How to manage and de-escalate conflict

Three-invite collaboration and empowering athlete leaders

The best way to handle conflict? Don’t! Have your captains do it instead - with guidance, of course.

Empower your captains to be more than just the girls leading the stretches and going to the coin toss. Meet with them regularly to keep your pulse on team dynamics and think about how to facilitate their growth as leaders.

As situations arise, ask them what they think is the best solution. Then, if applicable, play out the confrontation with them ahead of time, giving them the chance to practice the delicate art of addressing conflict with a team-mate.

Often, players will feel more comfortable discussing a problem with their peers rather than their coach and you will be simultaneously equipping those young leaders for the future - which is pretty much the whole point of a coach, right?

Praise publicly, scold privately

This is old advice but, nevertheless, deeply important, especially if you coach females.

Social standing and connection with others is paramount to young girls. As a coach, your methods will be far more successful if you help your players save face and maintain standing among their peers.

If you need to correct or redirect a behaviour, make sure to do it privately. If you haven’t read Catch Them Being Good, a book by the legendary former US women’s national team coach Tony DiCicco and psychologist Colleen Hacker, do yourself a favour and order a copy for your entire coaching staff immediately.

SBI - situation, behaviour, impact

This model for addressing conflict, often used in a corporate setting, can be extremely effective to help keep a confrontation from getting personal or off-course.

 

"Your methods will be more successful if you help players maintain standing with peers..."

Start first by explaining the situation or context, then state the person’s specific behaviour and finally explain the impact of that behaviour.

A good example might follow this format: “Yesterday, when we were preparing for the shooting drill [situation/context], you made the comment that we ‘always do that drill’ and you ’hate it’ [behaviour]. The impact of your comment was that your team-mates lost enthusiasm for the activity and we all missed the chance to practice that skill [impact].”

This model helps keep the conversation focused and less emotionally charged. 

Looping back to the ’assume positive intent’ strategy, you could follow this up with: "I know you and I have the same goals for our team: to have a fun and successful season. I really do value your feedback. Could we work together to find another way for you to give feedback that would be less disruptive to our training sessions?”.

Set a specific re-evaluation date

Whether it was a situation you handled directly, or one you allowed your captains to take, at the conclusion of the discussion, set a specific date for a follow-up.

Don’t assume that just because it was addressed once that you can now sail through the rest of your season.

A week is typically the right amount of time. Say: “Now that we’ve talked this over, I feel like we have a good plan moving forward. Do you? Let’s set a time to meet about this again, one week from now, and we can re-evaluate the progress we’re making and adjust as needed.”

Just like a doctor checks back a few weeks later on the side effects of a new medication, it is important to evaluate the efficacy of your intervention and modify if needed.

 

Keeping a healthy pulse on these dynamics will help ensure a smooth and, hopefully, drama-free season.