Giving effective refereeing advice

This is more about giving effective advice rather than observation report/debrief with emphasis being on the word 'effective'. I have been guilty of giving advice without any thought going into what impact it has on the referee or what will he/she really take out of it. So I thought I start a list. Some obvious ones here. Feel free to add to it.

• Highlight the positives before pointing out negatives
• Put a positive spin on the negatives, e.g., 'improvement areas' instead of 'weaknesses' or 'rethink that' instead of 'you were wrong
• No more than 3 areas of improvement
• Get them to think and respond and be prepared to listen
• If you sense a 'blocked ear' or 'going in one ear and out the other', go back to positives or stop altogether
• Don't make it personal unless its positive
• Make sure the motivation for advice is not (perceived) as being to make yourself look good. Especially if there are others present.
• Use you experience or examples of it but don't make it about you
• don't be afraid to admit you have been/are wrong

Funny as I typed the list I could think of occasions of breaking each one of them.

I find it difficult sometimes to give advice and separate it from, what i would do or have done
Because as you rightly say there its not about the advisor, but to make what you are saying credible it helps to relate it to personal experience.
Also a lot of learning point can only be achieved with experience rather than advice, sometimes in life as much as in refereeing. A lot of how I officiate these days is based on managment more than actual decisions themselves...

One method from assessors that I've liked so far is to ask me what I think or my reasoning for a decision, and then they accept that as valid and offer a method to improve coming to that decision, or to improve the dealing with that decision.

I enjoy that as it seems engineered to validate that you've made the correct reasoning or decision, whilst picking up on a technical issue that you may have overlooked without making it look like you've made a pig's ear of things.

Some refs need telling some home truths!!!

RobOda said:

One method from assessors that I've liked so far is to ask me what I think or my reasoning for a decision, and then they accept that as valid and offer a method to improve coming to that decision, or to improve the dealing with that decision.

I enjoy that as it seems engineered to validate that you've made the correct reasoning or decision, whilst picking up on a technical issue that you may have overlooked without making it look like you've made a pig's ear of things.

Click to expand...

The assessors round my way seem to have all been taught this. I've found it really easy to evaluate tricky moments, accept criticism etc.

I've been working with one guy, seen him assessed a couple of times, and I've tried to help him with some things I've noticed... however, he's totally defensive about anything that might reflect that he's not already the finished article. Lovely guy but, well, chip on the shoulder and just doesn't get it when it comes to support self analysis.
Any tips on how to break through to the intransigent?

Make them think that the development comes from within.

Instead of telling, ask them if they think they could have done anything differently?

Would a different view have helped? Etc

Agree with JL on getting him to work it out himself. It's sound like he won't be freely admitting it.

At the end of the day you can only help those who want to be helped. Beware of those who ask for help but their motivation is to show you they don't need help.

Most mentors prefer younger mentees because they are more coachable.

This is not a fault with him as a referee or a person, its simply he is programmed to learn in a different way, he could be classed as a kinesthetic learner, where he needs to actually do it to find out, and am sure some education teachers are more up on the subject than me

You can also trying pandering to him, if he insists what he is doing is the way, then, tell him yes, I see what and why you are doing that, however trust me you will fall foul of this. Then, when he eventually does become a cropper, you can indeed come back with "told you so", because, this person needed to find out for themselves that their way was inadvisable.