Blog Post: #WinBetter or Win at all Costs: A Cost/Benefit Analysis Study on Sport Coaching
A coaching colleague described what it was like to coach the rowing team at the Royal Military College: “For them, sport was all about leadership, citizenship, sportsmanship. Sport involved building trust, collaboration skills, discipline, and focus; but ultimately sport was about becoming a better human.” She recalled how confusing it was, then, to watch the athletes in combat training: “It was non-stop yelling and cursing, it was violent, demeaning, hostile… it was abusive and it freaked me out!” When she asked about the contradiction, the…
Blog Post: We need coaches who can develop leaders, not Neanderthals and narcissists
Blog by Jennifer Walinga, PhD The tough guy mentality in sport is dead. It’s time to evolve. Interestingly, values based coaching is not new. There is a curious assumption that in order to get people to perform we must break them down. We call it ‘old school coaching’. I suppose we have inherited this mindset from the military; however, in sport, the militaristic approach does not make sense. While athletes certainly need to develop resilience in order to stretch their limits, sport is not battle…
An Evening of Women in Leadership
Each year, on International Women’s Day, Jennifer Walinga, Professor of Communication and Culture at Royal Roads University, offers a free talk on Women in Leadership. During this interactive evening session hosted at RRU’s Quarterdeck, Walinga provides an update on the status of women in leadership and challenges the participants to problem solve barriers to a more inclusive, balanced, and diverse society in all aspects of our personal and professional lives. Jennifer draws from her personal experience working with communities of leaders across public, social profit…
Blog Post: Bullying or Coaching: Are you pulling kids in, or pushing them out?
In a recent conversation with fellow coaches, we were trying to determine how best to support young coaches’ development. One of the questions we wrestled with is “what is good coaching practice?” We struggled with the the idea of Safe Sport and particularly “how do we know when something verges or leans toward bullying?” The example that arose was the idea of making an athlete ‘drop and give us 20’ when they arrive late to practice. This is a common practice at many club and…
Blog Post: Recovering from Abusive Coaching: From Surviving to Thriving
Recently, the Coaching Association of Canada was tasked with creating an updated Coaching Code of Conduct in order to address BAHD behaviours in sport (bullying, abuse, harassment, discrimination). Sport Canada and Kristy Duncan, Canada’s Minister of Science and Sport, introduced several steps to eliminating abuse of all kinds in sport including expecting NSO’s to create policy and third party reporting procedures, creating an investigative unit, establishing an athlete helpline, and funding preventative measures such as Safe Sport promotion and education. These steps toward prevention, recognition…
Blog Post: High Performance Sport is Good Sport
Recently, I attended a think tank supported by Canada’s Own the Podium (OTP), designed to explore what it will take to enhance the culture of sport and sport teams in Canada. Culture is an important high performance factor and presents an additional opportunity to enhance performance in our quest for excellence. OTP is a not-for-profit organization that prioritizes and determines investment strategies for National Sport Organizations in an effort to deliver more Olympic and Paralympic medals for Canada. What the leaders of OTP are finding is…
Blog Post: It doesn’t matter who wins…
For the first time, I don’t care who wins the nba final. I definitely care about the final – don’t get me wrong – but I don’t care who wins. I am not supporting one team over another. I love both teams and I’m looking forward to watching great basketball. This lack of alliance struck me as a rare experience. I typically choose a side even when I am unfamiliar with the sport, and even when I join late in the game. I’ve reflected on…
Blog Post: Building a Culture of Excellence in Sport – What it Actually Takes to Change the Norms
“We know that sport has the power to inspire a nation, to build leaders and to unite Canadians,” says Dasha Peregoudova, President of AthletesCAN. “That is why we are pushing hard for the necessary change to address abuse, harassment and discrimination in sport.” Dasha is spot on. If sport is to truly inspire, build, and unite, we need to delete all forms of abuse in sport. Abuse contradicts the purpose of sport to inspire, build, and unite. Abuse degrades, diminishes, and fractures. Yet somehow abuse is…
Blog Post: Passion or Abuse: What is harassment in sport?
Recently, there have been several items in the media highlighting changes in Canadian sport policy, specifically concerning bullying, abusive, harassing, and discriminatory (BAHD) coach behaviour in sport. Most NGO’s are creating their own codes of conduct and implementing the new SafeSport policy requirements including the rule of 2, criminal record checks, and ‘responsible coach’ training. With a 60% reduction in sport participation, partly due to bad coach and parent behaviour, sport is in crisis. The values in sport need to shift. As a researcher and…
Blog Post: Leadership through Sport: Competing with, not against
Marc Gasol consoles Joel Embiid after game 7 in the Raptors/76ers series and shows his class, grace, and leadership in modeling the true value of sport. These guys play with each other season after season. I say ‘with’ because one is always competing with, not against, in sport. Athletic competition is collaborative – without your opponent, there is no game, there is no challenge, there is no excellence. It’s for excellence that we all strive. I noticed that consoling his competitor was one of the…
Blog Post: Winning with Integrity
The picture above was part of a celebratory article on a youth lacrosse coach upon retirement. One of his former athletes wrote fondly of this coach’s tendency to ‘break people down’ and how while he at first rejected this approach, he learned that ‘he needed it’. I disagree. Somehow we have normalized violence in sport. We call violence ‘passion.’ We think violence is ‘natural’ to the human experience and must be ‘released’, a Freudian theoretical principle that anger released is anger spent. Anthropologists Desmond Morris…
Blog Post: Taking the Lead on Safe Sport
I’m calling on Canada to take the lead on Good, Safe, Clean and True sport. Canada is best positioned, as a world moral leader (albeit shaky of late), to take the lead on good sport. Winning can only come with integrity. It’s the Canadian Way. As a professor and research in communication, I believe that leadership is communication and communication is crucial to leading change in the area of safe and good sport. It is one thing to say we believe in integrity in sport,…
Courses and Workshops
you are ready to learn… Integrated Focus Consulting offers courses and workshops on a variety of topics and in a range of formats: Building Effective Teams Coaching for Leaders Sport Leadership – for athletes, coaches, administrators Discovering Your Leadership Building a Thriving Culture Managing Change Creativity and Innovation Management Problem Solving and Decision Making Professional Communication Skills Training Media Skills Training Strategic Planning and Communication Click here to make an inquiry today
Upcoming Conference Presentations…
Dr. Jennifer Walinga will be presenting research at various conferences this year including: Building a Thriving Culture: Values, Resilience, and Tolerance for Ambiguity Surrey School District Whistler May 2020 Winning Better: Culture, Communication, and Leadership Development for Performance in Sport IAFOR Conference – Honolulu Jan 2020 Creative Problem Solving Big Brothers of Greater Vancouver Vancouver Sept 2019 Communicating with Purpose and Professionalism BC Hydro Vancouver August 2019 Building Cultural Alignment and Leveraging Diversity Geological Survey of Canada – Pacific – Vancouver/Sidney July 2019 Building a…
Facilitation
Dr. Jennifer Walinga offers facilitation for a variety of team or organizational goals including Change, Decision Making, Strategic Planning, Team Development, Collaboration, Communication, Culture, Engagement
Team and Individual Coaching
If you are ready to optimize your performance…”Coach Jen” has worked with individuals, teams (both athletic and organizational), and organizations to help them penetrate barriers and achieve their goals.
The Corporate Athlete
If you are ready to take it up a notch … and realize the Corporate Athlete within, in this special suite of services, Integrated Focus Consulting offers a unique series of workshops, keynotes, courses and experiential learning sessions that highlight the values and principles sport can teach individuals, teams and organizations.
Problem Solving and Decision Making
If you are ready to solve tough problems… an integrated organizational strategy requires an integrated strategic framework. In Problem Solving and Decision Making Frameworks, you will learn decision making processes that help you to achieve ethical, systemic, sustainable and creative outcomes.
Managing Change
If you are ready to navigate the whitewater of change…Join Integrated Focus in Managing Change to access and maximize the creative tools, energy, and skills you possess to generate productive and sustainable change management solutions for yourself, your team and your organization
Energy Management
If you are ready to balance work and life… and are ready to get more out of both, join us for our 1 or 2 day intensive Energy Management Programs. It’s time to think differently about work/life balance. After all, work is life too!
