How do you support players with self reflection?

Hi everyone, this is Dave Wright, and welcome to the Play Development Project podcast. I hope you're having a great week where you're cheating in. We've had another busy few weeks at PDP, which has included more great content to support you in your coaching. Last week we hosted our latest webinar, this time on the topic of growth and maturation.

PDP technical advisor Dan Wright and I were lucky to sit down with PhD researcher at the University of Bath, Megan Hill for an in-depth conversation on the physical challenges of youth football players. Mix conducted research in a range of professional academies across the UK, and she shared some fascinating insights from her work. The replay of this event will be available on the website very shortly. We've got some more great webinars coming soon, and you can now also access the replay of our brilliant conversation with Chris Vanderhagen, director of coach education at the Belgian FA.

We've also recently published another Q&A video on how to improve team building and culture, a really fascinating topic where Dan and I shared some of our views, but also referenced a number of PDP expert contributors who've written on this topic. Today's podcast is a conversation on the importance of self-reflection and some strategies to support young players engage in this practice. Dan and I sit down to discuss a few ways to help your players, and as always, we love your feedback on this. Tell us what you're doing in your environments.

Feel free to send us a message via the PDP socials or on the PDP Slack community. Lastly, if you haven't joined the PDP community yet, you can sign up as a PDP member at playdevelopmentproject.com and still access a free 30-day trial to explore the platform and enjoy the content. Head to playdevelopmentproject.com, choose a monthly or annual membership and dive into a massive range of resources from learning modules and live sessions to Q&A videos and masterclass discussions plus much more. As always, thanks for joining us today.

I really hope you enjoy the discussion. Hi everyone, my name's Dave Wright. Welcome to another Play Development Project Q&A. As usual, I'm joined by PDP technical advisor Dan Wright.

Dan, how are you mate? I'm good. Thank you. I don't think everyone realizes that you and I are different ends of the globe, so finding a time that works with both of us is difficult.

So it's quite late for me and super early for you, right? Yeah, combine that with that with Fatherhood for both of us this year and it is a little bit tricky to be on Office Science and Global and creating content, but it's great to be having another conversation. We've got a really interesting question coming from the PDP Slack community, which has been absolutely humming in the last few months. A question from Tom, and he said, how do you support players with self-reflection?

This is obviously a key part of learning and I guess the development journey for players. Before we dive into it, we've sourced a definition here, Dan, which you found from some authors, Atkins and Murphy et al. The definition goes on to say, reflection is concerned with consciously looking at and thinking about our experiences, actions, feelings and responses and interpreting or analyzing them in order to learn from them. Typically, we do this by asking ourselves questions about what we did, how we did it and what we learned from doing it.

So whilst it's a fairly straightforward definition, I think it really narrows in on the focus, particularly around learning from those experience. So, Dan, that's one definition. What does it mean for you in coaching context? Yeah, I think it really depends maybe what I'm patient with talking about because the word reflection probably doesn't work for really young ones and probably is really useful for maybe teenagers.

They're probably maybe getting a little bit more self-aware and that word would fit quite well. So I suppose, like you said, the definition is about looking at things that happen and deciding whether they were useful or not useful and then what we're going to adapt into and change to make sure we get a different outcome or a different return next time. That would be how I'd explain it in layman's terms. I suppose also we want to talk about why we think this is useful or why it's powerful.

It's probably powerful in every walk of life, but definitely in sport, right? Yeah, look, I think it's going back to what it is. In a football context or sporting context, when you're working with young boys or girls, it's important to think about their immersed in experience. I think we have this view that we can often tell or instruct directly.

Whilst there's certainly a place for direct instruction and communicating ideas and working on refining technique, for example, I think we've got to understand that there's a lot of experiences going on within the game or within the session, that the players are just going to have that immersion or that flow. And then when you come out of that, reflecting on it with clear questions or open questions perhaps is a key part of facilitating that from a coaching perspective. So it's one of those where I think there's a few forces at play and we'll talk a little bit about bias as well, but I think it's one of those where if you can facilitate with good discussion, a good discussion, honest discussion and good questions, and then also look at engaging in some peer to peer or coach to play a one to one stuff. It can be quite powerful and beneficial to actually think, we're am I in terms of what I'm working on as a player?

How did it go today if I give myself an honest assessment and also having some clarity around what good looks like at the time? You can do numerical reflections or self assessments where you might have a one to ten scale and a player or say, yeah, I'm a ten out of ten and listen, you're thinking, actually maybe you're a seven at the moment, but we want to get you to a ten. So having that shared understanding of what good looks like for that individual, the team is probably quite important too. Yeah, and then also choosing when to give that answer, right?

Like some part of reflection would be if the coach is shutting up and letting the player completely do it on their own, right? It's not always our role to give answers and to give opinions. Sometimes they reflect and think they're a ten out of ten and we just maybe have to be quiet and go, okay? And maybe design a practice or put them in an experience where they might realise and reflect and go, maybe I'm not quite a ten yet, maybe there's still things to work on.

So even that's a skill, isn't it? Which coaches might find difficult because we all like talking and interacting and being involved and sometimes this reflection process won't involve us at all. So they say much of facilitating that or encouraging it to happen. One of the things that I was keen to talk about was how this can be different for different people.

So we kind of touched on age routes where I'd even say like people that I've coached with and people that I've played with and players that I've coached would all reflect slightly differently. Like he said, one of those lenses might be how honest that reflection is, but you can also get people that'll be like maybe over critical or people that don't remember parts of the things that they did. Is that something that kind of rinsed through for you? People that maybe got a different way of looking back at what happened?

Yeah, look, I think it's interesting. The ones that are really critical, I've written about this in the past, like coming from New Zealand originally and being back here at the moment, the humble Kiwi is a thing. And some interactions I've had with athletes back here since I returned, it really stood out to me having been in Australia with perhaps it's a little bit more within the national psyche of being a bit more confident, let's say. And in the UK, I thought the players given that in academy environments, and there was probably some real, really early around this reflection and setting targets and having an individualised programme.

I'm very aware of what they were and weren't good at. So it's interesting to see that sort of cultural difference. I think there's also going to be individuals that engage in it more than others. You know, there's going to be players that are really, really fascinated with the learning process.

They're really keen on seeing their targets and perhaps measuring themselves at times against themselves if we encourage that kind of approach, which I know Matt Beale has one sort of influencer in this space who's talked about me versus myself in development, which is a concept I like. I think I can recall a player recently who was, and there are a lot of perfectionists in the world at the moment, I think given the social media age, I think that's probably another cultural influence on the way on the affections and on the rise. But one player who was very articulate and intelligent, very engaged and wanting to get better, but perhaps was going down that path and consistently being too overly critical overthinking things. And this player was a striker.

So if we think about that position, it's probably one we want to be in a state of being relaxed and calm and not overthinking and hitting the target, you just want to be doing it and getting that confidence in the back of the net. So I think that can be one we've got to carefully manage it, excuse me. But you've also got to try and be honest with that player as well. So while you might be seeing those tendencies, you will also probably have to still have those honest conversations if you know what I'm getting at.

So while she's thinking, OK, don't be too harsh on yourself, there might be points where the player's been really honest and it doesn't go enough for where we are right now in terms of a level. So I think that's one of those ones where it's a fine line. There will also be players that will tend to just disengage from the stuff. There might be players that just want to play, go out there, do their thing.

I mean, what about you from your experience in terms of different players on the spectrum? Yeah, really mixed and definitely something that I don't think you could say, this is a winning formula and everyone must do it like this. I would maybe say that the guys that have been successful have been quite critical. Maybe that kind of competitive edge or winners mentality or whatever, it's kind of bad stuff as they always want to do better.

So they wouldn't be someone that regularly said they were brilliant because they would find part of their game, but they could put apart. So I think that's interesting to maybe the coaches role would be to kind of point at the things they've done well, rather than helping them be negative, if that makes sense, they would already be, they're already kind of critical themselves. I also wonder if I'm talking whether there's a piece around positions as well, like you mentioned around at number nine's. They would judge their game maybe on outcomes in terms of goals or shots on target or game impact.

So facilitating the reflection there might be shining light on the other things that they could do well. So they can play well, I'm not score, for example. So maybe helping them build a kind of skill set where they can focus on some other things post game. Like, did I press hard?

Did I encourage my teammates? Was I always running behind things like that? That might lead to goals rather than just I scored and played well. Or I didn't.

I did. So that's interesting. But it definitely seems to be a kind of a skill or an approach that players have to uncoaches. I think I have to find for themselves.

But generally I'd say people that have been successful or done well that I've seen have been quite critical. Not only critical, but quite critical on their performance. Is it worth kind of sharing what that reflection process looks like in kind of the UK and the academy football scene and then maybe some other experiences that you might have seen? So just on that point before we move on, I think you spot on.

I think there's a definite place for those standards. So we don't want players to be going out there and we'd be too nice and fluffy, I guess, if we can assist in helping their performance. If we can assist in helping their development. I think it's really important that that honesty exists.

So with the criticals of the word or honesty is the word, I think it's got to be there. And I think we've seen it for those that have watched the last dance, the Michael Jordan documentary around an example at the highest level in a high performance context of constantly striving to get better, constantly demanding more of others around them. I think that's important. So what can we take from that for young players?

I know there's been a fair bit of content online around this particular series as it came out earlier in the year. But I think what we can take from that is a learner's mindset and that kind of determination and those great traits around wanting to train and wanting to get better. They're great things. They're great attributes.

I think where the line's got to be is around that perfectionism piece and understanding that it's OK to make mistakes. It's part of that process. There's plenty of micro-jointing quotes around that exact issue of mistakes and failure. So I think that's a really important one just to cover off.

But in terms of the process, actually supporting players with doing it, Dan, you've been a mercenary academy system for a long time. I've been lucky enough to work up them myself. There's some interesting initiatives within the system in terms of how players engage weekly. So maybe you can sort of take us through that as to how it looks for the players and we can discuss some other ideas around it.

Yeah, and I think there's maybe some stock ways that most clubs are doing it. And then there's a few that have got different spins on it. So generally the guys who train throughout the week play the weekend, Sunday's for most day's groups, some would be Saturday. And then this used to be pen and paper, but we're now in 2020 so they've caught up.

But the kids are now filling on like an online form where they would reflect. And different clubs are going to do this slightly differently. Some might let them reflect or encourage them to reflect on the whole game. Some might get them to reflect on maybe their targets.

And we've done some kind of conversations and podcasts around how that works. So for example, if I was a sticking with the thing, if I was a number nine and my targets were encouraging or helping the team press from the front and holding the ball up. I might reflect on those things maybe to get them to be a bit more process driven. And then generally the kids, not in the really engaged groups, but generally the kids will then grade themselves and again, different clubs use different scales.

And then the coach would write something underneath. And again, that can be just delivered kind of through the internet and lands in someone's inbox. Or it might be some coaches are waiting till they see the players face to face to deliver that kind of message or feedback. There's also a level within that system where kids can reflect on training.

So they might reflect on, you know, if you did a training game on a day with session, kids can reflect on that and coaches can add. I haven't seen many clubs continue with that because it kind of became reflection for reflection sake or typing for typing sake. So I think maybe something we haven't touched on as well is how much of this is formalizing like writing it down or doing a voice memo or whatever versus just creating space like it's said to go for, maybe finding a quiet time to go for a walk or sit down or whatever you think about what happened in that game and what the things I need to work on. So I think that would maybe fall under different approaches for different people, but that would be broadly how it works in the academy scene.

And we've had a few other examples of a week through the kind of through the PDP, we've seen different coaches encouraging different things as well. Yeah, definitely. I think, you know, the idea of the pen and paper is still appealing to someone. We've had some conversation on the Slack community recently about just having a matched diary or a training guy who plays can actually just write stuff down and use that to do whatever they want.

I know there was a documentary on Richie McCorre, a former All Blacks captain a few years ago, just on the All Blacks environment and the players had hardcover books, you know, two to five books. We still had that in the documentary. I think it was on Amazon Prime there. And all on, I think, I still don't have no pads.

So that's right. And it's got a place, right? So if you can go and get sets and goals, reflect post game. I think the informal piece is really important.

It doesn't need to be a formal review every four weeks, you know, there's places for those conversations where maybe you sit down and your rear sets your targets. We also got to be really careful with assessment here. You know, this is still football. It's fun.

You know, kids need to be engaged in it. They need to be engaged in the learning process, but also just enjoying their sport. And so we don't want to get to the point where we're sort of giving them a report card every month or every six weeks or whatever that cycle looks like. I know I've been in environments before where previously there was a red Amber Green kind of assessment against a target.

Let's say, and that was thrown in the bin because the kids would then start comparing themselves. Well, I got a red here and you got a green there. So I must be down on myself now. And I think we've got to get away from that social comparison.

Again, we've got lots of content on the site around, I guess the psychology that I'm depends on that idea. So the numbers and the colors that is more reflection is right. I'm like, is engaging in the dialogue, the actual detail of what's been written or what's been said. No, I got this number and you got that number.

So I'm better because I might have taken more risks and try to do more of certain things and you might be really safe and boring. So, you know, it's all contextual and the kids miss some of that context, which is just, you know, black and white or traffic like that. Probably isn't what reflection is in my opinion. I think we're going to get away from that assessment entirely for sure.

I think that's a really important point to make. Look, in terms of content, there's a great book I actually record The Art of Thinking Clearly by Rolf DeBelly, which talks about bias, subconscious bias, confirmation bias, all these different types of bias that exist. I recommend that. There's also some content on the website from the likes of Sean Douglas on self-reflection.

You've touched on the idea of individual plans. We had a fantastic webinar with Graham Mills around putting individual plans together and giving the players some ownership of that. So that is a webinar that I'd highly recommend those tuning in to check out on the website. Dan, are any sort of final thoughts around this one?

Yeah, I mean, there's tons of models and bits and bobs that people can go away and read and decide maybe and approach that work for them. A really simple one that I use is what, so what now what? So, like, what happened? And so what does that mean?

And so now what we're going to do about it? I found that that works quite well for me personally as an adult, but it's also worked quite well with the kids. So if they are despondent or unhappy with something that happened in the game, what is it? What skills did you not have or what way did it go that you were unhappy with?

And so what are you going to do? So what did you feel like and why did that happen? And then now what are we going to do about it? That seems to be quite a simple way to kind of move them along because I think, again, maybe, and this might just be my experience, but kids are quite good at identifying the problem.

Like, this is the thing that I'm not happy with or this is the thing that happened. And I said, problem, it might be a good thing as well. But generally, I think in this kind of setting with young players, they're probably being critical on the performance, but then that bridge to what I'm going to do about it is probably the behavioral change and, and yeah, the thing that we might have to have them across that bridge as far as to continue on that. Because they might say, I miss a lot of the chances.

Okay, that isn't really reflection. It's like, maybe I miss a lot of the chances because I can't shoot my left foot or I'm not quick enough to get away from the defender or, you know, I didn't recognise that. I could have shot earlier. That's the bit that's actually going to make us better next time.

So if you can kind of nudge them and push them into that space and then that will help you design individual plans that you mentioned or session signs, I think that's probably the power of affection rather than just it was a good deal bad day because of these things. That's probably nine under sevens and seven. We probably want to push people towards some bit more detail and a bit more what's going to happen in the future. Absolutely.

I think that ongoing process is key and the final thought for me would be, you know, if you've got access to video, whether you can just get an iPad on a stand and film a session or film game. I know that it's not always easy in grassroots environments to get access, but if you can just get some footage and this is going to provide some objective feedback to them potentially facilitate a conversation around what could be a very subjective chat, you know, with with those some biases that we talked about. So really interesting conversation, recommend those tuning in, dive into a bit more of the research. We're certainly not the masters of this.

We're just throwing out some ideas for discussion. Dan, it's been really interesting one. Thanks again for your time. No, enjoy it.

Thank you. Excellent. We'll look forward to another play development project Q&A very soon. Thanks for joining us on the Play Development Project podcast.

You can follow us on Twitter and Instagram at PlayaDB or find us on Facebook. Don't forget to head over to PlayaDevilmentProject.com where you can sign up to our progressive coaching community and gain access to our wide variety of resources to help you in your coaching.