Beyond X's & O's: Stevens' Gene Peluso

This article was originally published at Inside Lacrosse, and the original piece can be found here.


In only his second season as the skipper of the Stevens Tech Ducks, Gene Peluso guided the squad to its highest USILA Division III Coaches Poll ranking (as high as No. 5). Peluso has long been considered an elite Div. III coach, but with Stevens things seem to be coming together.

A physically imposing figure with matching personality, Peluso has taken to Hoboken and Stevens like pasta to clam sauce. There may not be another coach in Division III who’s better type-caste for their institution, as few would be better suited to stalk the sidelines in this historic city that boasts The Largest Slice (of pizza for those who call to mind other sliced items). He is both intense and funny, and has a gifted ability to weave between the two effortlessly. In catching up with him midseason, his passion for lacrosse and zeal for life is quickly apparent. He was both introspective and generous with time, and even suggested that the call had somehow done something for him, ending the conversation by saying thank you, and then adding, “this was a valuable exercise.”

Given his investment in our hour interview, it’s of little surprise that Peluso seems fully invested in his Ducks. He talks about his players and coaching philosophy in fluid detail, but starts with the cornerstone of his ideals, stating, “honesty goes a long way with players.” This year in particular he’s paid special attention to being candid about the obstacles that lie in the way of team goals. “I’m not tippy-toeing around what’s in front of us and where we want to go,” he says. “I put in front of them obstacles, or things that lie in our way,” he continues, “I do that to remind them what we need to do to work through and to get them fired up.” For Peluso, “Opponents are just steps for us. They’re steps for us to be successful,” and in order to succeed you need to have a clear blueprint of the steps you’re working to climb and where they’re going to take you.

In building the blueprint, communication is paramount. Peluso communicates his message by writing out challenges on the positional goal sheets that players fill out before every game. He includes carefully selected quotes on practice plans and pre-game materials to emphasize exactly what the squad needs to focus on. And perhaps most importantly, “We kind of talk it out.” As a team they sit down after practice and games and discuss what’s coming up, where the group is going, and where they’re all at. Ironically, all the talking doesn’t take away from the doing. In fact, it seems to inspire it. In noting that the team needed to be more conditioned, the staff and players talked about fitness differently: “We needed to look at conditioning in practice as opposite of punishment.” “Our guys have really bought into that,” Peluso continues, and the result is “just a real positive approach to our conditioning.” In summing up his belief in the value of communicating, being honest, and finding different ways to make a point, Peluso states, “Sometimes words, quotes, poems, stories can be really, really helpful . . .They’re motivating, I think they’re inspiring, and they can really put things in perspective.”

For Peluso, obstacles and goals and messages and the words that comprise them are simply pieces of a larger puzzle. In his words, “At the end of the day we want our guys to be happy and excited about what we’re doing.” He includes player input in decisions ranging from where the team is going out to eat to how they want to travel. Although he is explicit in stating that “the winning is important.” He also says, “We want to focus on enjoying what we’re doing.” This isn’t a contradiction for Stevens, as success and enjoyment go hand in hand. Of course there are sacrifices, but with a phrase he may have borrowed from Buddha, Peluso says, “Enjoy what you’re doing, enjoy the process, and everything else will fall into place.”

 With Peluso pushing the squad to identify challenges while striving to enjoy the experience, they’re likely to stay a contender for years to come. When you ask Peluso about coaching, and his role in making a small team from Hoboken a mainstay in DIII lacrosse, he becomes philosophical in a way you might not expect from a coach. He says of coaching, “It is what I am. It is what I do, and what I enjoy doing.” He says of life, “Sometimes you have to follow your heart and I feel like I’ve done that.” In talking with him, Peluso made a point to thank us for giving him the time, and so it seems appropriate that we thank him for giving us the insights.

Joe Frontiera, PhD and Dan Leidl, PhD are the Managing Partners of Meno Consulting, a firm specializing in leadership development, organizational culture, team building and motivation. To learn more about Dan and Joe visit www.menoconsulting.com, they're blog at www.mygenerationleader.com or contact them via email at jfrontiera@menoconsulting.com and dleidl@menoconsulting.com.

Beyond X's and O's: Ohio State Women's Coach Alexis Venechanos

This article was originally published at Inside Lacrosse, and the original piece can be found here.

In talking with Alexis Venechanos you get the sense that she simply wills success. It’s hard to explain it much better, as there aren’t any definitive keys. There are few coaches who project the “underdog” persona better than Venechanos, and it unquestionably works. She was a recruited walk on at Maryland and became national goalie of the year in her senior season while playing on a torn ACL.

After two National Championships as a player, she went on to win two more as an assistant at up-start Northwestern. In only her mid-20s she took on the overwhelming task of turning a floundering UMass program around, and brought it back to the NCAA Tournament in three seasons in spite of a 25-year hiatus. Along with revisiting the NCAA’s she guided her UMass squads to two Atlantic-10 Conference Championships in her four-year tenure. Now she’s been brought to Ohio State to work her magic, and with a year under her belt it seems to be working. After falling to University of Florida 13-16 in the American Lacrosse Conference semi-finals, the Buckeyes have tremendous momentum heading into next year.

Venechanos says of her responsibilities at Ohio State, “We look to be strong female role models,” and you have to believe that she does that. If she has one defining quality that’s led to her success, it may be grit, as it seems that she finds a unique contentment in outlasting and outworking the competition. It’s difficult for her to breakdown what she does to develop players and win games, and that could be because it’s such a part of her day to day. She says, “The biggest thing is instilling these daily practices into people’s lives”, and by practices she’s talking about all those little details that add up to success. — the ground balls, the hustle, the self confidence. She casually drops some of these themes in conversation, saying, “How you talk to yourself is really important”; “We have to get to know the energy of the team”; and, “We get them going every single day”. For Venechanos it’s a daily commitment, and she’s striving to get her players to do everything from thinking confidently to playing with a pop and feistiness that reflects her personality.

Her teams have typically echoed her, and in her own words, they’re “relentless”. They don’t stop, they keep coming at you, and they often win on the nervy premise of being the last team standing. With this formula they also serve as a bold example of how players can find success by taking on the persona of their coach. Venechanos reminisces about her early playing days in Yorktown — playing three sports, winning state championships with a mix of raw athleticism and innovative concepts, and developing an early faith in hard work over flash. Those high school teams didn’t play with a lot of polish, but they were athletic and never stopped trying. This persistence and nearly blind self-belief that they could grind out wins in spite of lacking technical savvy left a lasting impression on Venechanos and the types of players she’s attracted to. As she’s developed from high school athlete to college coach, she’s still drawn to those athletes who may be light on the luster but make up for it with freakish motors that never seem to quit.

And herein lies a particularly intriguing aspect about her body of work. While Venechanos has the distinct pedigree of playing at Maryland and assisting at Northwestern, she continues to welcome lesser known players and coaches into her ranks, seemingly preferring those who have something to prove over those who may be more proven. With that, she has developed a fierce culture that fosters a sense of “us vs. them”. “We talk about how people picked us last in the conference,” she says. And in only her first year she’s gotten the squad to buy in, finishing in the top four.

With Venechanos at the helm, it’s a safe bet that Ohio State will keep climbing, and it’s exciting to see. Her passion is visible, and now that she has the resources of a school like Ohio State behind her, the squad is going to get better fast. Keep your eye out on Venechanos and the Buckeyes because she may not be getting a lot of press, but she’s quietly building one of the most intriguing resumes of any coach out there.

Joe Frontiera, PhD and Dan Leidl, PhD are the Managing Partners of Meno Consulting, a firm specializing in leadership development, organizational culture, team building and motivation. To learn more about Dan and Joe visit www.menoconsulting.com, they're blog at www.mygenerationleader.comor contact them via email at jfrontiera@menoconsulting.com and dleidl@menoconsulting.com.

Beyond X's and O's: Player, Coach, Ambassador Dave Huntley

This piece was originally published at Inside Lacrosse, and the original article can be found here.

Dave Huntley is soon to be inducted into the National Lacrosse Hall of Fame with the 2011 Class “as a truly great player”. Huntley’s playing career is certainly prolific, as he snagged two national championships during his All-American career at Johns Hopkins, and a gold medal with Team Canada in the 1978 World Lacrosse Championships. His on-field exploits have put him in a select class of players, but his efforts without a stick in his hands may overshadow anything he did as a player. He’s coached in the NLL and MLL, and has been a head and assistant coach for Team Canada. Huntley has won rings as a pro and international coach, but he doesn’t put a lot of focus on the successes.

In striving to win, Huntley is introspective in two distinct categories. Primarily, he’s committed to lacrosse for the long haul, and in so doing, he challenges himself to keep learning. Of his commitment, he says, “You never stop learning.” But his focus on development doesn’t stop with being up to date with the hottest man-up formations. Huntley’s commitment to learning has more to do with relationships. He puts his spin on an age-old maxim, declaring, “They won’t know how much you care unless you take the time to know them.” Everything starts with knowing your guys, understanding them as people, familiarizing yourself with their goals, their lives, their ambitions. For Huntley, coaching is learning about people, how they are as individuals and how they interact as a team.

Huntley speaks in a language of stories and analogies. He likens coaching to being a jockey. You take time to know your horse, practice with your horse, take care of your horse, but ultimately you rely on the horse to bring you home. He says, “the horse under you is going to take you to the winner’s circle. That’s a real rush: that your horse is the best out there.” In this sense the team is doing the running, the hard work to bring home the hardware, and the coach is doing his best to guide and prepare. Down the stretch, the coach can offer some encouraging words and dig in for the last push, but the team is either going to stride it out or not. For Huntley, coaches get far too much credit for winning, and far too little credit for losing, as he argues the powers that coaches exercise probably play more into the losses than any of the wins.

The second aspect of coaching where Huntley is downright philosophical is how teams are developed. He starts with knowing players as people, and then moves toward assembling them into a much larger puzzle, or in his case, cooking up a tasty soup. He’s very clear about his perspective, exclaiming that it’s “not about just selecting the best players”, and “sometimes the best team is not the best players.” He adds that a good soup needs the right amount of garlic, tomato, chicken and spice regardless of the quality of the individual ingredients. He hammers the point home by saying that even the finest chicken and spring water won’t yield a good product, concluding, “if you just had chicken and water, it’d be terrible.”

Huntley has been lingering it the elite echelons of lacrosse for a few decades. Talking with him is kind of like hopping in this cool time machine that solely focuses on lacrosse and takes you right to the heart of the historic moment you always wanted to know more about. In minutes he travels fluidly from one decade to the next, highlighting unforgettable players, coaches and teams. He reminisces about Buddy Beardmore, the iconic, white-pantsed, Maryland skipper of the Frank Urso 70’s, and his maxim that, “All Americans don’t make championship teams; championship teams make All Americans.” He marvels at the current level of play in the pros, citing the lack of practice and preparation he says, “It’s remarkable the games look as good as they do, and it’s a real credit to the athletes.” And of course there are his father-like feelings for the Canadian program. He gushes over his experiences coaching Team Canada, and his relationships with the Brodie Merrills of the program who he has watched grow into world-class players and people.

Huntley’s passion for the game is unquestionable. For someone who’s never made a full time job out of lacrosse, he’s something of an inspiration for coaches and players trying to juggle non-lacrosse careers with the game. He was a successful player and has been a successful coach, but perhaps more importantly he’s an ambassador. You hear about these "ambassadors of the game," and Huntley has to be considered when you’re building the archetype. He’s out there, working in the off-hours, trying to stay involved, sacrificing weekends of rest and family time. He’s pushing the stars of the game to get better, be more, and in the process he’s pushing the game itself forward. He’ll be honored this fall for his achievements on the field, but what might be even more important to celebrate is what he’s done on the sidelines and off the field. Lacrosse is a part of Dave Huntley, and for as much as he’s lucky to have the game — as with all the guys who never disconnect, never fully push it aside, never allow their lives to get too busy for it — the game is pretty lucky to have him.

Joe Frontiera, PhD and Dan Leidl, PhD are the Managing Partners of Meno Consulting, a firm specializing in leadership development, organizational culture, team building and motivation. To learn more about Dan and Joe visit www.menoconsulting.com, they're blog at www.mygenerationleader.comor contact them via email at jfrontiera@menoconsulting.com and dleidl@menoconsulting.com.

Six great quotes from the 2011 World Business Forum

This piece originally appeared at On Leadership at The Washington Post. For the original piece, click here.

This week in New York City, the World Business Forum hosted several thousand execs, as well as the insights of nearly two-dozen speakers. From Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz to generational guru Tammy Erickson to President Bill Clinton and former GE CEO Jack Welch, the two-day event was a two-day MBA. Of everything that was discussed—economics, leadership, business, management and more—here are the six moments that really dropped jaws:

1. “For most people success is measured in wealth and fame and power. For me, success is measured by how many shining eyes are around me.” – Ben Zander, conductor of the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra

Experiencing Ben Zander is transformational. His optimism and energy are infectious, inspiring us to consider how we can have a positive impact on our world.

2. “Risk taking is at the core of effective leadership.” – Malcolm Gladwell, author of Blink and Outliers

Malcolm Gladwell talked about the difference between operational and social risks. The greatest leaders limit operational risk while taking enormous social risks—oftentimes losing colleagues and friends when dedicated to a cause. Those leaders, he said, “identify what they believe to be the right course of action, and they follow it regardless of the social consequence.”

3. “We are all so trapped in our normal patterns of thinking that we’re not even aware of it.” – Luke Williams, Frog Design

Williams drew a small audience into his compelling ideas about innovation, offering the additional resolve, “It’s not about being able to spot and react to disruptive change. It’s about how to be the disruptive change.”

4. “Great leaders are able to see that seed that, if watered and shed light on, will flourish.” – Tal Ben-Shahar, teacher at the Interdisciplinary Center, Herzliya, in Israel

Ben-Shahar’s passion for positive psychology is palpable and pointedly expressed with questions. How can we be more optimistic? What happens when we focus on what’s right rather than what’s wrong? How can we better lead by accentuating the positive?

5. “Your job is a platform to do art, it’s a platform to lead, it’s a platform to make mistakes, it’s a platform to do something that matters.” – Seth Godin, author of Purple Cow and Linchpin

Like Gladwell, Godin is an entertaining concept guy—and most compelling is his focus on conformity. He cautions against the herd mentality, and argues that our education system has taught us to follow and fade away. For Godin, we’re better than that and should fervently believe in the substance of our value.

6. “It is a fact that societies with fewer advantages will compensate in some way.” – Malcolm Gladwell, author of Blink and Outliers

Gladwell opens minds. In watching him talk to a small audience off the main stage, he dug into his upcoming book by highlighting the concept of ‘compensation learning’—that is, how we learn from compensating for our weaknesses (take dyslexia or asthma, for example). He looked at everything from parents’ paradoxical tendencies to shelter their children from the very forms of adversity that helped them grow, to how disadvantage can force profound development.

Check out @MenoConulting to see Dan Liedl’s entire live Twitter feed from the conference. And if you have an idea for what the Leadership Playlist should write about next, email Dan and Joe or find them onFacebook.