Psychological Skills Training: Communication

Continuing our Psychological Skills Training series in pelinks4u, this month’s article is written to help coaches improve their communication skills. If you coach you can use this information to improve your own communication skills. If you are responsible for preparing others to coach, use the following notes as the basis for leading an in-service training experience.

Introduction to Coaches:

• Communication skills may be the best predictor of coaching success.
• Coaches talk, read, write, gesture, listen, teach, console, persuade, demonstrate and observe.
• Coaches communicate with athletes, parents, administrators, officials, other coaches, athletic trainers, the media, support staff, fundraisers, etc.
• Common communication mistakes include:
  • Making comments you regret
  • Expecting others to read your mind
  • Talking more than listen
  • Expecting athletes to respond well to criticism while not being open to feedback yourself
  • Assuming you know what someone else is thinking and/or feeling

What is communication?

• The act of expressing ideas, information, knowledge, thoughts and feelings, as well as understanding what others are expressing.
• Involves sending and receiving messages that are both verbal and nonverbal (e.g. actions, facial expressions, body position and gestures).
• Involves not only the content of the message but also its emotional impact, or the effect the message has on the person receiving it.

Activity:

What are your greatest frustrations with communication, questions about communication, and successes with communication?

Sending and Receiving Messages

• 65-93% of the meaning of your message is conveyed through tone of voice and nonverbal behaviors. Words, tone of voice and nonverbal behaviors are all important.
• Most important issue in sending messages is to decide if a message needs to be sent: some coaches talk too much and lose athletes (bored) or distract them during practice or a game. Some coaches talk too little & assume others will know what they want and think.
• To what coaching communication do athletes’ respond positively?
  • Positive feedback after a good performance effort
  • Corrective instruction and encouragement after a performance mistake
  • Technical instruction and a moderate amount of general encouragement unrelated to performance quality
• To what do athletes respond negatively? Coaches who:
  • Fail to notice or reinforce good performance efforts
  • Criticize mistakes or provide instruction after a mistake in a critical fashion
• So, a negative coaching style – yelling, screaming and relying on punishment – is not effective in motivating athletes. This style can do great damage including resulting in 5 times a greater dropout rate.

Using Reinforcement

• Reinforce behaviors that you want to have happen again, as it has a strong influence on athletes’ future behavior.

Activity:

• Shaping: Reward successful approximations. Reward small improvements.
  • Pick a skill from your sport: ____________________
  • List 3 steps to teach it:
  • Initially give reinforcement immediately and every time. Then delay and not as often.
• Reward Effort and Performance, Not Just Outcome. Don’t reward outcome if skill is executed poorly (getting a hit but the swing was poor). Don’t fail to recognize a good performance (good swing) if the outcome is poor (line drive to the shortstop). The outcome (getting on base with a poor hit) will already be intrinsically rewarding to athletes but reinforcing effort and form are the keys to long-term success.
• Reward Social and Emotional Skills such as strong communication with teammates during competition, fair and ethical behavior, mental toughness and/or pitching in to help with clean-up after a practice.
• Reward Good Behavior and Use Punishment Sparingly.
  • Reinforce desirable behaviors (being on time, being supportive and encouraging to teammates) to create a positive environment where punishment isn’t needed as much.
  • Use punishment sparingly. Be clear on expectations from the start and consequences for violating them. Involve athletes in developing these consequences of team rules. Don’t punish performance mistakes when there is good effort.
  • Guidelines for maximizing the effectiveness of punishment:
    1. Consequences for misbehavior are seen by team members as fair and appropriate.
    2. List of consequences from least to most severe for each team rule.
    3. Punishments that are logical consequences of misbehavior. Ex. Player late for trip – bus leaves. Player late for practice – arrive early next day to help set up equipment.
    4. Only have team rules and consequences you will enforce.
    5. All players have the same consequences.
    6. Punish behavior, not the person. Let athlete know it is behavior that needs to change.
    7. Make sure punishment isn’t a reward (athlete who wants attention).
    8. Impose punishment impersonally and with respect (don’t embarrass in front of team, don’t yell or berate athlete. Simply administer the punishment).
    9. Wait if not sure what is appropriate consequence. Don’t punish out of anger.
    10. Rather than adding something aversive, take away something desirable (creates less resentment and is often more effective).
• Providing Feedback
  • Respond to a Good Performance Effort: “That was a great effort”; “Way to hustle into position” with a smile, pat on back or thumbs-up. Make sure use descriptive feedback (describe performance and what the athlete did well) and not general (“way to go”).
  • Provide Encouragement and Instructional Feedback: encourage if know how to perform the skill (“tough game out there- keep up the effort”), if mistake results from lack of effort, aim comments at that (“I’d like to see you hustle more”).
  • If mistake due to athlete not knowing the skill or needing to refine it, give corrective (instructional) feedback that is descriptive (“remember to look the ball all the way into your hands”) vs. criticism (“How many times do I have to tell you to catch the ball with two hands?”). Descriptive allows athletes to learn while maintaining their confidence.
• For the following descriptive feedback, which response is most effective?
  “Great effort but you are still starting your slide too far away from the base.”
  “Great effort. Next time start you slide closer to the base.” (Most effective).
  • Focus on future, action oriented and positive.
  • Provide visual demonstrations to illustrate your positive verbal instruction.

Enhancing Athletes’ Receptiveness to Feedback:

• Use “Sandwich” approach – describe something athlete did well, provide specific future-oriented feedback on what athlete can improve, end with encouragement.
  Ex. “You did a great job positioning yourself for the play. Next time get lower. Keep working hard and it’ll come.”
• Avoid using the word “but”.