Speaking the same language

“Why aren't you guys doing what I’m asking you?” I’ve heard this type of question from coaches from all over the world so many times and I’ve always asked myself where the problem was when the players didn’t understand the coach. At the time this question came to my mind I was probably angry with a coach of mine, but when I started coaching I understood that it doesn’t matter where the problem is - the coach must make sure that everybody needs to get the ideas. In a team everyone must speak the same “idiom”. Everyone should know the concepts of the game, if one player doesn’t know what “play without the ball” means, then the whole team has a problem, and the coach has to change it.

According to Dell Prette (1999) language is what differentiates the human being from other animals. Communication makes life, as we know it, possible. A coach has to know how to talk with a player, make sure that everybody understands the idea. By the way that’s a difficult task due to we work with people and not machines with different thoughts, opinions, wishes and goals.
Sometimes it will be hard, even if you are aware of it because something can happen and change everything, so be ready. One thing that got my attention during the time I was coaching kids in Germany was to get their attention during the training. Working with a foreign language made my planning and creating strategies better. It may sound a bit strange but it’s true. One day, when the players weren't paying attention at me, I started to speak in a language unknown to them (Portuguese), and immediately, everyone was paying attention again. So, get your weapons, create something, a noise usually helps, make sure that everybody gets your ideas.

While we know that communications is important, the harder it gets. That is more than one fact that guides the understanding during a conversation, many psychologists and linguists support that. Friedemann Schulz von Thun studied how to reduce communication failure, as a psychologist, he proposed that every sentence has 4 facets that could be sent or received by a person, that what he called 4 sides model or communication square, or four ears model. The four facets are: fact, self-revealing, relationship and appeal.

The fact ear means what you want to say, the fact, the appeal ear means what you want that the others do; the self-revealing ear means what you reveal about yourself; and the relationship ear means what you think about the others and what they think about you. My point is when you are communicating with someone you have to think away that the receiver will get exactly what you want to say. For example if your relationship with the player is not good you will probably have a misunderstanding in the appeal, and that’s more subconscious. Make sure that the players get the idea with the right ear.To understanding better the model I recommend this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8YwM6qMDq8

Photo by European Handball Federation