Delivering Engaging Meetings
A Common Scenario
Team meetings in elite sport, in many instances, are predictable, tedious & ambiguous daily occurrences (a conservative estimate perhaps). Collective athlete enjoyment often slides somewhere between nil & tolerable often depending on the team’s previous result & the emotional state of the coach/es that particular day (often correlating with their perception of their preparation for that particular meeting).
Under the guise of “necessary for learning”, athletes sit in the same classroom-like formation day-on-day, watching multiple clips overlayed by the coach’s monotoned narration, perhaps unsure where exactly to focus their attention (and likely not full-attention at that).
The meeting ends sharply (often due to overrunning and schedule constraints) and athletes are expected to have a shared understanding with everyone else in the room and retain the information well enough to exhibit it in practice in an hour’s time.
Regrettably, this expectation is at odds with evidenced learning theory.
There’s Another Way…
Rethinking this scenario; imagine how your team’s vibe, energy & passion for learning might look if instead of a collective feeling of routine, anxiety & dread, there was a “buzz” before the meeting with player’s exhibiting eagerness & excitement for what’s to come.
This can’t happen overnight over course but is, I believe, an essential goal for head coaches to aim for.
Engaging Meetings…
Often, the meeting room is where coaches feel most uneasy. Standing at the front of a room with dozens of athletes (or even a hundred in a football team) can be intimidating. A distinguished playing career or being a master of X’s & O’s doesn’t prepare you for this. Not to mention the requirement of a basic understanding of pedagogy and how athletes learn.
Transmission does not equal Transformation.
Working with coaches in this domain, we explore five key principles to generate more engaging meetings:
Prime the learning- you’d not allow your players to train without warming up but often expect them to learn without stimulating the brain. This is also the perfect opportunity to ‘break the ice’ & get an invigorating mood into the room.
Hit the senses- in short, the more senses you hit, the greater the chances of transformational learning taking place. For example, music activates the limbic system & story-telling is a fundamental human requirement.
Emphasize what’s important- coaches who are clear on exactly what their message is will likely get it across. Practicing (& varying) the pace, tone & volume of your presentation is key- it’s not what you say but what they hear…
Quality beats quantity- the average attention span is 8 seconds. Reducing the quantity & duration of your clips not only makes meetings shorter & more engaging but probably increases the chances of your athletes leaving with shared learnings.
Never miss an opportunity to reinforce your identity- team sport is the greatest embodiment of the desire to ‘belong’ so how does your message fortify who you (collective) are? The most successful teams are often those that know who they are at a deep level.
Learning Quickly
Plan- Rehearse- Execute- Reflect
To speed up the cycle of learning, having a simple framework in place is essential to delivering meetings that engage & transform.
Plan
If nothing else, what is essential to get across to the players in this meeting? Referring to the principles above, how creative can you be in getting this message across? If there are multiple coaches presenting in the same meeting, how you can interlink seamlessly?
Rehearse
Feeling prepared generates confidence. Having someone listen & feedback is even better. Pre-mortem the potential questions that you might get.
Execute
Prior to presenting, give yourself a moment to regulate & check-in with yourself. Clear your mind and go & deliver.
Reflect
‘Hot review’ with your immediate thoughts afterwards & ask someone you trust & with experience to watch your performance. It’s amazing what they’ll pick up that you won’t have noticed!
‘Mastering Yourself’- underpinning all the above
Presenting in meetings should be treated as part of your performance as a coach (along with every other aspect of your role). Standing up in front of a group of athletes tired, low on energy & stressed whilst expecting to execute is “BS”- it simply won’t happen & your athletes will see right through it.
Preparing yourself to deliver with the energy that you want to convey to the group in the meeting requires you to have the awareness of what positive perfomance behaviours look like & embody these- eating right, sufficient sleep & clarity of thought.