Sports teams: IMPROVE them or REPLACE them? The power of talking!

A player recently text me and said thank you for all your help and getting me back into form. What did I really do? They contacted me; we had a conversation; I asked how they felt and why they felt it; And gave them some possible solutions but... mainly questions to help with their thought processes. Most importantly they were then told to go and talk to the coach to agree on a set of interventions to help support this blip.

So here’s a scenario…a player you manage is having a bad run of form. A week ago, year ago or month ago they were 9/10 every week and everyone was singing their praises. What do you do?

Put this methodology into any business model. Any person working in a sports team or business has good and bad days RIGHT? Do these people and athletes turn into bad players or work colleagues over night? Does bad form mean a bad player? Or maybe bad form means a bad coach or manager? I’ll let you decide…

People in this world are all so varied and complex and it still amazes me when managers across all industries have a fixed mind-set towards what they WANT and not the needs of the individual. After all in sporting terms that’s the art of player progress. Differentiating to the learning needs all players. Many people probably haven’t heard the term “assessment for learning”. To put it simply this is probably the key driver in institutional change. What that means from my experience is that when I entered the failing schools that I worked in, basically "AFL" was the key driver to whole school improvement. So what is it?

How various assessment methods improve performance of the people in the building. These include:

·        Self-assessment (Knowledge of one’s own strengths and weaknesses)

·        Manager/Coach assessment (Coaches knowledge of players strengths and weaknesses)

·        Peer assessment ( Peers/Team mates knowledge of your strengths and weaknesses

·        Summative assessment (Using data, test scores, testing, numbers to assess players/performance)

·        Formative assessment (Using learning conversations, target setting, scaffolded learning techniques to INFORM athletes of:  1) What they do well and 2) how to get better

What I am trying to get at is formative assessment strategies (to inform) are number one. People that I work with have heard me call them "learning conversations". Often sports coaches have the knowledge but their intervention techniques (or lack of) are the reason why these players have extended periods of bad form. We know that poor performance is inevitable.

“So why don’t more coaches act to improve instead of always replace”

My experiences of academy football as a player and non-league football were appalling. I had about 2/3 managers that actually had the subject knowledge to make me better. The rest…no comment. Most of the time they picked you and replaced you for poor performance within a matter of weeks, and so the player merry go-round continues. The Football league loan window will be interesting. The players in the building are the players that have to stay until the next transfer window.

So managers and coaches have no choice as they can’t replace the players with whole sale changes. They have to work with the players they have at their disposal. Be creative, in making them better instead of doing the potentially easy option and get new players in. Now I’m not undermining the pressure these sports leaders are under. All sports managers carry that burden of pressure to get results. I get it. But I suppose where previously being a teacher and working in schools helps you is;

“The kids in the building cannot be replaced”

You have to work and work and work to make them achieve and improve…simply not always replace…you don’t have the choice.

So in summary player improvement: requires

1)      Knowledge of the sport or subject you work in… and most importantly…

2)     AFL strategies which are rigorous

3)     Your ability to impart that knowledge to your cohort so they UNDERSTAND what they do well and what they need to do to be better!

 Otherwise “REPLACE” is the only strategy available! So...why not have both??

Thanks for reading!