Looking to help your people train faster and more effectively? There’s a lot you can learn from the world of sports.
We sure did. In fact, Learn to Win’s earliest power users were professional sports teams. Today, Stanley Cup and Super Bowl champions — not to mention dozens of top NCAA programs — rely on Learn to Win to make their training fast, focused, and effective.
Along the way, we discovered that the highest-performing teams are world-class learning organizations. So, if you think about your organization as a team – and yourself as a coach – you can discover powerful ways to help your team get better, faster.
In this piece, we’ll give you a behind-the-scenes look at how the highest-performing teams teach and learn. You’ll see that our sports clients grapple with many of the same learning challenges that you face. And you’ll leave with 4 techniques to help your team learn as effectively as the best teams.
Learning Lessons from Stanley Cup and Super Bowl Champions: A Micro-Series
Why should you care?
You compete in an environment of constant change. Consumer preferences evolve, new technologies emerge, and fresh competitors enter the arena. The things that gave you an edge yesterday are table stakes today.
In this context, there’s only one sustainable competitive advantage: Your team’s ability to adapt to changes faster than the competition. That’s why learning matters.
You’re not the only leader grappling with this challenge. Take it from Mike Sullivan, Head Coach of the Pittsburgh Penguins: “Pro sports is a really competitive environment that’s constantly changing. The game is constantly evolving – even today’s athletes are different than they were 20 years ago.”
Last year, Sullivan became the winningest coach in Penguins franchise history. And he attributes the Penguins’ success to the culture of learning that he and his staff have fostered.
“For us, learning is a pillar of strength,” Mike Sullivan says. “We create a learning environment with our players. Each and every day we focus their mindsets on the process of trying to improve.”
Ready to dive in deeper? We’ve broken down our agile learning process into a short series for you to enjoy:
What Does Your Organization Have in Common with Elite Sports Teams?
Agile Learning Lessons: How Elite Sports Teams Make their Training Fast, Focused, and Flexible
