The Winning Environment
Six Lessons Every Coach Must Teach
Lesson 1: Culture Isn't Created. It's Coached.
By Joe “Big House” Kenn, VP of Performance Education
Walk into almost any athletic department today and you are going to hear the word culture. It has become one of the most popular words in sports, business, and leadership. Every program says it has a culture, every staff talks about building culture, and plenty of facilities have words painted on the walls describing what that culture is supposed to represent. The question is whether those words actually match what happens every day when the athletes walk through the door.
In my eyes, culture is not created by a slogan. Culture is coached. It is the accumulation of what we teach, what we reinforce, what we recognize, and, just as importantly, what we are willing to tolerate. Every training session gives us another opportunity to show athletes what matters in our environment. If we want accountability, discipline, respect, competitiveness, and teamwork, those qualities have to become visible behaviors rather than words hanging on a wall.
One of the biggest mistakes we can make is assuming athletes already understand our standards. Coaches spend tremendous time teaching technique because we know an athlete cannot execute a movement correctly if we have never shown them what correct execution looks like. I believe behavior deserves the same attention. We have to define the standard, demonstrate the standard, reinforce the standard, and correct the athlete when the standard is not being met.
The weight room is one of the best places in an athletic program to accomplish this because we see athletes repeatedly throughout the year. That repetition matters. Culture is not built during one emotional team meeting in August. It is built during ordinary days in January, March, June, and October when nobody is watching except the people inside the room.
Make the Standard Visible
A strong culture becomes easier to understand when athletes can see exactly what the expectations look like. That does not require a complicated handbook. It requires clarity and consistency from the coaching staff. Some of the most important standards in a training environment are incredibly simple:
Be on time and ready to work.
Attack every repetition with purpose and intent.
Respect the facility, the equipment, and the people in it.
Spot, encourage, and support your teammates.
Accept coaching and corrections without excuses.
Finish the job before moving on to the next one.
None of those behaviors will make the front page of the newspaper, but over time they tell you a great deal about a team. Small behaviors become habits. Habits establish expectations. Expectations eventually become the identity of the group. That is when culture becomes real.
What We Tolerate Becomes the Standard
Athletes are always watching the coaching staff. They notice whether the same rules apply to the starter and the fourth-string player. They notice whether a coach ignores poor behavior from a talented athlete but corrects everyone else. They notice whether we live the values we ask them to live. Consistency creates credibility, and credibility is one of the most valuable assets a coach can have.
This does not mean every athlete is coached exactly the same way. Coaching is personal, and different athletes may require different methods of communication. The standard, however, should remain recognizable. The athlete needs to know what the program stands for and what is expected when they enter the environment.
We spend hours writing programs, selecting exercises, organizing training weeks, and determining sets and reps. All of that matters. But the best program in the world will never reach its potential inside a poor environment. The equipment can be first class, the facility can be beautiful, and the programming can be scientifically sound, but people ultimately determine what happens inside those four walls.
That is why culture has to be coached with the same intentionality that we coach the squat, the clean, the press, or the sprint. We teach it. We reinforce it. We protect it. Then, over time, the athletes begin protecting it themselves. When that happens, you have built something far more valuable than a great weight room. You have built an environment people are proud to represent.
Big House Coaching Challenge
Identify one behavior that you believe should define your program. For the next week, coach that behavior as intentionally as you coach exercise technique. Explain what it looks like, recognize it when athletes demonstrate it, and correct it when they do not. At the end of the week, ask yourself whether the athletes could clearly tell someone else why that behavior matters to your program.
— Coach Joe “Big House” Kenn
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