Excerpt from "Positive Coaching" by Jim Thompson
Published by Warde Publishers
Copyright 1995

Teachable Moments I: Relentless Positivity

See everything.
Overlook a great deal.
Improve a little.
--Pope John XXIII

Over the years I have acquired quite a large collection of books on coaching. Most of them are concerned primarily with how properly to teach certain skills or concepts. The unspoken assumption is that, if only taught properly, the athlete will learn. My experience tells me that this is not the case--that proper teaching of skills is less than half of it. The hidden part of the iceberg is the receptivity of the learner.

People do not have the same capacity to learn at any given moment. Imagine that you have just come to a language class from work after having been told by your boss that you will lose your job shortly. How receptive are you to what your language teacher is teaching you (regardless of how perfectly it may be taught)?

The concept of learner receptivity is captured beautifully in the phrase "teachable moments/' those timeless times when an athlete is focused on what she needs to do to learn, to change, and to improve. How do you, as a coach, produce the highest number of teachable moments for each of your athletes over the course of a season?

This chapter is the first of three dealing with principles and techniques that I have developed, stumbled upon, or borrowed from others. These principles and techniques have one thing in common: more often than not, their use helps create a teachable moment where young athletes are receptive to what you are trying to teach them.

Chapter 3 addresses how coaches can use ideas to inspire young athletes to greater effort to learn and improve even in difficult situations. Chapter 4 discusses how to get players engaged in taking responsibility for their own learning.

This chapter begins at the beginning, with relentless positivity, the cornerstone of great teaching because it leads to teachable moments. It ends with practical ways to infuse your coaching style with the positivity that brings teachable moments again and again and again.

THE CASE FOR POSITIVE COACHING

The case for practicing the discipline of positive coaching is simple. It works better than negative coaching. It also works better than so-called "balanced" coaching where criticism and praise are dished out about equally. There are several reasons why positive coaching works better.

1. The greatest coaching principle in the world: Awhile ago I ran across a little book by Michael Leboeuf with the intriguing title of The Greatest Management Principle in the World. I paged to the payoff and came to this insight:
   

   The things that get rewarded get done.

   Is that profound or simpleminded? Or both? When you think about it, it seems pretty obvious, but I've noticed that time and again parents, teachers, managers, and coaches ignore this principle. There is a famous organizational behavior article on this very topic called "On the Folly of Rewarding A, While Hoping for B" It happens all the time in the corporate world, and it happens all the time in youth sports.

   When a coach is trying to get a group of kids to pay attention, who gets rewarded (in this case with attention)? Usually it is the kids who are dawdling or talking. Those who come right away, ready to learn, are ignored and made to wait while the noncooperating kids are the center of attention. Toward the end of this chapter I discuss how to use "positive charting" to reinforce kids for learning what you are trying to teach them.

2. The futility of punishment: Punishment leaves bad feelings that eat away at motivation. Excelling in sports requires emotional energy. When kids are punished, yelled at, or criticized, their emotional energy is used up being angry, feeling sorry for themselves, thinking up reasons why the coach is wrong, etc.

   An exercise from a positive parenting class illustrates the point. A volunteer leaves the room and returns to try to complete an unknown task (i.e., she must discover what the task is by the "feedback" given). She is told that when she does the wrong thing, she will be hit (gently) on the head with a rolled up piece of paper. When she does something that moves her closer to accomplishing the task, the hitting will stop. Rarely does the volunteer figure out the task and accomplish it. Often the "mature" adult gets so frustrated with being whapped that she can't even complete the task. Occasionally she will take a whap back at the other person out of sheer frustration. So far I've not heard of any "whappers" getting disfigured by "whappees," but the potential is certainly there.

   Later the exercise is repeated with positive reinforcement. When a correct move is made, a friendly sounding bell is tinkled. When she moves in the wrong direction, the tinkling stops. Each effort is timed. You probably can guess the results. Invariably the positive approach works much more quickly (often as much as 10 times as fast).

   Punishment does carry with it some information value and it can stop a behavior, but it rarely can teach new ones. It takes positive reinforcement and recognition to get a child to try something new, such as fielding bad hops without turning his head.

   I was interested to read recently that dolphin trainers rely exclusively on positive reinforcement. Punishment simply doesn't work with dolphins. They withdraw and refuse to perform. Kids are a lot like dolphins. Positive works better.

3. Pretending to work: Kids use passive-aggressive tactics against adults who dominate them. In totalitarian countries, passive resistance is sometimes the only option available to people to express their disdain for those who hold power over them. It has been said that the former Soviet government pretended to pay workers who in turn got back at the government by only pretending to work. Kids (and adults too for that matter) have a great ability to fight back against adults who are down on them by such methods as coming to practice late, not trying, not concentrating during a drill, misunderstanding instructions, etc. They may even go through the motions and "pretend to work" but they won't be motivated to become their best.

4. Responding to a challenge: For most kids (and adults too!), responding successfully to a challenge requires emotional support. When people are facing a challenge that requires them to change their behavior, they need all the physical and emotional energy they can get. Without support, the child's energy goes into defending himself against real and perceived criticisms from others, not into trying to accomplish the task. When a child is secure in knowing that he will be valued and accepted by the coach, parents, or someone, no matter how he performs, more of his energy can go to responding to the challenge.

   It may not be obvious from our adult perspective, but a child who is trying to learn to bat against a fast pitcher without "bailing out" of the batter's box is responding to a challenge.

   When my son was drafted to a Little League major team as a 10-year-old, I noticed that he seemed tense a lot of the time. Since he is usually a pretty loosely strung person, I watched more closely. It seemed that he was reacting to the stress of advancing to a tougher level of competition. He had been a star as a nine-year-old in the minors. Now he seemed to be silently comparing himself to the 11- and 12-year-olds on his new team and worrying about whether he would match up.

   He was fortunate to have coaches, John McCallion, Tom Braucht, and Steve Culver, who gave him a lot of positive reinforcement. His mother and I also tried to give him lots of positive support and encouragement. We did not criticize him or give him any reason to believe he would not succeed. By the middle of the season he had become the starting second baseman. His energy was free to go into learning what he needed to be successful at a higher performance level.

WHY RELENTLESS POSITIVITY?

I began my education career working with emotionally disturbed children whose behavior problems were so severe that they could not be contained within a normal classroom. The rules of the school I worked in were simple: reinforce positive behavior; ignore negative behavior as much as possible; and, when negative behavior can no longer be ignored, intervene in a way that extinguishes the behavior rather than reinforces it.

The results with very troubled children were remarkable. The extent to which the school's staff was able to follow these guidelines largely determined how well the children behaved. We had a weekly "goody-guy" awards ceremony in which children who had met their behavioral goals for the week received recognition in a public forum. These were children whose parents and previous teachers had given up trying to use positive reinforcement because, they said, ".. · with this kid, it doesn't work . ·"

Why did it work with our school and not in the original situation? One reason was that we were relentless about being positive. We kept being positive in the face of behavior that seemed to be telling us that positivity wasn't working.

We found ourselves from time to time saying,"… · being positive with Kevin just isn't working" or "… · no one could be positive with Judy." But our system wouldn't let us follow through on those discouraged thoughts. Dr. Shirley Pearl, our principal, reinforced us for being positive and ignored our negative behavior, and pretty soon we were back to being positive again. And then we were surprised, because over time Kevin and Judy responded. The key was our being relentlessly positive, not just positive at first.

I have talked with many, many parents, coaches, and teachers, who say, "But I've tried being positive . · "My advice is to be relentlessly positive. It is the relentless commitment to positive coaching that brings the biggest successes and has the most impact. It's when things go wrong that you can have the most impact. It's also the time when it is the hardest to be positive. But it does work.

Positive Charting

Earlier in this chapter I referred to the "greatest management principle" (what gets rewarded gets done). Well, there is a corollary from the same book:

People do what gets measured.

To maximize the amount of time I can get my players to practice what I am trying to teach them, I have developed a simple technique, called "positive charting" that takes advantage of this corollary. Here's how it works.

Each game I carry a clipboard or notebook with a listing of each player's name followed by blank space for my notations. Whenever I notice a player doing something I want to reinforce, I note it. For example, if I am trying to teach Ellie to stride toward the pitcher without bailing out, I will remind her before the game that I will be watching her front foot. Every time she strides forward I note it.

At the beginning of the next practice, I take about 10 minutes and share with the team the good things I've noted about each of them. I also keep track of the regular statistics (hits, great fielding plays, etc.) and share them as well. But there are always several significant positive things I have marked down about each kid, so the weaker players are recognized and reinforced as well as the superstars.

This activity usually sets a positive tone for the practice and helps motivate each kid to continue trying to improve since they know any improvement will be noted and called to the attention of the entire group.

This is a powerful technique, especially with younger kids. One time I went to pick up my then seven-year-old son at a friend's birthday party. One of the kids on my basketball team was also there. As soon as he saw me he asked if I had brought my clipboard! Older athletes often feel they have to be cool, so the impact of positive charting on them is not as obvious, although I am convinced that it works with them as well. It's not hard to see why kids respond so well to it. Most of the average kid's life is spent being corrected, criticized, yelled at, punished, or in some way being made aware of shortcomings. Here is a moment where the child can do no wrong. Kids love it, and they respond by trying harder to improve.

Over the years, I've developed some guidelines to making the most of positive charting.

1. Each kid should have about the same amount of things noted and shared for each game. The tendency will be to have lots of things to say about the superstars and often nothing at all about the weakest kids. This is bad for both sets of kids. The superstars need to be pushed and taught more advanced things (see Chapter 15 for more on this). The weaker kids need to be taught the basics and reinforced when they master any part of the lesson.

2. Recognize kids for great things they have done on their own, as well as on what you are teaching. The whole point of coaching is to create teachable moments. Be on the constant look for kids doing what you have instructed them to do as well as other useful things you'd like to reinforce. There is nothing that will get them to be more receptive to your instruction than having their efforts noticed and recognized.

3. Include "character" items when appropriate (more on this in Chapter 6). For example, a child may have trouble controlling her temper when an opposing basketball player elbows her. If so, make that one of the things she is working on and note it and share it with the group when she makes progress.

4. Give recognition for effort, not just results. A catcher who has trouble remembering to call out cuts on throws from the outfield so they can be heard by the infielders can be singled out when he finally trumpets. Even if he is only slightly louder than before, mark it down and share it. Most improvements come about little by little. Note and reinforce the little victories on the way to the play that wins the championship game.

5. Do note negative things during the game but don't share them with the kids at this time. My rule on criticism is clear and inviolate: praise in public, criticize in private. Charting notes on things needing improvement are grist for the next practice at which time I will schedule drills that deal with the problem without mentioning who screwed up in the last game. I may discuss the problem with the player in question but I will try to never embarrass a player in front of her teammates.

   One exception is when a player makes an obvious-to-everyone mistake that loses the game for us. In this case I may talk about it during the positive charting session to give credit to the kid for trying, for being a good sport about it (assuming he was), or for coming to practice ready to go at it again. I may talk about mental toughness (see Chapter 6 for more on this) being the ability to spring back after a disappointment and how this particular kid is demonstrating this quality.

6. Ask kids to help you observe good things that other kids are doing. Tell them (truthfully) that you aren't able to catch every good thing that happens and that you need their help. This will contribute to a home court advantage and a stronger team (see Chapter 14), with kids feeling appreciated by their peers as well as by their coaches. It also will help prepare these kids to be positive coaches, parents, managers, or teachers when they grow up.

7. After the last practice before a game, get together with your coaches and note what things you want to watch for with each kid during the next game. While positive charting will have a tremendous impact on your team, your teaching will be even more effective if you are primed to notice kids when they implement what you have been teaching. If you have delegated certain teaching tasks to others, this will help get you up to speed on what they have been stressing in the last few practices. Although there are times when I don't want to make the effort to note and record the positive things that happen in a game, I always regret it when I don't. I am almost always glad when I make the effort to positive-chart because it leads to more teachable moments and better performance.

CONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISM AND THE PLUS/MINUS RATIO

The paradoxical beauty of relentlessly positive coaching is that it makes criticism easier for you to give and easier for the player to accept. When feeling appreciated and valued by you, a player will be more open to hearing your criticisms.

Fred Miller, director of the Oregon Executive Department, who so beautifully demonstrates the effective practice of recognition, once said that his rule of thumb is four to one. If he gets much below four positive feedbacks for each criticism with the people he manages, he feels things are deteriorating. I have strived to maintain that ratio over the years and it has worked for me as well. Kaoru Yama-moto, in The Child and His Image, concludes that an even higher ratio is better: "... a reward to punishment (R-P) ratio of five rewards for every one punishment is about optimal in guiding and directing a child's behavior. However, when the R-P ratio falls down to only two rewards for every one punishment, neurotic symptoms begin to develop, especially those of inferiority and inadequacy and a generalized fear of failure. When the R-P ratio drops further to one-to-one or even below, the child begins to despair of ever winning the adult's approval, and hostile, angry (sic) feelings arise. Predelinquent acts are often observed in children who chronically experience this R-P level"

It is hard to imagine a child reaching her potential as an athlete when the dominant emotion is despair. And given the punishment-oriented styles of many college and professional coaches, is it really surprising that we see so many talented athletes engaging in predelinquent (or worse) behaviors?

I am aware of the "sandwich" criticism, where a criticism is sandwiched between two compliments. I have never felt good about using that approach. It seems artificial and gimmicky. It also seems likely over time to result in people devaluing the positives as in, "He just said those things to soften me up for what he really wanted me to hear" I prefer to try to create a climate of positivity that surrounds the team, so that a well-placed criticism here or there falls softly among children who feel so secure and accepted that they can hear and apply it, rather than tune it out.

Fred Miller notes that a management job is similar to coaching in that it's all too easy to fall into spending most of your time correcting things done improperly while taking things done well for granted. To combat this tendency, Fred monitors his plus/minus ratio periodically. He will mark on the side of his desk blotter a "+" for every positive comment he writes or says in response to the work of subordinates. A"-' is marked for every criticism. After a couple of days this technique gets him back into the habit of looking for good things and reinforcing them.

During a practice I record +'s and -'s on my hand with a pen if I don't have a clipboard handy. I have found that focusing on my plus/minus ratio during practices and using positive charting during games keeps me in a positive mood. Since we often don't even notice the times we are correcting kids, you might find it useful to have another adult monitor you at a practice session for a half hour or so. If you are like me, you will be surprised at how many criticisms you hand out without being aware of them.

My wife is invaluable to my remaining positive. Anytime during a game that I get carried away with yelling at my players, Sandra will wander over to the dugout or sidelines and quietly say to me in her cheerful singsong way, "Jim, you're getting just a litttttttle bit negative"

SOME MOMENTS ARE JUST NOT TEACHABLE

As positive as you might be, there are some moments that are just not, and cannot be made to be, teachable moments.

1. Games: In general, games are not filled with teachable moments. Games can provide a setting in which lessons previously introduced to the players are driven home (see Chapter 9). But there is so much tension in any game that is closely contested, or that means a lot to the kids, that there isn't a lot of extra energy to go around to learn something new. Games are for implementing skills that have already been taught and practiced. This may be difficult for many coaches and parents to accept at first, but it is a rare child, with the psychology of a top competitor (see Chapter 13), who is able to process new things during the pressure of a game. Lessons from games should be noted and part of the next practice can be used to cover skills that address the lessons.
2. Mistakes: When a child makes a mistake that costs the team a game, he knows it better than anyone. The last thing in the world he needs is someone yelling at him that he screwed up. He has already gotten that feedback. He is not going to be in a receptive mood, so don't try to teach him what he did wrong just then. Even if the mistake is made in a practice, he is probably feeling frustrated. To the extent possible, give the child as much privacy as possible and wait for a teachable moment to roll around later.

   Someone once told me what happens to a bleeding chicken in a farmyard. Other chickens peck at the blood and, if not stopped, can kill the bleeding chicken even if the original wound was quite minor. This is how I see what often happens when a kid makes a mistake. Adults and other kids start peck, peck, pecking and it doesn't help the kid learn. The best response to a mistake is support (see Chapter 7). If you are emotionally caught up in the mistake and can't be positive at that moment, then be silent. There is no more appropriate time for practicing the maxim "if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all" than when a kid makes a big mistake that costs your team the game.

3. When you are angry: I firmly believe that it is okay, even desirable, to be able to get angry at kids. It's not okay to hurt them, but it is an unavoidable part of life, if you are connected with people, to get angry from time to time.

   However, do not confuse this with the idea that you can teach much of anything to a kid when you are mad. Kids sense anger and are unlikely to respond to the teaching at that time. Anger kills teachable moments. Call a break, have your assistant take over for a while, work with another kid, or whatever. But wait for the anger to subside before you try to instruct again.

4. Factors beyond your control: Sad as it may be, bad things happen to kids. A child whose parents have recently divorced or whose father has recently died is probably not going to have as many teachable moments as he otherwise would have, no matter how positive you are. In those situations, all you can do is try to be even more positive than normal.

ACCEPTANCE TIME AND NONOBVIOUS TEACHABLE MOMENTS

The concept of "acceptance time" has been a valuable tool for me as a coach. This is the time it takes an individual to process a suggestion or criticism and embrace it as her own. Some things take time because the physical skill is difficult to master. Some attitude and behavior changes take time to occur because the person just isn't ready to immediately drop an attitude or behavior that has become habitual.

Often I am struck by how my son is able to process messages from me without the slightest indication that he has heard me. If I watch carefully over a few days or weeks, I see that often he has adjusted his behavior, based on my feedback, without advertising it. And he can easily resent it if I try to point out to him that he has finally come around to the "correct" (i.e., my) point of view.

Kids don't always say, "Why, thank you, Sir, for pointing that out to me, Sir, I didn't realize that before, Sir" even though they may actually be processing your message and learning from it. I have found this particularly true with teens, where there is a large element of face-saving involved. In some cases, kids need time to be able to "forget" that the idea wasn't theirs in the first place so they can embrace it as their own. Sometimes, simply doing what one is told to do can seem pretty slave-like to the adolescent athlete. Often the most talented and robust personalities, the children with the drive to accomplish great things in their lives, are the ones who have the most need for acceptance time, and for making an idea their own.

In situations like this, the enlightened coach will derive satisfaction from the learning he has inspired and not try to force the player to acknowledge the source of the new skill.

So . . . you can't always tell when you have struck a teachable moment by the immediate and obvious feedback. Teachable moments are not always discrete, teary-eyed flashes of breakthrough. Often what makes the difference is an accumulation of many seemingly ordinary interactions that create an atmosphere in which learning, growth, and change take place. Continuing to coach in a positive manner and giving people the right to process in their own way and time will pay off whether or not it seems to be working right away.

PRIVACY AND TEACHABLE MOMENTS

I once had a terrific karate teacher named Larry Seiberlich. In trying to understand why he was such an effective teacher, I noted that I appreciated the privacy he gave me to work on the skills he had taught me. He would circulate among the students while we were practicing a maneuver, watching how we were doing from a distance. From time to time he would approach an individual and make further suggestions. Then he would again withdraw to let the person try (and often initially fail) to implement his suggestion. It took a great deal of pressure off his students since we knew he would let us try several times before he came back to us again.

WATCH OUT FOR GRUDGING POSITIVITY

During a recent baseball season I noticed that I was going through the motions. I'm sure that people watching me thought I was still being positive, but I knew that it was a grudging sort of positivity that left me unsatisfied.

I was disappointed because my son had decided not to play baseball and without him our team did not win many games. I was pouting for much of the season, constantly thinking about what it would have been like if he'd played. I also deeply missed sharing the experience with him as I had in previous years.

When players made crucial mistakes, I would express my disgust under my breath to one of my fellow coaches. To the players I would put on a happy (tight, but happy) face and tell them it was okay to make a mistake. But inside myself I didn't believe it. I was being grudgingly positive and it was neither fun nor effective.

Instead of remembering that my goal was to encourage and develop kids, and that losing is a part of life, I had gotten seduced by the desire to win. I wanted to win the league championship. I wanted to demonstrate my superior coaching ability, winning with players that weren't as talented as those on some other teams. When my players refused to cooperate and made the typical kinds of mistakes inexperienced players make, I got frustrated.

Now sometimes the best you can do is to be "grudgingly positive" But don't mistake the one for the other. When you are able to be relentlessly positive rather than grudgingly positive, wonderful things happen. You experience sports and your players the way they were meant to be experienced, with great joy and enthusiasm. So if things are tough, and grudgingly positive is as good as it's going to get for awhile, keep at it. But if you can recognize the difference and break through to a higher level of positivity, you'll be able to see the difference.

THE DISCIPLINE OF POSITIVE COACHING

At the beginning of this chapter, I used the phrase the "discipline of positive coaching" This was not an accidental choice of words. There are few activities as difficult as maintaining a positive attitude when things go wrong--as they will from time to time.

There are two hilarious scenes in Penny Marshall's movie, A League of Their Own, that illustrate how difficult (and important) it can be for a coach to be positive. Tom Hanks plays a manager who chews out a player for missing the cutoff on a throw from the outfield. She begins to cry and he gets angrier and angrier, saying, "There's no crying in baseball!" Later in the season, the player again makes the same mistake but the Hanks character has learned a lot. At great physical effort, he remains calm (for him) and suggests she continue to work on the skill. She responds well to his disciplined, positive approach and comes through with a big play in the final game.

I am always bemused by commentators who talk about so-and-so, a major college coach, who is so "tough" and shows it by yelling at his players. There's nothing tough about getting negative when things don't go your way. Any three-year-old throwing a temper tantrum is tough in that sense. A truly disciplined coach is one who can provide emotional support to a kid who just blew an "easy" play (easy from the sidelines) that cost a game. He can remain cool while analyzing the situation that contributed to the mistake. Then, at a future practice, he can introduce drills to help the player reduce the likelihood that the same mistake will be repeated. True mental toughness is exhibited by remaining positive in the face of adversity.