Lessons on Giving (& Receiving) Feedback

“Feedback is the breakfast of champions.”
-Ken Blanchard

I coach a girls U15 club volleyball team. Success in six-on-six volleyball requires intense collaboration from the entire team. Each position requires its own set of strengths and skills. To stay “in system” requires trust, collective skill, and individual talent. If any touch of the ball is off even just slightly, the entire system is impacted, and the team must adjust both individually and cohesively and with physical, mental and emotional agility in order to win points and the match.

The role of volleyball coach draws on all my intrinsic strengths and passions, and challenges me to stretch in ways that make me a better leader. I love selecting and getting to know and understand twelve diverse and emergent personalities, developing them into a strong and cohesive team, and rendering them capable of winning matches together using all of their individual and collective skills in a short time period.

I do it because I love it, but that doesn’t make it easy.

The last two tournaments have not been kind to us. The “tiger spirit” that has been our “come from behind” saving grace and earned us a 3rd place spot in a prior tournament went missing.

In the beginning of the season, I told the girls that the team was their team as much as it was ours (my assistant coach and mine.) I let them know that they would have the opportunity to help set the tone of the team. I also told them that my goal is to both win and play all of them, but that play time would not be equal. To help them understand my philosophy and style so they could be successful, I gave them a list of my expectations:

1. Focus & “be here now.”
2. Work hard (in practice and at games.)
3. Be nice to yourselves and one another. (Only positive words and thoughts about yourself and other people! Don’t take anything personally. Check out your assumptions, they are OFTEN incorrect, and can be where the biggest misunderstandings come from.)
4. Have Fun.
5. Teamwork is critical.

My philosophy in coaching high school sports is that it is a great Petri dish for life leadership skills. My goal is to set the container, but leave room for individuality and a team personality to form. As things come up during the season, I continue to remind the girls of these basic expectations. Of course, they are fourteen. Just because I remind them doesn’t make them immediately comply.

After our first losing tournament, I sent the team away at the end of the day with an admonition to look at the system and to come back at the next practice and tell me what they thought was the issue. They came back saying that they thought our problem in that tournament was that teamwork and trust fell apart. I agreed, so we talked about why they thought that happened and what we could do to change it. Interestingly enough, most of the areas for “team” improvement that the girls identified take place off the court where acts of service to one another and the team take place without coach supervision. For example, the girls need to take turns acting as refs and line judges during off matches, setting the nets up and taking them down before and after practices, (and some don’t contribute equally) and there is not always agreement about how to get pumped up pre-match. To offset this, a couple of the girls distributed schedules for fair work assignments, and I assigned a diverse group of three to choose and lead pre-game preparation.

Unfortunately, the next tournament did not start out well for us again. I noticed a tone of dissonance on the team, but couldn’t tell exactly what the issue was. One of the girls was brave enough to come tell us that some of the girls were wondering about one of my coaching choices. (One of my best passers was sick, so I’d moved one of my three middle hitters to the outside because she hits hard, passes well, moves quickly, and generally works very hard in every practice.) I thanked the girl for her honesty and her feedback, then sat the girls down and told them that part of trusting the system was also to trust the coaches’ decisions. I reminded them that my goal was always to win AND play all the girls as much as possible, and told them that sometimes I make choices to move people from their “preferred role” because I need a specific skill set. I also reminded them that volleyball was a team sport, not an individual sport, and told them to go away and come back to the next match having found that team spirit that we need to win.

I will give them credit for finding their team spirit and mostly leaving their individual egos behind. My assistant and I continued to make playing decisions that rocked the boat, but the girls handled it better, at least on the surface. At the end of the tournament, I reminded them all that they earn their spots on the team every minute, every day, and every week, and that I need them to work as hard in practice as they do in tournaments because that is where they will continue to improve.

I have seen improvement this week. We’ll see how well it comes together at our next tournament.

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The importance of feedback came up for me again this week, this time in a role when I was “the beginner leader.” Monday, I taught my first group exercise class at my gym. I struggled with technical difficulties with the music and the microphone, and overlooked some basic principles helpful to group exercise instructors. One student left –not a great sign and not especially helpful —but several other students gave me great feedback, which I was able to apply immediately, improving the experience for everyone, and also apply successfully with my next class. This Sunday, I taught again, and got rave reviews even from some notoriously difficult to please students.

As a student or employee, having the courage to give feedback to your boss or instructor helps them lead you and your team better. As a leader, telling your team why you are making specific decisions may not feel necessary, but it helps clarify your expectations and establishes higher levels of trust, which in turn can lead to higher levels of performance.

“If you don't get feedback from your performers and your audience, you're going to be working in a vacuum.” –Peter Maxwell Davies

Specific and honest feedback can be difficult, both to give and to receive, but it can also help make the difference between mediocre performances and great ones.

For more about leading an effective life as an authentic and courageous leader, or for more about youth and individual leadership programs that align body / mind / spirit, e-mail me or view my website.