Boston Sports Medicine and Performance Group, LLC Blog

You've already been interviewed

Posted by Boston Sports Medicine and Performance Group on Wed, Aug 4, 2010 @ 19:08 PM

I’m amazed at the thought process employed by some people when a desirable job opens up within their organization.  It doesn’t matter what the job is.  It could be the leader of a special interest group, a Graduate Assistant Position for an unemployed graduating senior student, or even the head of your special unit.  It’s as if some people just wait their whole life for the moment that these positions magically open, and then suddenly now, as if a giant obstacle has been removed from their path, they are suddenly ready to take on this new position and all the responsibilities that come with it.

Forget that last week they wandered into work an hour late, shirt unchecked, 5 o’clock shadow at 10 am and that the TPS reports that they still haven’t completed, were suppose to be handed in with the new cover sheet last week.

“I’m still waiting on Jimbo down in printing to get me the green stock paper to print it on boss.  As soon as I get that green paper I’ll be right on it.”

everything basketball


All of a sudden, now that more pay and a title change are available, a better effort is now worth putting forward. That now, getting to work early or at least on time is the right thing to do and that now tasks will be accomplished on time and with vigor. That now, customer service comes with a smile.  The trouble with now is, well now is simply just too late.

Because right now, you’ve already been interviewed for the past three years.

 

Art Horne is the Coordinator of Care and Strength & Conditioning Coach for the Men’s Basketball Team at Northeastern University, Boston MA.  He can be reached at a.horne@neu.edu.

Topics: athletic training, Good to Great, athletic trainer, Leadership

What else is keeping you from shipping?

Posted by Boston Sports Medicine and Performance Group on Mon, Aug 2, 2010 @ 20:08 PM

Remember when you were in college? It was great wasn’t it?  Not a worry in the world, house gatherings every weekend, Jell-O shots and streaking through the quad! Ok, maybe not the streaking through the quad but you get my drift.

everything basketball



Remember also the time you were assigned a 10 page paper at the beginning of the semester and all of a sudden it’s 9pm on a Sunday night and its due the next morning by 8am.  As impossible as it seemed at first, you got it done didn’t you? And I’d even bet that you did better than average on it? 

When we remove ourselves from all distractions, from all the things that inevitably sabotage us from shipping, we are capable of wonderful and remarkable feats.  Yet, when we allow others, as well as ourselves, to constantly get in the way, we find that each workday is an ongoing struggle.  That each eight hour day wears on and on and yet at the end of it all; the day, the week, or the month we have little or nothing to show for the massive amount of time that we sat at our desk.

I know that phone call was important and that you had to reply to a customer inquiry, but that’s not what really kept you from shipping was it?

What amazing piece of work could you ship (Seth Godin calls in Art – “an original creation”) if you weren’t so busy updating your status on Facebook, tweeting that you just spilled your coffee on your new dress shirt, or checking the latest email chain about the office photocopier being broken again?

Don’t have Facebook? What about the clerical, custodial, and catering that you’ve continued to do?  The challenge now is to identify all the distracters that are preventing you from shipping after of course you’ve eliminated the 3-C’s from your work place.  So what in your day stops you from shipping?

Hold that thought, someone just tagged me on Facebook, I’ll be right back…

 

Art Horne is the Coordinator of Care and Strength & Conditioning Coach for the Men’s Basketball Team at Northeastern University, Boston MA.  He can be reached at a.horne@neu.edu.

Topics: Strength Training, athletic training, Good to Great, Seth Godin, Leadership

Who's the Boss?

Posted by Boston Sports Medicine and Performance Group on Mon, Aug 2, 2010 @ 06:08 AM

It's summer and those of us in the collegiate realm realize that this is the time when the vast majority of the staff take their allotted vacation.  The Executive Director of our department walks into my office this week and tells me that both he and the Associate Director will be out of the office for a few days and that as we have discussed, everyone will be reporting to me during that time.  "Sure," I say, "I will write up a full report of the changes I make while you're gone and be sure to appraise you when you get back so we don't miss a beat."  We share a quick laugh and go about our business, but it also gets me thinking; what would I do if I were in charge?  I take some time to ponder things like the areas I would keep a closer eye on and the tasks I would delegate to members of my staff.  I wonder about areas for potential growth that I've seen and how I would take advantage of it.  I think about all these things and more for a while, then go about the reality of my position.

The question is, do you really have to be the director of your area in order to enact positive change?  Sure, you will need approvals to set some changes in motion, but this is why you were hired.  You were brought on board to improve the function of your workplace, not be a bookmark for its current state.  Some people look at a problem within their area and say things like, "Well, I'm not in charge" or "I don't get paid for that".  These people are either ill equipped to evaluate the situation around them or just too lazy to care.  The reality is that we are all empowered to bring about a positive change to our workplace, some of us just aren't motivated to do so.  Get motivated.  Sure, you are not in charge now, but keep this up and maybe someday soon you will be.

 

Shaun Bossio is the Assistant Business Manager and ProShop Manager at Boston University FitRec.
He can be reached at sbossio@bu.edu

 

Topics: Strength Training, athletic training, Good to Great, Leadership

There's nothing ordinary about you

Posted by Boston Sports Medicine and Performance Group on Fri, Jul 30, 2010 @ 07:07 AM

I attended the Seth Godin conference this past summer in Boston where Seth shared his thoughts on ordinary people and ordinary organizations.

“Organizations hire ordinary people to do ordinary things and get paid ordinary money; but, if you build a team, an organization, or a staff with extraordinary expectations, to do extraordinary tasks, this will be rewarded with extraordinary pay.”

Do you work in a place that’s ordinary or extraordinary?

Do you expect extraordinary pay while working in an ordinary environment?

Extraordinary work means you shipped.

What did you ship this summer?

 

Art Horne is the Coordinator of Care and Strength & Conditioning Coach for the Men’s Basketball Team at Northeastern University, Boston MA.  He can be reached at a.horne@neu.edu.

Topics: Strength Training, athletic training, Good to Great, Seth Godin

A cup of joe

Posted by Boston Sports Medicine and Performance Group on Thu, Jul 29, 2010 @ 06:07 AM

I’ve been blessed my whole life by having unbelievable mentors by my side showing me the right ways to do things, and more importantly being  there to tell me when I’m clearly off track.  Below is a quote from a mentor I’ve been lucky enough to cross paths with.  Joe Donahue is not only a true historian in sport and performance but he is also considered one of the very best throwing coaches in all of track and field.

“You will be a better coach if you write an article, or two.  It helps your mind focus on what it is that you do and how you do it.  Clinics are also a fine way if you combine them with practical result.  It sharpens your skills and helps you to define objectives. You don't need a "string of athletes," (to be successful) you start with one, watch the result and go to the next one always refining what you do.  In the end your success will be on the field.  Did your athletes run faster, throw further, jump higher?  If they did not, what you believe has no basis in reality. There is marginal effect from the weight room on an athlete's result the further you remove yourself from specific event needs.  It is more likely how you train than how much you lift.

It is a new beginning every day.”

Thanks Joe.


Art Horne is the Coordinator of Care and Strength & Conditioning Coach for the Men’s Basketball Team at Northeastern University, Boston MA.  He can be reached at a.horne@neu.edu.
 

Topics: Strength Training, athletic training, Good to Great

The free market doesn't exist in college athletics

Posted by Boston Sports Medicine and Performance Group on Wed, Jul 28, 2010 @ 06:07 AM

Imagine you move into a new community and sign a four-year lease agreement just to find out you are only allowed to see a certain local dentist.  The decision has already been made for you.

You’re a plumber so you go see the dentist for all the plumbers. 

This might not be a problem at first since all dentists are the same right?  The trouble however is that the dentist now doesn’t really have to be that good.  They don’t have to keep up to date on the newest cleaning technologies or the research on gum disease because they know that you have to see them.  Sure there are other dentists in the community that you could see, but they’re busy taking care of waiter teeth or the gum lines of taxi cab drivers and really don’t have time for you.

Sound crazy?

The same scenario eerily exists on a college campus near you. 

In college athletics, there is no real incentive to be great. It’s about getting by and fulfilling your job description.  You don’t have to be a really great athletic trainer or strength coach because your “customers” already signed up for four years. They’re locked in.  There's no competing with your fellow office mates, or even other colleges once they've signed up.

Your customers HAVE to see you. There is no other choice. In fact, if they get upset and stop making an effort to see you, life actually becomes better not worse, doesn’t it?  More free time to play around on Facebook right?  By the time the college athlete gets so upset at the way they were treated, they are walking at graduation and are soon forgotten.  Bring on the new batch of freshmen!

The challenge then, is developing a community of dentists that not only appreciate their customers, but also strive to collectively raise the level of care in their community while also fostering an environment that promotes the sharing and referral of complicated and interesting cases in the search for better education and healthcare for everyone.

But that just seems too difficult, forget I even mentioned it.

 

Art Horne is the Coordinator of Care and Strength & Conditioning Coach for the Men’s Basketball Team at Northeastern University, Boston MA.  He can be reached at a.horne@neu.edu.

 

Topics: Strength Training, athletic training, Good to Great, patient centered care, Seth Godin

What sport will I be covering?

Posted by Kate Gillette on Fri, Jul 23, 2010 @ 07:07 AM

What does it matter?

Your doctor wouldn’t ask you what field you work in before taking you on as a patient.

“Sorry, I prefer to treat only plumbers with hernias.  You work in finance.”

I’m still amazed that we continue to advertise jobs that emphasize what team you’ll be working with, i.e. job descriptions that read “primary job responsibility is working with women’s soccer and tennis.”  When did treating low back pain of a volleyball athlete become so different than treating that of the soccer or tennis athlete?  Shouldn’t our job descriptions read something more like, “primary job responsibility is to practice patient centered care and evidence based medicine”?

If all your work environment has to offer is working with one or two sports in particular, then maybe you haven’t created an environment worthy of the best professionals.  You know, the ones that like to solve interesting problems, continue to develop their skills and pursue best practice. Maybe you just want someone to come in, put their head down and work with that sport.

The trouble is, you’ll get exactly that.

Art Horne is the Coordinator of Care and Strength & Conditioning Coach for the Men’s Basketball Team at Northeastern University, Boston MA.  He can be reached at a.horne@neu.edu.

Topics: athletic training, Good to Great, Seth Godin

But that's the way I was taught

Posted by Boston Sports Medicine and Performance Group on Tue, Jul 13, 2010 @ 08:07 AM

That’s the way I was taught so it must be right, and that’s the way I’m going to continue to do it.

Who were the professors that taught these people?

The very best professors insist that their students challenge them.  Challenge what they are teaching them.
Challenge the books, articles and resources that they come across – always continue to search for the truth.  Go beyond the classroom in search of a better way. (I call it my own personal quest for the holy grail).

I remember being taught to do 15 chest compressions and 2 breaths when performing CPR and I’m sure you were too. But we changed that because we found there was a better way to do things. Then we found out that if we get an AED hooked up faster then that’s even better.

Hey, but that’s just the way I was taught.


Art Horne is the Coordinator of Care and Strength & Conditioning Coach for the Men’s Basketball Team at Northeastern University, Boston MA.  He can be reached at a.horne@neu.edu.

Topics: athletic training, Good to Great, discipline

That's just not my philosophy

Posted by Boston Sports Medicine and Performance Group on Thu, Jul 8, 2010 @ 21:07 PM

Whoever says, “well, that’s just not my philosophy” didn’t read the research.

When we attach emotion, or our personal feelings to a certain way we treat patients we end up losing what’s most important – the health of the patient. Because it’s no longer about, “what’s best for them.”  We already made it our own issue.

“I feel like…”

“I think that…”

“I was taught that…”

We need to get back to why we signed up to practice sports medicine in the first place.  We need to get back to patient centered care and what’s best for them.  That’s more difficult than it sounds, because what’s best for the patient sometimes isn’t what’s best for me.

 

Art Horne is the Coordinator of Care and Strength & Conditioning Coach for the Men’s Basketball Team at Northeastern University, Boston MA.  He can be reached at a.horne@neu.edu.

Topics: athletic training, Good to Great, discipline, athletic trainer, patient centered care

Elevate or Fire: Managing Employees

Posted by Boston Sports Medicine and Performance Group on Tue, Jul 6, 2010 @ 13:07 PM

The old way to manage people is to instill fear in them.  Let them know that you hold all the cards.  That you sign their paycheck and ultimately can have their desk cleaned out.

"Fall in line or else!"

Wouldn't it be easier to instead instill motivation and vigor instead of fear? Let them know that you are there to help them solve problems, promote their work, help them make connections to other people and provide new skills for them to succeed?

I guess the end result is the same though.

In both scenarios their desks end up cleaned out.  The first scenario after you fire them, the second because you created an environment for growth and promotion and ultimately they leave to take a better job.

The only difference is a lot more work gets done in the second scenario. And of course, usually ends in a hug and a thank you.

Topics: john wooden, Good to Great, discipline, Seth Godin, strength and conditioning tips, superdiscipline