By Bahati Van Pelt
Director of Player Engagement, Jacksonville Jaguars
During each season, every NFL team conducts a mandatory Professional Development session for its players addressing topics ranging from decision making, healthy relationships, stress management, and several other life skill related topics.
As the Director of Player Engagement in Jacksonville, I have had a chance to see a wide range of topics covered and an outstanding group of speakers present to our players over the years. While effective in the past, our players felt a session designed by the players for the players would be best for the Jaguars during the 2011 season.
With those goals in mind, we consulted our leadership council made up of veteran players from offense, defense, and special teams and asked them what would work best for our team and what topics should be discussed. As a group, the veterans felt communication between teammates, communication between players and coaches, and developing team chemistry were the key areas of focus for our team.
Players come from different backgrounds, areas of the country, economic situations, and life experiences. Being able to recognize those differences and quickly connect with each other and work towards a common goal is extremely important. One of the quickest ways you connect as teammates is through communication.
If you have a better understanding about how you communicate personally, you can improve your performance on the field. You can also be a better man, friend, husband, father or brother in your personal life.
During our session, we first assessed each player and identified his personal style. There are four communication styles: Direct, Spirited, Considerate and Systematic. Once we identified each style, the team was divided into 12 smaller groups for breakout sessions led by a veteran player. In these groups, each player discussed his style, how that style is effective or ineffective professionally and personally, and how that style was developed.
Many players found their style was learned from family and coaches at a young age, and each shared experiences of how communication or lack thereof has contributed to his success and affected his football career and/or his personal relationships with friends and family.
The feedback from our players was extremely positive, and many asked for extra copies of the assessment guides so they could determine the styles of their wives, children, and family members. We were also able to gather the information to determine how styles matched in certain position groups, offense, defense, and players with different years of experience.
The coaches, who attended a similar workshop in June of 2011, could also review the data and see how their personal style meshed with the players they interact with daily.
Our session was informative and our veterans did an outstanding job designing the agenda and facilitating the discussions. We are currently having discussions regarding what topics to address and how to design our Professional Development seminar for the upcoming season.