By Toni Cicone
See the issue: October 2008

“A vital part of being a team is being able to help your teammates and give them feedback,” says Dr. Aimee Kimball, director of Mental Training at the Center for Sports Medicine at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.  Read on to learn more about giving feedback to teammates without giving offense.

From the four-year starting QB to the walk-on freshman point guard, every athlete makes mistakes. Your teammates will make mistakes, and so will you. Kimball says that when you notice a teammate doing something wrong, put yourself in his or her position and take a proactive approach to the problem.

“Ask for [advice] rather than always giving it,” Kimball says. “If you go up to somebody and say, ‘Have you seen anything that I should work on?’, that opens the window [for him] to give you advice. And then a lot of times in return, he’ll ask you the same thing.”

Another approach is to point out what your teammate is doing well and how your advice will help. Instead of approaching him after a game and saying “You need to cut better,” Kimball suggests saying something along the lines of, “You’ve been doing a really good job of following through, and if you make a better cut next time I know you’re going to be wide open for that shot.”

She concludes, “[You’re] giving them feedback and telling them why the feedback is important, but [you’re] not being negative. [Make] sure that they see that you notice what they’re doing well.”

Get more expert advice from Dr. Kimball about team dynamics and relationships. 

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