David Clarke Coaching and Talent Development Team Leader - Sport Bay of Plenty

Sport Bay of Plenty was very fortunate to have Dr Ralph Pim over from the USA to deliver a coaching workshop on Leadership in a Coaching Context last week.

Dr Pim is an inspirational teacher, dynamic team builder, energetic leader and author. He is recognised as an expert in character and leader development through sport. Throughout his forty-one year career, Dr Pim has developed leaders of character and built teams of significance as a teacher, coach, mentor, athletic administrator and physical education chairperson. After serving as a Professor of Physical Education and Director of Competitive Sports for twelve years looking after twenty-seven sports at the United States Military Academy at West Point, Pim is now sharing his experiences and expertise globally as a speaker and consultant.

The workshop was delivered at the Bay of Plenty Polytechnic as part of the BayTrust Coach Force Programme and had ninety-three coaches registered from nineteen different sport codes coming from Taupo, Whakatane, Rotorua, Tauranga and Katikati. It was pleasing to see so many female coaches in attendance making up nearly fifty percent of the audience.

Dr Pim's key messages centred on driving results though character and team culture development. He says that through sport, students can learn life skills that will help them excel at their greatest potential in all areas of their lives stating that, 'Sport does not build character but rather reveals character”. All of the available evidence shows that character development and athlete centred coaching produce more scoreboard victories when the talent level is comparable. Many athletes are talented but this is just the price of admission, leadership will take them to the top but it takes character to keep you at the top. For coaches they must focus on developing the PEOPLE that generate the points on the scoreboard, the score will take care of itself.

It is your culture that produces results. Culture is the engine. It drives everything that happens in a team environment each day. Team culture is the creative sum of all the people on a team and is their collective thoughts, their beliefs and their actions. When a team of people bond together and act as one, anything is possible. Conversely, if a culture is fractured in any way, the whole is less than the sum of its parts. Culture either comes as a result of an organised effort to build it or it develops by chance. A team's culture either works for them or against them.

Feedback was extremely positive and we hope to see Dr Pim again in the Bay of Plenty next year.