Catch Them Doing Good
I have been talking to a couple of coaches this year and they introduced me to the phrase: “we catch them doing good.” I really love this idea for coaches because it forces us to look for the actions and behaviors that lead to growth and creation of a great learning environment. Reflectively, it also forces coaches to see the intentionality and effort that players are putting in to learn and adapt to the coaching and policies that are being installed. I think this is important every day and I think it can be very effective in stopping a spiral of negative thinking.
In any team that cares about improving, it is easy to find things that can be improved. Sometimes these are big things and other times it is nitpicking. As coaches, we will focus on this because we feel it is in our control to influence those things with our words and interventions. And yes, sometimes this is necessary. But if this is all that we focus on, do our players know when they are doing the right thing? Do they know that we see them?
By coming in to a practice or game with the intention to “catch them doing good” completely changes the perspective we are coaching from. We can be looking to identify when they do it well — in hope that they keep doing it well and inspire others to do it well. We can be looking to reinforce that players who maybe developing a new skill can actually achieve the intended outcome AND that it can become an integral part of their game. We can be looking for the improvement in attitude and praise the intentionality, self-control or enthusiasm. We can be looking for the small fist bumps, conversational communication or meaningful peer-to-peer feedback that creates every individual feel connected and part of the team.
But this means it definitely comes at a sacrifice. As a coach, you only have so much time and focus at training. The emphasis on finding the good will definitely take away from your time to talk about the necessary fixes. It will also force you to think about what is the higher priority in many situations — do I need to fix something because it is a trend or should I continue to find a point of emphasis in the process? This is demanding as a coach because you have to think about the messaging because you start talking. It also requires a lot more reflection — why? Well, you don’t want to end up becoming repetitive on the stuff you find them doing good — if you only ever find that they do good on offense and you only fix stuff on defense, you may build yourself future problems of players trusting your word. Additionally, if you only praise specific players and everyone else gets criticized…yeah, you end up eroding the trust you have built up in the team.
So how can you make it work:
When you are planning, identify 1 technical area, 1 tactical area and 1 intangible area where you are working to catch them doing good
Track when and who you are finding doing good — this could be on review of session or you can keep it on your notes as you go along
Give yourself grace — there will be days when you don’t get it right and that is part of the journey
I think as coaches it is important that build our players up by helping them fix their weakness, leverage their strengths and create behaviors that allow to be successful on the pitch and in life. One of the best ways to reinforce desired processes is to “catch them doing good.” It’s a great phrase and one that I remind myself of when I step out to coach or work with a coach — we all need reinforcement that we are doing things good (yes, my mother hates the grammar but oh well!)
If you would like to improve your coaching, I would be happy to jump on a free strategy call (https://freecallwithjosh.com). At the very least, we can identify where you want to go and a couple of actions to help you get there — if it makes sense, we can discuss working together to help build your be the coach that creates champions in sport and life.