Learning from Learners' Learning...

When attending coaching courses or completing a formal coaching qualification, there’s generally someone else nudging us to learn new things. We’ve got to try things out in practice and maybe even do things that we’d prefer we didn’t have to – to help us develop as a coach but also, so we meet the demands of the qualification.

But what happens when the course is over? More often than not we go back to the comfort of our own club or setting, and do what we did before (but hopefully somewhat better, with a greater depth of knowledge and application). But certainly in the safe surroundings we’re used to.

However, consider the demands we place on players (and students) – the expectation that they should be hungry to learn, willing to take risks and find ways to challenge themselves to get better – do we actually address our own ongoing development as a coach in the same way?

I’m a firm believer in practicing what you preach – whether that’s as a coach working with players or a teacher working with student-coaches. When we watch these students coach, what do we want it to look like, feel like, sound like - and how can I model that in every session in my teaching with them, whether that’s on the pitch or in the classroom? 

Because if I don’t approach teaching them in that way, am I really in a position to comment on a student-coach’s autocratic delivery style, or to challenge their attempts to engage players in their session if in my own teaching of these students I’ve paid little attention to those same points!?

As you can imagine, it certainly doesn’t always go to plan, but the intention to respect them, engage them and connect with their ‘why’ is omnipresent.  And whether its gone well or badly, I’ll always reflect on why.

I’m incredibly grateful for these interactions with students-coaches.  It continually challenges me to consider my practice and reflect on what works and why. 

And then there are the light bulb moments – when it clicks and makes sense; when they find a different solution to a problem; when they realise that the answer isn’t black or white, and there’s not necessarily a ‘right way’ of doing something; when they begin to question their beliefs and assumptions and what that means for them as a coach.

These are great for the students, but equally are great learning opportunities for me as a coach / teacher to unpack the learning environment and see what role it may (or may not) have played in these important moments.

So recently, when a number of students share that they’ve begun to have a shift in their thinking, and are starting to really question what coaching means to them, resulting in changes in how they coach – I definitely want to understand the contributing factors to this to hopefully make it happen more often!

In this instance, an important trigger appeared to be a recent assessment activity.  An assessment that many of them expressed that they didn’t want to do, yet resulted in the students gaining valuable insights for developing their coaching.  In essence it encouraged students to do the following things:

- step outside of your comfort zone

- collaborate: support each other

- collaborate: innovate together

- be brave – try new approaches

- be curious - question why things worked, didn’t work, why you do things the way you do

- challenge assumptions

- celebrate new insights

Gary Klein discusses how performance improvement happens by decreasing errors and increasing insights – the light bulb moments.  He did a great TEDtalk on insights and how to increase the likelihood of insights occurring (watch it here).  Reflecting on this recent assessment, it sits nicely with some of his advice, potentially enabling students to have more insights in to what worked and why.

So, thinking back to my own ongoing development as a coach (and teacher), what can I learn from this? 

Klein’s advice centred around being curious and challenging assumptions.  Well, I’m certainly curious and reflective – and although I probably spend way too much time thinking about all sorts, this undoubtedly informs my coaching.  In fact, in the process of writing this post I’ve started to question my understanding and application of a framework which I frequently use…

Similarly, I definitely feel the benefit of collaborating and taking time to talk with colleagues and other coaches – this community of practice type approach is really beneficial with sense making, innovating and challenging assumptions – but would be better if it happened more often.

However, one part of the students’ experience that I don’t think Klein’s talk highlights is willingness to put yourself outside of your comfort zone – to take risks which might challenge or even scare you, but may bring about a different way of seeing things or new insights.  I think the change of environment was key in kick starting the process.   I’m not sure how often I put myself in a new context with my coaching or teaching which takes me out of my comfort zone… something to consider.

And finally, I love the notion of celebrating new insights, even if its just a little smile to myself to acknowledge that my thinking is evolving :) 

Is it Teaching or Coaching (and does it really matter?)

Coming from a coaching background, 10 years ago in my teacher training I was repeatedly told that ‘teaching isn’t coaching’… and they were right – it did feel different but I couldn’t quite figure out why. Maybe it had something to do with the instruction to follow a set curriculum regardless of student learning: lesson 1: dribbling; lesson 2: passing; etc… (yes, I was actually told this and was surrounded by this as standard practice in that setting...).

But my lines between teaching and coaching have got a bit blurry lately.  I’m unsure whether my teaching background is informing my coaching or my coaching informing my teaching.  Or, more likely, both informing each other.

I have QTS and a PGCE in FE, but I’m finding now my default approach to classroom teaching is to consider “how would I approach this as a coach…” which seems especially appropriate when I’m working with Sport Coaching students.  

But ultimately, does it really matter what label we give to what we do?  

I recently listened to a Primary Care Trust discuss the changes they were implementing to patient care - finding out how patients want to access advice and care; provide a range of solutions based on differing patient wants and needs; frequent, varied assessment of the effectiveness of these and the patient experience to inform future practice.  Sounds a lot like coaching...

Teaching, coaching, whatever you want to label it, I’m of the opinion its basically about coaching people – not teaching a subject, or coaching a sport, but people.  And that’s a pretty good place to start: who are you coaching, what’s their ‘why’ and how can you connect with it?  And from there, what are you coaching and how are you coaching it – and each answer informing and being informed by the other.

In other words… constructively aligning your coaching:

A Framework for Coach Decision Making (Abraham, Muir & Morgan, 2010)

If we’re teaching people to be sports coaches, then to me the most important part in my delivery is to ensure I’m modelling what I would hope to see on the coaching pitch: someone who is motivated to be there, enthusiastic and cares about the players. If you can get those things right, then surely it’s a pretty good place to start:

So let's not bother with the pedantics of whether it's teaching or coaching, and focus on what's really important - the players. 

Reflections on Reflecting: And then I started thinking...

Six months ago, I thought I couldn’t possibly cram anything else into a day.  I was working full time, lecturing part-time, coaching and was half-way through a year long full time MSc in Sport Coaching.  And somewhere in there I was attempting to not be too much of a bad wife and mum of three little ones…

And then we moved house… meaning that three days a week I was going to spend anywhere from 4-6 hours driving to see students for my work. 

The first few days in the car I was incredibly grumpy, thinking about all the things I could be doing with my time instead of driving.  Thinking about the three assessments and the dissertation I had left to do for my Masters….

…but then I started thinking. A lot. 

This enforced time of doing nothing was actually an incredible opportunity to spend some real time reflecting on the previous six months; a six months packed with new learnings, lots of reading, teaching, experimenting with new ideas in my coaching, reflection in action and quickly iterating strategies and processes to improve my coaching.  But it had all happened at 100mph!

During these six intense months of learning and experimenting with ideas in practice, I had amassed a huge number of experiences to draw upon and a multitude of theories and concepts to help me begin to make real sense of it all.  But up until now, even reflection had been happening at an intense pace. 

This time of being unable to ‘do things’ suddenly created an incredibly rich opportunity for reflection: hours alone with just my thoughts – a slightly unnerving situation at first…especially when the first thing I was trying to get my head round was why I did things the way I did.

Having a greater understanding of myself brought clarity to why I coached in a certain way; I began to notice how parts of my personality constrained my coaching, and the potential negative impact on players as a result. 

I realised that, being quite introverted, at the start and end of sessions I typically busied myself with sorting equipment – anything so that I didn’t have to make small talk with players! Not because I didn’t want to, but because it didn’t come naturally and put me out of my comfort zone.  Yet a key learning from my MSc was about the importance of knowing your players and building positive coach-player relationships; the start and end of sessions was an ideal time to begin this process.

By recognising this was happening meant that I could start to create strategies to do something about it.  Previously I had been oblivious to it and the impact it had in my coaching.

I began to uncover biases in my coaching that I never even considered were biases, but again, strongly influenced how and what I coached, and what I valued in players. 

For example, as a player, although I was never the most skilful, I was always the fittest on every team I played for, at every level.  Fitness was something I felt I had complete control over – it was a choice and was all about making the effort to be fit.  I was unaware that as a coach, I was drawn to players who also valued fitness, and perhaps was less appreciative of players who didn’t, but who brought other important qualities to the team.

So when thinking about how best to spend your time, my advice is to start experimenting and iterate quickly.  Make it an intense and furious time of action.  And then stop.  Spend time reflecting just as intensely to break down what happened and what might have influenced this, and what this means for you moving forward.

Some questions that I’ve found helpful:

      ·      What was I actually trying to achieve?  Get clarity on this.
·      Why did that work? Or, why didn’t it work? Or, why did it work for some players and not others?
·      What theories and concepts are potentially at play?
·      Did it work?
·      How do I know if it worked?
·      Who decides if it worked?
·      Who did it work for? If it worked for me but not the players then did it actually work?
·      How can I use this learning? What does it actually mean for my coaching?