Best Practices for Team Communication
While team communication is always a work in progress, here are some best practices to optimize the shared experience by focusing on individual choices and shared commitments.
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Earlier this week I spent two days facilitating at the Women Coaches Academy in Denver, CO. As a faculty member with WeCOACH, I return to the Academy each year to talk with female coaches of all sports and all divisions. I cherish the conversations that happen in classrooms and hallways, over meals, and in the spaces in between with coaches from across the country.
During my Championship Communication Workshop we talked about barriers to communication, setting expectations, tools for reducing miscommunication, and strategies for creating clarity and shared understanding. As our conversation evolved into elements of team culture I said,
“The stories that we tell become the culture that we keep.”
What people choose to talk about – in the locker room, during training, after practice, in the office, with parents, teammates, or friends – the words spoken by an individual member tell the story of their experience. Collectively, the experience of each team member shapes the way that they share space and interact with other members. Thus, the stories that we tell become the culture that we keep.
While team communication is always a work in progress, I’d like to offer some best practices to optimize the shared experience by focusing on individual choices and shared commitments.
BE A GOOD TEAMMATE: COMMUNICATION BEST PRACTICES
SPEAK FOR YOURSELF
“For me personally…”
“In my experience…”
“While I can’t speak for others, I feel that…”
“This is solely my opinion…”
DO NOT SPEAK FOR OTHERS UNLESS TWO THINGS ARE TRUE
You have asked that person or the group of people’s permission to speak on their behalf. “With your permission, I’d like to bring this up to Coach.”
You have verified that what you intend to say is how they want to be represented.
“What I plan to say when I talk with Coach is _____, is that all right with you?”
CHECK YOUR ASSUMPTIONS
Start by assuming positive intent and commit to following up with curiosity when something doesn’t land with you or feels off.
BE SOMEONE WHO TALKS TO PEOPLE NOT ABOUT PEOPLE
If you have an issue with someone, commit to talking with them about it as they are the person most capable of doing something to change the issue, situation, or circumstance.
SET OTHERS UP FOR SUCCESS
If something is bothering you, communicate it in a timely manner in a way that allows the other person the opportunity to do something productive about it.
BE MINDFUL OF WHO YOU PROCESS WITH
If you need to process with other people before talking directly with someone, be mindful of who you process with and their ability to keep your conversation confidential.
WHEN TALKING ABOUT SOMEONE WHO IS NOT THERE
Speak as though the person you are talking about can hear you (or as if you are being recorded).
KEEP TEAM BUSINESS WITHIN THE TEAM
The intention is not to be secretive - it’s to protect individuals whom other people may not know or have met from being talked about or judged unfairly. Those who are not part of the team on a daily basis lack the context to have more objective conversations.
THE STORIES THAT YOU TELL BECOME THE CULTURE THAT WE KEEP
When it comes to your experience as a member of this program, what you choose to talk about influences how we are known and how we exist.
These best practices are available HERE for you to save and share.
Thanks for reading, and as always please pass this along to anyone you feel may benefit!
WATCH
Here is a short exercise you can do to invite others to shift their perspective. For context, this video is from my Winning With Words: Championship Communication for Coaches course at the start of the section on having difficult conversations.
LISTEN
In this On Being podcast with Krista Tippett, David Isay, founder of StoryCorps discusses listening as an act of love. “The soul is contained in the human voice,” says David Isay, founder of StoryCorps. He sees the StoryCorps booth — a setting where two people ask the questions they’ve always wanted to ask each other — as a sacred space. He shares his wisdom about listening as an act of love, and how eliciting and capturing our stories is a way of insisting that every life matters.”
THINK
"Sometimes, when we decide not to have a difficult conversation, we forget that we ARE, in fact, making an active choice. We are choosing long-term silence, resentment, and dysfunction over the short-term discomfort, guilt, and awkwardness of speaking our truth."
Peter Bromberg
With Gratitude,
:) Betsy