NCAA and University of Washington Legend joined Megan McCormick, Rush Soccer’s Coach Education Consultant, to discuss ways to Manage The Performance Environment, on a MUST LISTEN episode of The Rush Podcast Network (Click HERE to Listen).
“We are fortunate to share a conversation with an absolute legend in the game, a woman who needs very little introduction“, stated Megan McCormick at the beginning of her interview. Lesle Gallimore‘s background and experience definitely validate the statement, as she is one of the most respected and experienced soccer coaches in the USA, a Washington Youth Soccer Hall of Famer, and NSCAA National Coach of the Year (2000), among others, and we had the privilege to connect with her during a brand-new episode of The Rush Podcast Network.
Find below some of our takeaways from the conversation:
“If you are striving to be elite, there are so many different people and things that go into your performance environment, that it can get overwhelming. Strategies and processes are key”, Lesle explained.
“Communication is everything. I don’t think there is such thing as overcommunicating”, she added, and went deeper to explain the importance of “open, honest, and frequent communication with everyone who might influence the environment”.
Lesle’s emphasis in the importance of communication and recognition of stakeholders was a common denominator along the conversation. As a matter of fact, these were brought up as well when Megan inquired on what she considers key steps to successfully manage any performance environment, to what she listed:
- Prioritizing areas of opportunity.
- Having a plan to influence your environment.
- First thing to think about is the people.
And also when commenting on Common characteristics of the best performance environments:
- Focusing on individual people’s strengths.
- Clear and consistent focus on priorities.
- Communication.
- Positive, solution-oriented mentality.
Another area that was frequently highlighted by Lesle was to focus on individuals, escaping from one-size-fits-all approaches. This was evident not only on the above but also when weighting on the age old debate of focusing on Development vs. Winning. Here, our guest speaker spoke about achieving results by focusing on the plan for each individual player above everything else.
It wasn’t an exception when she shared her personal philosophy to manage the Girls Academy League: “My guiding light is the players. So wherever there is a difficult decision to make, making sure I’m not just listening to the loudest voice in the room… and just trying to do what’s best for the ‘team’ (players), using players and their experiences as my guiding light when I make decisions”.
When asked what advice she would offer to her younger self: “There is no substitute for experience. You have to go through it. You have to be willing to suck. You have to be willing to fail. You have to go through it”.
Thank you for a spectacular Podcast, Lesle and Megan!