I have a sure fire way to reduce the length of meetings,
sermons, and speeches:
"Oorah!"
We live in an age of information overload in my opinion. Pick a topic. Any topic, and goggle it and you will find thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of items, related to that topic. I was certainly guilty of giving too much information at times when I taught the game. There is some merit to the old adage of "keep it simple stupid" (The KISS principle). Consider how annoying Sheldon Cooper is on the Big Bang Theory. Yes, he is brilliant, but the condescending attitude he uses to communicate to those around him, turns many people off.
Some time ago I was listening to a radio program that had a speaker on the
air named Cynthia Tobias. She is an educator who specializes in recognizing the different ways we learn. She also has a great sense of humor. One of her comments has resonated with me. She maintains we could reduce, or even eliminate, many meeting by simply answering the question ....... "So what's the point?" When I was still teaching, I really disliked what we called "in-service" meeting. Many a time I had to fight the urge to jump up during the meeting and shout "so what's the point?" I fully
understand these meetings were contractural obligations, we as teachers
were expected to attend, but does that mean they (in-service and other meetings) have to be nonproductive or at the very least incredibly inefficient? I apologize, but I just had a "flash back" moment, as to one of the aspects of education I do not miss participating in! Do you have player meetings or coaching staff meetings? Do you have a point to those meetings? Some of the most verbal people I know are teachers. Let's be honest. Some teachers/coaches enjoy listening to themselves talk. What can be better than having a captive audience that actually considers you to be an expert! Have attention spans changed in the past five years? I would
argue they have. Just observe our young people today. How long do they
focus on any one task?
We used to start each of our practices with a meeting. I would ask our players to form a semi-circle so I could see all their faces. At times, I blew it!! What should have been a 2-3 minute communication became a 10-15 minute (or longer) sermon. So what's the point? Was a very valid question I should have asked myself. Remember in most cases, your players have just come out of their classes where they may have been talked to and talked at .... should we (as coaches) do the same thing to them at practice? How often
do you stop drills and teach or make a point to the whole squad? Some coaches believe you should seldom stop a drill to address the team or even
to correct an individual, but rather should correct the error when the player
who needs the individual correction is on the side waiting for his next rep.
So what is the point (of this blog)? Often, at least in my experience, less is
indeed more. I suggest we all consider what we do and teach and ask ourselves ..... "So what's the point, and if there is a point to our teaching/coaching, can it be done with less talk and more efficiency? There is a method to my madness. Why are almost all of my blogs 2-3 minutes in
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