The Simple Beauty of
Checklists
A checklist seems mundane, but it can be a
powerful tool to help you accomplish the profound.
By Dr.
David Hoch and Dan Cardone
David Hoch, EdD, is the
Athletic Director at Loch Raven High School, in Baltimore County, Md.
He is the former Athletic Director at Eastern Technical High, also in
Baltimore, and was named the Maryland State Athletic Directors
Association's
Athletic Director of the Year in 2000.Dan Cardone is Athletic
Director at North Hills High School in Pittsburgh, Pa.
Most
athletic directors are overloaded, overtaxed, and hence, have faulty
memories. We are prone to making mistakes in anything we do, from
ordering uniforms to organizing parents' meetings to canceling a
contest because of the weather. When this happens, it's usually because
too many things need to be taken
care of at once, and it's almost inevitable that
something slips through the cracks.How can athletic directors lessen
detail overload and minimize mistakes? One solution is to prepare and
use checklists. Checklists are a great way to organize our sometimes
mundane, routine tasks so that we can save our time and mental energy
for more important things such as planning, mentoring coaches, and
developing our student-athletes.
Checklists are more than just
guards against disaster and time-savers. Used thoughtfully, a list is a
powerful organizational tool, a written guide to help you carry out
your duties well. Checklists may be prosaic, but they are vital to
helping us do our jobs better.
Where to Get Them
We don't have to
reinvent the wheel. The simplest way to take advantage of checklists is
to simply borrow them. Once you have one in hand, you can alter, revise
and edit it to fit your setting and situation. Fortunately, there are
some excellent resources available.
A good place to start is other
administrators. Within your own school district -- or even your own
school -- there may be someone who uses checklists that can be tailored
to the needs of the athletic departmentment. All you have to do is ask
-- just be sure to offer thanks and give credit where it is
due.
Athletics administrators at other schools may be able to help,
too. A few years ago, three high school athletic directors in
southwestern Pennsylvania realized they had many duties in common and
began sharing checklists and guidelines. The idea spread, and now the
140-school Western Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic League has
compiled and published two sets of commonly used checklists for
administrators and coaches. The Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic
Association (PIAA) saw the lists and now wants to make them part of the
administrators' handbook for the entire state.
Another source is
formal athletic administration career-development organizations. Most
of the National Interscholastic Athletic Administrators Association's
leadership training courses typically include excellent checklists.
Among the lists we've encountered through these courses are ones on
maintaining venues, interviewing coaching applicants, running preseason
coaches' meetings, and making decisions. You are required to sign up
and complete the course to obtain the checklists, but it's well worth
it.
Do It Yourself
Even though there are excellent outside sources
for helpful checklists, don't be afraid to create your own, either for
your personal use or for your coaches. You can think tasks through and
break down each step into a checklist. Or, you can think
chronologically about what needs to be done when -- before fall,
winter, and spring seasons, for instance -- and break them down in
logical order. Whenever you face an annual task or event that will
occur periodically, create a list so that you don't forget any step or
detail, and you'll also be prepared the next time the event rolls
around.
Maintenance and Keeping Up to Date
Be sure to save
checklists on your computer for ready access and updating as needed. An
athletic director sent opposing schools step-by-step
guidelines for visiting teams. These instructions included where to
drop off the athletes, how to enter the building, and even where the
bus should park. It was well done and very useful. If you develop a
similar list, be sure to save it as a document on your computer, and
you'll be ready to go next year -- with updates if needed -- with a
ready-made checklist to help visiting teams.
Periodically review your
checklists and update them. One way to do this is to simply write down
what extra tasks each group of duties requires, and then add a line or
section to your checklist. It's a way of analyzing your duties and
examining what else you could and should do. It can also help show your
superiors how much you're contributing to the organization.
Don't
stop with tasks for yourself, however. Checklists can be a great help
for your coaches, too. Even the most experienced coaches will
occasionally need a reminder to complete their responsibilities
correctly and on time. The checklists also help each coach focus on key
areas.
Some Examples
Here are some checklists we have found useful
for ourselves as athletic directors and for our sport coaches. Note
that underlined text in this section represents a link to an example of
the checklist:
Monthly checklists: These comprise running lists of routine
athletic director duties organized by month. They serve as key
reminders such as when football tickets should go on sale, or when to
order equipment for spring sports.
Cancellations: In many parts of the
country, spring weather is extremely unpredictable and can lead to
daily cancellations. Thus the athletic director has to, under
considerable time pressure and with little margin for error, cancel
officials and buses, and notify opponents and those responsible for
field preparation. In the ensuing mass confusion of postponing multiple
contests, it is inevitable that one important phone call can be
forgotten because of constant interruptions. This list ensures nothing
is forgotten.
Emergency procedures: This checklist offers a rundown of what
the athletic director and coach are each responsible for in terms of
preparing for an emergency.
Coach's Checklist: An all-time favorite, this all-around
list should outline the basic responsibilities of a head coach. These
include emergency management of injuries, generating eligibility lists,
ordering buses on time, gathering athletes' completed eligibility
forms, and calling in scores. These are listed by preseason, in-season,
and postseason.
A similar list is a coaches' administrative checklist, which outlines paperwork
and related administrative duties. It's a great way to help coaches
plan for and remember those little -- and not-so-little -- off-field
duties that have to get done for a program to operate smoothly. It's
especially helpful for new coaches, but even veterans can benefit from
it.
As working with parents has become a more important part of
coaches' jobs, it can be a good idea to provide coaches with written
direction on this duty. Although they are not exactly checklists,
consider these two documents: Guidelines
for Preseason Parents' Meetings and Guidelines for Dealing With Difficult
Parents.
Thinking Broadly
It's easy to think of checklists as
merely glorified to-do lists, but take a closer look and you'll see
they can be much more. They are a way to put our expectations into
writing--for athletic directors and those who answer to us.
A great
example are the checklists we've obtained from Richard Borkowski, the
Pennsylvania athletics safety consultant who has written extensively
for Athletic
Management. An example is in his article about basic safety supervision for coaches. His lists allow us to think
ahead of what needs to be taken care of, get it done, and go forward
with the confidence that we're prepared. But at the same time his lists
convey the general attitude and responsibilities that coaches must take
toward safety. This double duty is the beauty of good lists.
Because
it puts expectations into writing, the checklist format also works well
as a tool for managing people. The Coach's Checklist discussed earlier is an example. It
includes some concrete chores such as foolproofing the final schedule,
but it's also a way to put our expectations into writing. If a coach
misses a deadline, check the incomplete item and place a copy in the
coach's mailbox or e-mail him or her a copy and keep one for your
files. The copy becomes a tool for accountability and a useful aid in
preparing annual evaluations. You can total the missed deadlines and
responsibilities from the checklists on file, and you have a source of
documentation to support your evaluation.
Checklists won't win
awards. They're nuts and bolts. But by keeping those nuts and bolts in
place, you'll gain confidence and mental energy you can devote to more
important tasks -- like improving the experience for your
student-athletes. After all, isn't that what we're all
about?
David Hoch and Dan Cardone have written extensively for
MomentumMedia magazines on athletic administration at the high school
level. To see more of their contributions, enter "Cardone" or "Hoch" in
the search window at the top of this page.
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