How to Be More Effective & Efficient with Day of Game Team Talks
How to give a speech between periods in ice hockey
Who doesn’t love the spectacle of a great locker room speech? Who doesn’t get emotional after this speech from coach Herb Brooks from the movie Miracle?!?
Unfortunately, like a coach yelling to direct their players on the ice… most coaches’ speeches are simply not effective and often have more downside than upside.
Do they feel good for the coach? Yes. Do they make a big difference in the game? Unlikely. Once a coach understands that speeches often do very little and yelling does almost nothing, their behavior changes dramatically.
Greater Effectiveness
Personally, I am always interested in effectiveness. How do we get more effective and efficient with coach-to-team between-period communication?
I would ask the question… if the speech doesn’t work, does it degrade the coach’s next team talk? Probably. Speaking less is likely the actual solution rather than talking more.
There are two main levers that coaches can pull when working with their players:
Transmitting belief
Directing focus
Understanding these levers gives coaches a greater idea of how to influence effectively.
Ask Questions
Questioning is almost always a great approach as the brain that does the thinking does the learning and retaining.
While open-ended questions are great, these questions shouldn’t be too broad. Giving direction to an open-ended question is more effective and efficient.
Poor question - “What went well?”
Good question - “They’re aggressively pressuring on the penalty kill, what can we do to have more success handling that?”
Pep Talk
Avoid giving too much information to help players retain and act on the information given. If giving a speech, a useful framework is to help players focus on two areas.
"How can we make their lives more difficult when they have the puck?"
"How can we make their lives more difficult when we have the puck?"
Then wait and see what the players come up with.
What Does a Good Team Talk Look Like?
We can break this into a process:
Plan ahead - What do I want the players to feel or focus on?
Gain attention - Ensure everyone can absorb the words about to be spoken.
Keep it concise - Keep it short so the words are memorable and retained.
Check for understanding - Ensure that the message was actually received.
Sometimes skipping the speech is also a great idea. Let the players lead and make each word the coach speaks count for more. As we have established, what happens before a great locker room speech is more important than the speech itself.
Pep Talks with Pep Guardiola
The current best manager/coach in the world of soccer is Manchester City’s Pep Guardiola. He is excellent with his half-time team talks.
Example #1 - Transmit belief (0:14-1:08). Pep can sense the team is feeling doubt and he immediately jumps to transmit his belief in how capable they are.
Example #2 - Tactical focus (3:54-4:21). Pep jumps straight to tactics and where he wants his players to focus.
In related reading, let’s look at the evolution of coaches and the best question in sport:
Further Reading
Building personal development plans
The foundation of any hockey player is how fast they are able to process the game and make quick, quality decisions. Processing Speed: Slowing the Perception of Speed.
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