Tuesday, November 6, 2012
Creativity
The book characterizes creativity as doing something that is new, different, and helpful. Creativity also requires the ability to think outside the box and come up with an idea that is "novel, useful, and predictable." This is something that I have had to do during practice for the hockey team that I help coach. To provide some brief background, a close friend of mine is the head coach, and he has about eight years of coaching experience; I have three years of experience, but only about three months of experience coaching at a level this high. He told me at the beginning of the season that the goal is for me to figure out a coaching method where I am the most comfortable and effective. I'm in charge of coaching the defensemen, so we often split up the team during practice so that I can work with just the defensemen. Since the head coach wants me to take charge and make my own decisions about how best to coach the defensemen, I have to devise my own drills to help the players work on their skills. This is where the creativity comes into play. Since hockey players (especially teenage hockey players) get bored if you don't stimulate their interest or challenge them, I have to create new drills that will keep their interest and motivation levels up. Also, if a drill isn't working for some reason, I have to think on the fly in order to modify the drill in order to make it useful for the players.
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I liked your practical example of creativity. Talk about baptism by fire—that’s what I would call coaching teenagers who do get bored easily! What a great ability to be creative on your feet and able modify a drill when it isn’t working. In addition to being creative and making something happen (learning how to coach while keeping players engaged and improving their skills), you are also taking part in a heuristic task. As the authors of our book write, you are “learning by doing, perhaps through trial and error.” In addition, you didn’t let what could have been potential cultural barriers—lack of self-confidence and fear of taking risks—stop you. The coach told you to figure out a coaching method in which you were comfortable and effective, and you did!
ReplyDeleteHi Burg! I enjoyed reading your post on creativity. You did a great job summarzing the point of creativity; it's something new, different, and ultimately helpful. It's something that is needed in every group, but in your particular case, it is very important since you work with a teenage hockey team! I strongly agree with the tactics you used with these hockey players. In many cases, creativity is needed more in certain areas depending on the group. In your case, you needed to devise many drills to help the team better their skills. Not only that, you had an additional task to make these drills different in order to challenge and stimulate them. Without your creativity skills, the team might easily get bored of the same routine and motivations will start to decrease. I really liked how you mentioned the constant changes you must make for practice because not only are you practicing the skill of creativity for yourself, but you're leading your group to become more creative with their plays as well. It will ultimately help them become a stronger team (both physically and mentally) when they are put on the ice. Great job on the post, and keep up the creativity for your hockey team!
ReplyDeleteHi Burgs, I think it is really cool that you coach hockey. I can remember being a teenager and having a short attention span. I can understand how it must have been a challenge to try to come up with a way to keep a bunch of teenagers interested. You talked about how you had to come up with ideas on the spot. That must have been hard especially since you had to try to incorporate creativity into the mix. It seems that even though this was challenging, you did a great job. I thought that you did a great job with this post because your personal example of creativity was really good.
ReplyDeleteHey Burgs Bloggity, nice post. I always used to wonder how come players do the same drill day in and day out without getting bored of it. Good to know that you guys try different drills to pep up the daily practice. I think it is similar to the variety in everyday workouts because when I follow the same workout routine, it gets very boring. These days I am doing Yoga after my cardio routine in the gym to bring freshness in the everyday drill like you. Also creativity in doing different forms of exercise breaks the plateau in weight control. I am sure you guys must be having some challenges in your practice to take the game to the next level as well. I wish you good luck for this season of hockey.
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