Boston Sports Medicine and Performance Group, LLC Blog

If you're 5 minutes early, you're 10 minutes late

Posted by Boston Sports Medicine and Performance Group on Tue, Aug 10, 2010 @ 06:08 AM

If you show up 10 minutes late for work, but stay an extra 20 minutes at the end of the day, that’s a net of +10 minutes extra that you put into your day. You should be applauded for working overtime, right?
 
Maybe, but that probably won’t happen. Because at 8:30 a.m., when all the workers are at their desks ready to start the day, yours is noticeably empty. And trust me, people notice.
 
The simple act of getting to the office and being ready to work when the day starts shows your office that you are a team player. At the very least, being on time will help you avoid the devastating perceptions that come with habitual tardiness. In the age of Blackberries and iPhones, we can all send emails from bed at 11 p.m. But true commitment starts with being ready to work when it’s time to work.
 
Think about it: If you were the manager of a gym that opened at 6 a.m., do you think your customers will give you a pass when you open at 6:05? Do you think the prospective clients in California will enjoy listening to the background music while you are five minutes late for your conference call?
 
It’s no different in whatever job you have. Be on time. It’s an easy way to start your day right.

 

Mark Harris is the Assistant Director of Athletic Development at Northeastern University.

Topics: Strength Training, basketball resources, athletic training, Good to Great, customer service, superdiscipline, Leadership, managing

Barbershop talk

Posted by Boston Sports Medicine and Performance Group on Sun, Aug 8, 2010 @ 14:08 PM

You ever walk into a old school barbershop? 

You know the place, one or two barbers cutting the same high and tight crew cut they’ve been performing for the past 30 years, and just behind them a row of guys sitting and yuking it up.

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Everyone talking about what they’re going to do, what they did do, and how good they were when they were your age.  Everyone has a suggestion on how things should be run and how to do it better.

Just ask them.

They’ll tell you what they’d do if they were president, the pope and even God. But then ask them to tell you what exactly they would do differently from what is currently being done; exactly, and in no uncertain terms and they often go silent.

Staff meetings are a lot like Barbershops. One guy who has been there forever, doing the same things the exact same way that they have always done it, trying to convince you that you need that high and tight fade, even though you just asked for a little bit off the top.  And around the meeting table, just like the barbershop, a whole lot of people making suggestions on how to make improvements but no one offering to own their suggestion and see it through.

“Who wants to research, develop and implement plan B that was suggested?”

Silence.

If you can’t tell me exactly what you would like to see done differently compared to what is currently being done then you’re simply complaining.  Or as I like to say, you’re just talking Barbershop.

And no, I don't need that fade.


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, development, Leadership, managing

Do your action steps match your goals?

Posted by Boston Sports Medicine and Performance Group on Thu, Aug 5, 2010 @ 16:08 PM

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If it is clear that a goal will not be met, do not adjust your goal, adjust your action steps.

Literally.

 

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

Peanut Butter or Fluff?

Posted by Boston Sports Medicine and Performance Group on Tue, Aug 3, 2010 @ 18:08 PM

The next time you have the opportunity to implement a new technology or process to your line of work ask yourself; is it peanut butter or is it fluff?

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Peanut butter is substantive, it is a great source of protein, and you can build a sandwich around it.  Fluff meanwhile, well it's fluff.
 
We live in an age where technology changes the way we work almost daily. For example, those massive printing budgets for media guides and workout packets which we once considered a cost of doing business, are a thing of the past. But if we take those savings and invest them in high-tech, video-laced digital media guides, what is our end result? At the end of the day, it is the same information, at the same (or greater) expense and a whole lot of fluff.
 
Maybe we should consider reallocating the old printing budget for summer workout packets towards actual exercise research to make more effective training programs?  In the case of media guides, rather than make the information we already share look more appealing with color and videos, why not invest in digitizing and organizing our historical statistics to offer a more comprehensive archive?
 
No matter what field or industry we work in, technology will continue to enhance the way we do our jobs. As managers and leaders, we need to be mindful of whether we are loading up on the peanut butter or on a whole lot of fluff.
 
 
Mark Harris is the Assistant Director of Athletic Development at Northeastern University.

 

Topics: Strength Training, athletic training, discipline, customer service

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.

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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

Work for the Job you Want

Posted by Boston Sports Medicine and Performance Group on Thu, Jul 15, 2010 @ 14:07 PM

Several years ago when I first started working for my current employer, I was dealing with clients and colleagues that were significantly older than myself and I encountered a problem wherein I was not being taken seriously.  I came to the conclusion that while perhaps part of the problem was in my youthful appearance (no longer a problem unfortunately), part of the solution lay in making my work attire more professional.  As I work in recreation, even describing our dress code as "business casual" would be a stretch.  I improved my appearance and my problem went away.  Did I get some of my coworkers ribbing me because I was "overdressed"?  Sure, but they also used to give me a hard time for getting to work an hour before them every day.  I wonder where that insecurity comes from?

Somebody much smarter than myself once said, "Dress for the job you want, not the job you have."  Maybe it's not practical for you to wear a suit to work, but that saying is an excellent metaphor for all aspects of your job performance.    Doing the bare minimum that is expected of you in any situation is never going to put you ahead of the curve.  Do most of your coworkers arrive at work just at their expected start time?  Do they have their bags packed when that imaginary whistle blows at the end of the day?  Do you hear people say things like, "That's not in my job description?"  These are all areas in which people are meeting only their minimum expectations and also easy opportunities for you to distinguish yourself.  When it comes time for that open position to be filled or when another prospective employer comes calling for a reference, these are the types of things that your boss will remember.  Well, that and the excellent work you do anyway right?  

So let's revise our saying . . . Work for the job you want, not the job you have.


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, boston hockey conference, hockey videos, orthopedic risk factors, orthopedic assessment, performance testing