Risk Losing Talent or Embrace Staff Growth - with Butch Staples
Welcome to Racquet Fuel, where we launch into great conversations and share powerful tools to help you become a stronger rackets leader. Your hosts are Kim Bastable, a former all American tennis player and now the director of tennis management at the University of Florida. And Simon Gale, the USTA senior director of Racquet Sports Development. Today on Racquet Fuel, some leaders resist staff development because it may mean an employee ultimately leaves. But is it okay to manage with that attitude?
Episode Narration:We'll discuss the answer to that question and how to design and implement a staff development plan with Butch Staples, National Racquet Sports Director for Midtown. Here's Kim and Simon. Simon. Welcome
Kim Bastable:to Racquet Fuel. Today, we are talking about staff development, but also we are just picking the mind of a very wise guy in our industry. We Simon and I love Butch Staples, director of education at Midtown Athletic Clubs, and we thought he would be perfect to talk about this topic. We really are passionate that we feel all leaders need to develop their staff intentionally, and he has Butch has many, many subjects. So, Simon, I know this is near and dear to your heart.
SImon Gale:Look. This is one of the most important things we do as leaders, and and I think Butch will offer some incredible insight as to how to do it well and and and some best practices on it. But let me just start by saying, and and my goal is to embarrass Butch a little bit, not with a story, but more out of praise on my end is when I first got to the country and started going to conferences and so on, Butch was always speaking and revered in the industry. The fact that I've been able to cross paths with him, spend time talking to him, we've had a lot of breakfasts, lunch, dinners, maybe a beer or two over the years. And to call him a friend and a colleague is a real honor.
SImon Gale:So I'm thrilled to be chatting with you today, Butch, and really value your friendship and what you've done for our industry.
Butch Staples:Well, thank you very much, Simon. And, Kim, thank you for inviting me to Racquet Fuel. I'm I'm really excited about this because, as you know, the topic is something that's really dear to my heart. So I really appreciate the invitation. And, again, thank you, Simon, for those very kind words.
Butch Staples:Yeah. Let's let's get this going.
SImon Gale:Well, Butch, your role as director of education for Midtown, you know, you've seen it all, you've seen teams, you've built teams from scratch, you hire and and manage and develop people. You do that with the USTA and that coach developer role as well. Where do you see see us today as an industry from an ongoing education, coach development, staff development point of view? Are we are we good at that? Do we struggle with that?
SImon Gale:And especially given that we've now got directors of Racquet Sports and coaches aren't just tennis anymore, and you're maybe having to develop them across multiple sports. What's your take on on on the state of that in our industry?
Butch Staples:Well, you know, we gotta look where we came from, I guess, is is really important. And The United States is a different different entity than just about all the other national governing bodies with regards to tennis is that the USDA, even though they dabbled in coaching education, I can remember and really honor Eve Craft and John Conroy who founded the tennis teacher conference, in 1971 in New York City during the open. And, I can remember attending some of those conferences back in the seventies and eighties, and they were little triggers for me in terms of my own career because I get excited being in that environment with that time, all the leaders in in North American tennis. So I it was a rush, I guess, is the way to to put it. And then, you know, when we look at the the USPTA, and then a number of years later, the PTR and then, the Vic Braeden Tennis College, Vandermyr Tennis University, Peter Burwash, the International, had incredible training programs.
Butch Staples:And then in the late nineties, USTA player development, I was able to attend the first high performance cohort, which was really a special experience for me again. Right after that, the first USTA actually coaching education program I was able to head up. I was representative actually of Vandermeer. His company was contracted by, one of the board members of the USTA, ran training in Philadelphia for a 115 summer coaches that were gonna staff 52 sites for Philadelphia youth tennis. So when I look back at all these different things that happened, they are all extremely important in identifying where we are right now and giving us the opportunity of where we we see ourselves going.
Butch Staples:But we're have been fragmented. We really have. And I think that the current efforts to try to unify and work together and be collaborative in that, I think, are gonna pay dividends. It's gonna take a few years, of course, but I think that we've realized that, you know, other countries that, in many ways, are are are ahead of us in the coaching education, you just take it much more seriously. It's that comes from a a root belief that education, the formative education that we have, will have a huge impact on the way we coach.
Butch Staples:And, we're starting to see that, and I'm really excited about all of the wonderful things that are happening. There's such a change going on in terms of the way we perceive coaching. It's like we're right in the middle of it right now. It started a number of years ago, and like everything else, it's sort of osmosis slowly creeps in. But right now, when we look at terms like, athlete centered coaching, something that really wasn't evident over a decade ago, it was hardly ever touched on.
Butch Staples:You know? This notion of the learner being at the center of everything is is really relatively new. So many of us that were been coaches for a long time and haven't done continuing education, gotten close to it, not a threat, but it makes it very uncomfortable for coaches to actually go back and question what they've been doing for years and taking a look at how can I maintain my position stature but go back a little bit and relook things? So, fortunately, I've I I'm a huge believer that it's not for everybody, and, some of the individuals who are very traditional coaches will continue to be great coaches in that. But I think that as we bring more coaches into the industry, they're gonna get on the bandwagon a little bit more.
Butch Staples:And, again, over time, five years, ten years, it'll it'll take time, but we will be different. And, that's a very exciting future for us.
Kim Bastable:Well, how do you define the word? Like, what's the responsibility directly of this staff development piece? Like, as a leader, what do you consider your responsibility to encourage someone that you are in charge of versus their responsibility to improve themselves? You know, we emphasize in the course, the University of Florida course about really understanding the needs of someone who's moving up in the industry, what their strengths are, what their weaknesses are, where they wanna go, you know, and equip them, like, directly. But what do you consider that staff development responsibility?
Kim Bastable:How do you define it?
Butch Staples:K. I'm gonna need you to keep bringing me back to that question because I wanna express a few things that get us off a little bit. I promise I won't be too long with them, but I I don't read as much as I should. But one of the absolute best books that I get fired up every time I think about it is a book called Primed to Perform. K?
Butch Staples:It really is a deep dive into the motivation in the workplace, and it's by MacGregor and Doshi. And it doesn't it's not unique at all to coaching. It's every possible from being a janitor to a nurse to an attorney to bookkeeper, whatever. It it all has to do with what motivates us in the in our working environment. And the thing that's exciting about tennis, it's a huge when we talk about, you know, a triple whammy, this is it.
Butch Staples:Because the three primary motivators are about individuals having the ability to be able to play in their work. Now that doesn't mean we hit ping pong on a table and stuff like that. We're not playing ping pong, but it means we can be creative. We can be curious. We can do different things.
Butch Staples:Imagine that stage of a tennis court as a coach out there and all the wonderful opportunities we have to be creative and playful in the way we deal with our students. Like, it's unbelievable. So, anyway, the number one first p is play. It's it's the number one motivator. Those individuals that every day get excited about going to to work.
Butch Staples:And I have a granddaughter who actually, at her senior year in high school, because she could speak French, got her job teaching or not teaching, a job as a night janitor in her school because she could speak French because they had to be bilingual is one of the requirements. So nobody else applied that could speak French. So she ended up being a night night janitor. And, like, she loved it because she could do her work, but at the same time, she could be very creative and playful in the way she did. So whether she mopped the the floors laterally or horizontally or whatever she did, she played.
Butch Staples:So it was a great experience for her. So it's something she wanted to do for a lifetime, but it was wonderful. So I think that play component, I I just can't emphasize enough. The second motivator, what is really key, is purpose. Think about coaching tennis.
Butch Staples:How much purpose there is in there? We can inspire people to transform their lives. We can do things that are unbelievably purposeful. So from a coaching perspective, I think that's huge. And then the last one is potential.
Butch Staples:And the potential, this is what I was gonna get off on a little bit, Ken, was that it's not the potential just to grow to become a supervisor or director of tennis or take on other roles. I I'm really passionate. I really think we're missing the boat when we're talking about career going on to do all these other things. I really think we have to have some kind of a focus on how exciting a career it is to stay as a tennis coach for forty or fifty years and and really be passionate about our students. To me, that's what the career should be.
Butch Staples:So we have to inspire. If we go to back to prime to perform, we have to inspire individuals to realize there is a career in teaching. It doesn't have to be a career that leads to something else. Well, that's a that's a strong point. I I really believe in it.
Butch Staples:We've really gotta promote the idea that it is a wonderful career to be on court working with people. Unfortunately, the old style of feeding from a basket and hitting tennis balls with a student is a demotivator. Over time, we become complacent. But in today's world, what we understand about learning, we create this environment on the court. We're just a bit of a magician out there.
Butch Staples:We're a pied piper. We've got all kinds of things that we can do that we can keep getting better at. See, there's all growth potential in learning in terms of how to to meet the needs of our students.
SImon Gale:Kim and I have talked often about how how often pros who are the best pros get promoted into leadership roles and quite often will circle back and come come full circle to teaching again because they realize that was their passion. I think you you and I have talked, Butch, about it's totally okay to be a coach for life and not have to be a leader as well. So I think there's a role for everyone, and coaching is a we're incredibly lucky to be able to get paid to do this and be the magician or the pied piper, as you say. Mhmm. I wanna change directions a little bit in terms of a word that gets used a lot these days is reflection.
SImon Gale:And I think from a coaching point of view, reflecting on your performance, reflecting on your lessons, being able to look back and say what I did well, what I need to work on, and let's work on this moving forward. I think this is a life skill. I think this is beyond tennis coaching. But in relation to developing staff, what does that mean to you, and how have you used that to develop people with your Midtown system?
Butch Staples:Yeah. And I and I go back to the United States Center for Coaching Education about six years ago, a three day workshop in New York that I attended along with a number of other individuals. And it was fabulous. It it kinda really brought my awareness even though I'd been coaching and teaching and learning and growing over, you know, decades and decades. It really triggered, like, feelings that I had never had before.
Butch Staples:And it was really about this whole idea of, you know, purposeful reflection, you know, pre, during, and post performance and the the importance of it and just understanding that, yes, all of the the luring that happens in a mediated, fashion where we have, you know, somebody that's teaching us, instructing us, it's led by the the the teacher or the coach is one thing, but it's the unmediated where we become responsible for our own learning. We determine what we're gonna learn, how we're gonna learn it, and when we're gonna learn One of the issues about reflecting like many other things is what do we reflect on? So what we've done in Midtown is we've really identified what we call the optimal learning environment, and there's six pillars in there. So I think for anybody, any coach, or any program is you've gotta determine in your program what are the key ingredients that you wanna make sure that we continue to get better at. Because if it's just left as an open book, it's too hard to to really get our hands around it.
Butch Staples:So we try to guide our coaches by giving them six pillars with questions they can ask themselves on each pillar. So half of the pillars are about more of the the the the the personality or things that we bring generally to our our our our work. Okay? And that has to do with our communication skills and our relationship building skills and creating that playful, fun environment. That's something usually that we don't train.
Butch Staples:Usually, we look for individuals that have those innate skills, whereas the other pillars we have are are things that are very trainable. We we can train them on how to make challenge, which is probably one of the huge ingredients in learning is to have appropriate challenge because we have to be unsuccessful enough that stimulates us to achieve the success we're looking for. So it's that tipping point. So the appropriate challenge is huge. So some things we can coach and develop much more readily.
Butch Staples:Other things we can't, but it all comes from the coach understanding where they are on that scale, and that's done through self reflection, so through guidance and and and self reflection. Now we ask our coaches in Midtown to do 10% of their lessons, an actual formal self assessment. It's done on Workday. It's and each year I do or a couple of times a year, I do analysis across all the clubs, but I get a weekly report, and I share that summary to to all other Racquet sports managers on, on the self assessments. But parallel to that is the micro audits.
Butch Staples:That's the the formal sort of assessment of coaching. So in our profession, we don't have very many places where we actually have supervisors or Racquet sports managers or directors that actually go out and assess their coaches while they are actually performing what they do best, their own court experiences. So that's incredibly important because one thing to ask for reflection, but if we don't as well provide some external support and guidance to that reflective process, it's not gonna carry on. So to us, it's the two sides. It's what we do through the micro audit process in supporting our coaches as well as the self reflection.
Kim Bastable:That's thorough, and and I think every club needs to take that lesson from you that there really is still ongoing teaching. Once somebody becomes even a certified pro and continues forward, there needs to be people that are assessing and watching and just discussions about how they can continually improve. So I love I love that process. On a little bit different note, often people come to the University of Florida's director of Racquet Sports program and express to me that they are unable to ask their supervisor for reference for which we require for the course because their supervisor is afraid that they're going to get another job, or they perceive that their supervisor will be unhappy with the idea that they want to get better educated and they wanna take our course. Maybe fear they lose them to another job with a pro shortage that could be, you know, a difficult rehire to fill in for them.
Kim Bastable:But but if that's the reality, I just in our sit you know, in our profession, I just thought I'd last how how do you respond to that? Is is that something you also think, you know, is reality, or is that a is that a minor part of our culture as tennis professionals?
Butch Staples:Him, it is reality. It it is. But on the other side of it, I think it's getting a little better. Good. I'm just feeling it that, companies are are becoming much more supportive.
Butch Staples:They realize the critical importance of developing their people. And there is a bit of a risk, but, you know, the the bosses that don't really buy into this, I tell coaches, fire your bosses. No. We we can't do that. But, I mean, each business leader has to make their decisions, but they really should take to heart one of my favorite quotes, and I'm sure you're familiar with, but it's by Henry Ford.
Butch Staples:And the quote goes like this. The only thing worse than training your employees and having them leave is not training them and having them stay. So to me, that's, like, you gotta think about that one because it's the absolute truth. Because I when I think about our own company, one of our greatest struggles one of our greatest struggles is how the the lower end, how do we upscale them when they don't wanna be upskilled, but then how do we move them on? Okay?
Butch Staples:So coach them up or coach them out. But coaching out is an extremely, in today's world, extremely difficult. So the investment that we should be making right from the get go with the onboarding process should be a very deep dive in in in education when we onboard. And then from there, it's gotta be a continual process. And and supporting your program at the university or other opportunities for for coaches, we have to do it.
Butch Staples:It's just the you know, what it'll always come back to us. It really will because I can't think of anyone that I haven't applauded for the them moving on to a better position. You know? And that that's not just the time at at Midtown, but every employment I've been involved in.
SImon Gale:And, Butch, you talk about keeping people in the industry or elevating their their skill set and and and and moving them on. I I do agree a 100%. I think if you're a facility or a company that does that, you develop a reputation for that and it attracts people. So I I think you fill that void in in in your staff. When somebody leaves, somebody good will come because of your reputation.
SImon Gale:So I I believe that wholeheartedly. But we do have an issue in our industry that gets talked about a lot is attracting and and retaining talent. And we lose a lot of people just as they start to reach their their prime in their late twenties, thirties as a coach because they don't see a future and they don't feel like there's an investment. And I've presented on this for a couple of years and the feedback is consistent that I don't see a pathway. I don't see a lifestyle balance that's gonna keep me in the industry.
SImon Gale:So I'm dropping out. And I'll probably go and do something I'm not as passionate about, but I want x y and z for my future. Is this something that we should be doing as an industry to keep good people on the career path? Is it engagement of of their ongoing education? Is it this this ongoing reflection and development?
SImon Gale:What what's your take on that?
Butch Staples:Well, most leaders, and I'm gonna generalize there, okay, but I have to. Individuals of Racquet Sports managers, even owners of private facilities and that, we do not invest enough time with our people. And it's not just talking about their career, but it's the relationships. Because it's really hard when you're really enjoying the people you work with and everything like that. You may be making less money than you might in another facility, but, boy, you love being with those people.
Butch Staples:And it gets back to this prime to perform and the motivation to work sort of ties in, but we don't invest enough. We don't know enough about. And then we're surprised so often that somebody has taken on another position in their living. So we don't we just didn't see it coming. And a lot of it is because we're just not engaged in with our people.
Butch Staples:So to me, that's a foundational thing that's going to help unto itself is just be closer to the individual, get to understand what their feelings, what their desires or wishes are, but at the same time, look within what we can do to help them realize some of that while they're still with us. We may not like, just extending. You know? Like, in in the world of cancer today is is not so much sometimes saving a life. It's extending the lives, the quality of life for people.
Butch Staples:Well, the same thing in our work. You know, if we can extend the the quality of that work experience with us, yeah, they may end up moving on because of other things. But, Simon, I think that's really critical to it. That's not an answer that fills and says, okay. We have to do these steps.
Butch Staples:But to me, that's I don't know. I I over all the years when I when I was managing the resort and the the retention I had with with the employees at the at the resort, everything was off the charts. It was it was it was crazy. And I think it's because we we we were able to create a real interest that that happened through social gatherings as well as through individual. I this one thing I found all the senior and mid managers at the resort was how crucial it was to stay close to their people.
SImon Gale:I agree a 100% in that I look at my career in the place I spent the most time. The reason I stayed probably ten years longer than my plan was because of the relationships I had with the owner and the manager.
Butch Staples:Yeah.
SImon Gale:And and I look back now and say that was the reason. It wasn't money. It wasn't I was driving 55 miles to get to work. It wasn't because of a short commute. It was because of the person I worked for and and I've worked hard at that through my career with that role model to make that a priority is what are my relationships like first and and let's talk 10 a second.
SImon Gale:I I I like that you said that. Thanks.
Kim Bastable:I think that's exactly what happens is that sometimes that simple piece of heading it off at the past and having those conversations to know that somebody is a little bit unhappy or not sure they fit in or doesn't have the skill set to feel that they're at ease in their job or just a sensitivity. If we can have that discussion, I think we have an the impact to change that trajectory. And as you say, it it may not be that they ultimately stay in our profession for forty years, but they might stay another five or another three. And that is and we can help them equip them even for the next step if they decide they are gonna exit the game, do something else. There's still some skills they might need to learn, and they could they could work it at your club.
Kim Bastable:I I think that's actually it really comes down to the the relationship and and being personable to sensitive and and know the person. What what is it that you can share with our listeners that they might need to know as you look forward to the next five years in our industry? What what are you seeing that you think whether they're on court or whether they're off court in leadership? What are people skill set? What do they need to develop to thrive continually in in, you know, the next five years?
Butch Staples:Do you both do you know the ballad of desert Pete? Do know what that ballad is? Nineteen sixty three, the Kingston Trio. So this isn't this could be the punch line for my last statement, but I'm gonna put it out there up front. Anyway, it's Kingston three o.
Butch Staples:It's look it up. It's really fun. It's got a nice tune to it and everything, and I'm not gonna sing it. I'm just gonna say what it is. Basically, you've got to prime the pump.
Butch Staples:You must have faith and believe. You've to give of yourself for you're worthy to receive. Drink all the water you can hold. Wash your face. Do your feet.
Butch Staples:Leave the bottle full for others. Thank you kindly, desert Pete. So as we look at you know, there there there's a lot of different statement pay it forward and all all these things, but it really is a question in our industry of all of us. And that goes for the the rookie coach that's coming in is we have to look at what we do that ensures the care of others. And that, to me, is critical.
Butch Staples:It's like it relates back to what I'd said before about, you know, communicating and everything like that, but it's always gonna come back to us. You can't imagine the number of times in my life that I took risks and did things, it wasn't for any personal gain in any way. And I wasn't thinking of how it might come back, but it comes back. Once once we're we're committed to to to people because that our industry is really it's about hospitality. It's about caring.
Butch Staples:It's about support. And those things have to be built upon and ingrained. And every company, every club, every individual coach should have core values that relate to that. Now if if we don't have the core values, it's gonna be a struggle. It's very hard to fake it over time.
Butch Staples:So I would say, Kim, and I I'll let you come back and clarify a little bit more to get me back on on online here, but I just had to express that because that's what I truly believe. In terms of a takeaway from this session is on all the listeners to understand it it really is about giving and preparing for those who follow. And when you're when you're doing that in your in your work environment, satisfaction from your your your your job just rises tremendously, and it is. It's not restricted to dance. I mean, we work at at clubs and environments where there's people who are who host who receive.
Butch Staples:The members are the participants. You know? They're at a at a reception desk or, you know, court side, whatever. They they're they're there. They're I mean, it's the same thing for them.
Butch Staples:It it really is. So to create when we look at a holistic interest in in our people, we talked about athlete centered coaching, but we've gotta think about holistic, experiences.
Kim Bastable:Yeah. That's good stuff. Simon, do you have some reflections from this conversation?
SImon Gale:Well, at the end of the day, I don't think anyone will remember us at the end of our career for how many great lessons we taught. It's going to be the relationships we had, the people we influenced, and we always talk about here that if you're not better as a coach and a person than when you started with us, then we've failed you. And that's a priority and I think the satisfaction to see people move on and move up or move up within your your own organization, it it is the best feeling. Teaching tennis and watching someone hit an amazing forehand was a great feeling, but you can't beat helping people grow. And I I think if you're a true leader, that's something that is a natural, instinct that you have.
Kim Bastable:Yeah. We really appreciate your time, Butch. It's an inspiring time of of just really considering, as you say, the athlete. Athlete centered coaching, employee centered leadership. It's it's really caring for that individual.
Kim Bastable:Do have any final words?
Butch Staples:I really no. My final words were I really got tremendous joy of spending this time with you and just being able to tell a little bit of a story, and, it just really elevates me and motivates me to continue. So thank you.
Kim Bastable:Well, you really are someone that we all look up to a great deal. We just respect, and that's not just because you're a nice guy. You have been just so impactful in in your many stops along the way, and the people that interact with you know they've been cared for with every interaction, and that's that's something to be super proud of, Butch, and we're we're pleased that you're a part of our Racquet's world.
Butch Staples:Well, thank you.
Kim Bastable:Thank you so much for this time. Yep. We are all done today on Racquet Fuel. Come see us again next time.
Episode Narration:That's all for today, but we're not out of fuel. You can find more information and resources in our show notes and by visiting racketfuelpodcast.com. If you like what you just heard, please subscribe. And also, leave a review, which helps other people join the mission to become stronger Racquet's leaders.
Conclusion:This podcast is a production of Athlete Plus, the people, stories, and science behind elite athletes and teams. Athlete Plus is the official podcast network of the Institute for Coaching Excellence, a research, education, and outreach center in the College of Health and Human Performance at the University of Florida. The Institute for Coaching Excellence offers various online certificate programs and degrees in partnership with the Department of Sport Management. Learn more today at coaching.hhp.ufl.edu.
