I recently learned about a strategy used by basketball Coach John Wooden which was to teach his players how to put on socks and shoes at the beginning of the season. His reason for this is that he knew that “Fundamentals are Essential”. This was shared by Dr. Kevin J. Fleming when he presented to a group of members of the National Speakers Association of New England (NSA NE).

How often does this type of strategy show up?

This strategy aligns with my philosophy around how I support leaders, teams and organizations. For example, when I’m called in to facilitate a training, I get curious with my client to understand what the participants are already well-versed in. I also, often conduct surveys or focus groups to understand root causes that need to be addressed. What I often discover is that in order to provide meaningful and actionable training, we need to start with the foundational skills. Examples of requests I receive include, “We need to provide leadership training”, or “Our sales people need training to improve their close ratio.” What these conversations have often resulted in is the need to start with foundational focus areas including:

• Building trust, psychological safety, and rapport
• Active listening
• Asking open-ended questions to learn and understand from other’s perspectives or uncover needs
• And more….

The same is true with all learning. For example, without foundational/fundamental math skills such as addition and subtraction, tackling algebra is going to be challenging.

What do you notice?

Where are you trying to take shortcuts? How is this serving you?

In a fast-paced world, it’s tempting to skip the foundational skills, but eventually this catches up.

How would you rate you or your leaders on practicing and modeling the foundational competencies? What makes them effective? Where could you/they benefit? Curious to learn more, let’s connect.

“The expert in anything was once a beginner.” – Helen Hayes