Elev8 Podcast Ep. 102 Team Dynamics with Dr. Alex Auerbach

You're more likely to be vulnerable if you see me do that and you look up to me. There's a social psychology bias called prestige bias, right, where we try to emulate people in power because we're sort of looking for how did they achieve that status. And so if the leader is vulnerable, it communicates to everybody else, hey, it's safe for me to do that here. And really, that's what we want, right? We want people doing things like surfacing mistakes, surfacing uncertainties, because we need to talk about those things so we can resolve them. And so often, like, if people aren't sharing a mistake, it's probably not because there wasn't one made. It's probably because it hasn't been set up for it to be comfortable to do that. And so the leader can step in and really move that process along in creating that psychological safety so that people feel comfortable talking about that.

Welcome to the Elevate Podcast. I am your host and coach, Tyler Johnson. Thank you for tuning in. And whether you've tuned in to elevate your mindset, your game, or just your day, you're in the right place. My guest this episode is the Senior Director of Wellness and Development for the Toronto Raptors. He has served as the Director of Clinical and Sports Psychology for the University of Arizona for several years now. He is providing clinical care, crisis intervention, and performance consultation for professional, collegiate and Olympic athletes, as well as coaches, staffs, and sport administrators. Welcome to The Elevate podcast. Dr. Alex, our back. How are you today?

I'm doing very well. Thank you so much for having me.

I'm excited to have you on, excited to have you share with our listeners. I guess just to start, tell us a little bit of how you got into your line of work and what kind of pushed you into the career that you have now for sure.

So I actually started my career wanting to be a football coach. That was my dream, was to be a head coach of college football and, you know, scouring the sidelines on Saturday sort of thing. And I pursued that path for a few years. I was a D1 football coach at an FCS school, did an internship for a couple NFL teams. And as I was going through that process, was sort of learning more about myself, trying to figure out which part of this work really resonates for me and what parts of it are my not so good at. And it sort of ended up being that I really gravitated toward the relational side of the work, building relationships with players, figuring out how to motivate them And I was put in a position, especially as a young coach, to help navigate some of the things happening away from the game, whether it was classroom issues or social life issues or whatever, obviously with no training as a psychologist at that point. And it was sort of like, man, this, this is really cool. This is work I'm, I'm really passionate about and really like. And so I was, I was sort of thinking about how do I want to spend my time? It dawned on me that, you know, spending more time in this kind of relationship, building one on one role, thinking about organizational dynamics, that sort of thing was more meaningful and motivating for me than it was to think about X's and O's and breaking down film and teaching. And so I pivoted. I became a counseling and sports psychologist, got my PhD in counseling psychology at North Texas. And specialization, kind of like a double major in sport and performance psychology. After doing this path as a coach, ended up taking over and overseeing the mental health and mental performance services for University of Arizona in the athletic department. And then about 11 days before the pandemic hit and the season shut down, joined the Toronto Raptors in 2020, right.

On one of their questions. Kind of head into the season. What's kind of tell us a little bit about kind of your role and maybe kind of the day to day and just kind of the variety of things that you see and do with the team.

Yeah, so I'm responsible for everything. Mental health, mental performance, and what we call off court development, which is sort of like character development and life skills for players and coaches and staff. And obviously it looks different for, you know, every area of the organization we have. So sometimes it's things like meetings to figure out, you know, hiring or job responsibilities. Sometimes it's meeting, figuring out, clarifying roles with players, sometimes it's performance optimization. It's a little bit of everything. The day to day looks a lot like going to practice and watching basketball, going to games and watching basketball meetings with different people and stakeholders about whatever sort of, you know, relevant at the time. Right. So in preseason, for example, we're thinking a lot about getting ready for the season and how we want to start and what's going to be really important for us to sort of maintain and build upon from last year. And then obviously playoffs looks different. And so it ebbs and flows sort of based on where we are. But the core of the role is built on those three pillars.

Got it. I know you, you kind of generalize watching a lot of basketball, but I know in your Role. There's, there's a lot of observing going on. Yeah. Can you maybe talk about or help maybe some other coaches or people listening there? Maybe you're on the bench, or maybe some things that you can benefit from just stepping back and observing, whether you're a coach or another athlete on the team.

Yeah, I guess there's a couple levels of observation that I think are noteworthy. So the first is observing yourself, which is not the one you're asking about, I don't think, but it's the one I'll throw in there first, which is sort of like paying attention in the, in the game to what, you know, pushes you in a certain direction. Right. So coaches often have, you know, experiences of frustration or disappointment when a player doesn't execute something well. And there are several reasons that that might be the case. And I think figuring out, you know, what tends to sort of like push your button, so to speak, can actually be really helpful for you as a coach. Sort of figuring out, like, what is it that you want to spend maybe more time coaching to minimize that frustration? What is it, you know, in this particular dynamic with this player that would be helpful to resolve? Like, there's a lot there to unpack that I think can actually be really helpful for optimizing you as a coach, as the performer. Right. Is building that self awareness and understanding yourself in the context you're in. But then, of course, you know, observing all performers, Right. Whether it's NBA athletes or high school athletes or musicians, you know, you're looking for, at least for me, I'm looking for sort of, I guess, a variety of things around how they're responding to the ebb and flow of the performance. And so what I mean by that is like, you know, all games have these transition times or times where there's highs or lows. And I think it's those moments where we can, we can learn a great deal. So how does a player transition on to the court or off the court? And how long does it take to get into the flow of the game? How do they respond after a mistake or a sudden change? How do they respond when the pressure is higher or lower? When we're up 30 points or down 30 points and looking for not necessarily body language. I'm not a huge body language guy for, for several scientific reasons, but the idea is just that, you know, you can sort of see how people are responding, whether it's like giving greater effort or withdrawing or moving toward a challenge or moving away or interacting with their teammates or not. And these Things tell you something about where this player is. And then the real next step is to ask. Right. Is to figure out. This is data to help me figure out how can I help this player be their best, perform their best. And that's how I use observation in my work.

Like he talked about it, because I think there's talk to a lot of high school conversations and just kind of tell them, you know, when a college coach is coming to your game, they're not coming to really watch you play as much as they're coming to watch you react to the play.

Yeah.

Like they're not. And you've caught coach. Like they're not going to get on the plane and hope you're talented. They know you're talented, and they want to see what the camera isn't showing me. Right. And I think, and I think that's, you know, like you said, it gives you bits and pieces, but you do need to ask. And I think, you know, when it comes to coaching, listening, getting to know our athletes, mental health, can you talk about just kind of, you know, important questions that maybe can help coaches or sometimes ourselves, kind of learn more about each other in the process?

Yeah, I mean, it sounds mundane, but asking how are you? And really meaning it can go a long way. So, you know, so often, I mean, certainly in like Western culture, we've kind of embedded this, like, how's it going? And people just say, like, yeah, fine, and you kind of dap it up and you keep it moving. But if you actually stop and are like, hey, no, really, how are you? People really care about that. And it goes a long way and listening and tuning in. So that's one really simple place to start. But I think what you really want to get to know and understand is who is the person sitting in front of you? What motivates them? What do they care about? What do they understand? What do they not understand? What are their goals? What are their hopes, dreams? Who's important to them? So I think about things like, know who are the significant people in your life and what are the roles that they play? Why do you play sport? Why do you do what you do? If sport ended tomorrow, what would you go? Do you know, how will you know when you reach your goals? What's really important to you to work on this year? You know, they seem again, like sort of simple, mundane questions, but, you know, this. Like, you'd be surprised how many coaches don't ask that. Or they ask once and they kind of stop. You know, that's a common Pattern I see, too, which is why I asked Johnny, you know, what his goals were, and he couldn't really give me an answer, so I just, like, moved on. It's like, well, you know, maybe you could kind of coach Johnny through that, right? Like, hey, Johnny, here's why it's important to have a goal, and here's some examples of our goals could look like. And here's why I want to know what your goal is so I can help you. And I think, you know, there's been some wonderful examples in the pro sports space. Pete Carroll comes to mind, and the work he does with his staff, where, you know, they sit down and they tell each player like, this is what we expect from you. What's your goal? How can we help you get there? And that process does make a big difference in the way players perform. And not only that, it also creates a sense that you really care about me beyond what's going on on the field. And I think those are really the. The touch points that we want with players, because ultimately, like, we want our players to kind of, like, be their best self on the field and off the field. Right? We. And so if. If you care about them and they know that you care about them, they're more likely to pause when something comes up and be like, well, what will coach think about this? Right. Is this going to be good for the team or bad for the team? These are the things that we want them about as they're making their decisions. But it's honestly super easy to not think about things like that if I don't feel like you care about me. And so, again, like, diving into what really matters to this person is a great mechanism for that. I love it.

You're involved with something aiq. Yeah, I want to learn a little bit more about that. And by a little bit, I need to explain to me kind of what you guys do and some of the work that you did. It looks fascinating, kind of cutting edge in the field, but tell us what that's all about, what you're doing.

Yeah, a cutting edge, I think, is a good way of describing it. So the. The AIQ is the Athletic Intelligence Quotient. And it's basically a cognitive assessment that measures four domains. How well players see the field, how quickly they process information, their reaction time, and how quickly they learn new information. And we have 10 subtests that comprise these four larger buckets. And. And really we're after identifying how does a player do what they do? So intelligence is a stable trade. It's One of the best predictors of job performance across several industries. And so this is just an extension of that research into the athletic space, looking at culture independent factors, right? So what we tried to do is figure out what are the buckets of sport performance that don't require, say, knowing English or growing up in the US which is a common flaw of some of the intelligence tests that, say, get used in school. We try to, you know, solve for that problem in advance. And I think we landed on basically a series of 10 puzzles that, that do touch on some of these things. And so, you know, to give you a really clear example, we measure things like how quickly does someone react with or without distractors present? Can someone search a visual field and locate critical information? Can someone find the most efficient path to their destination? And so if I'm thinking about my formal role as a football coach, let's say that last one's about things like pursuit angles and reaction times, about getting your hands up to catch a ball or getting your hands up when you're tightly covered, or searching for critical information is about reading a defense, right? And you can start to draw these connections. And so primarily, that work has really been done to help professional teams and some college teams do two things, right? One is identify talent, which obviously, like the draft, is a huge part of any sports organization. It's a major decision. And so this piece of data has come to play a pretty critical role in filling in some missing information of how front offices see athletes and understand how they do what they do, right? And the way we think about the test is like, high score is obviously great. This gives us some insight into your cognitive performance. But it's only one piece of the puzzle, and it helps us understand this might contribute to your success on the field. If your scores are average or a little bit lower, it doesn't mean you're not going to be a great NBA or NFL player. It just means there may be other things we need to do to put around you to help you be successful. And so that's the second bucket that we help with is development, right? So once we draft you and you're in our organization, like, we're invested. And to your point, you don't get on the plane if you don't think this guy's got the juice, right? So how do we help get the most out of you? And again, this is just one piece of that puzzle. Figuring out how we can optimize your strengths and mitigate your weaknesses so you can be a successful athlete.

Can you? I mean, Athletes, whether it's NBA college football, is still young and developing. And I think, I know talking with recent guests, you know, just you're kind of in that time of also trying to figure out who you are, where you're also expected to perform at a high level for everyone else around you.

Yeah.

And, and I think it's, it's a, it's a challenge that I think most fans don't completely understand or you've been in the coaching side, you understand. Um, but can you talk about just maybe some of those developmental things and just I think the importance of coaching and having support systems for developing athletes during this kind of crucial, crucial age?

Yeah, I mean, I think this is a wonderful question because, you know, I know I just talked about the draft, right. And there's some really interesting data and studies done about the draft. But by and large what we know is that, you know, the best players end up being the ones who are well developed. Right. You very rarely, you know, select like an instant all star. Right. Even the guys who make it to perennial all Star spent a lot of time in a good development system really honing their craft. And so understanding these developmental milestones is really critical. So I'll go back to high school for you and I'll kind of, I'll walk you through the way I think about things sort of as simplistically as I, as I can frame it for, for the time frame that we have, because otherwise we could spend like two or three hours just on development. But you know, in high school, you know, the, the I think the main thing to know, right, for high school athletes around 13, 14, for, for boys and girls, the attention and influence shifts from your nuclear family and your parents to your peers and other significant adults. Right? And so your peers become the primary point of influence over what you do. And so there's obviously merit to surrounding yourself with good people and making sure your kids are, you know, if you're a parent or spending time with other kids who will share similar values. But it also means that, you know, being embarrassed, let's say, in front of teammates is a lot more significant than we might think it is. As a 35 year old adult who's coaching them, who's sort of been through the process and recognizes that like, ah, you know, Sally's opinion on how well I kick a soccer ball probably doesn't matter, but to Sally right now that's the most important thing. And so I think just having that sense of, you know, how important these peer relationships are I think is really important for high school athletes in particular. And then the second is, you know, for the coach. You play a really interesting and important role if you're a high school coach, because you can either be sort of like an extension of good parents, a replacement for not so good parents, or like a totally aversive experience that stands completely opposite to a healthy environment. And those are the places where I think people get in a little bit of trouble. Right? Someone grows up in a healthy environment, has good self esteem and good parents and all that. And then they show up to football practice and they're getting torn down every day. You know, that those are the things parents notice and that people pick up on. And so I think it's not to, you know, underestimate the role that you play as a coach at that point. Just because there's a high peer influence, like you're also a significant person in this athlete's life and how you treat them is going to play a large part in how successful they are or are not moving forward on and off the field, right? They will. High school athletes will internalize their high school coach. I remember my high school coaches. I remember some of the things they said that were great. I remember some of the things they said that were not so great. And that's a lot of pressure, but it's also, it's a, it's a great honor and a great responsibility and you have really an outsized opportunity to make a positive impact as we move through high school, right. You end up obviously with this huge drop of athletes. You know, not every athlete obviously is going to go from, you know, high level high school to D1 or even D3 athletics. There's a huge drop off. And so the next transition you have is this kind of like identity crisis for some who don't make it. Right? Like, who am I outside of sport? What am I going to go do? And some kids kind of know like, I'm never going to be a D1 athlete. And others think they're going to make it and they don't. And so, you know, one role a coach can play for senior year of high school is being honest, right? And helping people understand what's really possible. And then as you get into college, you're sort of dealing with like freedom, right? Like I'm on my own now, most likely. Unless you are playing in the same hometown you grew up in and mom and dad are right down the road. Like you're building new social relationships, right? And you're dealing with the transition and transitions are Always a bit tough. And so I think, you know, there's things like, you know, meeting new friends, finding a role, finding your place on campus, understanding what it means to be a college student, understanding what it means to be independent, and recognizing that, like, it is a huge responsibility shift from a high school athlete to a D1 athlete. You know, you go from, by and large, like a pretty structured high school day, right? Class starts at 8:30, you go to practice at 3:30, you get home at 6. Like college, you might practice at 5:30 in the morning if it's hot, or you'll lift at 5:30 and then you'll have study hall until 9pm It's a lot of work. And so I think, you know, again, talking about the coach's role here, I think it's just appreciating all the demand that's actually going on and what's really going on for these athletes at this level. And then transitioning to the pros is honestly kind of similar. Right. It's like, who am I? What's my role on this team? You know, how does it look for me to contribute? Will I make it? Will I not make it? Do I have what it takes? What does this mean for my family? These are all the kind of like developmental existential questions we navigate here.

Sure, sure. One of the things we like to do is go back and review a tweet. So you should follow Dr. Alex on Twitter. He's got some great stuff. You mentioned environment. You had some great stuff about coaches creating environment not too long ago. But the tweet that stood out that I wanted you to share a little bit more about was, if you want to improve your team's dynamics, show them what it means to be vulnerable. And I think we talk about vulnerability and leadership a lot on this podcast, but can you talk about how it can improve those team dynamics?

For sure. So, you know, this, this tweet was inspired some by the literature on psychological safety, some by, you know, some really interesting research on power dynamics, which is a huge part of team culture. But essentially what I believe is if I'm the leader of a team and you are being led by me, right, you're one of the followers. In essence, you're more likely to be vulnerable. If you see me do that and you look up to me, there's a social psychology bias called prestige bias, where we try to emulate people in power because we're sort of looking for, how did they achieve that status. And so if the leader is vulnerable, it communicates to everybody. Else, hey, it's safe for me to do that here. And really that's what we want, right? We want people doing things like surfacing mistakes, surfacing uncertainties, because we need to talk about those things so we can resolve them. And so often, like, if people aren't sharing a mistake, it's probably not because there wasn't one made. It's probably because it hasn't been set up for it to be comfortable to do that. And so the leader can step in and really move that process along in creating that psychological safety so that people feel comfortable talking about that. But then I think the other piece of this that's interesting and I couldn't figure out how to fit into 280 characters is this idea of power dynamics. And what we find is that the more social status someone has, the less sensitive they are to people of lower status and what their needs are. And so it creates this really interesting paradigm where like, again, let's say you're the head coach and I'm the player and you've got all the power. Like, I'm looking for you to give me a fist bump in the hallway, but you just walk by me to you. You're just walking by me to me. You're ignoring. And those little moments like, really add up over time and it's sort of bi directional. But it's so impactful for me as the follower that you didn't do this, that I can't see that, like, maybe you're scrambling because you got a meeting to go to, or your wife just called you and you've got something to address, or your kid's sick at home, right? Like, there's all these reasons that people are doing what they're doing. But when you're not in the position of power, it's so hard to see what those reasons might be. And you almost like come to a point where the leadership feels sort of like superhuman, right? Like, oh, they just are so busy, they don't have time for me. Like, I don't know what this looks like, you know, and they don't even care about me, right? And so then for you, if you turned around as that leader and in the next, like, say, meeting we had as a team, you sort of shared something that you felt like you screwed up or you say, like, gosh, guys, you know, I'm so sorry that I've seemed absent minded today. Like, I've just been dealing with some stuff at home. Then the people who now, you know, felt ignored 10 minutes ago are like, oh, okay, I kind of get it now, like, oh, I can forgive him. Oh, I really appreciate, I know what it's like for me when I have stuff going on at home and these little moments of being more human, being more accessible as the leader, allow other people to connect to you more easily and they allow other people to feel comfortable doing the same thing, to basically share their humanity. Right. And that is the sort of root of this really deep connection. And so I think again, it's a responsibility of leadership to be vulnerable, to kind of share your human side of things, to let people know what's real for you so that they can share what's real for them too. Again, with great power comes great responsibility kind of thing, but it's also an awesome opportunity to create, you know, an amazing high functioning team. And ultimately, like I believe the best teams are the teams that just care about each other deeply and without that vulnerability, you're not going to get there.

Yeah, no doubt. One of the questions I always like to ask, I think we got time give you two more here actually.

Great.

Wanted to talk about being a former college football player. Spent some time coaching college football a little bit too. What, what are some of the, the lessons you took from college football or coaching into kind of mental performance and then maybe a second follow up on that is what is a good mental skill. Maybe you, you find that players can do in between plays. They spend so much time in between plays. But what, what are some tactics?

Yeah, so I guess lessons from coaching, man, I feel like there are so, so many, you know, but probably the biggest one is like, I think when I started coaching I had in my mind that what would get me to the top would be being like the best chess master. Right? Like knowing how to move the pieces around, how to call the right plays, how to manage the game. And what I found was what would actually make me a great coach didn't really have much to do with that. It had to do with like knowing my players well, knowing how to go to bat for them when something happened, like understanding who they were as people and how to motivate them, how to even get them in a position to execute the tactic right requires like a real relationship. So I think that's one, I think another one that's been really interesting in my career has been because I was a coach at a place that had a history of instability and some ups and some downs, like, and we were, you know, decent the year I was there. I feel firsthand what that pressure is like, right, like, oh, we might get fired if we don't win. And I've seen what that can do to people. And so I have an immense amount of compassion for coaches who are trying to manage that circumstance and the constant pressure. And it's worse now than it was when I was a coach. And that was like 12 years, you know, like now, I mean, you're seeing it like crazy in college football right now. Coaches are getting fired left and right for having an average start of the year, you know, and it's like, I don't know if you guys know this statistically, but like, 68% of these teams are going to be average, right? Like, we can't have 68% of these people getting fired just because it's not panning out. And so, like, that. That's really helped me, I think, empathize and understand and work more effectively with the coaches I work with. And, you know, some of the things that kind of outsiders might ascribe to as sort of like, you know, crazy or lunacy from coaches, right? It's like, comes from this place of deep passion for what they do, but also fear and insecurity, right? And so understanding that, I think has. Has helped me a lot. And then I think maybe the final piece is like, you know, it's interesting to say this as a sports psychologist, but there's not really a replacement for the value of the coach athlete relationship. Like, I can help. I'm a. I'm a good resource, but it will never matter to a player what I say as much as what head coach says. And so, you know, I think that being in this role now, thinking about that also allows me to help coaches understand the impact they can have. Because, again, like, I think one of the things for coaches is, like, sometimes, you know, the most insignificant moments to us are the most significant moments to a player. And the little things that you say end up making a huge difference. And so kind of leveraging that, I think has been important to switch gears and talk about managing that transition or the moments between, I guess, like, it depends on your sport, right? So you've got sports like, you know, football, where you kind of have like 30 seconds, maybe, let's say, of rest and then six seconds of activity and then maybe 10 seconds of locking in, and you sort of like, go through this cycle. So what I would think about for football might be, you know, how do I get like, a brief bit of rest, right? Like just sort of like, you know, distance a little bit. Let the last play go re center, get ready for the next Play. So I might use something like breathing or grounding or focal cueing, right? Like, okay, I'm relaxing. Like, take a deep breath. All right. What do I need to pay attention to now? And then focus on something simple. What's important now. I love the. The wind frame, right? And then you've got sports, like, maybe like, basketball, where, you know, you could have two straight minutes of continuous play, and there's not really that transition time or that break time. And so when those breaks happen, they tend to be a little bit longer, right? And they also tend to be like, the only bit of respite that you get. And so for me, the priority there tends to be, you know, a little bit quick, like, recovery, and then back into it a little bit, and then, you know, sort of like updating your model of where you're at in the game, right? Like, if you just played two straight minutes in an NBA game, like, you're probably tired. And so, you know, knowing that and raising your hand if you need to come out or asking for what you need or finding deliberate ways to get creative, to slow the game down, like, thinking about some of those kind of creative opportunities. And then I think, like, the last one I'll touch on is, like, baseball, because I think it's super unique, right? Like, you end up with, you know, every sport has a high rate of failure. Baseball gets a bad rap. Like, if you're batting, you know, 300, you're doing. Doing amazing, and you're failing seven out of 10 times. Like, the same is kind of true shooting threes in the NBA, right? Like, if you're shooting, you know, 35, 40 in the NBA, like, people love that. But you're still missing six out of 10 times, right? And so there's a high rate of failure. And so I think, like, those transitions are also really interesting, so figuring out, you know, how you can let that go. So there's been, you know, sort of gimmicky things that have been popularized. And there's also, like, you know, taking a deep breath, resetting, relaxing, refocusing, and then re. Engaging. So a simple kind of routine can help with some of that stuff.

Love it. Love it. One last question. We'll wrap up giving you a magic wand. You get to wave it. And tomorrow morning, every student, athlete, and coach wakes up with, empowered, with the mental skill. What would you want them to wake up with tomorrow?

This is a crazy magic wand. I love this.

It's magic. So some people add, too, so, you know, it's your magic wand.

Like. Like a genie where I can just wish for unlimited wishes kind of thing.

It's a wand, it's not a genie.

Oh, man. Yeah. Gosh. You know, I might kick myself for saying this, but my, my honest answer is mindfulness. Us. You know, I. I think I say I might kick myself because it's been sort of like overextended as the most important thing. And, you know, we're getting more and more data on mindfulness isn't necessarily right for everyone. But by and large, you know, the ability to be in the present moment, to pay attention what's happening here and now, direct your attention, let go when you're distracted, and come back, that's like a sort of fundamental skill that underpins a lot of what happens in elite performance. And so if I was wishing for everyone to be excellent, I would endow them with the ability to be highly mindful.

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