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Issue 443 - "Complete Communication" (Anson Dorrance Part Twelve)


Wooden's Wisdom - Volume 10	Issue 443
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"COMPLETE COMMUNICATION" (ANSON DORRANCE PART TWELVE) John Wooden Video Clip (56 sec.): Coach Wooden recites part of the poem "How to be Champion". Great clip to show your team. As the Woman's Soccer Coach at the University of North Carolina for 33 years, Anson Dorrance's teams have won 22 National Championships. In his in his fantastic 1996 book, Training Soccer Champions, with Tim Nash, he shares some great insights as to why "Complete Communication" includes more than just our words: "Though trial and error, I have learned that the women I have coached listen less to what I say than to how I say it. In other words, they listen less to the language and more to the tone. If my tone is negative, it doesn't matter how positive the words are. They are going to hear negative. If your body language is negative, it doesn't matter how careful you are in constructing your sentences to create a positive impression. It still comes out negative. Women listen to your tone and watch your body language, regardless of what comes out of your mouth. They are discovering in research that a woman has so many other faculties in her brain that she draws on in a conversation, and these faculties are above and beyond her intellectual interpretation of the words you are using to communicate. She is looking at your body language, and she is listening to your tone. Through a combination of all these factors, she is deciphering exactly what you are thinking about her regardless of what you are saying. It's crucial when you are coaching women to use the correct tone and body language to communicate, or at least have some sort of positive approach even if you are being critical. If you are criticizing a woman in training — and obviously sometimes you are going to — they have to get a sense that it's nothing personal." Anisha Sipporah, in this excerpt from her wonderful poem "Tone of Voice", describes the impact of "Complete Communication" as it relates to children: "It's not so much what you say, As the manner in which you say it; It's not so much the language you use, As the tone in which you convey it. 'Come here, ' I sharply said, And the child cowered and wept. 'Come here, ' I said; he looked and smiled, And straight to my lap he crept." It is valuable to be mindful of your "Complete Communication" as a speaker and a listener and to be aware of the impact on the other person. Are you? Click here for personal development exercise: Issue 443. Click here for Printable Poetry: Issue 443. Yours in Coaching, Craig Impelman www.woodenswisdom.com Follow @woodenswisdom	COACH'S FAVORITE POETRY AND PROSE The Lanes of Memory Adown the lanes of memory bloom all the flowers of yesteryear, And looking back we smile to see life's bright red roses reappear, The little sprigs of mignonette that smiled upon us as we passed, The pansy and the violet, too sweet, we thought those days, to last. The gentle mother by the door caresses still her lilac blooms, And as we wander back once more we seem to smell the old perfumes, We seem to live again the joys that once were ours so long ago When we were little girls and boys, with all the charms we used to know. But living things grow old and fade; the dead in memory remain, In all their splendid youth arrayed, exempt from suffering and pain; The little babe God called away, so many, many years ago, Is still a little babe to-day, and I am glad that this is so. Time has not changed the joys we knew; the summer rains or winter snows Have failed to harm the wondrous hue of any dew-kissed bygone rose; In memory 'tis still as fair as when we plucked it for our own, And we can see it blooming there, if anything more lovely grown. Adown the lanes of memory bloom all the joys of yesteryear, And God has given you and me the power to make them reappear; For we can settle back at night and live again the joys we knew And taste once more the old delight of days when all our skies were blue. Edgar Allen Guest (1881-1959)
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