Communicationg with Clarity

Two significant aspects of your job are giving direction and instruction to your athletes during training sessions and competition and dealing with issues or conflicts as they arise. In both situations you must speak clearly and concisely. However, it is more difficult to be clear and concise when there are problems.
For example, one of your athletes is late for training three days in a row and you are beginning to feel quite angry. What is the best way to deal with such behaviour?

Name the behaviour. "You have been late three days in a
row."
Name what you are feeling. "I’m quite upset."
Say what you need. "I need to talk with you about this because we cannot get the practise done effectively when you are a half hour late."

Here’s another example. Your club executive has not completed a job evaluation on your work on the agreed-upon date.

Name the subject. "I wanted to talk with you about my coaching evaluation."
Name what you are feeling. "I’m feeling frustrated."
Say what you need. "I would like us to sit down and talk about how and when this evaluation will be done."

‘I’ messages such as these are clear, concise, and come from what you feel and what you need. Name the issue in an even tone of voice, with no judgment or sarcasm attached. Name the emotion you are experiencing, but stop there. Do not go on with all the concurrent feelings you might be having. State what you need, because only you know what that is.

The guiding assumption here is that your goal is to effectively resolve the issue or conflict. In order to do that, the other person needs to listen to you, and they can only do this if you do not put them on the defensive. (When you are on the defensive, you are busy thinking up excuses for your behaviour, rather than listening to what is being said and trying to come up with a solution).

Giving Constructive Feedback

Your coaching job, simply stated, is to help each athlete you work with to become increasingly better at executing the speed, skills, or game strategies of your sport. As a result, you are constantly feeding back information to your athletes. What is important to understand, in terms of feedback, is that almost every athlete needs a "healthy" balance of critique-to-praise ratio. What that healthy ratio is varies from athlete to athlete and varies according to the proximity to a competition.

Generally, as you probably well know, what helps an athlete most is to clearly state the problem. If, for example, it is the execution of a specific skill, it helps to break the skill down into manageable chunks, both by using words and by executing the technique or tactic physically. If the athlete is experienced, ask her to think about what would work well. Certainly, such dialogue in the middle of a practise is not always possible, but when it is, it pays off immeasurably. You end up with a thoughtful, resourceful, and responsible athlete.

Generally speaking, the closer to the competition, the more you need to shift your feedback to what the athlete is doing well, and away from what is not going well. You do this, first of all, because at some point it is too late to fix something. You have to go with what you have until after the competition. Second, and perhaps most importantly, you do this because the level of confidence of most athletes is fragile and the fragility increases as competition nears. Most athletes will begin to question their readiness, their skills, their ability. This is a natural reaction to stress. A significant part of your job as a coach is to alleviate that stress and reassure each of your athletes or your team that they are well prepared.

Another important note. Shifting your feedback ratio toward "what we are doing well" does not mean that you do not critique. It means you are doing less critiquing close to a competition. Shifting that ratio and being positive means intentionally observing what your athlete or team is doing well and specifically feeding back that information to them.

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le Journal en français

JANUARY 2001
Vol. 1, No. 3
Front Page
CONTENTS

Communicating With Clarity

Guidelines to Help Women Coaches Succeed

Being Assertive

Communicating Non-Verbally

Knowing How to Listen Well

Speaking Clearly and Concisely

Giving Constructive Feedback

Being Able to Receive Criticism

Choosing the Right Words