“The person with a narrow vision sees a narrow horizon, the
person with a wide vision sees a wide horizon.”—Maori Proverb
In my last post, I continued with the theme of developing
the right mindset (growth, not
fixed!) in young athletes by planning practices that create true learning environments. Necessary to
this goal of creating learning
environments is the careful planning of purposeful goals that STIMULATE
the athletes to “want” to take part in it AND “want” to improve as people and
athletes.
The Japanese have a term for a person’s inner-drive for continuous improvement: “KAIZAN”. This focus on a consistent “learn, grow & repeat the
process-cycle” not only stimulates the desire to practice/ train, but also
creates a true purpose that is
meaningful to the individual athlete.
Successful
coaches have learned that by developing the individual athletes via a process of giving
them the mental, physical AND character building skills needed for success “off
the playing fields/ courts/ tracks”, they
would build the skills and character to be more successful on the field of
play.
James Kerr relates in “Legacy”, that in restructuring the
New Zealand All Black Rugby Team, a high emphasis was placed on developing a
learning environment that was “vision-driven and values based”.
Their mantra regarding this philosophy was simply that BETTER PEOPLE MAKE
BETTER LEADERS; which extended to “Better People” make “Better All Blacks”.
Coaches at all levels of all sports would best be served to
learn this lesson as early in their careers as possible: “Leaders connect personal meaning
to a higher purpose to create belief and sense of direction.”
Planning practices needs to be done with certain, specific
needs of athletes in mind. These needs should include personal values such as humility, integrity, work ethic
and discipline AND physical and mental skill needs.
“Our values decide our character. Our Character decides our values.”—Wayne Smith
I personally believe that, because of today’s selfish
culture, it is more important than ever before to teach values as the “foundation” for not
only developing growth mindsets, but also for creating the foundation for a
drive towards continual improvement.
Each day should be viewed as an opportunity so that the
“win the day” type attitude reflects more on improving oneself than
being the best. Probably the best
character value we can add to a child’s tool chest for creating a successful growth mindset is that of HUMILITY.
In “Legacy”, Kerr writes that the re-structuring process of
the All Blacks involved first; the coaches asking themselves “how can we do
this better?” and then asking their players “what do you think?”. Kerr goes on to describe this process as a key
to creating the culture of learning, improving and cultivating leaders…”It is a
facilitated style of interpersonal leadership in a learning environment
concerned with adaptive problem solving
and continued improvement in which HUMILTY—not knowing all the
answers—delivers strength.”
“Lay the foundation of humility…The higher your structure is to be, the
deeper must be it’s foundation.”---St. Augustine
Indeed, humility
allows one to learn from failure instead
of fearing it. In creating a true “process
oriented” practice outlook, elite Track and Field Coach Dan Pfaff offers this
insightful quote: “Failure is part of the process (learning). Learn from it, grow from it
and don’t be emotionally attached to it (both coach and athlete).”
In closing I thought I would share my true connection with
the All Black Rugby Team practice of having some of their best players take
responsibility for “sweeping the locker room” (or SHED, in their terminology)
after each game and practice. Perhaps there is no better way to develop a true
GROWTH MINDSET by seeking to develop the humility
necessary to always ask; “how can I get better?”. NEVER BE TOO BIG TO DO
THE SMALL THINGS THAT NEED TO BE DONE…sweep the shed!
In giving each athlete mental, physical and character skills
that challenge them to reach slightly beyond their present abilities, they can provide
the means to get better in all facets. This, in turn produces a deeper purpose
within each athlete; one that leads them to ask of themselves “how can I use
this practice to get better?”.
“Let someone else praise your virtues.”—Maori Proverb
My next post will focus on PROCESS rather than OUTCOMES as a
means of developing successful practices/ training sessions. PLEASE READ
ARTICLE BELOW from a top Swedish Coach on developing young athletes and the
Relative Age Effect vs. Winning….very insightful, especially on the need to struggle and learn through mistakes, effort and multiple skill development.
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This thought provoking article by Dennis Hörtin from Älvsjö AIK FF
in Sweden (
@DHrtin) covers several
coaching areas including his opinion on the Relative Age Effect, the impact of
winning on development and self-esteem. Dennis argues that soccer coaches need
to become better psycho-social coaches.
I’d like to contribute with some of my opinions and experiences gathered as
Head of Youth (boys) in a rather big grassroots club in the southern part of
Stockholm, Sweden.
First off, I just want to say that
the obstacles and/or opportunities my club have to deal with on a daily basis
is of course influenced by the cultural and socio-economic circumstances we
face. Other clubs in other parts of Stockholm or other parts of the world might
face totally different challenges.
Our club is located in a
middle/upper middle class suburban part of Stockholm, but also influenced by a
couple of less priveliged areas.This mix provide great diversity to the club
with kids from various cultures and economical backgrounds.
Our club is open for all to join,
and coaching, training, planning, administration etc are mainly run by
volunteer parents. Part of my job is to guide our coaches and administrators to
run each group of players in line with the club’s philosophy and curriculum.
I don’t like the word curriculum
though, since it’s so easy to couple with the traditional way of learning by
rote. The programme we use is a holistic one with content in line with
early diversification, late specialization, self-determination theory and a fun
and game based approach.
In this blog entry, I’d like to put
my finger on what diversity brings us – both the challenges and
opportunities, the psychological and social aspects in our programme and also
touch a bit on ability grouping, mindsets, pampering and values, and highlight
some areas where tradition and/or the market conflicts with the way we want to
do things.
Psycho-Social
My belief is that for our programme
to be effective, whether we value elite sport participation or the contribution
to our society in terms of healthier children and later on as adults, we need
to balance the football specific content with the psychological and social
aspects of a child’s development.
In a club like ours, and in Sweden
in general in both school and sports, we batch kids chronologically. And when
we group children like that, we’ll witness the obvious and perfectly natural
differences in maturity among them. This causes conflict for some coaches and
parents.
The obvious differences in ability
related to the relative age effect (RAE), lead to a kind of dynamic environment
where kids can learn to help and support eachother, work together as a group,
learn to address issues, understand that we all have different abilities,
strengths and weaknesses etc.
This is, in my opinion, very good
for fostering future adults that can have a positive impact on our society
later on, but I also think it’s a vital ability to possess as a pro footballer.
Winning – Losing
In line with a previous entry on the
Dan Abrahams blog, from the PSV Eindhoven coach Mauro van de Looij, I
think that kids want to win, and that is totally fine. It’s natural for them to
try and win. It’s the nature of the game. Coaches should not talk about
winning, kids do that perfectly on their own without the need for adults to
prompt them to try to win. Coaches should focus on effort and development.
However, what happens
psychologically when kids don’t win? Here I can see some conflict in a club
like mine, compared to a Dutch pro club.
I don’t know how PSV does things,
but we don’t use future/shadow teams, nor do we select what players to include
in our programme. We don’t have well educated youth coaches in general
either. Though, one thing I’ve learnt is that badges and experience doesn’t tell
even close to the whole story.
Being a youth coach is a lot about
values and maturity, something that volunteer parents possess, and that,
if anything, is of great value to our club. This does question the phrase “well
educated”. What is well educated? Is it a badge? Is it values? Is it perhaps a
lot about soft skills that perhaps can’t be taught?
So again, “well educated” is perhaps
refering to values, maturity and soft skills. If so, we have a great line up of
well educated volunteer coaches in Älvsjö AIK FF that are there for the
kids, not for themselves.”
So what happens in our club when a
team lose a game when abilities are widely spread in a team related to RAE?
Maybe the stronger players look at
the weaker peers and “blame” them? In many cases, this is exactly what happens
in our club. But hey, they are kids! It’s ok!
But the question is how do we handle
this as coaches and/or parents? In these cases, perhaps we should embrace the
struggle, not remove it? To me, struggle is learning.
Struggle is Learning….
These conflicts, or opportunities,
depending on how you look at it, will force out opinions from some coaches
and/or some parents that want to create smaller groups sorted by ability, with
the argument that some kids development are held back because of the children
with less ability.
I don’t believe in such statements
when presented as the one and only “solution” to the “problem” as if the world
was that one-dimensional. A statement like that also totally ignores the
psycho-social aspects of a child’s development as if football is learnt or
experienced in some kind of vacuum where other things than just football can’t
fit.
I do however think that ability
grouping is a tool to use at times to accelerate learning, but it must be
balanced psycho-socially. A small gain in the football specific area can have
huge costs on the other hand, and it is far too expensive not to handle this
with care, no matter what a club’s ultimate goal might be. Because it will fall
short in both ends if not dealt with care and awareness.
I totally understand that winning
with less effort in a selected group of players will give a short-term positive
boost for the selected kids, but will it serve them in the long run? Will they
develop the type of mindset needed to really excel later in life?
And should we as a club that,
according to the government (that also support clubs financially to some
extent), follow the UN Child Convention look at the long-term goal over
the short term if they are in conflict? I believe so.
And on the other hand, how do the
kids who suddenly aren’t allowed to play with their friends feel about
ability grouping? What kind of psychological and social issues will they face?
I know from experience, that some
kids that are selected for the best/elite group tend to brag in school about
their confirmed ability, with huge costs psychologically and socially for the
kids who today aren’t at the same level due to being born later in the
selection year. Many young players who don’t perceive themselves as good enough
drop out. That is how powerful the psycho-social aspect of coaching is. And
a drop participation numbers will also limit elite sport participation
rates as well!
Parents and Self-Esteem
Parents can also be eager to help
their kids develop a positive self-esteem. I totally understand this, and
parents definitely should do that.
But self-esteem can also get too
positive. If too positive, players tend to walk in to the land of pampering and
fixed mindsets. In other words, perhaps ability grouping can have a negative
psychological impact long-term, but also socially, and finally limit learning,
if not handled with caution?
To me, when it comes to self-esteem
and long-term goals, “us” is the new “me”.
Youth Sport and Society
I think these issues I’m addressing
here today are the outcome of two main challenges within youth sport and
society.
1. Focus is solely on football, as
if football development occurred in a psycho-social vacuum.
2. Our society is very
individualized – close to narcissistic – and we tend to try and find what we
think is a shortcut to success.
I’m a firm believer that by
balancing the psycho-social aspects with the football specific ones in our
education programmes, we’ll get more kids that are involved longer in sports
and we will make a more positive impact on both health and elite-level
goals.
Football is also a tool for teaching
values. And at times like now, with what’s going on in the world, we sure
need more of it.
I think that looking at the future,
and what society really needs much more of, we should look at what values we
send to our children, and I believe that a future without altruistic values and
full to the brim with egocentric people, football will not survive as we
know it, nor will we.
Dennis Hörtin is Head
of youth (boys) at Älvsjö AIK FF in Stockholm, Sweden
