#054 - Vehicle Version: Strategies Behind Agile Organizations

In this episode of the Decoding Excellence Show, we're returning to our Monday Minute and Vehicle Version (explains the audio difference) and are discussing some of the strategies behind agile startups, tools we utilize to enhance our departmental communication, and what we need to do as an industry to be prepare for the next pandemic.

As a reminder, our Monday Minutes shows are a quick 10-15 minute episode where I discuss current industry trends, research reads, current events, and occasionally offer my insights into the training process that we're undertaking each week. I believe with conviction, you'll take away something interesting from this show and I hope it delivers you a little bit of value in your day.

As always, thank you for supporting The Decoding Excellence Show!

In addition to those social mediums, you can head over to AdamRingler.com/Newsletter and sign-up for my weekly newsletter. This is a newsletter for the curious. It's chalked full of interesting articles I've read through the week, things I'm exploring and finding fascinating through my week, and a collections of thought experiences and resources I've cultivated. It's essentially a Birchbox for performance-related articles and musings.

If you are looking to help grow and support the Decoding Excellence show, navigate over to Buy Me a Coffee. Buy Me A Coffee is a an easy & fun way to support the show. For the price of a Grande Latte ☕ you can support the show and help us maintain the quality of the content. One hundred percent of the contributions go directly to supporting the hosting fees associated with operating this podcast.

If any of the material resonates with you, I'd love for you engage with me at @AdamRingler

Thanks again for listening to the Decoding Excellence Show! I appreciate all the support growing this Sport Science, Strength & Conditioning, and High-Performance Coaching resource. If you have taken anything away from the show, please login to iTunes and navigate to Decoding Excellence page and leave us a review.

Key Takeaways

• Strategies from agile startups can be applied to how performance departments operate and communicate.
• The episode covers tools used to enhance departmental communication and what the industry needs to do to prepare for the next pandemic.

Listen and Subscribe

Find this episode of the Decoding Excellence Show on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, or use the player above.

Go Further in This Episode

Enjoyed this conversation? Here is how to get more from it:

• Read the transcript below to revisit key ideas at your own pace.
• Share this episode with a coach or colleague who would benefit.
• Subscribe to the Decoding Excellence Show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite app.
• Join the newsletter at adamringler.com/newsletter for weekly insights on human performance.

Episode Transcript

This transcript was automatically generated. While we strive for accuracy, some words or phrases may be misheard.

[00:00:00] Sport science, strength conditioning, high performance coaching, welcome to the Decoding Excellence show. Hey everybody, it is Adam. I want to remind you of one thing, rather than spamming the show with herbal tea advertisements or performance technology companies coming on and trying to sell their latest gizmos, I have opted not to have an advertisement over the last, probably 20 shows or so, 20, 25

[00:00:44] Shows. And the reason I do this is because rather than trying to sell you something, all I would like for you to do, if you support the show, if you're a fan of the Decoding Excellence show, maybe some of the interviews that we've had in the past, some of the monologues that we're having some of the Monday Minute episodes, please head over to AdamRingler.com forward slash newsletter.

[00:01:04] About once a month, I'll send you an email, and it will be jacked full of really interesting things. Research articles, fascinating things I found online, books, some reading, podcasts that I've enjoyed, articles that I'm writing, things and people that I'm interviewing and exploring. I think you're going to get a lot out of it. I promise I won't spam you, and it will be something that would deliver a lot of value

[00:01:23] To your day. Check it out at AdamRingler.com forward slash newsletter. Hey, everybody. I am your host, Adam Ringler, and welcome to the Decoding Excellence Show. This is a Monday Minute's type of show. It is a vehicle version of the show, the Decoding Excellence Show, where we typically interview

[00:01:45] High-performance practitioners from across the globe to distill their intangibles, right? Tactics, the tools, the techniques that go into world-class performance. Today, I am doing a vehicle version of the show, where I'm just sharing some of my thoughts about the industry, about sports science, about strength, conditioning, and the world of athletics. Stay tuned.

[00:02:10] I think you'll get a lot out of this episode. As always, if you are a repeated listener, thank you so much for supporting the Decoding Excellence Show. If this is the first time, then welcome to the Decoding Excellence Show. I hope you continue to support the show and continue to listen. I think you will get a lot out of it.

[00:02:29] Without further ado, here is my Monday Minutes on the vehicle version of the Decoding Excellence Show. Thank you. Hey, everybody. Welcome to the audio driving edition of the Decoding Excellence Show. Don't worry, my eyes are on the road.

[00:02:48] Obviously, I'm doing the responsible thing, but I do want to have this little vehicle conversation, right? Because we often have conversations with significant others or family members or friends all while driving a vehicle. Today, I thought it was a great opportunity as I'm driving into to pick up one item that I absolutely is critical to what I need to do on a day-to-day basis, help me to do some

[00:03:16] Of the work from home work that I normally do, and I thought, hey, let's have this conversation while I'm doing what I need to do while I'm driving it to get what I need. So how do enough waffling here, enough pandering, but today I wanted to talk, obviously we are in this global pandemic of the COVID-19 coronavirus, and we are having to adopt some different strategies for training our student athletes, whether that is remote training programs, EDFs, programs that are sent home.

[00:03:52] There's a number of different software solutions that practitioners and coaches are utilizing to remote deploy their strength conditioning program. And I think this is just a, another road bump or hurdle that we have to jump over and navigate as practitioners. And I think if you are in a position where you have a little bit of agility with the way that you conduct your workflows, right?

[00:04:20] So what I mean by that is through a hard press to do it a certain way, if you're willing to adopt new strategies, new technologies, new best practices, or even just practices, maybe they're not even deemed best practices yet, then I think you have a greater chance of surviving this professionally, and with the agility that you need to adopt, to an ever-changing time, which is where we're at in sport and athletics right now. So several days ago, I think on Twitter, I presented an article that was nearly four years

[00:04:58] Old. It's shocking to me that it's as old as it is, and it was discussing my utilization, our department's utilization, of a tool that we use called Slack and continue to use here at CU Boulder. And why I present this, and this article talks about in many ways that we utilize this tool its communication hub.

[00:05:19] It was initially meant as, it's almost like an AOL in sentencing, if you will, if you remember that analogy, it's better in your mind to see what's up of the global workplace, trying to think of some other analogies that may be more millennials, and in generation I-wise, might understand the snapchat of the workplace perhaps, but it allows to have real-time conversations in the channels, rather than living out of an inbox. So you can have multiple simultaneous conversations in different channels and chat rooms, if you

[00:05:54] Will. But I discussed how we utilize Slack at another organization that I was at, and it's funny to me that in this global pandemic, the number one thing I start to hear from practitioners is the overall need to improve communication, to have communication, to have an uptick in the communication that they have between departments, because let's face it, we are not rubbing elbows with each other, there's no water cooler chat that we would typically

[00:06:22] Otherwise have during our day-to-day operations, as we cross paths through the hallways of the training grounds, and why I wanted to circle back to this four-year-old conversation is, and presented again how we use this tool, but this is just another opportunity, another maybe case study or scenario where we as sport coaches need to start thinking like rather than the old adage of the old stand-by, as the old Microsofts of the world, the IBMs, the boards, the general motors, we need to start thinking like the Tesla's, the startups, and

[00:07:04] The young, more bootstrapped agile startup companies, and start thinking about the unknown, the black swans, how do we predict or at least position ourselves in a way that we pivot quickly in an ever-changing environment, so I look at the departments that I've been a part of, as small little startup companies, and I try to think about, okay, if this is a small startup, we need to make sure our marketing is on point, we need our internal and external PR, we need to make sure our business operations, our finances, our executive

[00:07:43] Team, our board of directors, everybody within this small department needs to start to think strategically and also needs to start working together, how do we build this and utilize different technological tools and resources to be able to, I don't know, have video chats right, and this is something where, as an aside, I've just talked to here about performance teams, I think everybody is jumping on, this is Zoom, Ben, and Wagon, and there's been a number of articles that's talked about privacy, encryption, and things like that, and I'll

[00:08:15] Leave that up to you regardless of what the publications might say, but nonetheless, I look at it, I'm like, the world is just discovering that Zoom exists, Zoom's been around forever, guys, so start thinking about technological resources that other companies are harnessing and leveraging to their benefit, and start thinking about what applications that you may have to be able to have these technological touchpoints with student athletes or with departments across athletic department or else, because truth is, we need to be agile,

[00:08:52] We need to be able to change course, we need to be able to pivot, if you are dead set in your way, set the only way that you collect wearable technologies, outputs is in a physical proximity to a student athlete, then this is going to render that impossible, you don't have those touchpoints anymore, and the only way that you program is Microsoft Word or Microsoft Excel, unless you're printing that up and mailing it off in an envelope, you're not going to get that to, unless you converted to a PDF and you know that, again, you might

[00:09:28] Not get that to, so what tools are you leveraging to be able to remotely deploy programming? How are you collecting well-being questionnaires if the only way you do that is pencil and paper, or, you know, on a clipboard, so we have to start thinking, how do we use technologies to better this student athlete experience in the post-COVID-19 era, and fundamentally, does this change the best practices that we have to better prepare in the agile for another type of pandemic or another type of disturbance that prevents us from being

[00:10:08] Faced-to-face with the student athlete. Look, that's the number one thing I miss about coaching right now, about my interactions, my role, and my involvement at CU Boulder, it's just the daily interactions that I have with my athletes, with the coaches in service, the department as a whole. So, you know, just, yeah, I fundamentally believe that we'll go back to that someday, but we'll return to normal athletics, right, the daily interactions of long hours, you

[00:10:39] Know, the time away from friends and family, all of that, right, we'll get back to normal C in some sake, but, and as a huge disclaimer, as a huge maybe asterisk behind that, but, if we don't, then how do we return to a new normal, a post-COVID-19 normal, and what do we do, and what does that world look like, and how are we preparing for it, so we can be better ready for that? Let's say we never return back to that physical training.

[00:11:10] Can we still be successful as strength and conditioning coaches? I argue, yes, I argue that we might be able to be more successful in some respects. Now, that might sound shocking and it might sound as clickbait, but perhaps we can have a new normalcy of what strength and conditioning is, and how we operate, and how we serve as teams. So, again, my head is spinning, thinking about these things, but, ultimately, I just want

[00:11:39] To make sure that we are positioning our industry, strengthening and an industry that is better off, an industry that is more agile, an industry that is more prepared for the demands of what we might face down the road. And I'm challenging you, if you're listening to this small little vehicle audio edition of the Dakota Excellence Show, I challenge you, what are you doing to prepare your department, or prepare as an individual, or prepare as a coach, or a practitioner, or a sports scientist,

[00:12:13] Or a nutritionist, or whatever you might be, whatever role that you are responsible for, how are you preparing to be better positioned to leverage your unique skill set in a world that might be disrupted? Hey, everybody. That's going to be a wrap for this version, the vehicle version of the Dakota Excellence Show.

[00:12:41] And I hope you took something away from this conversation, this monologue, the siliquee, as I discussed how to be agile. How to be willing to pivot, how to prepare for the next pandemic, the next disaster that we might face, whether it's the NCAA, or in our industry. And as always, there's a number of different ways that you can support the show, right? The first thing is I have a monthly newsletter that goes out.

[00:13:10] It is located at Adam Ringler, dot com forward slash newsletter. And like I said in the intro, it is chocked full of great articles, research papers, sort of daily notes, things I'm finding fascinating and experimenting with, and being a human guinea pig with to try to change my own behaviors, my own habits. But ultimately, to really try to improve my life and get something a little bit more meaningful out of it.

[00:13:35] So head over to adamringler.com forward slash newsletter, pop in your email, and I promise you, you'll get the welcome email and you'll start receiving those monthly updates. And you won't regret it. I'm not going to spend send you a bunch of spam messages or anything like that. I really think that you'll get a lot out of it and check it out. I get questions every single time we publish, either an article or the latest update to

[00:14:03] The Decoding Excellence Show. And the question I often receive is, how do I support this show? Well, we have a new way that the audience and the crowd and everybody else here can support the Decoding Excellence Show. Head over to buymeacoffee.com forward slash adamringler. It's actually not buying me a coffee.

[00:14:23] I know the name sounds sort of confusing or misleading, if you will. But what it is is it's a platform, sort of a crowdsourcing way of donating to the show. The idea is that you would donate a coffee, right? $5, $4 or whatever, to the decoding excellence show. And what we do with this is we turn the proceeds directly over to supporting the hosting of the Decoding Excellence Show, aren't whether it's on Spotify or on SimpleCast or iTunes

[00:14:54] And elsewhere. And it supports the hosting fees for our website and the decoding excellence Decoding Excellence Show. So if you want to support the show, you can buy me a coffee. You can buy seven coffees, you buy yourself a coffee. Otherwise, please head over, check it out.

[00:15:10] It is buymeacoffee.com forward slash adamringler. I'll include it in the show notes. And as always, thank you for supporting the decoding excellence show.