As a Responsible Coach, de-briefing a game is a great time to help your players improve at their sports and learn life lessons. Improved performance stems from assessing the team’s progress against the backdrop of real competition, as opposed to the more controlled environment of practice. Life lessons may come in the form of you and your team overcoming adversity by starting to bounce back from a loss or re-committing to continual improvement even after a win.
Whether you conduct your de-brief immediately after the game or at the next practice, a favorite Responsible Coaching tactic is the “Winner’s Circle.” With your team in a circle, you can go around from player to player having each person say something specific and positive that a teammate did in the game. Your players’ confidence will rise when they realize their teammates saw things they did well.
As coach, you should speak last, making sure to provide those specific positives for any players who were left out. This is a great time to draw on the results of your Positive Charting where you or your assistants, players’ parents or even the players themselves have tracked the positive contributions of each player.
Another way to conduct a de-brief is to invite players to review both positives and areas for improvement from the last game. As a guideline, you might ask players to talk only about their own negatives, especially after a tough loss, to avoid finger-pointing.
One advantage of inviting players to identify areas of improvement is that it causes them to think critically about their own individual performance and the team’s. When players “own” their mistakes out loud in front of teammates, they are more likely to work on improvements.
It also helps players to hear their peers – not just the coach – critiquing performance. It also reinforces the fact that everyone makes mistakes, which can help everyone put their mistakes behind them and move on toward improvement.
You may want to de-brief right after a game, or in the next practice, or both, depending on such factors as timing of the next practice or game. If nothing else, immediately post-game, you probably will want to assemble the team for a few remarks that bring closure to the day’s experience.
If you can fully de-brief immediately, one advantage is that specific situations remain fresh in the team’s mind. This is particularly useful for making between-games tactical adjustments at a tournament. If your adjustment comes on the heels of a high-profile mistake by one of your players, take care to check your emotions and to protect those of the player. For example, rather than, “Let’s review that play where Jimmy was out of position…,” try “One phase of the game where our whole team can improve is making sure we are all in our correct positions.”
In terms of life lessons, you can help players apply the unique communications dynamics of a de-brief to other aspects of their lives. For example, if you set ground rules for your team meetings that players should not criticize each other by name, and then you hear, “Ted had too many turnovers,” it may be time to teach life lessons about communication that apply to the players’ relationships with not just their teammates, but also their sibling and future co-workers.
