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How to Give Compliments and 'Build a Fire' within your team.

Why Complimentary Coaches Are More Successful

In addition to being coaches, we all share the common experiences of being a player, a child, a student in school, and an employee. Think for a moment about your own experience - who were your best coaches and teachers, and what made them the best? Chances are, the leaders on your list were positive, focused on the future, and in the habit of consistently complimenting the players and students who showed improvement.
We can't help but respond to mentors who see more potential in us than we do in ourselves, and that is why complimentary coaches produce more successful teams. When we know a coach, parent or teacher believes in us, it gives us permission to hope for more and it helps create vision of what the future could look like.

Improvement Requires Change, and Change Takes Courage

One definition of "insanity" is "doing the same things and expecting different results." That's important to know when coaching because performance never improves until people change what they are doing somehow. And there are lots of reasons that young athletes may be resistant to change, including: you can't get their attention, they don't understand what you are asking for, they don't want to admit that they need to do anything differently, and they are afraid they won't be successful in making the change.

Inspiring Your Players to Make the Right Changes

Some coaches seem more interested in being right than in being successful, and they demonstrate a particular habit: they constantly catch their players' mistakes and tell them not to do those things. Coaches and parents who fall in this group are never as successful because they are reinforcing the exact opposite of the behaviors they really want to see. Worse still, they are discouraging and embarrassing their players, robbing them of the courage to change.

The secret to motivating positive change in your players is very simple, but it takes practice to make it a habit. The secret is: catch your players doing things right as often as possible and then compliment them on the specific winning behaviors they demonstrated.

Coaches who successfully recognize winning behaviors on a consistent basis and verbally reward their players have more successful seasons (and more fun) because the compliments create the drive to please coach again by repeating the behavior(s).

How to "Build a Fire Within" with Compliments

As Bob Nelson said, "You get the best effort from others not by lighting a fire beneath them, but by building a fire within."

We know from our own experience that when we are confident that our hard work and success is recognized, it makes everything seem easier and more fun. But how do we know that we are doing a good job? And how do our players (or our children) know when they have pleased us?

Follow these steps if you want to build a fire within your team with more effective compliments:

1.	Notice and verbally reward the slightest glimmer of improvement - don't be stingy, thinking you will reserve your praise until they have it perfect. Instead, give them a reputation to "live up to" in the future.
2.	Tell the players specifically what they did that pleased you, and what affect it had on the team, the play, the game, etc. Make a list of winning behaviors you observe in every practice and game.
3.	Ask them to tell you specifically how they were successful with the behavior(s) and how it helped the situation. Ask them what advice they would give to a peer who was trying to get better at the same behavior.
4.	Thank them for setting a good example for the team.
5.	Ask for their commitment to repeat the winning behavior(s) in the future.

Finally, enjoy winning more games and realizing that you are having more fun because you are spending your time celebrating things that are going well instead of criticizing things that should be otherwise.
PS. Try it at home and be amazed.

See You At the Top!!

Coach Matt

Copyright 2005(c) by Matt Hawk and Hawk Planners.com. All rights reserved. Articles may be reproduced in whole under the following provisions: (1) a proper credit must be given to the author at the end of each story, along with a link to http://www.hawkplanners.com/ (2) content may not be arranged or mirrored as a competitive online service.

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How to Give Compliments and 'Build a Fire' within your team.

Why Complimentary Coaches Are More Successful

Improvement Requires Change, and Change Takes Courage

Inspiring Your Players to Make the Right Changes

How to "Build a Fire Within" with Compliments

Follow these steps if you want to build a fire within your team with more effective compliments:

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