Humor Can Reframe Your Thinking

I coach youth soccer and have worked with a team for several years now.  They have become a very good team, ranked in the top 50 of all Northern California teams in the age group, and the games have become incredibly competitive.  Last season I implemented something that helped push them to the next level.

See as a coach, like a business manager, you are striving to get the best from all your players all the time.  What a lot of us do is focus on the technical stuff, in soccer this is touch and control, vision, moving the ball, moving off the ball, passing and finishing among dozens of other skills and techniques.  In an accounting firm, this might be answering the phone, greeting visitors, running client meetings, processing returns, balancing ledgers, filing, reviewing, auditing and dozens of other critical functions.

Last season my boys were in the championship game of a tournament.  They had dominated their bracket winning all three games and outscoring the opponents 15-0.  They were playing in top form when we went into the final game.  In this final game they came out flat, were out of sync, were not moving well, were not passing well and were not creating chances.  They gave up two great chances to the opponent, one resulting in an opposition goal.  It was 97 degrees on a Sunday afternoon in September when they came off the field at halftime down 0-1.

As a coach, like a business manager, you have all sorts of choices of how to respond and give direction when your team is not performing the way you desire.  My boys know how to play the game, they know each position, its role and how to execute their jobs in those roles.  They did not need me telling them how to do this again.  I needed to tell them they could do this and put them in a good frame of thought to go get it done.

At halftime we discussed three corrections to make in the play of the game and then… I told the boys two jokes.  After the second joke, they were all laughing and commenting on the jokes to each other.  We huddled up then and, in this new frame of mind, focused on the second half.  The boys went out and scored 5 goals and won the championship game 5-1.

Right now in your office it is likely 97% stress on a Tuesday morning.  Your team is in the final stretch of tax season and they might need you to help them reframe their thinking.  Check in with them regularly, let them all know you are in it together and then have a good laugh.  I suspect the end of the season might go more smoothly, be more enjoyable and everyone will perform a bit better.