Day 18 - Management by handshake

One of the best lessons I learned as an assistant coach was something my boss at Longwood, Coach Gillian, used to say quite a bit: "Management by Handshake". In today's digital age of cell phones, computers, e-mail and even skype it's really easy to avoid talking to people face to face, or even talking to them at all. Anytime you have an uncomfortable message to deliver or you are short on time you can just send an e-mail or text message. Don't get me wrong, the time-saving technology we have is a great resource; it just shouldn't be the only way we communicate with people.

When I was at Longwood, there were many times when I/we could have just sent someone an e-mail to relay whatever message needed to be passed on but Coach would come into the office and tell me we were going over to whatever department it was to tell them in person. Sometimes it might have honestly been something as simple as letting someone know we would see them at the soccer game that night. As an assistant, I really didn't understand why that was important and I am sure this won't be the only thing I didn't understand before becoming a head coach! But now I realize how important it is to take the time to be seen by people; how important it is to take the time to show people you care about them and what they have going on; and most importantly, that we're never too busy to give someone else a little bit of our time.

I spent the entire morning and most of the afternoon yesterday meeting with several people. I could have done all of this over the phone in probably half the amount of time. I could have just sent e-mails back and forth and used even less time. But for different reasons, it was important that I took the time yesterday to sit down across from those people and have real conversations with them. One of those people is actually the first person who is officially going to be a member of the coaching staff here at Concordia - Marv Fox, our Player Development Coach. Coach Fox is a former CUAA player and alum. He was on the staff last year, has a great relationship with our players and runs his own player development company Meticulous Basketball. I'm really excited that he is going to be on staff and can't wait to figure out the rest of the coaching staff in the near future!

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