PRO TIP: Teachers and Coaches, Don't Be the DMV.
I once had a conversation with an older coach at an conference. It's a little-known truth that coaches are the worst gossips on earth; that day, we were in a cluster trading stories when the subject of school dress codes came up.
"I make my players dress *better* than the school dress code," he told me.
I pointed out that I never worried too much about dress codes because, in my view, it's a parent's job to decide how their child should dress, not mine. (I still haven't figured out exactly where I land on this issue; in general, as long as the kid is dressed decently and modestly, I don't care about much else.) I wasn't really arguing with him; just offering an alternate perspective to keep the conversation going.
He sniffed in disapproval. "I don't care what their parents think. They'll do what I tell them to because I'm the coach," he said.
And, in a sense, he was right. Odds are, they'll do whatever he tells them to do. After all, if you love a sport, you're going to do whatever it takes to play that sport. But if they're only doing it because he's the coach, nobody's learning anything that really matters.
The point, of course, isn't about dress codes. It's about how we view ourselves, and our students. More fundamentally, it's about how we view our interactions as human beings.
His authoritarian approach may be effective in the short term at managing behavior, but it's only effective at the DMV level: nobody goes to the DMV because they want to; we go because we have to. In fact, if a law was passed tomorrow that said nine-toed people never had to go to the DMV again, the ERs of America would fill up tonight with the victims of lawnmower "accidents."
The DMV doesn't change people's lives. It ruins people's days. It's a source of dread, not inspiration. And this coach was making a career-long intentional decision to be the DMV to his players. Even worse--he seemed oddly proud of that fact.
I found myself thinking of this in church recently, where a phrase has made its way into my pastor's sermons several times in the past few weeks. Over and over again, Trip has hammered on the principle of relational equity.
The simple idea is this: just like you have equity in your house, you can create equity in a relationship. And just like you can leverage your home's equity to impact your own finances, you can leverage relational equity to impact someone else's worldview.
Another coach I know quotes John Maxwell constantly, saying a more folksy version of the same thing: "You better have some change built up in your pockets before you start trying to change people."
Yes, it's simpler to boss people around. Yes, it's tempting to make it all too clear that you hold all the cards. Yes, it's easy to make sure your students and players know that all the power is on your side of the desk.
And, more terrifyingly: it will work. You'll have marvelously-behaved rule-followers. They'll dot their every I, cross their every T, and rigorously walk the line...
...as long as you're in the room.
But: just like you do everything to avoid coming back to the DMV the second you walk out the door, they'll do everything they can to avoid your classes and dodge your presence. And they'll never change their minds or heart--just their short-term behavior.
If you want your players to dress up, there's nothing fundamentally wrong with that. But be careful--if your preferred method of explaining that is "Because I said so," don't expect many of them to remember the lesson long after the last buzzer of their career sounds.
This is not to say that there aren't times when the good of the team or classroom requires a firm executive decision; obviously, sometimes the boss has to make a boss-level call. Rather, this post is merely an acknowledgment of the fact that, if you've built up enough relational equity, those moments should be few and far between. If you're good at your job, you simply shouldn't have to use "Because I said so" all that often.
If that's how your class or team operates, consider the possibility that you're looking at it backwards. It's not "They'll **have** to do what I say because they know I'm the leader."
Instead, maybe it's "I know I'm the leader **because** they do what I say."
How do you begin to develop that relational equity with students? Click here for ten days of ideas. Or leave your own ideas in the comments.
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