Not four letter words, but four little words. They can be the difference. Communication is a skill honed throughout our lives if we focus on it. If not, then we are the manager who never gets the most out of her employees, or the owner who sees consistently high turnover in his company.
What am I talking about? I’m going to use a sports experience that exemplifies a bigger issue. I went to the USA Volleyball Nationals this past weekend. This tournament showcases every age group, from Open (National team caliber) to the 75 and over division. Players come from all over the country to compete in the sport they love. We took our collegiate team and competed in the Women’s Open Division.
Over the four days of competition, I observed a wide array of communication styles and motivational speeches. I found myself conducting a study (as unscientific as it may have been) of how many points were lost simply because there wasn’t enough use of four tiny words. The answer was 4-5 points per game to 25. In the world of collegiate volleyball, that’s the difference between Conference Championship and middle of the pack. It’s the difference between Sweet 16 and better luck next year! If we trained our players in the skill of when to use the following words, we would not lose 4-5 points per game. What are these words? They must be incredibly deep and mind probing…maybe even controversial. The words, in order of importance are: “me” (mine), “you”, “go” and “ok” (okay). 9 letters total in the four words, and yet they represent the difference between winning and losing. If it’s that simple, then why is it that at every court I wandered onto the coaches were complaining to their teams that they needed to communicate more. It might be the most overused cliche in volleyball. “We need to talk more”! “Communicate!”
Here’s the missing link as I see it. We say we need to talk more and communicate more, and expect it to happen. Most people, in athletics or not, don’t truly buy into the fact that communication is a skill, just like passing and setting and serving. We work on timing our hitting approach for hours, but on the timing of our communication, never. As we become more experienced, we do learn how and when to use these four words to give us the best chance at winning. The Minnesota team that was made up of “old people”, as one of our players so eloquently put it, had learned it. They schooled us in the art of communication. If we want our players to learn the skills of communication, we must train them like we do all of the other skills.
Here’s the nice part…it can be done in conjunction with the other skills, not in addition to them. For example…a passing drill. A “perfect” pass doesn’t count unless the player calls it before it crosses the plane of the net. Simple. Or, on a defensive drill, one player must call it and the other must respond “ok”, both in a timely fashion. How many times have you seen two players both go for a ball and then both back off because they were afraid of colliding. If one says “ok”, the other one has the go-ahead to focus on the ball instead of worrying about the second player invading her space.
What is my point? Simply, let’s stop demanding something that we’re not willing to train. Businesses have suffered, employees lost, with poor communication. Communication is a learned skill that everyone is capable of, some master, but most do not. Take the time to learn and to teach communication, instead of just talking about it.
Have a great week!