These days, acquiring knowledge is easier than ever before. While not always perfect, artificial intelligence (AI) is the latest new thing to provide solutions to our problems, yet a big challenge still remains. Specifically, even with knowledge, how do you motivate someone to actually use the knowledge they gain? For example, many sports parents will see their kids struggle with specific sport skills, learn solutions to help, but fail to apply the information successfully in order to fix the problem. Why does this so regularly occur, especially when the knowledge to fix the situation is right there? The short answer is the buy-in has not been established, and therefore the new information is processed with reservation — if processed at all. Even great information will be rejected if there is little motivation to use it, prompting important awareness and attention toward establishing motivation before expecting new knowledge to be accepted — especially by kids.
Putting the cart before the horse
Often when I speak to youth sport teams, I ask the question about how an athlete rises from “good” to “great?” While this might not seem like a simple question, it actually is, and it has everything to do with this one, single difference: Great athletes actually do what they learn, while good athletes think about doing what they learned. Yes, it is the action step that makes the difference! But herein lies the problem — when presenting solid information to someone, you must sell it in such a way that actions follow! While listening passively to good information may be somewhat helpful by means of inspiration, only those who apply what they learn will experience observable, ongoing success.
As the old saying goes, ideas are a dime a dozen, but people who put ideas into action are priceless. So how do you motivate your audience to put great ideas into action? Understanding the reasons why they don’t apply the knowledge they attain is the first step:
- Bored and not focused. When talking to kids, a big challenge is simply keeping their attention. Yes, you may have a great solution for an issue kids are struggling with, but if they are goofing around, bored, unfocused, and/or distracted, it is very unlikely any positive change will occur.
- Not buying in to you, or the message/solution. Sometimes it is a matter of credibility, specifically when kids do not believe in the coach/teacher, or think the potential solution to the problem is not reasonable or valid.
- Simply don’t care enough about the team’s success to do anything. This may be hard to hear, but not every kid on a youth sports team cares about the overall success of the team. The reality is some kids play because their parents want them to, and some kids play simply to be with their friends. When kids are indifferent about their team’s success, it becomes quite difficult to get them to employ the new knowledge acquired.
- Afraid it won’t work, and then what happens? Some kids are not only skeptical of a new idea, but concerned that by doing something new and different it will actually lead to worse conditions! This is a type of fear of failure, and it can be tough to overcome when trying to teach new skills.
The main point is that solid information, in and of itself, is not enough to motivate behavioral change. Many coaches talk to me about messaging, and how they sometimes struggle not with information, but with motivating kids to take action with the information they learned. What coaches need to know is that “selling” the message is often as important — if not more important — than the actual message in some cases.
Final thoughts
These days, we have a lot of answers at our disposal by means of modern technology — yet we still have the same challenges around getting people to use what they learn. One place where we see this is in youth sports, where coaches are regularly tasked with helping kids learn sport skills, be a great team member, and learn basic skills to help with communication, leadership, focus, and controlling nerves during competition. Information alone will not guarantee that actions will follow, but when coaches understand some of the potential roadblocks (discussed above) that impact knowledge acquisition and application, only then will they witness positive behavioral changes.
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