Think of the times you told your son or daughter that the fire was hot. What did they do when you told them not to touch it because it would burn? Nothing. They still touched it. The good thing is that they don’t touch the fire again. They learned very quickly that it hurts to touch the fire.
What they did was create an experience for themselves. Most people are visual learners or must learn through doing. If you were to touch the fire, when you told your son or daughter not to and truly burned yourself, that would have created an experience for them as well. You know better, therefor, you have to let them create their own experience by touching the fire.
Below is a way we, as coaches and leaders, can look at experiences we can help create for those we lead. This will enhance your team performance, ownership, and cohesiveness. Here are three things we can try doing for ourselves, our staff, and those on our team to help create the experiences needed for our growth.
Coach (Yourself): Create new mind candy for what the team needs to address at beginning of practice (learn this from developing player relationships). Live what you say (your team mission is led by you and the example you set). Grow through your pain/struggle (Where do you struggle? How can you improve your struggle?).
Coaching Staff: Give responsibilities in practice (they lead, you follow), Give ownership for a part of the games (O coordinator/D coordinator/BLOB/ATO’s/Pre-Game Warm up/Player development). Have them spend the summer owning/mastering one specific piece of the game. Create two-way feedback (give honest feedback on the week of their coaching and encourage the same from them).
Players: Put them into 1v1, 2v2, 3v3 situations where they get touches/make reads and create their own experiences you can build on. Try having them own a part of practice (what do they see? What would they create?). Have a new leader daily for pre-practice workouts (They lead the drills, learn how to lead/teach, and can help lose the fear of failure amongst peers). Let your team set standards/expectations (creates ownership of entire team, accountability amongst one another).