The World Cup Diaries: Week 2 – Building a Culture

I was hired on to the U.S. Men's National Team staff at the beginning of 2020. Gregg (Berhalter) had been the Head Coach for a year and he used that time to work with the staff and player leadership group to establish the desired team culture. Even though Gregg had a vision and mission for the team, he wanted everyone's input to determine the team's core values.

The criteria for the team values was this: What are the values that represent America at its best?

After lots of effort and discussion, the three values that emerged were these:

Brave

Diverse

Relentless

B.D.R.

A big reason Gregg hired me to the staff was because he wanted someone who was thinking about the culture everyday. In addition to doing mental skills and team-building with the players, he wanted someone who would be looking at everything we did through the lens of our culture. B.D.R.

It's one thing to have values, but values that don't turn into behaviors simply become words on a wall. Useless. The B.D.R. values really became the pillars for the culture. We talked about them all of the time with the team. They were in all of our messaging. They were the central theme in helping drive our focus before games. They were simple, clear, and relevant.

When it came to on the field and off the field behaviors...team meals...travel... how staff interacted with players, and visa versa...we tied everything to B.D.R. - and over time it became the identity of the team.

Heading into the World Cup, Gregg and I spoke about something we could do to reinforce B.D.R. in Qatar. The idea we came up with was based on the story of the 2011 NY Giants. During that season, Gian Paul Gonzalez, was a guest speaker when they were barely a .500 team. He gave each player a poker chip and told them to write their name on it. He then invited them to pile their chips together as a sign that they were committed to going "all in" for the rest of the season. It became their rally cry. The rest is history. All in!

For us, we used it as another opportunity to reinforce our B.D.R. identity. So, with a suitcase filled with a couple hundred custom made poker chips, I arrived in Doha. Before each game, every player and staff member was given a unique poker chip for that specific game. In the middle of the locker room was a glass bowl, and one of the last things we all did before taking the field was put our chips in the bowl. The longer the tournament went on - the more chips filled the bowl. The bowl became another visual reminder for us to stay true to who we were. We lasted three group games, and then the round of 16.

Sadly, I had to fly home with the poker chips for the games we didn't play later in the tournament, but we were prepared nonetheless.

There were so many moments during those 4 weeks together where we relied on our values to get us through difficult challenges on and off the field, but I'll save some of those for future diary entries.

To be continued...