Your Team's Culture is Like a Fish Tank

As we navigate that awkward time between the end of fall tournaments, recruiting shutdowns, dead periods, NFCA Convention, and the holidays, both college and travel ball coaches look to refill their emotional and physical gas tanks as they assess their fall games and practices and reassess what needs to be tweaked before their rapidly approaching spring season comes roaring in like a lion. It’s also the perfect time to talk about team culture.

Often after the fall, everyone feels good, playing time is shared, freshmen have shaken off the first semester jitters and every coach’s team is undefeated. Former college coach legend Carol Hutchins at the University of Michigan was once asked at the NFCA (National Fastpitch Coaches Association) convention as a speaker how she thought her team would do in the spring. With a truthful and spirited tongue, she replied, “How the hell I am supposed to know?!”

Everyone let out a chuckle! But there was an honesty and relatable reality to her response because the truth of it, in December, no college coach would know how their team could respond to the vigorous and demanding upcoming 56-game schedule spanning over just 3 months.

As a coach, you meticulously plan and attempt to implement new ideas with your team each fall in hopes of building a foundation of consistency, accountability, and competitiveness that will show up when adversity strikes. The topic of “team culture” is fascinating for one simple fact: you are never there.

Culture isn’t something you achieve.

I’ve never heard a coach say or read a book that eluded to a golden trophy being handed over to display on your bookshelf that says “YOU DID IT!” once a culture has been won.

Culture is something you have to work on every single day. It’s like owning a fish tank. The tank is your program. It could be a small bowl or a complex rectangle housing gallons and gallons of water. The fish? You guessed it. Your players. It’s important when looking for fish for your tank, you find the right species, size, color, temperament, and compatibility with others; in other words, can they co-exist in the same community? If ever you’ve recruited a player this should sound familiar.

But here’s the thing. Once you’ve identified a fish or a school of fish you want to see in your aquarium, you can’t just toss them in and expect them to survive. You have to acclimate them first. This means that the water chemicals and temperature in your tank must be equal to their current water habitat or the fish will go into shock. If this sounds like players going into the transfer portal, you are right!

As a coach, tending to your fish tank every day is critical. Some days the tasks are easy and can be controlled from within; like skimming food off the top of the water or checking the temperature of the water. On other days, it’s going to require a lot more maintenance. The filter will need to be changed, the water heater adjusted, the pH balance is off, bullies or aggressive fish need to be relocated, and the sides of the tank wiped down from growing algae if you haven’t already recruited an algae eater to take care of that!

From a coach’s perspective, that might look like conflict management between two teammates, team bonding experiences off the field, medical emergencies, one-on-one conversations, culture conversations addressing social bias’, discrimination, or injustices, and the list goes on.

But how do you check your team’s fish tank everyday?

It’s simple.

Use the locker room test. No locker room? Just look at your dugout when your team is on defense or equipment shed when practice is over.

How organized is it? How clean is the floor? Are every player’s bags hung up or are there dirty clothes on the floor? Does your team line up their gloves before warming up? Did anyone stay after and pick up trash?

If players aren’t managing the temperature or pH balance in addition to you, then your balance is off and needs to be adjusted. While culture isn’t something you achieve, often it’s something you can see.

If you’re a current coach, ask your team to describe, draw, or even set up a real fish tank if you’re brave enough that best depicts what they believe their team culture looks like and why.

Bring to life some of the challenges, such as what happens when the team travels for 4 days? Who will take care of the fish? Who is responsible for feeding, cleaning, maintenance, and cost of ownership?

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