Reader,
This week, I delivered a workshop to a group of coaches and leaders across sport.
The workshop focussed on challenges around pressure, developing a winning mentality, traits of “serial winning coaches” and dealing with the expectation of winning.
I’ve never met a player who doesn’t love to win.
We play sports for so many reasons, from camaraderie and friendship, personal challenge, health and wellness, and of course to compete and win.
But when it comes to coaching in a youth development context, winning (and performance narratives) can be problematic if it’s the only thing we focus on.
I believe young players need to learn about winning (sometimes by losing), but winning is so much more than the scoreboard.
We have a duty of care to any players we coach to support their development as people and players, redefining what success means to them.
In my position as a Director of Coaching at a club, I am clear as to what winning looks like in my role. My main goal is simple, to win by ensuring the kids have a great experience and want to continue in our programme the following year, all while improving in the care of the coaches who work with them.
In order to deliver this outcome, my role is to guide the coaches at our club to implement good processes, allowing performance to follow.
Three Things to Consider
- Winning is more than the scoreboard. Winning could be framed as “me vs. myself” for developing players. Working on attributes or development areas and improving each week. Winning can be a duel in a game, being a supportive teammate or coming up with a clutch play at the right time in a game. Winning moments happen all the time, on and off the pitch.
- In development contexts, winning can be about progression. Does the player finish the season with more knowledge, ability, physical gains or experiences than they began which has helped them develop?
- Consider how you can bring win weeks, or experiences into your programmes annually to give players opportunities to experience (and embrace) pressure and the challenge of trying to overcome it. This is where tournaments can play a valuable part in the player development experience.
One thing to try this week
Challenge your team to reconsider what winning is on the training ground. Ask the group to give you feedback on how they can win every time they turn up on and off the pitch.
This kind of conversation can form the basis for standard setting, team targets or shaping team values.
One Critical Resource on the Topic
Check out this Masterclass Discussion on Redefining Success in Player Development with the PDP team.
