Chris Gallagher has a great article on FreelapUSA.com on what high performance is really about and what it's not. The article is filled with gems, here are a few that resonated with me:
“High performance is about much more than the name and facilities and equipment. It is not merely about capturing data”
“What, then, is a real high-performance environment? To me, it consists of three simple, yet major facets: people, philosophies, and culture.”
“People are, or should be, your greatest commodity, your greatest resource in a high-performance environment. Talented, driven, inquisitive and ambitious people are essential”
“Many coaches have a very large toolbox but cannot decide what to do because they don’t have a philosophy. – Dan Pfaff”
““Good coaches are better able to learn from history—because they have a philosophy,” he says, and adds that “a philosophy protects from the comings and goings of the various trends that permeate the profession. Good coaches maintain a core set of principles—and are far less influenced by the current trends of the day.””
“For a sports team littered with superstars, there is a humility, dedication to hard work and doing what needs to be done. “Ego has to be left at the door; there is a rigidly enforced ‘no d—head policy’ in the squad”
Read the full article here for a number of other good points.