“Yelling at your team is like yelling at your spouse. The more you do it, the less effective it becomes.” – Matt “Cookie” Koch (HC University of Akron)

This post is for anyone who is a coach, parent, teammate, coworker, or human that interacts with other humans. It’s for everyone.

There are always plenty of things to worry about and decisions to be made. Even a non-decision is a decision. Every decision has downstream effects that have real consequences.

Downstream Effects

This post is around the simple framework that what you do either creates pressure or permission to the person you’re interacting with. It’s the end result of your words and actions.

Pressure and permission both have their pros & cons and can be used at different times to positively affect behavior and performance.

At the end of the day, it’s not what is said or done, but what is conveyed and received. When interacting with someone, you’re either creating permissions or creating pressures.

It’s conditioning for culture.

For example, a coach being worried about glaring turnovers leading to goals may not allow a defenseman to use the middle of the ice and communicate they are to go only up the boards.

That pressure applied to a player could be good or bad. While in this case, the coach may no longer see the obvious turnover and goal against, but likely will see plenty of goals scored from the neutral zone regroup coming right back in or failed zone exits.

Pressure

At its core, pressure brings something to the forefront of consciousness. When adding pressure there is a clear goal of adding further focus and narrowing of vision. Like a racehorse with blinders on.

Pressure can be highly effective at getting players to focus on the key areas they need to improve. Yet, if not carefully managed, pressure can take away from clear decision-making and the ability to see the whole picture. Creating pressure is also harmful if you’re trying to push something into the player’s subconscious.

While coaching I often want to bring something to the forefront and will create a level of pressure on the player. When the item has reached an acceptable level, we need to sink it back into their subconscious. If there is still pressure around that something, it’s impossible to sink it back into their subconscious and move to the next area of improvement.

Some situations in which you might want pressure added:

• When things are too easy. E.g. Use multiple pucks
• Detail is required. E.g. Focus on stick positioning.

Permission

If you’ve been around youth hockey players or kids in general, you’ll understand many of them need permission to do something. My guess is that many kids have yet to understand they can go outside of their parent’s rules. The older the athlete is, the more liberties they are likely to take.

Permissions allow:

• Freedom to fail or succeed
• Greater creativity
• Expansion of mental possibilities

At its core, granting permission is a platform to make mistakes. When making mistakes, we learn. Any adult can tell you failures are greater teachers than success.

Teams that have a culture of permissions allow the space for players to make skills, solutions, etc. their own. Yet, going too far limits cohesion and group efficiency.

Pushing the Right Buttons

One of my favorite writers, Draw Carlson, had a personal experience where he went into an environment that was almost solely pressure-focused. Given his skill level and creativity, he was given lots of permission growing up. While some level of pressure was likely required to get the most out of him, when he got to college it was overwhelmingly pressure-focused.

I had permission to make plays before. This freed up my mind to play the game in front of me. Feeling pressure invited thinking and thinking takes too long. – Drew Carlson

A great example would be when a teammate messes up. Would it help if we put more pressure or permission? Do we want to limit focus or expand it?

Whether coaching, parenting, being a teammate or colleague, etc. there are interactions we must navigate. Finding a balance between pressure and permission is one of the most important to recognize. Both can be used to great effect.

Pushing the right buttons requires judgment for what the situation requires… more permission or more pressure.