3 Communication Strategies from the NCAA Tournament

The NCAA Tournament always provides sports fans with the buzzer-beaters, game-winners, upsets and Cinderella stories they crave all year. The games also offer reminders about communication skills we should be practicing with our own teams at work.

Here are three situations you’ll see frequently throughout the tournament that relate to effective communication at work.

High-5’s and locker room celebrations. You’re never going to see a winning team skip the celebration. It might be more subdued after a blowout win and more emphatic after a buzzer-beater, but winning teams acknowledge and celebrate their success. That’s kind of the point, isn’t it? Work hard, find success, celebrate accomplishments and move on to the next goal. When you see a team or player celebrate success, use it as a reminder to not only celebrate your winning moments, but to create a space for others to do the same. Sharing a success statement in response to “How are you?” is one way to acknowledge your accomplishments, big or small, and model the conversation for others.

Timeouts. Effective communication can take place in seconds and timeouts prove it. Coaches maximize the little time they have in a huddle by delivering concise, direct instructions. Being direct might not be your preferred communication style, but landing a message requires thinking about how the other person needs to hear it. During the NCAA Tournament you can physically see players buy-in to the message as they nod their head. They want to execute at a high level. Their success depends on the quality of the communication in critical moments. There’s no room for interpretation. There’s no time to beat around the bush. If being direct is out of your comfort zone try incorporating E.T.A. into your daily interactions.

Coaches' post-game interviews. As a fan, giving feedback comes naturally, typically in the form of cheering and booing. In business we run into challenges giving feedback because of one specific phrase “Great job!” There is a difference between doing a great job and doing your job. You’ll hear coaches make this distinction in post-game interviews throughout the tournament and it’s a great reminder about giving accurate feedback. Saying “Great job!” is often false praise that backs us into a corner when it’s time to give real feedback. The solution is to expand your vocabulary. Choose words that accurately describe the effort or accomplishment. Maybe timely, detail-oriented or thoughtful are better choices than the word great. If you’re stuck coming up with something new or different to say, the broadcasters during a game will use a wide range of words to describe the action and the effort, borrow one that works for you.

At the end of the day, you can stick to sports and enjoy the highlights and the drama or you can think outside the boxscores and use sports to improve communication with your team at work.