Last week, I wrote about the importance of being an effective communicator… IF you want to improve your leadership skills. The focus was primarily on public speaking/communication skills.
Today, I want to stress the importance of simply communicating!
People who work with and for you like to be kept in the loop. Not many people I know prefer being left in the dark. Our 24 hour a day newscasts and instant access to social media has fed that beast! People want (and need) to be informed. Sooooo…. be an effective communicator with your focus on communicating information to your team/organization.
One of the smartest things I did in my last head coaching position was to keep the parents informed as to what was going on with the team. I’m not sure where I came up with the idea (I’ll give credit to God’s Holy Spirit!) but every Sunday evening when I had wrapped up the previous game’s evaluations and done our preliminary prep for the next game, I would sit down at my computer and compose a Weekly Newsletter to the players AND their parents! I also included our AD, Principal and anyone else involved in our program who I felt needed to be “kept in the loop.”
I would talk about the previous game. I kept it as positive as possible. I didn’t hand out any individual accolades (unless someone had a huge game that anyone would’ve recognized!) but talked in general terms about the good things the staff saw and then some things we needed to work on.
Included would be a calendar and I would point out any important activities coming up that everybody should be aware of. Then, I would close with the Word of the Week (****Check out a previous post) and talk about its significance.
The purpose of the newsletter was two-fold. First, to accomplish the goal of being an effective communicator; thereby keeping everyone informed. Secondly, I used it as a motivational tool. By keeping the criticism to a bare minimum and accentuating the positive, the newsletter was a tool to encourage and challenge everyone to “press on.”
