Episode 474: How Does Practice Shape Your Culture?

Episode 474: How Does Practice Shape Your Culture?

Podcast available on: iTunes | Spotify | YouTube

On a call with a coach this week, they were struggling to find to "carve out time" for culture building with their team. Our schedule is so packed already that most of their time is spent on the floor, field, or court.

This roundtable gets right to the point: culture is built in practice. The conversation looks at how to bring your values into the practice plan, teach athletes to compete with intensity, and make the most of the time you already have through thoughtful rhythm and efficient planning.

You don’t need more time to build culture. You may just need to look at the time you already have in a new way—and this episode could change how you approach your next practice.

TOC 3-2-1

3 QUOTES WORTH WRITING DOWN

“A lot of times the way that we’ve used some of those classroom times or those team meeting times, or those connection times is really like pulling into the pit stop and tuning up the car, but then we’re putting it back out on the road. And practice is really the road.”

— Nate Sanderson

“The standard isn’t a standard until we start actually holding that standard with our players, and the majority of those standards are being held within practice.”

— J.P. Nerbun

“It doesn’t help them to tell them what they’re not doing. It does help them to make them aware of the opportunities they have, to signal an opportunity before they’re in it.”

— Betsy Butterick

2 QUESTIONS FOR YOUR TEAM

Q1: Where in our practice plan do our team values actually show up, and where do they only live on the wall?

Q2: What part of practice makes you feel like you are getting better, and what part leaves you wondering why we are doing it?

1 RESOURCE TO GO DEEPER

The Gap and the Gain by Dan Sullivan and Dr. Benjamin Hardy

JP brought this book into the conversation. It separates measuring yourself against an ideal (the gap) from measuring against where you started (the gain), a useful lens for any coach who catches themselves saying their team should be much further along.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Practice is where culture lives, not where it gets tuned. Team meetings are the pit stop. Practice is the road. We agreed that practice is the purest expression of your culture, the place where athletes experience it most and where you can put your thumb on the scale the heaviest. If your culture work lives only in the classroom, you are tuning the car and never driving it.

A standard isn't a standard until you practice it. We set standards in team meetings, but most of them get held on the practice floor. Betsy’s advice is to build your practice plan, then go back and find the segment where a team value can be seen in action. It does not have to be every value or every practice, because what gets reinforced becomes part of the fabric of the culture. JP added that if we co-create standards but run practice as fully coach-led, we invite resistance.

Going hard is a skill, so teach it. When coaches complain that athletes cannot go hard, are not competitive, or sulk, Nate’s first response is to ask whether they know how: to go hard for four minutes straight, to encourage a teammate, to take coaching. Betsy shared a cycle that builds those reps: create awareness of the value, signal the opportunity before the drill, give players something specific to do, then reinforce it when they do it. Telling athletes what they are not doing does not help them.

Efficient, game-like practice tells athletes you value their time. Nate wants practice as efficient as possible and built around what actually happens in games, so no lane slides when you guard people and no finishing against cones. Betsy pointed to small shifts, like where the ball racks sit and where you stand, that send the same message. JP added that a practice short enough to leave players wanting more beats one that squeezes out every last drop, and that one clear success criterion beats five things at once.

Intensity is a rhythm. Frustration is a rep. Full focus for a full practice is not sustainable, so Betsy recommends moving between focused work and lighter moments. When frustration hits, her 30-second reset builds mental skills inside the drill: raise a hand if you are frustrated, find three things you see, listen for two sounds, take one breath. JP shared that Dusty May credits Doug Lemov with changing his reaction to mistakes, from being bothered by them to being glad players made one so he can help fix it.

Start where your players are, then check your own reaction. Nate’s challenge: what would happen if you walked into practice, accepted where your players are, and coached from there? JP tied it to The Gap and the Gain: obsessing over the distance to the ideal breeds unhappiness, while noticing the gain builds momentum. Nate closed with the deepest layer: if you carry anger about a lack of effort, that anger is yours to own, and without that awareness, standards and practice design become secondary.

ACTION ITEMS FOR LEADERS AND COACHES

MATCH A VALUE TO A DRILL

Pick one team value and one segment of tomorrow’s practice plan where it can show up. Name the opportunity before the drill, give players one specific behavior to try, and celebrate it when you see it.

TEACH ONE PRACTICE SKILL

Choose one behavior you keep asking for, like going hard for four minutes or encouraging a teammate, and ask yourself whether you have ever taught it. Then give it reps the same way you would give reps to a drill.

AUDIT YOUR PRACTICE PLAN

Review your next practice plan and cut or shorten one thing that never shows up in games. End one segment while players still want more.

RUN A 30-SECOND RESET

Pause the drill the next time frustration spikes and ask who is feeling it. Have them find three things they see, two sounds they hear, and take one breath, then run the drill again.

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