How often have you heard people saying, 'Did you win?' after a match?

And how often have you seen players respond to a more open question like 'How did you get on?' with the assumption that the most important thing is the score?

And how often have you seen players respond with negative self-judgement to the same sort of question?

'Oh - we lost 6-1/6-3 - it was rubbish!'

All of which can result in the player feeling less than positive!

The Feedback Model

This feedback model, or one of many variations, has stood the test of time and has been used as a matter of course by business coaches and managers as well as sports coaches for many years.

It prioritises the learning and the information gathering. Not ignoring the score or whether or not the match was won, but placing it within a context that is guaranteed to be positive and productive.

It works like magic for tennis and it's really simple!

1. 'What were you most pleased with?'

2.'What was less easy?'

3. 'What would you do differently?'

4. 'How can you learn or train this?'

See what happens if you ask yourself these questions after a match or, if you have the chance to speak to someone after they've played a match, see if you can weave the feedback questions in to the conversation.

If you're courtside when Helen is coaching the kids, you'll often hear her saying 'Mistakes are information!' - reframing for the learning. And it doesn't stop there - there's always learning to be had if things go really well for you too!