Team Climate

A player’s perspective on things can be very valuable to a coach.

If you are a coach, there is a technique that is rarely used but can offer some very valuable information with regards to team chemistry and how your players think of your coaching.  We all know that what kids say to a coach and what they say in private can be very different.  A Team Survey such as the one below can be an eye opener for a coach.  If a coach feels his team is lacking in chemistry, sometimes a survey can give some insight as to why.  Of course, a coach has to be prepared to read some things that may not be too flattering.  That can be difficult but when I’ve done this type of thing (I’ll admit, mostly with my classroom students), I have gotten a lot out of it.  I just wish I remembered to do it more often.  If you choose to do it, here are some suggestions.  First, make sure the players can do it completely anonymously.  Second, be sure to let the players know that just like they should be interested in knowing ways they can improve as players, you want to know some things that can make you a better coach.  Third, use the survey below as a guide but edit the questions to suit whatever information you want to find out.  Lastly, if you are interested in doing it, I highly recommend creating one in Google Docs.  Responders can do it anonymously on their own time and Google Docs (after setting up a free account) compiles all the data as it comes in for you.  In fact, I just sent out a Google Docs survey to my Baseball By The Yard email list and it works very well on my end.  There are good tutorial videos on Google and YouTube if you need help.


Give it a shot.  You may be surprised at what you find out.