Category Archives: General Info

Five Lessons for our Country from the World Champion Soccer Team and Megan Rapinoe

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The US Women’s Soccer Team Celebrates at New York’s City Hall (photo courtesy of The Nation)

Brittney Spears sang “Whoops, I did it again.” And now the US Women’s Soccer Team has done it again – coming home in 2019 with their 4th world cup championship. In her short remarks in New York City, team co-captain Megan Rapinoe challenges all of us to take some lessons out of the women’s soccer team playbook to build a better country and better society. (link to CNN video).

Here are five of those lessons:

1. Diversity wins! Megan highlighted that a diverse set of women came together to create this winning team; white girls, black girls and those in between …. Straight girls and gay girls … girls with pink hair, purple hair, tattoos and deadlocks. Her point being that the team did not dwell on these differences and allow the differences to divide them, but instead came together as a cohesive team, celebrating their uniqueness and bringing it all together to win. As one of the most diverse countries in the world, we can come together with all the unique gifts that everyone brings to create a special and strong union instead of it creating division.

Megan Rapinoe with world cup trophy (Image courtesy of Esquire)

2. Everyone matters! Megan went through a long litany of all the support people who assisted the team in winning their championship; it was just not those women seated on the podium. Megan thanked everyone who contributed to their success: coaches, medical staff, videographers, security team and even the team chefs. And she thanked the US Soccer Federation President Carlos Cordeiro, with whom they have been some issues. She used this particular public forum to thank and honor him even though there have been some serious issues behind the scenes.

3. Be better and be positive! Megan issued a charge to every person listening at the event … to love more and hate less, to listen more and talk less. It is everybody’s responsibility to contribute their best in making the world a better place.

Megan Rapinoe (left) with girlfriend WNBA player Sue Bird (Image courtesy of yahoo)

4. Use your platform to impact the world for good. Megan made the point that now that the eyes of the world and the country are upon them as the world cup winners, that they have a responsibility to use their power and their platform to impact the world for good.

5. Collaboration instead of contention. Megan closed with the point that sadly, there is so much contention within our nation. Instead we need to work together and collaborate.

In the past, I have blogged often about the connection between sports and diversity and leadership. And I am pleased that our nation’s women’s soccer team and co-captain Megan Rappinoe has again highlighted how we as individuals and a society can learn from athletics and athletes.

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Blog author Stan Kimer, Founder and President of Total Engagement Consulting by Kimer, is a diversity and career development consultant and trainer.


Here are some of my earlier blogs featuring athletics along with diversity and leadership:

Five Key Messages on The Importance of Out Gay Olympic Athletes

Three Wonderful Recent Examples of Diversity in Sports

US Figure Skating’s Fantastic New Campaign: “Get Up!” Yes, in all aspects of our lives, we may fall, but the more times we get up and persevere, the stronger we become. In addition, I wrote a year-long series of “get up” blogs.

Lessons in Character from a Young Teen, about a young man who bounced back from disastrous defeat to become a champion.

A guest blog – the importance and value of minority leadership coaching

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Val Boston III, Career coach, diversity and leadership consultant, and author of this guest blog

As a diversity and career development consultant and trainer, I am often involved in discussions about the lack of diversity in senior leadership, including women, people of color, and younger professionals. Often teams struggle to build a diverse slate for senior leadership positions, and assert that they could not find any highly qualified minority candidates for the position.

It would be far too easy to simply add some diverse people to a candidate list to be “politically correct.” Or one could include people on the slate, who if they got the job would certainly be set up to fail. But instead of these two superficial fixes, we should do the deep work of analyzing the systemic issues in the organization that have created this scarcity of diverse top leadership talent.

One of the most important resources that can be provided is top notch deep minority leadership coaching that helps diverse people grow skills to lead in that difficult environment where they are in a minority and leading mostly people different from themselves. One such seasoned and excellent experienced coach who I have called on to provide this guess blog is Mr. Val Boston of Boston and Associates LLC. Val writes:

One on one professional career coaching is often a critical piece in career progression and talent development.

Succession Planning addresses your organization’s need to strategically prepare for the healthy transition of leadership. These plans are typically linked to a talent management strategy of effective recruiting, developing, retaining and preparing potential leaders for advancement. Considering the rapidly changing demographics in the workplace, special consideration should be paid to the Historically Underrepresented Groups (HUGs) in your talent pool.

Characteristics and Challenges of Successful Coaching Interventions

Executive coaching (or employee coaching or leadership coaching) is certainly not a new concept. Effective coaching occurs when the coach and the colleague have mutual trust and respect; where communications clear and understood by all parties simultaneously; when the colleague is well on track to achieving their professional goals; and the colleague is “dialed in” into the controllable behaviors that generate success.

Most challenges arise with coaching interventions because the market changes are more rapid and unpredictable than ever before; dramatic events may compromise the integrity of the coaching intervention; the continued “buy-in” by the colleague may become out-of-sync and no one understands why; and when basic objectives are not being met.

Why Minority Executive Coaching?

SCENARIO: Jordan is a talented employee who is from a HUG. He has outstanding educational credentials and has an excellent employee track record to date. He is assigned an internal mentor or coach as part of his professional development who is not from his HUG. Though the mentor/coach can provide guidance and direction, the personal relationship and trust needed may not develop that would give Jordan all the “tools” he needs for further growth in the organization. The coach may not be able to provide him with the “unwritten rules” or truly and deeply be able to relate to Jordan at all levels.

Minority Coaching is often a critical tool for assuring career progression of underrepresented communities.

Minority coaching targets HUG employees and can provide the “missing ingredient”, and can many times provide more relevancy. Since many organizations view coaching as an integral component of talent management and development strategies, this focus can enhance existing internal mentorship and coaching programs. Organizations can provide this resource to identified or self-selected colleagues as part of their development plans. Talent that can be developed to assume more responsibilities over time is a win-win, can increase retention rates of high potentials, while developing talent pools to fill key roles.

Our Approach:

Boston and Associates LLC uses a practical, proven coaching model to effect change and improve performance, with an insight based approach.
• Step One: Establish the Coaching Relationship
• Step Two: Assess the Situation
• Step Three: Define Desired Outcomes
• Step Four: Determine & Commit to Take Actions: Determine Possible Actions, Identify Obstacles/ Enablers & Commitment to Take Action
• Step Five: Follow Up/Measure Success
• Step Six: Ongoing Coaching

Coaching increases employee motivation, develops talent for long term high performance, helps to create a source of competitive advantage, and helps to attract and retain the best talent. The successful executive coaching program results in leaders or employees who are more sensitized, better able to communicate, more open to personal growth, as well as overall greater productivity, engagement and job satisfaction that significantly benefits the entire organization.

Val can be contacted at [email protected]
Website: http://www.bostonandassociates.com/
Phone: 336-202-3348