I am as guilty of this as anyone. I ask a question, get half an answer and then jump in to finish it off. It feels like I am creating discussion, but I am still doing most of the thinking and the players are trying to work out the answer I want to hear.
Silence can feel uncomfortable when you are standing in front of a group. Two seconds feels like twenty, so we rescue the conversation. We reword the question, give them a clue and eventually answer it ourselves.
Then we convince ourselves the players understand because we have told them.
Ahead of the Asian Games, we looked at how we could create more player ownership and voice within our meetings and reviews. That did not mean the coaches saying nothing. It meant being more deliberate about when we spoke and what we asked.
We tried to ask better questions, economise our language, give more positive feedback and create more space for the players to find an answer. We also primed some of the leaders beforehand so they understood the topic and knew when we might come to them.
In one Battle Plan meeting, the coach presented the first slide and then handed over to the players. They led the rest of the meeting, with the coaches stepping in when a question or bit of clarity was genuinely needed.
When we compared it with a previous review, questioning increased from 7% to 20%, open questions increased from 24 to 45 and positive feedback increased from 16 to 40 interactions. Instruction dropped from 17.5 minutes to 7.3.
Those numbers do not prove the players learned more. What they did show was that we had changed who was doing the talking and, hopefully, more of the thinking.
Player-led does not mean coach absent. There are times when players need a clear answer, a correction or information they cannot discover for themselves. The challenge is recognising when our voice is helping and when it is simply filling the space.
Ask the question. Give them time. Let the silence breathe a bit.