The Body Language Battle
Body language seems like. a really hot topic for coaches on social media. It feels like a day doesn’t go by where I don’t see “Body language screams” from some online coach. The amount of coaches preaching to young players about how their body language is going to get them cut, end their career or makes them uncoachable is a little tough for me to swallow.
I’ve said this a lot. I’m not a fan of negative body language. I just don’t really care. I don’t think it’s a very big deal. I have a lot of things going through my head when I’m coaching, trying to build my team, and trying to get the most out of my players. There is a lot of stuff I have to worry about, and body language isn’t one of them. I’ve won a lot of games with plenty of players who exhibit what would be considered “bad” body language by the twitter coaching community. Give me a talented, tough kid who really competes and sometimes expresses his frustration the wrong way any day. I just don’t think body language is having a big impact on our team, unless I decide to make a big deal out of it.
I have a lot of different thoughts on the body language battle.
Compare your body language as a coach with your player’s body language when they are playing. If I filmed you on the sidelines during a game, would I see what you would consider bad body language? If body language is that important to you, you better model the behavior or your team will see right through you. Let’s not be hypocritical.
Can body language be a good thing? Doesn’t it give you a read on the emotions of your players and where they are mentally?I’m made substitutions and won games because I read players body language and realized he needed a break, or I needed to talk to him, or he needed his teammates to help him. Body language is knowledge about your team if you look at it that way.
How was Tom Brady’s body language as a player? Known as a great leader and one of the greatest winners of all time… if Tom Brady wasn’t on a winning team would his approach be seen as leadership or as bad body language? We used the body language to fit the narrative we want to see. It’s part of confirmation bias. Did Michael Jordan show great body language as a player? How about LeBron? Are these guys you wouldn’t want on your team?
On a losing team it’s bad body language. On a winning team it’s being a great competitor.
Coach the behavior. Not the personality. Your biggest concern is the behavior. If bad body language leads to the wrong behavior, then make sure you address that behavior. And maybe you can see the body language as a clue in the future that behavior is going to change. I think often times we coach players based on what we think about them, and we use body language to help confirm what we already think.
We usually want to see some emotion from our players. We want to know they care. We want to see a competitive edge. Doesn’t our body language help shed some light on this for us? Sometimes people react a little emotionally when something really matters to them.
It’s very easy to read body language the wrong way. It’s not that easy to interpret. I get body language wrong a lot, so maybe that’s why I don’t make a big deal about it. It’s very easy to react emotionally to bad body language when you get hot, but you might be reading it wrong, and now you’ve got a bigger problem.
Try and ignore body language one day. Just let it go, don’t react to it. It might be hard if it’s something that usually gets to you. But try and ignore it. My guess is you’ll get past it and be better able to focus on things that are more important.
From Admired Leaders on body language:
Scratch your neck, touch your nose, push out the tip of your tongue, cross your arms, point your finger, shrug your shoulders, or squint your eyes. According to the cottage industry of body language experts, gestures can reliably reveal important truths about people, especially in high-stakes situations.
Unfortunately, it's total horse hockey.
We use body language to confirm what we are already learning from others. As interpreters, we cobble all the movements and gestures together and add them to our ongoing interpretation of what is being said. This is known as confirmation bias in other circles.
We simply can’t decode the mental states of others exclusively from their body language. No gesture means anything specific, no matter how many times you’ve heard that folding your arms or closing your arms is a sign of closemindedness.