Krefeld Penguins
The year after winning the championship with the Haie I received a call from a coach of the Krefeld Penguins. He said that he also had a team that he knew is a team that could win the championship that season like the Haie the year before and could I help him help them to succeed. Naturally, with a coach with such a believe process I could only say yes because when a leader believes the potential for success is there the possibility of success is already high. But this was a different situation in the team then it was with the Haie, which I observed in our first meeting.  So the approach needed to be different. They already had a clear image about where their journey could lead them but they were having problems communicating that to each other on and off the ice. What they were waiting for, I noticed, was for their leader, the coach, to communicate that to them but he was a reserved, quiet type of person. He found it difficult if not impossible to express his believes and trust in them. So I created in the team a communication flow through some simple exercises which created a dynamic. I worked with the captain who is anyway in a team the person who communicates the leaders message to the team. And from that moment on we had mobility which carried them all the way to the championship.

 
Hannover
I entered the locker room and it looked like the world had gone under. The players were down and so were the coaches and they were at the bottom of the league and in what they call the relegation round. I asked them to picture it Saturday night you’re at the movies, you’ve got popcorn, an ice cold coke and you’re sitting comfortably watching a movie. The movie starts slowly, it drags on and seems to be getting worse. Then all over sudden the hero steps up, the bad guy gets defeated and the boy and girls live happily ever after. Now you go out of the cinema, and how do you feel? What do you say? Great movie, huh! You forget about the slow, boring beginning when the end is good. I went on to say, “now its up to you to decide how this movie is going to end.” You could see their shoulders raise and their eyes lighten up. “ You are now in the play-offs” I said, “ and I don’t want to hear anything about play-downs.” So from that moment on it was all about winning the championship to stay in the league. And that’s exactly what they did, with team work, team spirit and determination.

 
Kassel
I received a call from a Swedish coach who felt his Ice Hockey team needed some mental training. The conversation was very positive and I felt good about it, so I agreed. When I arrived at the train station I was picked up by the coach and we spend the first 4 hours together in deep conversation. I got to know and understand him and his philosophies. Then we went to meet the team. I noticed right away that this was a healthy environment. They had a good presence and were a team but I noticed, as soon as the coach walked into the locker room he appeared insecure and uncomfortable. This became even more prevalent when he was in the sanctuary of his office. He was associating the environment around his team with negative experiences. After helping him understand the situation and making a choice to empty his cup of all the negative things that had happened, he presented himself in a more positive and dynamic way which affected the team. They went on a 15 game winning streak at home and made the play offs from the last position in a short period of time. It turned out to be, after all, a successful season.

 
Hannover 96
I experienced a similar situation of that to the Swedish coach I worked with. This time it was with the head coach of 96, German major league soccer team. The coach felt he needed my assistance before the season started because he was feeling insecure about his teams performance under the pressure of playing in the Premier Division after coming up from the second division that year. Unfortunately the management didn’t support him on his request for my assistance and he had to go as a lone ranger. After loosing the first 5 games of the season the phone rang and came a cry for help. I jumped on board right away knowing the major elements of interference existing in the organisation. One week, after intensive conversations with the head coach, his assistance, and several team development exercises, we were moving into becoming a stronger team. The moment when we started to believe in the team and it’s process, was when the head coach dropped all the pressure of expectation and results and joined up with passion and emotion. He grabbed his whistle from deep in the drawer and went out for the first time in the middle of the soccer field and said “boys, are you ready? Let’s work. Learn and have some fun.” We went on to beat several of the top teams and finished the season in a secure middle of the table position.

 
Ingolstadt
One evening I received a call from a player in a team that was struggling. He was a player who I had worked in another team and we had enjoyed success together. The player asked if I would be interested in helping his team out because they were struggling at the bottom of the league and saw no way out.  A few days later I met with the team manager and the coach who had 2 assistants who I noticed meant good but with too much enthusiasm and involvement were causing  interference and confusion for the coach. Through a conversation of awareness he came to understand the situation and so he could straighten things out. A week later I returned to see him sitting behind his desk, all his things in place, he was the man in charge. The team went on to reach the semi finals and an unexpectedly successful season.

 
Roland
One of the most interesting stories is about a young Austrian Super Moto Bike racer. He was talented but lost. Super Moto is a sport played on the edge, it’s about pushing to the limits and that’s the way this young rider was. Unfortunately he sometimes pushed himself over the line and either made disastrous mistakes and often crashing at inopportune moments costing him races. In our first meeting we created a clear mission so he knew where our journey together was going. He came to understand his potential, his strengths and weaknesses and what he had to do to become a champion. We worked out a simple plan, a strategy to fill in the missing elements. He committed to the work needed to develop into a champion and I helped him to be accountable. We spoke once a week on the telephone throughout the next season and he finished by fulfilling his mission becoming Austrian Champion earning himself a contract with Suzuki to race internationally in the Super GP Series.

 
Wolfsburg
Helping teams to become aware of there value is a very important part of my work. A few years ago I got the opportunity to work with a coach and his team that were in search of respect. They called me when they were struggling through the relegation rounds to stay in the top Ice Hockey League in Germany. After my preparatory conversation with the coach I immediately came to understand that this was all about identification and self worth. The coach was somebody who had been brought into a situation where he had to prove himself as a leader with a team that was branded from the start of the season as second rate. When I met with the team I asked them one by one to come forward and not just say but also write down on a large piece of paper what they had to give from themselves for the team. Without any prompting the players showed their support to each other as each one wrote down their statement. For me I knew this was the moment when this team started to respect themselves and each other. To put a little icing on the cake I made a suggestion to them to now trust in their process because that can and that will bring them to a successful conclusion. Which it did. I was present for game 1 in the relegation round, which they won and as I promised them, I was there for the last game, which was game 7 in a best of seven series which they won.

 
Caps
The leader is one of the key elements in any team process. Over several years I developed a close relationship with a Canadian coach. We first worked together when he got what they call a “fireman’s job”* with a team that had played almost half a season with only one win and many embarrassing losses. So as you can imagine, the team was down in the dumps. When I arrived I noticed that the team was not at all down, mentally nor emotionally, it was only their approach to playing hockey. So the plan was not to touch anything but the on-ice stuff, systems and strategies. Then later we worked on the team development process. The plan worked well. We got all players to join up and the team started to win immediately. It was so extreme, the change in dynamics, that the media created a second league table, named after the coach. And this league we lead till the end of the season and missed the play offs by only a few points. But we had earned that first season respect and trust. The trust that was earned in that first season paved the way for the next season where we broke all league records and were the top team from start to finish.  We won the championship which had not happened in 43 years.

 
Monica S.
“What you believe you achieve” is one of my mottos. Its not something I made up because it rimes, it comes from many experiences I had with many successful people in business and in sport. One of those inspirations was a young 14 year old girl, a tennis player and her father. They came to my tennis academy to train, but little did I know that she was to become one of the best female tennis players in the world one day. In our first meeting I asked her what she wanted to become in tennis and she answered with no hesitation “the best, the no.1”. Then she turned to her father for confirmation and he said in a matter of fact way “yes, that’s true, she will be the no.1!” We made together a master plan which she committed to unconditionally. And within a few years she had won several Grand Slams and was the No.1 tennis player in the world.

 
Nick
Never giving up or loosing sight of your vision, is something all champions have in common. A young PGA Pro and I first met on a driving range and got into a lengthy conversation about his life and vision. At that time he was taking time out from tournament golf to give golf lessons and work on his own game. But the flame still simmered and we made a mission plan which he had to commit to so as to make that move from the comfort zone of coaching to the tough unpredictable world of competitive  sport. We worked together on the range and through telephone coaching, mapped out a journey with the first stop, to have success on the PGA European tour. Which he did achieve and the journey goes on.

 
Kellys
In the business world team work, like in sport, is essential to create a winning spirit. I was approached one day whilst training with an Ice Hockey team in Vienna by the CEO of a big snack food company. He said that he had observed how the Vienna Capitals had made a drastic change from individual searching from their own gain to a tight group of players working together to achieve one goal which they did: to win a championship. The CEO asked me if I thought I could help him to create that same spirit with his management team. I asked him in return if that is what he really wanted, he said yes without any doubt, so I agreed to help him.
It was new water for me working in the business world, so my first step was to get as much feedback from the CEO and his management team as possible before I could even start a process. What I noticed was, that sports teams and business teams have one thing in common: they work for the same vision with various motivations but in the same direction. But the major difference is the material goals. In sport it’s a trophy, a cup a medal, in business its profit, figures, money. What we decided to do though, is connect the profit and figures into a play off format with a championship based on numbers. That’s exactly what we did. We had a mission session and created a profit figure for the quarter finals, semi finals, finals and the championship. We got everyone to agree and commit to the mission, and most of all to support each other unconditionally. We planned the steps altogether as a team which we called the inner circle to work with our process. At the end of the year we had qualified for the play offs, we won through the first rounds, onto the finals where in February we became champions in our first season together. Also, to top things off, we moved up in that year to become the leading snack food brand in Austria.

 
Simmer
I worked for three years in a row with an ice hockey coach in Switzerland. He was a coach that was in search of perfection. His teams never really had problems but he wanted to bring the best out of them and reach to their full potential. He would call me and ask if I had time to work with his team for a few days - not to put things straight but develop big mind. Big mind is when the mind sets limits to the development process. I would stimulate creativity and use exercises that stretched there imagination. Every year we achieved more than was expected from the media or from the fans and most of all from the players themselves.