⏳ Read Time: 4 min

Coaches are individuals who have a profound impact on the next generation. There are over 500,000 coaches in the United States, ranging from youth to collegiate levels. Yet, they are one of the most underserved groups of leaders.

BETTER exists to fill that gap for coaches, athletes, and the leaders supporting them.

The best way for you to join in that mission? Forward this newsletter or share this link to another coach, athletic director, or athlete who needs it.

📌 What’s in this newsletter:

• 🔁 Quick Recap: Leadership comes first—but culture is what your team experiences

• 🧭 New Insight: Culture is not what you say—it’s what your team feels consistently

• 👥 Anecdote: One head coach’s 3-week culture turnaround

• 🧰 How-To Guide: Five steps to architect the culture your performance needs

🔁 The Sequence Still Matters

You’ve heard it for weeks now—and it’s still true:

Last week, we gave you a tactical guide for where to start as a leader. Today, we shift to what your leadership creates: the culture that either lifts your team or limits it.

🧭 Culture: What Your Team Feels Every Day

Remember from our letter what culture is. We have to clarify what culture means. We provided a framework for understanding what culture is really.

Culture isn’t a one-time speech.
It’s not a poster.
It’s not what you say in a recruiting pitch.

Culture is what your team consistently experiences.

It’s the emotional and behavioral environment your leadership creates—how it feels to be a part of your team every day.

Here’s the key: if you don’t shape that intentionally, it forms accidentally. And accidental culture rarely leads to sustained performance.

👥 Anecdote: The Culture Reset

A head coach we worked with had this realization mid-season:

We helped that coach implement just two things:

1. A culture “pre-practice touchpoint”—60 seconds focused on one key behavior.

2. A system for rewarding the right cultural behaviors, not just the best stats.

The team didn’t get softer. Many coaches are hesitant to do even simple things like this because they fear it will compromise the high standards they hold for behavior. But, the team didn’t get softer, it got more aligned.

Culture became felt—not just said.

🛠️ Putting It All Together:

🧰 Five Steps to Build a Culture That Drives Performance

Here’s your tactical blueprint:

1. Codify What You Actually Want

• Values on the wall aren’t enough—they must be paired with action.

• Don’t copy buzzwords—define 3 behaviors that make your team win and work well.

• Think: What do we want to feel like? How do we act when we’re at our best?

Plug: If you’re looking for a framework to do this, we’ve built a tool called the Culture Playbook that’s precisely what we use to help teams turn vague values into concrete, coachable actions (see more below).

2. Design Daily Cultural Moments

• Where in your day or week are you reinforcing these behaviors?

• Use pre-practice language, postgame rituals, or meeting openers to shine a light on what matters.

3. Catch People Doing It Right

• Culture lives in what you celebrate.

• Pick 1–2 moments a week to highlight players/staff modeling your values—not just scoring points or closing deals.

4. Build It Into Your Systems

• Does your calendar, feedback, reward system, and film sessions reinforce your culture?

• If not, the loudest systems will overpower your quiet intentions.

5. Evaluate It with the Team

• Ask monthly: What are we known for right now? What do we want to be known for?

• Let your team tell you what they’re experiencing—then adjust with intention.

🏁 Conclusion: Shape It or Drift

Culture isn’t complicated—but it is powerful. Once your leadership is clear, culture becomes your next job. Not because it’s trendy, but because it’s the environment in which performance lives.

Define it. Teach it. Reinforce it. Or risk letting it drift in a direction you never intended.

🛠️ Your Summer Playbook

The summer is an ideal time for high school and college coaches to establish their culture. Most people know what they want to do, but they don’t know how to do it.

They need a system.

The Culture Playbook is BETTER’s custom system, complete with tools that you can use with your team to establish a culture. It’s full of team exercises you can do with your team in very little time to help you establish your culture.

These tools are used by entities such as Microsoft, Google, and athletic departments like Mississippi State, Florida State, and thousands of high schools.

And you can see it all with no commitment. Coaches — access your free trial below.

🛠️ Want to win more? Know Yourself First.

Just last week, nearly 60 leaders signed up for our 5-day leadership course based on your Voice!

It will be sent to your inbox starting the Monday after you take the assessment and run for that week.

The assessment takes 10-15 minutes. Take it below.