.
WHAT IS A COMMITTEE?
A committee is just a small group of your athletes that get together and come up with ideas on various topics. They can make decisions or just recommend courses of action to you.
The possibilities for what kind of committees you can have are limited only by your imagination and willingness to delegate. If you can think it, you can form a committee for it. You just need to decide if you want to delegate the work and decision-making for certain tasks.
Here are 10 of the most common things that your committees might address …
- Fundraising
- Community service
- Apparel
- Food
- Policies
- Music
- Pre-practice activities
- Team-building activities
- Summer schedule
- Social media
Even within these areas, you could split up tasks. Instead of just having one “food” committee, you could have a committee that handles picking the restaurant when you’re traveling, a committee that coordinates post-game meals at home, another that deals with snacks, another that deals with food at a banquet, etc…
WHO ARE THE MEMBERS?
The size of a committee will vary depending on the number of committees you have, the size of your team, and how many committees each athlete can serve on. You want it big enough so that there is diversity of thought and plenty of options to consider, but not so big that the athletes can never come to any clear decisions.
Each committee should have a “captain” or “representative”. This person could break voting ties, communicate with the coaching staff, and be the person that generally organizes the committee making sure it operates smoothly.
Just like you don’t want your team captains to abuse their power or act like they are better than their teammates, the same would be true for your committee captains. Not only can this position keep the committee running efficiently, but it can also serve as a de facto team-captain-in-training opportunity.
HOW DO YOU SELECT MEMBERS?
Once you determine how many committees you’ll have, you need to decide how many athletes you’ll have on each. There is nothing wrong with having a set amount or splitting up your athletes evenly amongst the committees. However, make sure that whatever you’re doing is helpful to your program but also beneficial to your athletes.
It’s okay to leave yourself some flexibility with your committees. The last thing you want to do is “force” athletes to be on committees they are not interested in. There’ll be enough situations during the year that you’re asking athletes to do things they don’t want to do. You should try to avoid this as much as possible when it comes to committees.
This will be a new concept to them and many of your athletes will not be confident or clear about how to proceed. Don’t make it worse by putting them on a committee they don’t want to be a part of.
As much as possible, try to put athletes on committees they want to be members of. One of the best ways is to give out a piece of paper at the end of a practice or workout that lists all the committees available. Ask your athletes to list their favorite(s) and their least favorite(s). This information will give you an idea of which committee they’d want to be on and which they wouldn’t.
Don’t worry initially about cliques or too many athletes from one class being on a committee. You could go back and try to arrange things later to make the committees more even if you want, but that isn’t necessary. If you wanted five athletes on a committee, but there were six that requested a certain committee and only four requested another committee, that’s okay. Be flexible and willing to adapt.
HOW DOES IT OPERATE?
As a coach, you’ll want to give your athletes some guidelines or suggestions. They need some direction, especially in the first year or if the members are new to this committee in subsequent years.
However, you don’t want to stifle creativity. Don’t give them so many guardrails that they feel suffocated or that this is still “coach’s deal” but they are just doing the work for you. You are doing committees, in large part, to empower them as leaders and get them more bought in as team members. They’ll buy in more when they feel like they have some ownership in what’s occurring.
Be willing to give up some control of things. The apparel committee might pick a travel suit you don’t like but it’s still the primary color and brand that it needs to be. Don’t get hung up on details if they aren’t deal breakers. Pick your battles as a coach. You don’t have to get your preference in every aspect of the program.
Here are a few things you’ll need to consider for each committee …
- Are they coming up with ideas only or will they also execute those ideas?
- What is the timeline or deadline?
- Do they have a particular budget?
- What freedom do they have in decision-making and what things do they need to ask permission on?
- Are there any requirements they need to be aware of?
- Do they need to work with another committee or other people to accomplish their objectives?
- What do they need from you as a coach?
- Is there an adult point person they need to work with directly (e.g. assistant coach, GA, teacher, administrator, community member, etc….)?
- Do their decisions need to be unanimous amongst the members or just a mere majority? How are conflicts resolved?
Some of those questions will be decided by you and your staff, whereas others will be decided by the committee itself. As much as possible, be a giant resource to them. Be helpful to them without being overbearing. Give them the freedom and opportunity to grow as a leader.
HAVE FUN!
In the professional world, committees sometime carry a negative connotation. Too much red tape, bureaucracy, and politics. Too many boring meetings. This doesn’t have to be the case for your team.
Make the committees fun. Have food at the meetings. Get out of the locker room, classroom, or office for your meetings. Do them at a restaurant or student center or in a lounge on couches.
In fact, don’t even call them meetings. Call them get togethers, planning parties, or some other creative name. Similar to calling the meetings something different, feel free to call the committees something different, as well. Call them groups, mini-teams, or the fundraising team, the social media team, etc…
If you’re interested in the committee approach, don’t just look at it as getting some work off your plate (though that can be a benefit), but rather see it as an opportunity. Committees are an opportunity for your athletes to invest in the process, take ownership in the program, and feel as though they have a voice.
As a coach it’s an opportunity to build better team camaraderie while utilizing the creativity, intellect, and various perspectives of your athletes to strengthen your team’s culture.