How in the world did I get here?
This thought is at the forefront of my mind a lot these days. Especially when I’m meeting the C-Suite of my new employer at our Manhattan office. I have to go from that meeting to a project management meeting regarding a new product, and after that, a meeting to discuss performance algorithms that improve user experience. About 8 months ago when I was preparing for the Tokyo Olympic Games, I didn’t even know what a lot of these terms meant.
Oh, how fast things can evolve.
I have spent my entire career as a sports performance coach; I climbed the traditional ladder through the career going from intern, to Graduate Assistant, to full-time assistant, and then to being the Head Performance Coach for USA Beach Volleyball. It was an amazing journey that was both professionally and personally rewarding. I met some of my closest friends through my job and led a very fulfilled life. It was always challenging in the perfect way, forcing me to think with an open mind and not get caught up in the dogma that usually resides in the strength & conditioning profession. I started my first summer performance camps, my first real exposure to an entrepreneurial venture. It was also what led to meeting my wife and starting our family, which in turn led to the creation of The Dad Strength Podcast. When people think of a “dream job”, they look for personal and professional fulfillment and success; I was able to achieve that when I stepped in the Michigan weight room as an intern.
The conversation within my family changed shortly after my son was born. My wife and I have always been very professionally driven but it was finally time to put family first. Without any jobs lined up, we decided to strategize a move to be closer to her family. At first this thought was exciting, then the job search started.
I quickly realized that if I wanted to give my family the life we were looking for I would not be able to accept any of the S&C jobs that I found, so I widened the search. This led me to my current role, a blend of applied sports science and product management.
This job is truly something I never imagined as I was working as a strength & conditioning coach. However, there are many skills that I developed as a coach that have helped with my transition into another profession. The primary, and topic of this post, being the “soft skills”.
First off, we need to clarify that the term “soft skills” is in quotes for a reason; because they are not soft. In fact, communication skills and influence tactics are two of the most studied topics in the world of behavioral science. There are so many resources these days that bring this information to light for coaches and professionals, most notably Brett Bartholomew’s company Art of Coaching. The key, however, is that coaches need to study these topics as much as they read up on periodization and nervous system readiness.
I remember talking to my friend and he said, “You need to be able to converse with blue collar workers at a bar just as well as you can converse with tech executives in a board room”. This is called agile communication and it is something that coaches have the opportunity to practice every day on the job. It’s just a matter of if they do it or not.
Think about the physical form of agility; the reactive ability to change direction based on an external stimulus. Agile communication is the ability to change communication styles and tactics based on who you are communicating with and the context of the situation. For example, talking to a freshman is different than talking a senior. Talking to a sport coach is different than talking to another performance coach, which is different than talking to an administrator in the business office about budgetary responsibilities. The communication style after a win or a great workout session is different than after a loss or a poor workout. This may seem obvious, but I know several coaches who would approach all of these conversations and interactions the same way, THEIR WAY.
My new job is fully remote which leads to the majority of my days consisting of countless Zoom meetings. These meetings are 1:1s, small groups, or large groups, and each meeting is on a different topic led by different people. If I were to come into every meeting with only my personal communication style and context on the front of my mind, that severely limits my ability to understand others perspectives and collaborate, which in turn limits the overall effectiveness of that interaction. It’s important to adjust and adapt to the communication environment you find yourself in.
Sometimes, we call this “being a chameleon,” meaning we need to blend into the environment we put ourselves in. However, this mentality tends to blunt verbal expression in order to not rock any boats. This is the wrong way to look at the problem. We should not simply blend in, we should strategize our communication tactics based on the environment to MAXIMIZE OUR IMPACT! Agile communication is not about making everyone happy or being everyones best friend, it is about finding the ideal communication method to optimize your influence in a social interaction.
In order to improve your agile communication, one must consider who they are talking to, their personality, their communication styles, and the context of their situation in that conversation. When you communicate WITH the person/people in the conversation instead of TO that person/people, you’ll find those interactions are more productive and the relationships you build with those involved become stronger. Again, improving agile communication is not about being everyones friend, it is about finding the best ways to effectively influence a situation or conversation.
This concept of agile communication helps me answer that burning question, “How in the world did I get here?”. When I have a meeting with data scientists or the product team, I figure out their context of that conversation, their communication style, and their perspective; this helps me better navigate and positively influence those interactions. These skills were originally developed as a performance coach working with many different athletes, teams, sport coaches, and administrators and they have transferred well into this new profession. Agile communication along with the natural hustle that comes with starting in a new industry really helps when transitioning out of the performance coaching profession.
Stay Strong My Friends
Christian