5 Tips for Proactive Team Communication

Would you love it if all the parents were supportive on your team?

Help keep confusion and stress at a minimum by proactively communicating to your team.

#1 Make a Plan

Plan out what you want to say to the team. Make a list of everything you know you'll need to say throughout the season. Decide whether you want to communicate through email, in person, on chat, in social media or with texts and calls. Plan ahead and write our your communication, especially what you'll need to share during the busiest parts of the season 

#2 Set Expectations and Boundaries

Besides talking about the game and logistics of where everyone needs to be, be sure you communicate your expectations and boundaries.

Consider these questions:

What do you expect from your players? (Think about behavior, attitude, effort, and responsibilities)

What do you expect from your parents? (Think about behavior, attitude, effort, responsibilities, outside of practice requirements, attendance, volunteers)

What can parents and players expect from you as a coach?

What are your boundaries for communication (meaning when do you want parents to talk to you and how would you like them to contact you)? (Think specifically about before and after games and practices)

What communication is (or is not) appropriate for the group chat?

What will you be sharing with players and then expect players to share with parents?

#3 Share your vision and goals

It's important for parents to know what you want to accomplish in the season (besides winning of course). There is so much to learn from the game and it helps to share a vision of what you plan to accomplish and what you'd like the players to achieve. Sharing your vision and goals helps parents understand the bigger picture of what players can gain from the game besides just stats and wins.

Consider these questions when putting your vision and goals together:

What do you hope your team will accomplish?

What do you hope each player might achieve?

What goals do you have?

What do you value most as a coach?

#4 Say what you want and what you don't want

If something happens that didn't go well, talk about it and say what you want (or don't want) to have happen next time. We are all humans working together, coming in with our own experiences and emotions. It is bound to happen that something doesn't go as planned. Be willing to communicate about it and be proactive in stating what can go better next time around.

#5 Say it and then Say it again

It is overly optimistic that everyone will understand and comprehend everything the first time around. When communicating make sure there are multiple opportunities for people to ingest what's being said. Send an email and post in the team chat, Have an in-person team meeting and send an email with the same information. Say it and then say it again so everyone has multiple opportunities to get it. Putting something in an email makes it easy to resend in case people missed it the first time around.