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Increase Understanding
Card Pieces
Card Pieces helps build negotiation skills and empathy, which are key
components of effective communication.
What you’ll need:
Playing cards cut into triangles (to make your pieces, cut the cards
diagonally and then diagonally again)
Envelopes
Private room
How to play:
This game works well because it helps people hone their negotiation
skills to achieve the most successful outcomes. It also helps with
accepting loss and figuring out what could have been improved to
achieve the desired outcome.
After the game, talk to your teams about what worked or failed. Did
they use empathy to see things from another person’s perspective?
This helps them tailor their communication more effectively. Were they
actively listening to one another? Not everyone expresses themselves
the same, so being able to adjust and understand another’s
communication style is key.
Blindfold Game
Blindfolds
How to play:
Building Blocks
A table
How to play:
Assemble a team of at least four people, and give them two identical
sets of building blocks. Assign one person in the team as a director,
one as a builder, one as a runner and the remaining members as
observers.
Stand the director and builder on opposite sides of the room facing
away from each other. Have the director build a unique structure from
the building blocks and give directions to the runner who will relay
them to the builder. The builder will then use the directions to create a
structure identical to that of the director within 10 minutes. After each
round, discuss the exercise with the team.
Task division in teams helps with efficient completion of projects.
However, cooperation, effective communication and trust are key
prerequisites for it. Building Blocks helps foster these important parts
of teamwork.
If you have a larger team, split them into separate teams to see who
completes it best. If you have a smaller group, the director can give
directions to the builder without a runner.
Crazy Comic
Crazy Comic is from the book 104 Activities that Build by Alanna
Jones and encourages teamwork, standardization and coordination.
Pencils
Paper
How to play:
Each person is responsible for drawing one frame of the strip, so the
comic’s length is based on how many people are in each group (for
example, three people make a three-frame comic). Assign a set
amount of time for each team to discuss what the comic will be about,
what each person will draw, and so on.
The team will begin drawing at the exact same time without any
interaction, so everything must be discussed in detail beforehand. The
team is also not allowed to see what the other members are drawing.
When time is up, have the teams gather to look at and discuss their
comics.
The most effective teams organize themselves with minimal help from
leaders. This is an excellent game for teams to practice vision
cohesion across components.
This game also works well with teams separated across offices or
working remotely. They can work verbally over the phone or Skype to
create the comic.
Four at a Time
Private room
How to play:
Have all participants sit in a circle. When the game begins, no more or
less than four people must be standing at a time, and the four can
only stand for 10 seconds before they must sit down and be
immediately replaced by someone else. All communication about who
will stand or sit must be non-verbal. The goal is to keep the game
going as long as possible.
This game can be played almost everywhere and works best in large
groups. The larger the group, the better the non-verbal
communication must be.
6
Get It Together
Blindfolds
Colored tape
How to play:
Divide players into two-person teams and blindfold one member. Use
the tape to create a circle in the middle of the room and place various
items within it. Based on directions given by their partner, the
blindfolded member must retrieve specific items from the circle. The
partner giving instructions may not enter the circle.
This game works best in large groups since it increases the game
difficulty. The more chaos by the end, the better!
7
Misunderstanding
Chairs
Various objects
How to play:
Have two people sit back-to-back. Person A has an object and must
describe it (without explicitly saying what the object is) to person B.
Person B must then draw it based on person A’s description.
At some time or another every soccer coach is likely to bemoan their team’s struggle to
communicate both on and off the field. One way an effective coach can address this struggle is to try
to identify the personality of their team, the “environmental” factors that influence that personality
and then to map out a strategy to improve the skill of team communication.
To a large extent most teams, regardless of their competitive level, are social groups.
The group may rely on one or two powerful individuals who are very vocal, can lead, to good or bad
outcomes, and who overpower the majority with their presence. Or the group may be one that has a
collection of individuals all trying to establish “roles” within the group and, as such, no single voice,
or indeed any voice, really comes to the forefront. Or the group comes collectively from another
social environment, such as the same school, and socially cannot “shut up”, but fail to communicate
in a performance setting for fear of damaging friendships.
Some of the “environmental” factors that can externally impact a group’s dynamic could be, among
others;
So the coach has to see how the team actually communicates and has to assess why that maybe the
case. At this point the coach can then employ some general and ultimately specifically contextual
strategies to improve effective team communication.
1. Empowerment
Players have to plainly feel that they are encouraged to communicate and that they are free to do so
within reasonable guidelines, e.g. appropriate language, etc. Just as we want the players to have the
ability to see a variety of choices in the game and then decide what to do so they need to feel able to
make choices and decisions when it comes to communication.
There are many training games that place a specific challenge on the player’s communication skills
and to be successful in require them to be vocal. Possession games that employ three teams, with
two working together against one and then switching up as the ball is turned over is a good example
of a game the players need to talk in. See the attached game that is highly recommended if the
coach is willing to be patient and really challenge the players.
For both on and off field purposes identifying individuals who are effective communicators within
the group and have the respect of the group is a skill for a coach. Some coaches prefer to use a
single captain, others will share the role. Also using off field “captains” for each class within a college
or HS team can share the load of communication and foster understanding and dialogue that may be
carried over to the field.
A natural response to a team struggling to communicate is to do it for them. In the short term this
can be effective, but long term it is not teaching the players to communicate and it is a role for the
coach at odds with evaluating and assessing performance. A coach should be conscious when they
are “supplementing” the communication that the team needs to be making and to do so only for the
long term development of the players.
Be it a youth or high school environment or even in college the coach can find ways to share with
parents and fans the types of support they hope to see. Parent and fan support that lapses into
giving direct instruction is distracting for players and often at odds with the coach’s direction. Also
anytime the sideline behavior is more of a spectacle than the game itself is not going to help players
flourish physically and cognitively in the game.
The environment in a healthy team should always be fair, though not necessarily equal. A four year
starter and captain in a HS has earned some consideration that perhaps a frosh on the team has not.
Still the coach must be sure to express the value of everyone in the group and to value their
contribution. Along with empowerment this expression of value is likely to encourage players to be
comfortable expressing themselves.
Much as a team has certain tactics and strategies and approaches to set plays it practices and holds
unique to the group so can be the case for a vocabulary. For example with the 6 and under players
with a good set up story, “peanut butter” could mean spread out. For a HS team “locking in” an
opponent will mean to deny an opponent getting out their final third, but the actual execution will
be unique to the team. If the coach and players establish these key words or phrases it can greatly
assist communication and understanding.
Certainly a team that is not effectively communicating on and/or the field can frustrate a coach. It
often can become an excuse for a coach when performances lack. Rather than excuse though the
coach should find the reason for the weakness understand it and train to address it. Good luck in
training and games this season.