UAE and Accountability Buddies
Want to make a habit stick?
One of the many ways to do it is creating accountability around the new habit.
When January 1st comes around next year, thousands of people will reach out to their friends in the area and go get a gym membership together.
They'll pick a time a few days a week that works with their schedules and they will start the year training together.
Why is this more effective than training alone for the retention of a new training habit?
Most people don't want to let the other one down, and they have pre-agreed to help each other achieve better fitness together.
The contract is informal but binding at the same time on the human level.
Applying this with UAE
We talked about in the previous 2 posts how you can use UAE in your team. If you haven't read the article linked below, check it out first for some context.
How 3 Letters Can Transform your Coaching
The coaches can establish a behavior skill "work on" and one for technical-tactical play for the practice.
Or maybe you want a different focus each drill. You can do that as well.
Then one coach can scan the play for the behavior skill, another coach can scan for the technical-tactical focus.
But there is a wrinkle you can use to take this a step further. It gets players to work on giving and receiving feedback from their teammates and it gets your players taking more mental reps in practice.
Example
Let's say the coaching staff is observing early on in the year that player communication on the ice is lacking.
Before a small-area game, the players and coaches pre-agree to focus on communication.
They establish what unacceptable, acceptable, and elite would look like.
However, this time they want to let the players handle the "behavior work on" of communication.
The coaches will scan for the "technical work on."
If there are 9 players on Team White and the game is 3v3.
Establish the 3 groups and what order they will start.
One team of 3 will start playing, the next 3 will be ready to change and the last 3 that won't go in the next rep will each pick one player that is in the game playing.
When those 3 come off, they go to their accountability partner and talk about the shift quickly.
In terms of communication:
The player who was in the drill answers if he thinks he was at U,A, or E in terms of his communication and why.
The accountability buddy gives his feedback last and gives his view on if the player was U,A, or E and why.
The player that played always speaks last and if he was unacceptable or acceptable he answers what he could do next time to be at the Elite standard.
Conclusion
Players helping players.
Players working on giving and receiving specific feedback.
Players outside of the drill getting additional mental reps.