Today, I want to talk about communication from a coaching perspective.
As a coach, I am consistently assessing whether my communication approach is appropriate and whether it is creating the best outcome for the athletes.

Quite often when we’ve been reflecting on a poor performance, it’s easy for emotions to take over and say what we’re thinking. Feedback is always great, but what you say, may or may not have the desired impact on your athlete’s mental state of mind.

It’s not about what you say, it’s what the other person takes away!

It’s delivery will be the difference between your team backing it up next week, or dwelling on the performance of the past. Take Coach Jimmy for example – there’s certainly a right way and a wrong way of delivering feedback:

A few points to note:

• Assess your demographic and tailor your approach to personalities – as people, we all react differently to how we are spoken to, so it’s futile to think we can approach everyone the same and get a positive outcome. Some people respond well to a direct approach (taking it on the chin or with a ‘grain of salt’), and others require a more nurturing approach. The more you get to know your athletes, the easier this becomes.
• Adopt a feedback model – where you need to provide feedback (whether it be positive or negative), it’s best to structure it so that the message isn’t lost for the recipient. There are a couple of ways to approach this:
  • The EIC model: Example, Impact, and Commend/Cease/Continue/Critique. e.g. We struggled to put down a bunt today (example) and as a result, we couldn’t move our runners to scoring position (impact). It looked like we didn’t have our hands in the correct position, so we will practice this at our next training session (critique).
  • Commend – Critique – Commend: Sandwiching your feedback between two commendations is a great way to engage the person, before delivering your feedback, and then resetting their focus on a positive. People are more inclined to retain and process your feedback if it is balanced with positives.
• Communicate to share an understanding – a big part of coaching is about sharing knowledge, so why not help others understand the ‘why’? If this is the way you want it done, don’t be afraid to explain why you want it done that way. You’ll get better buy-in the more people understand your perspective, or it will give others the courage to offer alternatives – which is also great because this may generate new ideas and shows that you’ve got a highly-engaged team. All the makings of a great team culture!
• Tone – be mindful of your tone when you’re delivering your message. You might think that having a ‘rant’ might make people listen to you, but might cause others to switch off. Your tone can also distort the message and the desired outcome from your feedback.
• Keep it positive – at the end of the day, everyone plays the game because they love it and it’s great fun, so let’s not lose perspective of why we’re all here… for the love of the game!

Have I missed anything? Sound off in the comments – we’d love to hear your questions or experiences first hand.

Ciao for now!

– Chermai