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Communication: An Illusion

"Why are you all here?" I asked.

"We want to play soccer" replied Tommy.

And so began another soccer practice with the 8 and under boys. My assistant, Frank, and I were perplexed. We had been working with them on spacing and covering the field. We had drilled them and walked through the concepts of the game. But during the game, they still succumbed to the overwhelming temptation to chase the soccer ball. We called it "bumblebee" ball, because the cluster of kids around the ball looked like a swarm of bees moving over the field.

I suppose my expectations were too high. I had thought that by careful explanation and practice, we could get our team to break the habit of clustering around the ball. I had never coached soccer before. My father was stationed in the Army in Germany when I was in high school, so I got to experience soccer as a spectator. I didn't play soccer. I only watched it. Not much of a qualification for coaching, but the task was more about being a Dad than being a soccer player. I dutifully volunteered for the job and got the paperback book about coaching youth soccer to study.

"Frank (another dad), why don't these guys stay in front of the ball?" I asked.

"Coach," spoke up Tony, a thin, blond, freckled kid that was one of the forwards. "What is the front of the ball?"

I was dumbfounded by the question. I hadn't considered that we hadn't communicated this basic principle; one that we completely took for granted. The front of the ball... hmmm. A ball is a sphere and has no sides, so how would you describe what the front of it must be?

"Okay, I guess we should tell you what the front of the ball is." I answered, embarking on what would become a slippery slope in the illusion of communicating.

"First, there are two ends to the field. One end we're guarding with Vince, our goalie. The other end is the one that we want to score in by kicking the ball into that goal. We'll call that the front of the field. In other words the direction we want the ball to go so we can score is the 'front.'"

"Any questions?" I asked.

"Why is that the front? And how do we know the front of the ball?" Tony asked again.

"Well it's the front, because that is what Coach Frank and I are going to call it." I replied. My expression was stern, but with a smile hoping this explanation would work. I was stuck and had no deeper explanation available.

"Okay," they all replied half-heartedly, I'm sure.

That seemed easy enough, but did they really get it?

We all got up from the ground and began our practice. Frank and I set up the drills and got the boys into their positions. They were spaced beautifully on the field. Practice went well and ended on a high note. Our next match was Saturday and this was the last practice before that match. I was optimistic that our game plan was intact.

"Get in front of the ball," I yelled, as I paced along the side of the field watching the kids play. They were swarming around the ball in the now, infamous "bumblebee" formation. Frank and I were frantic trying to get them spaced on the field, but it was as if we'd vanished from the planet. The kids were oblivious to anything we were yelling. The other parents were also yelling, cheering, and trying to encourage their sons. Of course, they didn't know what Frank and I were trying to do or, as it turns out, what the front of the ball meant either.

The match ended. I think we lost, but that didn't matter as much as the thought that we still hadn't conquered the bumblebee formation. Frank and I looked at each other and half smiling, shrugged our shoulders and headed home. Another practice was destined to be focused on this problem.

We started practice with the kids seated together anxiously waiting for the coaches to speak. This was unusual for eight-year-olds to be this attentive, but we had their attention somehow in anticipation of hearing how we felt about the last match. After all, we had made such a big deal about the staying in front of the ball and they wanted to find out how they did.

"Well," I started, "why didn't you guys stay in front of the ball like we practiced?"

"Oh, didn't we do that?" one of them responded.

"You knew which end we were trying to score in, didn't you?" I asked.

"Well sure, but the ball is round and it goes all over the place," Vince, the goalie, said.

"Hmmm, this is tougher than I thought," I said.

And so I learned one of the most profound leadership lessons of my career: the truth of communication is the illusion that it happens.

I was certain I could explain the concept of soccer to eight-year-olds and then get them to execute that plan on the field during the chaos of an actual game. The truth was hard to accept at first, but I finally realized there's more to communicating than just wanting to do it.

The key to communicating to an eight-year-old is not different than communicating to an adult. You must first understand and picture the world from their perspective. I needed to think in terms of what matters to an eight-year-old and then how to shift my thinking to accommodate that perspective. A soccer game is both a simple game and a very complex, multi-dimensional event. Seeing it from the perspective of one of my players was the task.

At first, it was a daunting challenge and eluded me, but I kept thinking it about day and night. I observed how they played together. What they said and how they said it. I began to get a sense of the game as it occurred to them, not how I saw it. In their world, things were active, they didn't spend time dialoguing about it, they just did things. I created drills that were playful, active, and easily done by them.

One key drill we created called the Gauntlet, was a perfect solution. It required setting up a small section of the field with cones into a rectangular box. At one end, we had a player come into the box as the attacker and at the other end; we had someone to act as a stopper. Along the sides of the box were the other players who the attacker could use to pass the ball and get it right back. The game could be made easier for the attacker by widening the rectangle giving him more space to get around the stopper. The kids quickly caught on to this drill and couldn't wait for their chance to get into the box.

This drill set up situations that moved the ball in a flow of action that they quickly acquired, because it was what they naturally wanted to do and then I would say "now the ball is moving 'forward'!" They didn't really care, but they got it. After a while with this drill, they were moving forward calling for the ball, staying spread on the field, and creating space, passing to each other, and attacking the opponent's goal with fervor. The other teams were still swarming around the ball, but our guys weren't. I felt redeemed.

Now whenever I'm in a situation expecting to communicate, I recall this incident and remind myself that it is impossible to explain the front of a ball without knowing the perspective of the person you are talking to and then acting accordingly.

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We called it "bumblebee" ball, because the cluster of kids around the ball looked like a swarm of bees moving over the field.

"Why is that the front? And how do we know the front of the ball?" Tony asked again.

"Well it's the front, because that is what Coach Frank and I are going to call it." I replied.

I was certain I could explain the concept of soccer to eight-year-olds and then get them to execute that plan on the field during the chaos of an actual game.

The other teams were still swarming around the ball, but our guys weren't. I felt redeemed.