Development Zone®

   

PCA Resource Center

Phil Jackson On Nonverbal Communication

Share This Resource

Positive Coaching Alliance’s National Spokesperson, Phil Jackson (@PhilJackson11), is perhaps the greatest basketball coach ever and among the best coaches in the history of American sports. He holds the NBA record of coaching 11 NBA Championship teams with the Chicago Bulls and Los Angeles Lakers. Now a New York Knicks executive, Jackson contributes to PCA’s mission through fundraising activities and event and video appearances. He also wrote the foreword to PCA Founder Jim Thompson's (@JimThompson18) book, The Double-Goal Coach®.

Jackson understands how to capitalize on teachable moments without constantly pointing out mistakes. In this video, he explains his approach to nonverbal communication strategy, which helped him communicate more effectively with his players.

In this video, Jackson draws from his experience working with European players, who brought a variety of playing styles to his teams. Occasionally needing to break the players of certain habits, Jackson wanted a silent, mutual acknowledgement of mistakes between him and the players. So they developed a mistake ritual. in which the player gave a physical signal to the coach that he was aware of the mistake just committed and now both could move on. This way the teachable moment was seized, but the mistake didn’t drag down the spirits of either the player or the coach.

JrNBA