Training Players To Take Ownership Over Their Own Development

As a player who took owenership over my own development, I know first-hand the power of such a step. This experience has now motivated me as a coach to create a system that empowers my players to take ownership over their own learning and development.

Recently, one of my players who is an 8th grader, just made his High School team. Over the past year, I have encouraged him to share his match results, including (and more importantly) his reflection from the match. He has committed to this positive learning habit and now during his High School season, it continues to be part of his routine. I was pleasantly surprised to see him sharing his High School match results and feedback with me last week. Below, are his comments from one of his matches shared with me on Tenicity’s platform:

Being in the tennis industry my whole life, I know that there is an opportunity at all levels between coaches, players, and parents to communicate more effectively and better manage the information that is being shared from training and from matches. The process that I have employed with my players and parents on managing match-related feedback using Tenicity’s technology creates the following key benefits for all of us:

1. My player has been given ownership over a positive learning behavior (i.e. share your match reflections); he is committing to the process of developing his game and he is showing a strong desire to improve.
2. As a coach, I am giving my player a voice and I am listening to what he has to say about his own performance. I am including his observations/feelings into my plan for him moving forward. Here coaches need to ask themselves a fundamental question: “am I listening to my players and how am I managing the information that they are sharing with me?”
3. As a coach, I am training my players and parents to communicate with me in a format that enables me to review and add value to their development plan. I am also differentiating my approach from others who either miss out on this information or who manage it haphazardly, which leads to suboptimal player development.

I am looking forward to mid-point and end-of-season conversations with my player when I will have the opportunity to pull up his match reflections and discuss some key overall takeaways. At those critical junctures, I now have a process and an enabling technology that creates greater efficiency and productivity with how we review match data and generate key insights.

Above was an example of 8th grader taking ownership over his own development and implementing powerful learning behaviors. On the latter, from what I have seen at the highest levels of the game, he is doing exactly what the best players in the world do after thier matches, which is to reflect, learn, and have a clear plan moving forwards.

If you are a coach, player, or parent and are looking to improve communication and the management of valuable information between yourself and others on the player’s team, feel free to reach out to me at harsh@tenicity.com. We are supporting top programs around the world in this regard given the key role it plays in supporting players to maximize their potential.

Best,

Harsh