Appropriately Display Individual Performance Data​: A Memoir

Whether you are a leader of high school athletes, adult professionals, or students, the people you lead have performance data that can and should be displayed — appropriately.

Backstory

There is such a thing as too much transparency. I wanted my athletes to better understand the judgements required of me, the coach, in determining lineups for our sport. In that, I was effective. I was also, inadvertently, effective in creating unhealthy competition between the athletes on my team.

We held regular fitness tests to help inform my decisions on lineups for the team. To display each athlete’s performance on these fitness tests, I created a Google Sheet and shared it with every athlete and any interested athlete’s parent.

The Problem

At first, the Google Sheet was beloved by all — it was certainly more information and feedback on performance these athletes and parents had ever received from a coach before. However, what I didn’t immediately realize is the intra-team competition it fostered. In addition to aiding my coaching decisions, I intended the Google Sheet to be a source of information and motivation for each athlete to improve upon their previous performance. What it ended up being was a certificate of bragging rights for high performers and a mark of shame for low performers.

Lesson: Learned

I learned the hard way that individual performance data is more effective when shared only with the individual who the data belongs to. I began only sharing individual performance data with the respective individual. To further improve the effectiveness of shared performance data, I created individual performance goals with each athlete and created overall team performance goals with the entire team. This enabled each team member to privately review their personal historical performance data and, with my guidance in one-on-ones, compare personal performance data against the overall team’s goals and performance.

With this new practice, athlete performance on the fitness tests improved at a greater rate than before and my athletes reported a general improvement in team culture.

How are you making goals for and displaying the performance data of the members of your team? What are the benefits you see?

Leave a comment with your experiences and best practices!