Athletic Directors Toolbox

Two-Way Communication Creates Winning Culture

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This article was provided by Coaches Network

Nearly every athletics program—whether it a college or high school program—hopes to create a lasting culture of winning and success. Regardless of the size of the school or the level of competition, coaches are searching for ways to foster sustainable growth on their teams. Most coaches look to assert their own methods and philosophies when it comes to developing a team culture, but for Hope College’s Head Volleyball Coach Becky Schmidt it’s all about striking a balance with the players.  And Coach Schmidt’s system is one for high school coaches to emulate.

Schmidt’s 12-season coaching record at Hope is 326-79, with her total collegiate record being 364-112, ranking her among the nation’s elite
volleyball coaches. In 2014 she guided the Flying Dutch to their first national championship with a 6-0 run during the NCAA Division III Tournament. She continued to build on that success this past year with a 24-6 overall record during the regular season.

The success that Schmidt has sustained at Hope is a prime case study for developing a positive team culture. Through years of experimenting with different approaches, Schmidt has kept an open mind and has found the coaching style that works best for her team.

“Too often coaches think that it’s all or nothing, it’s this one way or the highway,” she says. “But I really believe the coaches that are providing the most positive cultures are those that are aware of the balance that they need to strike in the multiple ways that their program operates.”

Talking to players and asking them for suggestions is the primary tool that Schmidt has used to improve Hope’s volleyball program. “I would recommend having a clear vision of what you want to see from your team but also talking to them and asking them what they want to see from their experience as well,” she says.

Opening this line of communication with the student-athletes has helped Schmidt take the steps to improve in multiple areas. One thing that has changed over the years is the way she runs her practices. “As a coach you’ve got to balance being focused on a specific drill and also having a good time and enjoying the experience,” she says. “So the drill can’t be so hard that it become frustrating and cant be so easy that the athlete becomes bored.”

This has led Schmidt to change her coaching style over the years. Whereas she used to include dozens of different drills for each skill, now she has her players work on only a handful of drills that replicate in-game situations. Players are also given a chance to redeem themselves after making mistakes during certain drills. “The focus there is on not making the same mistake twice,” says Schmidt. “So there’s a technique piece of it but there’s also an attitude or a mindset piece.”

Fostering positive relationships with the student-athletes has helped Schmidt maintain the strong team culture that she has developed. There has to be fairness from you and trust from the players,” she says. “You can’t treat one player in a way that’s not fair for the rest of the team but I think every team is going to understand that players are different, what gets one person to be able to excel might be very different for someone else.”

Developing respect and trust from players is essential for any coach looking for long-term success. Schmidt recommends that coaches share their vision with the team while also collecting feedback from players so that everyone understands each other. It may not happen over night, but these methods will certainly help to foster the growth of a positive team culture.

“By talking to the student-athletes and showing a little bit of vulnerability they’re going to learn to trust you more,” she says. “When they see that you actually care about their perspectives and what their experience is like then you get a few allies on a team and you’re much closer to getting to a tipping where that culture then really starts to shift.”

Excellence in Coaching Communication

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The following article taken from an eBook entitled Coaching Volleyball: Insights and Strategies edited by Kinda S Lenberg. The entire eBookmay be found at the Coaches Choice Volleyball Coaching Library

Excellence in Coaching Communication

By Peter Greenhill

 

Effective communication is at the heart of effective coaching. All the volleyball knowledge and understanding in the world is rendered meaningless if you cannot convey that knowledge and understanding to your players. As a coach, you want your players to execute skills and tactics in certain specific ways. Chances are far greater that they will execute what you want if you make your expectations as clear as possible. The key to excellence in communication can be captured in two principles:

• use concrete language (avoid abstract language)

• use the word “do” (avoid the word “don’t”)

Using Concrete Language

Coaches who use mostly concrete language rather than abstract language are rare. They are invariably consistent winners. Concrete language is clear and specific; it expresses things in terms that appeal to the senses, thus making it possible for players to form vivid mental images. Abstract language is vague, general, and unclear. Most coaches fall into the trap of using vague, abstract language and clichés, making expectations unclear to players. Terry Liskevych, former USA women’s national team head coach, once used the following example to illustrate the problem with vague, abstract language.

“You tell your players to concentrate,” he said. “What exactly does that mean to a player? Do this?” At that point, Liskevych furrowed his brow, grimaced, and appeared to be straining. He made his point very well that way. What was the player actually supposed to be doing?

Concentration has a variety of meanings depending upon the skill a player is executing at a given moment. If you tell a server to concentrate, perhaps you really mean “look at the ball when you serve.” If you tell a passer to concentrate, perhaps you really mean “watch the ball until it strikes your arms.” These phrases are concrete and specific. On the other hand, if you merely use the word “concentrate,” you don’t actually help the athlete know what you specifically want to be done. Use concrete and specific words that describe what you want the athlete to do.

An infinite number of applications of this concrete-versus-abstract principle is available to most coaches. It’s recommended that you examine closely and conscientiously every word or phrase you are accustomed to using in your coaching to see if your language passes the concrete versus abstract test. As you begin using more concrete language, you will see noticeable improvements in your coaching results almost immediately. To help you with your own communication analysis, consider the following selected list of abstract phrases transformed into concrete communication.

Common Abstract Language                                               Improved Concrete Language

Get a good toss on your serve                                               Toss the ball in line with your serving shoulder

Pass high and not too tight                                                    Pass 20 ft up and 3 ft off the net

Don’t drift on the block                                                          Land in the same spot from which you took off

Block the line                                                                           Line your inside arm up with the ball

Block Angle                                                                              Line your outside arm up with the ball

Penetrate                                                                                  Reach over the net and grab the ball

Get low on defense                                                                 Bend your ankles and get your shoulders in front of your knees

Square up on your sets                                                          Face where you want to set the ball

Move up on Free Ball                                                           On a Free Ball go to serve receive position

Hit smart                                                                                 Hit the deep cross court corner

Play Deeper                                                                             Stand only 3 ft in front of the back line

 

The important point from these examples is the power of language that is concrete and specific. Such language takes conscious effort and practice because it does not come naturally to most people. Make your own list of the words you typically use, and then write out improved, concrete alternatives.

Using Positive Language

An important principle in coaching communication, which is intimately related to the principle of concrete versus abstract, is the principle of do versus don’t. John Kessel of USA Volleyball told a story once to coaches and players at the U.S. Olympic Training Center that illustrated this principle brilliantly. Kessel told the coaches about an experience he had playing professional volleyball in Italy many years earlier. In an important match, three of his Italian teammates had consecutively served into the net, making the coach irate. He explained that his coach was always furious, which yielded poor results, and alienated the players. Kessel was next to serve and his coach screamed, “Don’t serve into the net!” Kessel went back to serve, tossed the ball in front of him, and then with an underhand motion, struck the ball as hard as he could backwards up into the stands behind him.

“I did just what the coach told me,” he explained. Kessel’s point was that to become an effective coach, you need to tell your players what to do, not what not to do. If you tell players what not to do, all you have done is eliminate only one of the countless possible actions that players might perform that you do not want them to perform. Again, an infinite number of examples of this principle occur every day in coaching. How often have you told a hitter, “Don’t drop your shoulder when you are hitting”? Why not say, “Hit the ball with your arm fully extended”? In the former instruction, the player could still be wondering what to do. Consider some of the following examples of positive language adjustment.

Inadequate “Don’t ”                                                                   Much Better “Do”

Don’t telegraph our backsets                                               Keep your back straight on your backsets

Don’t let the hitter use on the block                                   Reach over the net towards middle back

Don’t tip short over the block                                              Tip deep down the line or short crosscourt

Don’t be late to hit the “1” in the middle                           Leave the floor just before the ball reaches the setter’s hand

Sports psychologists who have worked with major league baseball players have pointed out that the human mind cannot form an image based on the word “don’t.” If you tell a player “don’t hit out,” the image you have actually communicated to the player’s mind is the image of hitting the ball out. The mind cannot see “don’t.” Thus, you would actually be communicating the opposite of your intended message, resulting in significant adverse consequences for team performance.

Unfortunately, most coaches use “don’t” much more than they use “do” or its equivalent. Walk into almost any practice and you will hear it repeatedly. Not only does this language create a negative, critical coaching and playing atmosphere, but also it does not tell players what they are supposed to do. Players want to know what to do, and they rely on you as the coach to provide that knowledge. At Kessel’s coaching clinic, he challenged the coaching staff to go the rest of the training period without using the word “don’t.” It’s recommended that you challenge yourself in the same way. It will force you to be ingenious, creative, and inventive with your words while making your communication more effective.

The two principles examined in this chapter are among the most important in coaching. They cannot be overemphasized, and they can make a huge difference in the results you get. Unless you clearly teach your players what to do, the fault for poor performance lies with you and not with the players. Move from mediocrity to excellence in coaching by moving your communication from the vague and abstract to the specific and concrete, and from “don’t” to “do.” In the end, you will get better results on the court, and create a more positive learning atmosphere for your players.

 

 

 

Find more great volleyball coaching e-books at Coaches Choice Volleyball Coaching Library

Managing Assistant Coaches

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This article and other helpful coaching tools can be found at Coach Dawn Writes

By Dawn Redd-Kelly, Head Volleyball Coach at Beloit College.

Sam Shweisky, the head men’s volleyball coach at Princeton University, is in a unique position.  He’s the head coach for the men and the assistant coach for the women’s program.  I wondered if that gave him a more in-depth outlook on the role of assistant coaches.

So what makes a good assistant coach?  Of course we want someone with knowledge of our sport and, logistically, we want someone who we can rely on to attend practices and competitions when they’ve said they could. Those are just the basics, there is more.

3 qualities of a great assistant coach

  1. Loyalty.  We’re all looking for that assistant coach who is proud to wear our school’s name on their shirt.  The person who understands the traits we look for in representatives of our institution and is willing to fall in line with those expectations.  Someone who’ll stay around for a reasonable amount of time and who will support us behind the scenes.
  2. Common voice.  Speaking of supporting us, a great assistant supports their head coach with the athletes…no matter what.  I’m not saying you can’t have heated debates as a coaching staff behind closed doors.  Hopefully your assistant coaches feel comfortable voicing their opinion and you, as head coach, have created an atmosphere where divergent opinions are welcome.  But once your players are around, we’re all singing from the same hymnal.
  3. Nurturing.  The head coach doesn’t always get to be the nice guy.  Sometimes we have to point out the inconsistencies between team goals and effort level in practice, sometimes we have to bench a player, sometimes we have to have hard conversations.  That’s when the great assistant coach steps in to make sure the athlete can see their way to success, because sometimes, those tough conversations can cloud their vision.

4 ways to manage assistant coaches

  1. Give them a role.  Whether you’re lucky enough to have full-time assistants or you’re making it work with part-timers, they should know their value to the team.  It’s good for them and the team will respect them more if they have a designated role.
  2. Coaches meetings.  Have regular meetings or check-ins with your assistants to make sure you are all on the same page.  It could be that you’ve decided that, as a staff, you’re going to be tough on your team, or that you’re going to focus on only one correction for a particular time period.  Whatever it is, everyone’s got to know what’s going on.
  3. In game responsibilities.  The beauty of assistant coaches is they are a set of willing extra hands.  Depending on the level of support at your institution, your game day responsibilities could be great.  Maybe your assistant has to help set up your game space, or set up the camera so that the game can be filmed, or do stats.  During the game, give them at least one thing to do during warmup and in game…those responsibilities will make them feel useful and needed.
  4. Ask for feedback.  My assistant and I speak after each practice, even if it’s just for a few moments.  We talk about what went well and what didn’t, what we need to keep working on, and personnel issues.  We’ve both been known to say, “feel free to say this is crazy, but…”.  Having a great assistant coach as a sounding board is priceless.

 

Selecting Captains

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This article and other helpful coaching tools can be found at Coach Dawn Writes

By Dawn Redd-Kelly, Head Volleyball Coach at Beloit College.

I’ve done it all when it comes to team captains. The team picks. The coaches pick. A combination of both of those. I’ve even gone without captains. I believe in team leadership and the athlete’s ability to manage each other and keep each other motivated through the normal highs and lows of a season.

But how do we stack the deck in the favor of team captains who will, you know, actually be good leaders? According to How To Build A Team That Works by Tony Robbins, there are some things we can help our teams look for when voting and characteristics our captains can aspire to once they’re voted captain.

Some questions we can prep our team with before they vote for captains:

Can they do the job?Do they have the respect of their teammates? Because if their teammates aren’t willing to follow them…can they actually be called a leader?
Will they do the job well long-term? No matter the sport, the season is long. No matter how well your team is doing, you’re going to have some downs that go along with the ups. No matter how motivated the team, they’re going to have flat practices. Can your team captains help the group through the tough times?

Are they the right team fit? I talked before about personality types and how important it is to know your team’s dominant personality and what it could be missing. If you’ve got a strong group of leaders who aren’t keen on getting the younger athlete’s opinions, you may want to stack the deck for your more collaborative personalities.

Here are qualities of good team leaders:

Envision an Outcome:Can they help the team come up with season goals and keep the group on track? A lot of us coaches think this is all up to us, but I’d disagree. We’re not with our teams more than we’re with them. We need the captains to help us here!

Understand Others:Here I go beating the personality type drum again, but this is crucial. People are different and respond to situations differently. Our team leaders can help us with team conflicts by understanding this dynamic.

Inspire Others:I’ve had players who inspired their teammates through their words, they could get everyone fired up for conditioning…which is almost a miracle. And I’ve had athletes who were inspirational without opening their mouth. They basically shamed everyone into working hard because they worked so hard.

Understand Themselves: I don’t want captains who are pretending to be someone they’re not. For example, you don’t want your quiet leader trying to lead a rallying cry at game time. They’ll be stressed out and they won’t come across as believable to their teammates. My general advice for captains is, “Do you”, with the caveat that they’re doing all of these other things.

Giving our athletes the tools they need to be leaders worth following has got to be a top priority for coaches.

How Can Failure Help You Succeed

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This article is provided by InnerDrive, a mental skills training company

Can setbacks ever be a good thing? Sir Winston Churchill noted that that “failure is not fatal”, but for many students, mistakes are equated to social suicide. Something to avoid at all costs. This fear of failure can stop them for stepping out of their comfort zones. So what does the research say? Was Churchill right? Is there life after failure?

Why is it a mistake to get too low after a failure? Because if managed correctly, there are six ways that failure can actually help:

A LEARNING OPPORTUNITY

A recent study found that children are very accurate at judging how their parents perceive failure. For parents who view failure as a big bad event, as a judgement on your ability and something to be avoided, their children were more likely to have a fixed mindset (which is the belief that intelligence and ability are set in stone and can’t be improved). This mindset is linked to avoiding and rejecting feedback as well as coping worse with transitions

Research on teenagers has found that those who are motivated by learning and mastering a subject, compared to those who are extrinsically motivated by rewards, display higher levels of emotional control before an exam. As well as this, they have higher levels of confidence and achieve better grades.

Students with this mastery orientation are more likely to view setbacks as an opportunity to learn and improve. A painful but valuable speed bump in the road. Those that are motivated by social comparison (i.e. status) or outside rewards are more prone to stressful and negative reactions to failure.

RESILIENCE AND DETERMINATION

In a fascinating study, researchers interviewed gold medal Olympic champions about how they developed the resilience needed to succeed in their sport. Many of them identified that their road to success has not been simple nor straightforward, but that they had to come to view their setbacks as opportunities for growth.

At the time of a setback, this can be difficult to appreciate, as emotions are often running high. This can cloud judgement and impair learning. This is especially true for teenagers, as their brain works differently to adults. Once the dust has settled, asking yourself questions such as ‘what would I do differently next time?’ and ‘what have I learnt from this experience?’ are good starting points to use the setback in a more positive way.

MOTIVATION

There is an oft-used phrase by elite athletes after a failure. They say, ‘Minor Setback? Major Comeback’.  Though unpleasant at the time, failures often provide a very strong boost to someone’s motivation levels.  The well-known Michael Jordan video bellows gives a great illustration of this:


There are no guarantees that a setback will make someone more motivated. Their personality, the group norms and their environment will all play a factor in how they respond. What is not in doubt, is that for some, the setback will imprint on them, helping them drive themselves on to a higher level than previously experienced.

DEVELOP COMPASSION

Recently, researchers have found that people who suffer more adversity show more compassion to others. This makes sense when you think about it. If you know how failure feels when you experience it, you are probably more likely to empathize with others when they experience setbacks.

The authors of this study do note that their findings only show a correlation with adversity and compassion, and that one does not necessarily cause the other. However, they suggest this is probably the case as it ‘chimes with other related research’, where for example, those who experience for suffering ‘show greater altruism and sympathy for disaster victims’.

ASK FOR HELP

Although it shouldn’t take a setback for someone to ask for help, it often does. In the previously mentioned study on Olympic champions and resilience, researchers also found that accessing the support and advice of people around you is a key way to help develop resilience.

This one of the reasons why successful people often build a team around them. Asking for help is frequently seen by many teenagers (often boys in our experience) as a sign of weakness. Nothing could be further from the truth. If we can help educate them on how and when to ask for help, they will likely reap many of the benefits.

MAKE THE FINAL ACHIEVEMENT EVEN SWEETER

Experiencing lows can really help you appreciate your highs. As Sir Winston Churchill also said, ‘success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm’. Someone’s success at the end of their bumpy road makes all that enthusiasm worth it.

It is interesting to note that many Olympic gold medalists do not even medal at their first Games. It takes years of experience, setbacks and training to achieve ones dreams. But when that success is reached, it feels all the more sweeter because of it.

FINAL THOUGHT

Failure is not something to strive for but it is something that can be learnt from and used effectively. These are key skills that we can teach students. There is a great quote that says ‘real failure is someone who has blundered but not cashed in on the experience’. By teaching them how to cash in on the experience, hopefully we can help them develop skills that aid resilience, motivation and learning, and therefore reduce the chances of them making the same mistakes again in the future.