Ep 77 - Jeff Kincaid (Kincaid Consulting Group)

In this week’s episode of The Your Sports Resource Podcast, Jeff Kincaid dives into the concept of quality failures and their impact on personal and professional growth. He emphasizes the importance of communication, education, and proactive planning. Discover how building trust and effective communication between coaches and parents can lead to better outcomes and why self-reflection and humility are crucial for leadership.

Don't miss out—listen now and take the first step towards improving your sports program!


KEY TAKEAWAYS:

• Quality failures can be seen as failures that create a change in the course of events, either positively or negatively.
• Communication, education, and proactive planning are key in mitigating failures.
• Addressing minor failures in a timely manner can prevent them from escalating into more significant issues.
• Coaches should practice self-reflection and self-awareness to improve their coaching approach and communication skills.
• Coaches should seek continuous personal and professional development to enhance their coaching skills and relationships with parents and athletes.

ABOUT THE GUEST:

Jeff is a trained, certified analyst through TTi Success Insights in the following courses for the delivery of assessments, debriefing, and coaching in behaviors (DISC), motivators (12 Driving Forces), EQ or Emotional Quotient (Emotional Intelligence); and Leadership Training in The Prioritized Leadership Masterclass Suite. 

• TTI Success Insights – DISC Trainer
• TTI Success Insights – 12 Driving Forces® Trainer
• TTI Success Insights – Emotional Quotient™ Trainer
• TTI Success Insights – The Prioritized Leader Masterclass Certified Coach
• Certified Practitioner in Team Coaching: Global Team Coaching Institute
• Five Capitals Certified Coach
• Member of EMCC Global

Life experiences in the business industry and coaching sports led to Kincaid Consulting Groups’ beginnings to show the day’s modern business warrior through the battles and challenges we all face. The turning point began with a chance meeting with famous speaker Zig Zigler at a sales and motivational conference where Zig said, “If you just help enough people get what they want, you’ll receive the blessings and things you seek.” With the mix of coaching sports and being in business for over 35 years, Jeff has always found self-development and continuous improvement necessary to grow and solve problems. 


CONNECT WITH THE GUEST:
Email:  jeffkincaid@kincaidconsultinggroup.com
Facebook: facebook.com/THEKCG/
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/jeff-kincaid-7490004/
Website: kincaidconsultinggroup.com
Phone #: 757-725-1502


CONNECT WITH ME:
Linkedin: /renata-porter  
Instagram: @yoursportsresource
Twitter: @yoursportsres

If you have a suggestion or topics you want me to discuss, write me at info@yoursportsresource.com. Don’t forget to check out our website www.yoursportsresource.com 

Transcript

INTRODUCTION - 00:00:03  

This is the Your Sports Resource podcast where each week you'll learn actionable strategies that you can implement so the operations of your club support your coaching staff and the direction of your organization. We are committed to excellence in youth sports leadership. Let's get started.   

RENATA - 00:00:28  

Welcome to the Your Sports Resource podcast. My name is Renata Porter and today our guest is Jeff Kincaid. Now, Jeff is a trained and certified analyst through TTI Success Insights where he delivers assessments and debriefing, and coaching on behaviors like in the DISC method and motivators in the 12 driving forces and EQ, emotional quotient or emotional intelligence, as well as leadership training in the prioritized leadership masterclass suite.   

00:01:04  

Now, what you may or may not know is that prior to moving into this arena, Jeff has 30-plus years of coaching experience at all levels throughout the '80s and all the way to the 2020s here in Virginia. I thought he would be an excellent person to speak to regarding personal and professional development and how developing and honing skills can benefit both his clients and you.   

00:01:30  

And with the mix of coaching sports and being in business for over 35 years, Jeff has always found self-development and continuous improvement necessary to grow and solve problems. On a personal note, Jeff resides in Carrollton, Virginia with his wife of 34 years and has three grown children, Joseph, Elizabeth, and Katelyn. Welcome, Jeff.  

JEFF - 00:01:54  

Thank you. That's a mouthful. Thank you, Renata. That was excellent. And on a side note, actually, we are listing our home here in Carrollton, Thursday, and we're moving to Myrtle Beach to be near my wife's parents so that as they age, we are closer to them. And so we've done the aging with my parents and now we're going to go do the aging with her parents. So I think that's all fair and loving, love and war, and be able to do that. She'll be retired, but I'm going to run my business from there and keep on keeping on. So thank you very much for having me on. I'm excited to share. So, yeah.  

RENATA - 00:02:38  

Great, great. Okay. So what we really wanted to talk about today was overcoming your terminology as quality failure. So, overcoming quality failures. So for the audience, can you just explain what that is? And then, and then we. Maybe we can get into it. So when I read quality failures, I was like, what the heck does that mean? So I'm sure I'm not going to be the only one.  

JEFF - 00:02:51  

Yeah. I think, it's a really tongue-in-cheek, loose term that in meetings, in group coaching or team coaching or just in board meetings and someone going, that's just not a failure. That's a quality failure. We really, we did a good job with this failure, and so it went through the roof, in a simple form, I guess a failure could just be something that changes the course of an event to a positive outcome or to a very negative outcome. So keeping it simple, the failure is going to create some kind of change in what's going forward. But if it's a quality failure, then we really got bigger problems along the path of how did we get to this point?  

RENATA - 00:03:40  

Yeah. And I think one of the things that you mentioned when we were preparing for this was that it's not only that quality of failure, but it's also how sometimes the thought process to resolution is going to the big extremes, like letting go of a staff member or a parent feeling like they've got to leave the team because they don't feel like there's a solution. Right. So what we want to talk about today are those failures and how to mitigate them, how to get ahead of them, but also how to mitigate them, but also, not doing the whole, what is that terminology? Throw the baby out with the bathwater. Right. We don't want to overcomplicate the solution.  

JEFF - 00:04:23  

Right. Yes, exactly.  

RENATA - 00:04:28  

Okay. So how do we, what are some ways that we can get away or get ahead of prevention of some of what you would call a quality failure or a minor failure?  

JEFF - 00:04:42  

Yeah. I think just thinking back in my career, even from the very beginning, when we met and we were with old men aquatic club in those 80s. And then throughout coaching, one of the big things that I always did to help educate was have meetings with parents, have coach interface meetings. And I know a lot of clubs do this, but also know that a lot don't.   

00:05:10  

And so, an ounce of prevention is a big cure. So I think just expectations, training and education, whether it's meetings or a good sort of a newsletter, drip educating or hosting nights with a little food to talk about the college process or the moving up process, how do we select people or what does training look like versus age group swimming, that transitional period all the way into senior training.   

00:05:41  

So you kind of have these meetings and these topics and these education sessions, and sometimes it's hard to get people to come to them. So you got to figure that out. But just an ongoing educational program. I think being very, very, very proactive with that is helpful in mitigating those problems.  

RENATA - 00:06:04  

Yeah, I agree. I do think, I mean, simply it's communication. Right. And probably what we might consider in swimming arena over communication, which I wouldn't call, I wouldn't call keeping families informed over communication. But there's like this weird spiral to wherever rightfully so. Sometimes coaches, sorry, not coaches, but parents can be a little crazy and unrealistic in their expectations and so it kind of, coaches sometimes just don't want to deal with that, so they withdraw even more.   

00:06:36  

But the problem with the withdrawing of communication and information even more just makes the crazy escalate, and it's not just between staff and parents, it's also between staff or staff and board or staff and leadership, whatever it may be. But, that really just comes down to, yeah, okay, it may be hard. It's not going to be received well, maybe parents won't show up, but I think that the baseline of over-communicating is never going to hurt you. It's just not going to hurt you, especially if you plan and are prepared.  

JEFF - 00:07:10  

Yeah, exactly. I don't, it can't hurt to over-communicate and be very educational in that. And if you do it well and you do it right, it's one thing that can set you apart, and then secondly, it's going to help you go back to when there is a problem. If the parent wasn't there and didn't get the knowledge, then. Then the only thing you really have to rely on is that experience that they're experiencing. And then, so as a coach or the parent, you can draw back to that meeting and say, we have discussed this before.   

00:07:42  

We've educated the group on this and let me share with you what we went through and kind of bring them back to square one. Bring them back up, catch them up, they can't be there. But it's a chance to be able to say, we've discussed this with the group and the team and we can get you up to speed as well. So. Otherwise you don't have any.  

RENATA - 00:08:08  

So when we were preparing for. Go ahead, sorry, go ahead. Otherwise what?  

JEFF - 00:08:12  

Otherwise, you don't have anything to draw on to go back and educate the situation. You're stuck in the moment with a problem.  

RENATA - 00:08:24  

Yeah. And a bunch of assumptions on both sides. Yeah. So when we were preparing for this, you had written down some notes for what is like a minor failure. What's a medium failure, medium stressor, and then what is like a catastrophic failure? So do you think you could just kind of define those and then let's talk? Let's relate those to, again, that extreme reaction or how you can get extreme reactions for trying to solve the problem.  

JEFF - 00:09:01  

Yeah. So when you're looking at, I think, minor failures, things that continue to happen over time, they're not significant enough to really address, but they continue to happen. And so what happens, it builds into something. It escalates. It brings its ugly head to the surface at some point and then becomes catastrophic. So I think expectations of what is expected of parents at swim meets is a good example. Sometimes you have parents who are so overzealous with their child and they don't look at the empathy or the sympathetic of their team members child maybe having a bad meet, but their child's having a great meet and they're waiting that fact in front of people who their day is not their day.   

00:10:01  

So proper behavior at a swimming, what is good etiquette at a swim meet so that's just a minor failure that if a parent kept doing that over and over and over, there's a lot of animosity going on between those two families that doesn't bode well for the group dynamics, doesn't bode well for the children, and it doesn't bode well for the collective good of those parents in that group.  

RENATA - 00:10:17  

Yeah. Or something bad happening with that family at the meet where the kid doesn't perform well. Dramatization and the overreaction by the family and the child, like, really sucks the wind and the positive energy out of another potential teammate who's having a good meet. Okay. What is like a medium severity?  

JEFF - 00:10:49  

I think a medium severity is something that would be any number of issues and topics that happens in the day, in the week that really never gets addressed, it's ignored. You walk away from it hoping that it's going to go away, but it doesn't go away because it's not a minor issue that's gnawing over months and weeks and maybe even half a year or a year. It's happening in the week. And it's significant enough that if you don't address it, it's going to be a problem down the road.   

00:11:32  

So it's messing up that week. So what might be a good example of that? An argument between two teammates either in the locker room or in the pool and the coach handles it, but doesn't communicate it to the prop, to the parents. Doesn't make the circle full and some coaches are going to have enough impact with their athletes that they handled it. It's over.   

00:12:05  

Don't want to hear about it anymore. And it may not go any further than that, and it's all good. But if something happens between two athletes that is significant and it's impactful to the group and the group's antennas are up on it, that's a good way to miss an opportunity where you could call those parents and say, hey, I just wanted to inform you this happened and I've handled it. There's nothing more from it, but I just wanted to make you aware.  

RENATA - 00:12:34  

Yeah, Okay. And what about catastrophic? What is something major? I think everybody understands that terminology, catastrophic. But let's just roll with the examples.  

JEFF - 00:12:47  

Yeah. Catastrophic is, there again, there's so many different examples and scenarios. It's a major event happening in the moment and it could linger. It's going to cause a lot of emotional turmoil that could linger. It can, if there's an emotional reaction to something, it could take as little as 4 hours to forget about it and let it go and let it get past you.   

00:13:19  

As well up to four or five days in weeks before it's totally settled out of your system. So those catastrophic events could just be really devastating, which requires ongoing meetings, the board, the parent, the coach, the athlete. Something that is going to interrupt the coach's week by far. It's going to interrupt the athlete's week and also the parents week. It's an event that's a really big disruptor to our regular rhythm and routine.  

RENATA - 00:13:54  

Yeah, I think a lot of times that these types of things can be really rectified by being proactive and planning, which are words that I usually get eyerolls with when it comes to coaches. But I think that, listen, when you have something catastrophic, often it's things that are handed to you and it was out of your control. Now, it could be something as big as. I don't know, you're taking everybody to a massive meet and you forgot to book the hotel. I don't know.   

00:14:20  

I guess that that could be. That could be considered catastrophic if you have no place to stay in a swim meet. But usually when it's something really major. It's not stemming from, it's something usually without your control and you've got to be able to react to it, but I think in the other areas, especially those little things, they're just like little things that really drive people nuts to add up. And those, I believe, really could be solved by being more proactive in planning.  

JEFF - 00:14:48  

Right? Yeah. Two points. I've got a story I can share about the in-the-moment catastrophic, and then I reply to those little things that add up. But we went to a meet in Florida. We were supposed to have three vans. The person who booked our vans only booked two. And it wasn't until the day we left that he said, oh, by the way, when you get down there, you got to come up with a third 15-passenger van. So that was, that was a quality failure. And then one of the chaperones on that very meet had just got a new driver's license from DMV and left it on the counter in the kitchen.   

00:15:28  

So when we went to go rent the van, one of my drivers had an expired driver's license in this thing. So we're a van short and now I'm a driver short. So we're like in the moment just going, I'm pulling my hair out trying to get these kids from the airport to the hotel, and so now I'm stuck with two vans and I'm shuttling. Takes another 2 hours to get the evening started right. So, but it happens. Solve that problem in the moment and you just kind of keep rolling without getting too angry. I mean, that's, that's that emotional intelligence, how are you going to react? How are you going to respond to that?   

00:16:12  

And the calmer you are, the better. What you said. Secondly, the little things and that the prevention we really do, I will go back to this. We really do miss the opportunity when we're not educating on a regular basis and communicating on a regular basis. I think a lot of coaches, myself included, can, can get meeting happy and they, and they like to talk and they like to have the attention on yourself as a coach. Hey, listen to me, I'm your coach, but brevity is good. And what, for the most part, you, you want to get in the water and get training, but it's that communication at all levels.  

RENATA - 00:16:55  

Yeah. And I think if I, I had to think about my career over the last couple years, shoot, maybe even longer than that. I feel like people get more like they're feeling like they want that more drastic resolution when it's been a bunch of little things that have been like piling up right so, for example, if communication is a weakness of yours and you don't put up the meet schedule until really late or the meet information really late, like that's, it's a pain for parents who have to plan. They have to take time off and they have to get coverage or they've got a big family and they need coverage for other family members. Right.   

00:17:43  

And coaches tend to brush those kinds of things off, but you have to understand the impact that that makes to the family and to you. It might be a minor thing, right? And it doesn't just have to be about meets, but that's the example that I'm using. But if that's like the 2nd, 3rd or 5th time that some little tiny little thing is going on, well, then, it comes across as if you as a staff member, don't know what you're doing and don't have yourself together, which then creates animosity between families and staff that is completely unnecessary. And then we get into that big dramatic failure and big dramatic resolution.   

00:18:21  

Like coach has to go or the family leaves. Right. Where by, on all accounts, they love the coaches, how they coach. The kids are having a good time, they love their friends, right? But they're so tired of what seems like every week some little tiny thing is like popping up and it's all just because there's little structure or planning. Now, listen, we all know that planning is not the forte of a lot of people. That is a skill that people have. Right.   

00:18:56  

And we also know that staff on most teams are stretched very tight and they're working a lot of hours. So usually something has to give. Right. So there's absolutely excuses for it. They don't, they shouldn't stay as an excuse. It still needs to be resolved in some way, shape, or fashion. But I feel like it's always a scenario to where the easy solution is ignored all the way up until the point to where it no longer is going to take an easy solution. It's going to take like a majority scenario to take place to make everybody feel better about what's been happening over the last months.  

JEFF - 00:19:37  

Yeah. Yeah, definitely. And the meet schedule, getting the information out and getting it out in time and getting all the information out. If it's a travel meet. Now, a lot of teams don't do team travel. Makes it real simple. Show up at the meet, just be on deck. Here's the hotels. Good luck. Right.   

00:20:00  

The teams that want to put 30, 40 kids in passenger vans or a bus and have to do all that, it's a lot of work, and so that aspect of planning and becoming a travel agent and you're going to have to delegate it and have someone do it you and hope they don't mess it up. And if it's not done the way you want it to be done, then you have to be able to say, I'm going to do it myself. And you spend those extra hours planning, doing all those things, plus whatever else you got to do, it can become thankless in times. So, yeah, it's a lot for coaches.   

00:20:37  

So, yeah, that planning and getting in front of it is really important. You could be looking for a certain meet. That meet doesn't happen to be on the horizon that you want. You're scheduled to go to a meet that weekend. So what do you do? you train on Saturday and you say, we're not going to go to a meet and that could be just a really big, missed opportunity. That's a good quality failure. We didn't compete this weekend, but we are going to do something in training. We're going to swim Friday night, we're going to swim Saturday and we're, enjoy the moment, not traveling.  

RENATA - 00:21:19  

So if I were to flip the script a bit and go to where the parents kind of overstep in that, something I'm recognizing is that, and I still believe it comes from a lack of knowledge. I think that a lot of parents don't understand how Olympic sports work, that it's a year-round sport, that we're professional coaches. Well, not we. Not me. I'm not a professional coach. But what I mean, that there are professional coaches, but parents still push and feel that things should be done and run in the way that they want it run.   

00:21:53  

And obviously, I'm going to advocate for the coaches and go, no, you guys need to run the business in the best interest of the business. Right. But that doesn't preclude you from explaining it to the parents that a lot of times, if they understand the why, whether they like it or not, they're more apt to get on board and follow along with the process. But the problem that happens in a lot of these scenarios, and I will say it's a lot of older, old-school coaches, is that they feel that I'm the coach. They should just do what I say. They should just trust me and they should just leave me alone. What do you say to that?  

JEFF - 00:22:30  

I say you're absolutely right that there are a lot of old-school coaches who feel that way. Yeah, I think there's a couple of things that come to my mind with that. As the program succeeds and moves forward throughout the years, parents who you have some experience being a swim parent or being an athlete parent, they begin to build that trust so they understand and so the trust takes time, and it can also be there's, I guess, the team trust, but also that one to one conversation with that parent, with, from the coach, there's that, that trust, and that's really important to understand that that's a one to one thing. If there is a parent that's not buying in, that's the opportunity for the coach to have that conversation about the process, about this is not just.  

RENATA - 00:23:36  

And not just discount them like.  

JEFF - 00:23:40  

Yeah. It's like, are you being heard as a parent in that situation? If the coach just says, it's my way or the highway, this is how we've always done it. I don't value your input or your thought. So I guess those listening skills from old coaches are hard to come by because they know what works, they know what's successful, they know what they've done is going to help the child. And maybe there's just not a good communicator as to why they need to go down that road. But listening and having an empathetic ear to the parents concern and giving it some space. Let me think about that. That's interesting. Thank you for your comment. Yeah, thank you for your input. Just acknowledging the relationship can go a long way and continuing to hone that trust and then you know too, is how successful is that individual coach. Because that, that clout goes a long way.  

RENATA - 00:24:52   

Yeah. I mean, I think what I see constantly or consistently, I guess I should say, is that if a coach is challenged, they just automatically write off that parent. Right. And sometimes. Sometimes it's warranted, but sometimes I would have to gather that it's not, or most of the time it's not warranted. Right. They just don't understand. They want to be part of the process. Right. And again, it's part of the parents today. And I'm not saying that a coach needs to give in and constantly be coddling the parents. That's not what I'm saying at all. But you also shouldn't go to the extreme of just writing them off as a horrible parent and you don't want to do anything with the kids, because that just creates animosity, and that's one heck of a way to ruin the, what respect you have built with the other parents.  

JEFF - 00:25:41  

Oh, yeah, definitely. Because if you fail at that one relationship and the parent has a parenthood they're gonna spread that to the other parents. So, absolutely, the success with that one challenging parent or the success in communicating with the parent that has a concern so that doesn't escalate. That's preempting that quality failure because it can become very systemic down the road. Yeah.  

RENATA - 00:26:15  

In the absence of information, they're just going to create crap and spread around, and that's not what you want either. Right.  

JEFF - 00:26:22  

Right. In the absence of communication, there's just going to be a lot of conversation that doesn't go right. It's going to be all negative. And that's directly from John Gordon. We all know who John Gordon is. He's like, in the absence of that positive communication, negativity will fill the void. So you got to have a positive outcome. Here's how we're going to solve that. I hear you. Let me tell you, in my experience, this is the way we should go with this. So.  

RENATA - 00:26:49  

Yeah. And again, I mean, just to reiterate to you coaches out there, I don't think either one of us is saying that you're put here to agree with the parents. All we are saying is that do the right methodology, the right training according to your background and what you think is right. But that does not mean that there's an absence of earning people's trust and respect and making sure that you do over-communicate.   

00:27:17  

And if it's not, you find someone who's strong in that area, who's strong in planning and pass those skills off to them and work together to make sure that your families are feeling really good, that your athletes are feeling good, or even like your internal team, your coaches are feeling good working with each other, if those aren't your strengths. Yeah. So, Jeff, if I were to piggyback off of your what you're doing now in the testing and a lot of the that DISC testing and understanding yourself as an individual, like, how can some of these areas help the coaches get a better idea of how to operate from a.   

00:28:05  

Like, I'm sure a lot of times coaches go, or anybody goes, right? Why did I react that way? Like, that was silly. There's no reason for me to react that way. Why did I do that? Right. So we may have that conversation with ourselves, but then, like, what are some of the things that they can do to better understand why they do and say the things that they do and so they can make improvements for themselves to reduce the stress and animosity and things that come up through the world of working with youth in sports?  

JEFF - 00:28:34  

Yeah, that's a great question, Renata, and it really, my transformation through coaching from the 80s and you were around, we were, for you guys out there and gals don't know this, but Renata's responsible for why I got into coaching and she was swimming on the college team and coaching. So like, well, I don't want to coach anymore because I can't because I'm training and I so do you want to coach these 8 and under? I'm like, oh, sure, yeah. So I got involved with coaching and that, that grew, that started my career and the program we were with and our leader, we were very dominant.   

00:29:12  

And I learned to be a very dominant coach from watching. And that's what I thought I was supposed to be. Fast forward 20 years later when I left coaching, came back into coaching, I was like, if I don't change, I'm not going to be successful. So going through that mindfulness awareness portal of transformation, coaches need to understand, like, if they know who they are from their behavior standpoint and they can recognize things in themselves that lend to what's being perceived. How are they normally perceived?   

00:29:55  

How are they perceived under moderate tension and stressed? How are they going to be perceived under high tension, stress, and fatigue? And Lord knows we're working 40, 50, 60 hours, 70 hours, many weeks, and we're tired. So it doesn't take much to be under-stressed or should say overstressed. And your perception, the way you're coming off is not who you are, it's who you are when you're in that situation, but it's not how you want to come across. So it's just that awareness to how you're going to react and respond to things versus putting your foot in your mouth saying or doing the wrong thing.   

00:30:40  

So, and then once those behaviors and how we're motivated goes a long way with that. The EQ part is really simple. And what people say in a corporate America, it's not what and you're not your IQ. It's you're going to get promoted based on really good EQ skills. And so again, it's that awareness to your emotions and regulating them and awareness to other people's emotions. Your athletes, your parents, your co-coaches, the officials at meets. And how do you manage those relationships in terms of helping them with their EQ in the moment? It's very tricky. It's very difficult, easy to read a book and do, but to apply it and learn, it takes, takes good practice. So I think what your question was.  

RENATA - 00:31:26  

How do they become aware, though? Like, what do they need to do that self-quality assurance to recognize that? Because, I don't know, maybe I'm wrong, but I feel like a lot of times people go into, like, they know instinctively they didn't handle something correctly, right? But on the outward appearance, they go into full defense mode and they will defend themselves. Knowing every single word coming out of their mouth is probably not accurate, not how they actually feel. It just feels like they need to defend themselves. So how do we get, like, do you have, and I'm sorry, I'm really putting you on the spot, Jeff. So are you able to, like, give some tips or thoughts for coaches to go when you get in this scenario? Like, you've messed up, something's messed up, like, what do you do next? What should they do for that reflection?  

JEFF - 00:32:21  

Yeah. So I think that's really key. And owning, two things come in my mind is if, if you can drop your ego for a little bit as a coach and you're aware of all the spotlight on you for this situation, whatever it is, is to become really super self-aware of it. And if it's in the moment, it's the pause of not saying what is really coming to your mind. The very, the very next set of words and decisions out of your mouth from reacting is going to make you or break you as a coach.   

00:33:04  

And it's really being able to pause, it's a nanosecond. I mean, it's a split second in the situation, being self-aware and having the foresight to pause and turning that, that pause into a series of, if it's EQ, a good rule of thumb is, like, do I need to say this back or does it need to be said, do I need to say this now? And if I need to say this now, does it need to be said by me or could someone else better deliver that message? So that's, if you can pause and you can say, I don't need to say this, period. Let it go. I don't need to say this now. I'm going to sleep on it, come back tomorrow, right?  

RENATA - 00:33:53  

Or I like that second one. I think that one's key. I think that's a big one because I think that it is okay to not be drag into a negative conversation, even if the conversation, when you thought about it, still may be negative, but at least you've stepped away, took a bit of emotion out of it, and thought about how you wanted to approach it. And I think that's the key right there is like, yes, you want to say something, but do I need to say it right now? And I think that's. That's huge right there, Jeff, that if. And I mean, it doesn't even have to be coaches. It can be anybody, right? If you're in the heat of the moment and you're saying shit that you really don't think being able to stop and ask yourself that question is really key.  

JEFF - 00:34:33  

Right? I'm a parent. I'm upset. So what am I going to do? I'm going to walk on that pool deck and I'm going to start talking to my swimmer while they're in the water, or I'm going to demand the attention of that coach right now. Well, of course, that's written in our rules of that's not what we do. It's not proper. But as a parent, that's one of the situations where you got to say, I am upset, and it's not worth talking about right now. And so it's the same. It's the parent, it's the board member, it's the coach. Can I delay this instead of laying it on you right this moment?   

00:35:08  

And then the third rule of thumb to that is maybe I'm not the right one to deliver the mail to the mailbox. Maybe. Yeah, maybe somebody else needs to deliver the message for me, because maybe I'm just not the one that could do a good job at that. So I think that that pause, it's Doctor Viktor Frankl who was in the Jewish concentration camps, who. His family was killed and they were murdered, and he survived. And he wrote in search of self, a great book. He's the one who said in between reaction, between the event and the reaction, there's a pause. And in that pause, there's a moment that can set you free. So think about that. It's really, really significant.  

RENATA - 00:36:00  

Yeah. I really like the third one you offered too, because I feel like there's a lot of times where, when I'm telling, talking to coaches about, hey, so what is your personal development? How are you developing your coaches every month? And I tell them that not everything has to be technical. Some of it can be how to have a conversation with a parent, especially those younger and newer coaches. Right. So, and your thought process of, do I need to be the mailman? Well, no.   

00:36:28  

In those scenarios where you got younger coaches that are still trying to, like, develop a relationship and how to talk to parents who are older than you but you're responsible for their kid and, like, it's a weird scenario if you've never been in that before, especially if you've got one like you explained, that's rushing on deck and demanding your attention like it is okay to go, I'm not the delivery person, and just say, hey, can I, somebody will come back to you and talk to you about this and then hand that over to your head coach or your direct manager and allow them to have that conversation. But you participate, so you learn and you see how it's done. But, yeah, you don't have to answer everything. Especially not in the moment. Right?  

JEFF - 00:37:10  

Yeah. One of the, that's exactly right. I think one of the topics that a friend of mine mentioned was with parents and how they feel about their kids, it's instead of unconditional love to them enjoying life, it's like there's conditions placed on this sport. There's conditional love there. Right. It's like, if you don't do X, you're not going to get Y. And so the parents are holding back on being a loving, nurturing parent based on the outcome of what their child is doing in the sport. So I don't think that topic gets talked about enough.  

RENATA - 00:37:48  

Yeah. It's a hard one, though, Jeff. Right. Because a lot of times I find that when I'm having these conversations with coaches, it's come up numerous times where coaches have told me, I feel like I'm trying to teach these parents how to parent and sometimes they're not even parents themselves, you know what I'm saying? So it's a weird. I can empathize, you know, that's a real weird scenario to be put in, especially when you're younger. You can readily see this parent has lost their damn mind and you're like, how am I supposed to talk to.  

JEFF - 00:38:26  

No, they don't come with manuals either. And you're right. I mean, I remember being in those shoes as a young age group coach and upsetting plenty of parents because, again, we were kind of like, it was our way or the highway back in those 80s at that point, but we had the success to kind of be able to say that, but I, it didn't make it right, but it was right at the time, and we couldn't make everyone happy. We could just not make. It was impossible. But as a young coach developing, I think that listening ear, always asking questions. Find a mentor. Find two mentors. Talk to your parents as often as possible. And just be open-minded to learning. You never know what, they have that saying. You don't know what you don't know. It's very true. And you also don't know what you haven't experienced yet.  

RENATA - 00:39:33  

Yeah. I mean, experience is the ultimate teacher. Isn't it? And you just can't be afraid to learn through those experiences, which is why I wanted to. Why I asked the question about reflection, because I think, by and large, human nature right now is not to look at ourselves too closely. And I think there's, it's very hard for you to develop and become the person that you want to become if you don't do that self-reflection and try to understand the areas that you can improve. And everybody has areas that are not great and areas that, where we could be doing better. So avoiding that self-reflection is really difficult.   

00:40:16  

And then, again, I think a lot of these little chinks in the armor, a lot of these little, small problems can be taken care of, which gives you the freedom to earn trust and respect and bank that big time. So when a big problem does come up that they know you're going to take care of it and, yeah, okay, it was a big miss this time, but probably anybody would have missed it. Right. But if you've not been doing the right things all the way through and they're just irritated because you keep canceling practice or moving practice or don't communicate well, and then the big thing comes around. God, it's really hard to come out of. It's really hard to rescue yourself out of that.  

JEFF - 00:40:57  

Yeah, it is. So, yeah, if you haven't been as successful as you could been, you haven't communicated. There's been other problems along the way that were solved but still lingering. And then the big one strikes. You don't have those deposits that you could have had before. You don't have the credibility you could have had before. So that, that self-reflection every season or during the season or weekly to, what could I have done better? How could I have improved? what did I not communicate?   

00:41:28  

It's often the things that's not said, I think, in the athlete part, it's the athlete having to have certain expectations and outcomes without understanding that they didn't put the work in. So if you have that scenario and you, as the coach, don't communicate along the way, I don't feel like you're putting in the work to hit the goals that you want to hit. And if we don't pivot and make an adjustment just by not saying anything and ignoring that thought, that's an example of a quality failure, because you will probably get to the end of the season with more than one athlete that didn't hit their goals.  

00:42:08  

And did you communicate to them along the way that they aren't doing what they should be doing or could be doing? And how do you communicate? That is another way. So that's an example of a quality failure because you miss the opportunity every week or every day. And maybe, I was gonna say maybe that athlete has a problem that they're not sharing and you gotta undercover. You gotta dig to find out why are they not performing. So exploring and pulling back that onion to figure out how they are gonna change to be on the path to hopefully hit that taper just right.  

RENATA - 00:42:56  

Right. I do see clubs trying to make the push to go back to being a more competitive club. It's interesting because there's some clubs have really gone far in on the recreational side and trying to appease every single individual parent instead of doing the right things for the club. And now they're trying to write that ship back to going, no, when you get to this age, like, this needs to be your chosen sport. We don't want to degrade all of the kids who have chosen this as their sport, which means we can't allow the kids who are just screwing around to practice at the same time, be in the same groups, all those kinds of things. Right.  

00:43:32  

But then that does mean that you need to put some bumpers in the way, and you have to explain to them like, oh, the reason why you didn't train, you didn't do well in the championship meet is because you're not, you didn't put the time in, you didn't put the training in. But like you said, speaking about that early, right? And talking about that early, and I think it's amazing that clubs are really wanting to try to protect the performance side of the sport, and I'm so happy to see them pivoting back towards that. But that doesn't mean that you fall back into old habits of also not explaining to the parents why you're expecting performance above the age of 13 and why you're expecting X and you're expecting Y and telling the kids, again, you have to communicate. That is just the environment that we are in today. Nobody just takes anybody's word for anything. Anywhere. Not even the cashier at McDonald's. Nobody trusts anybody anymore.  

JEFF - 00:44:23  

That's right. Yeah. I think as the leader, the opportunity of that leader that the board, the direction to be more competitive, or if it's a coach driven initiative, the leader there, part of what's trained in the prioritized leadership suite and is like, we kind of look at this in the way John Maxwell looks at a lot of things, which would be like, do you have enough humility to understand that we want to make this shift toward being more competitive? So are we humble enough to achieve this? Do we know what that means?   

00:45:01  

And how do we become courageous enough to say the things that we need to say so that humility and the courage to actually say the reasons why we want to be offering something that's more competitive to, instead of just saying we're going to be more competitive? But why do we want to be more competitive? you've got to gone through some things to humble yourself to understand there's a reason to go in that direction and to have the courage and the conviction to say, we want to be more competitive. We don't want to lose ground. We want to gain ground. And this is, I think, how we're going to get there.  

RENATA - 00:45:42  

Yeah, I love that. Humility and courage. Awesome. Jeff, where can the listeners learn more about you and the things that you do and provide in your practice? So maybe some of these coaches can reach out to you for some assistance.  

JEFF - 00:45:59  

Well, the website is a good place to start. It's kincaidconsultinggroup.com, and my email address is, my business address is my first name, last name jeffkincaid@kincaidconsultinggroup.com  

RENATA - 00:46:17  

Okay. And what are some of the services that you offer? Just so they know.  

JEFF - 00:46:20  

So I think of it as a three-legged stool and then one of those stools, like the assessments of behaviors, emotional intelligence and motivation and some others there, that just is to teach us that awareness to that and coaching around those. Then the leadership leg is the second leg. It's a disturbed leadership program, a couple different avenues there for leadership. And then the third leg that I teach, I work with some executives and do team coaching. And so the team coaching training, I've spent the last three years with some European coaches and working with some teams and companies international and with those executives. So the team concept is the other leg of the stool. So diagnostic tools, leadership training, and team coaching is kind of the round out the wheelhouse, basically.  

RENATA - 00:47:14  

Wonderful. Well, Jeff, thank you so much for joining us and audience. Please give Jeff a phone call and talk to him and see what kind of services may be able to help you and your team and your team being your coaches and just see how you can utilize his resources.  

JEFF - 00:47:32  

And they can definitely call my number directly. I can put that in there if you want. It's 757-725-1502. Thank you, Renata. This has been great.  

RENATA - 00:47:41  

All right, audience. Yes, thank you. Sorry, we got a delay in the Internet there. Well, thank you, everyone, for listening. And please subscribe and rate and review this podcast so we can reach a bigger audience and help others such as yourself. And don't forget to visit the website yoursportsresource.com where you can find articles and tools as well as more info about how you can work with us directly. Finally, remember what is common sense isn't always common practice. So put what you learn into action. Don't just be good, be good at it. Thanks, everybody.