Adaptability and emotional intelligence: Tools of the new age coaches

As we charge towards the end of a year which society within and outside sport shall NEVER forget, we have seen both professional, high performance sport and grassroots sports starting to come back to levels of a new normality yet what has changed from a coaching perspective? With professional seasons starting and concluding across the globe, what adaptations have coaches made or acknowledged as a result of the pandemic or reflective time available? I read a recent post from The Coaches Site (https://thecoachessite.com/adapt-your-coaching-to-the-team/) looking at how coaches could adapt practices and methodologies by first communicating and understanding how their athletes see and want to play the games or compete in their relevant sports:

By communicating with players, this helps me form a team identity. By understanding each players psychological mindset of the game I can link commonalities between players and find out which players think and act the same. As a coach, we don’t always want to force a team identity. Instead it can be much easier to take those commonalities and traits that the players already have to help form an identity of the team. Once this process is underway and I start to understand a team identity then I can start forming practice plans.

One of the most common mistakes that many coaches make is making practice plans based on what drills look good, forcing the players to bag skate, and over-complicating things. A drill that works for one team does not mean it works for another team. One teams identity is not the same as another. One team’s system is not the same as another. A coach’s job is not to rewrite history, but to take great drills that work for the system that you are teaching.

Focusing back to high performance sport, Australia’s AFL season was completed with Port Adelaide finishing top of the table before Richmond rushed home, winning their 3rd flag in 4 years. Prior to the finals series, an article was written and released looking at how coaches of these clubs were winning players hearts before their minds (https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2020/oct/15/modern-day-coaches-win-hearts-before-minds-in-bid-to-reach-afl-grand-final). Port Adelaide’s coach Hinkley has essentially reinvented himself and is now a coach who portrays as much investment in the welfare of his players as any tactics or strategy.

Richmond’s head coach Damien Hardwick addressed Richmond’s annus horribilis in 2016, a year of abject underachievement that very nearly cost him his job.

“I felt I segregated myself from players, I was trying to find the solution myself but in effect I was the problem…I’ve learned my lesson. I like to think our boys walk in with a smile, walk out with a smile most days.”

Even my home town, Brisbane Lions coach Chris Fagan was lauded in Brisbane for his benevolence and ability to build relationships, leading them to the semi finals after finishing second on the ladder. This is akin to another coach I have written about earlier this year; former Irish international and now head coach of current French Top 14 leaders La Rochelle, Ronan O’Gara (https://www.coachingthecoaches.net/blog/2020/3/26/the-importance-of-relationships-with-our-modern-day-athletes). Now into his second season with the Top 14 club, O’Gara understands more than ever that connecting with his players and staff on a human level is as vital as all of the attacking plays, defensive systems, and kicking strategies that he has implemented, transitioning a lot of experiences and education gathered from his time at NZ based side, Canterbury Crusaders (https://www.the42.ie/ronan-ogara-la-rochelle-4-5250093-Oct2020/):

The bottom line is that it comes down to attitude and how you get attitude from players is your capacity to connect with them…It’s not the American bullshit of over-positivity, it’s actually getting a lot of people of a similar mindset that actually believe it can happen. It can only happen if you work, if you have detail in your work, and you want it to happen. It’s about connecting and getting the best out of people. For that to happen, they have to know you first. We’re honestly at such a beginner’s stage – that’s not an excuse – but you have the French language and interpretations as well, but we’re learning.

Combining these reports and ideas, the main theme I see and feel for coaching adaptability is focusing on the importance of coach-athlete relationships, displaying emotional intelligence for and around athletes whilst combining tactical and technical development within socially dynamic situations. Galinsky and Maddux’s research to sporting context recognises that “taking perspective of (player) produced both greater joint gains and profitable individual outcomes”. In a sports context, this would be seen as close and meaningful coach-athlete relationships, regular player involvement in decision making processes with honest and accurate goal attainment for all involved, some ideas O’Gara tested and developed during his time in Canterbury and areas which could be developed in the techniques expressed within The Coaches Site post. The main aspects of influential and successful coach-athlete relationships revolve around ideals such as mutual trust, respect, support, cooperation, communication and understanding of each other and impact of each other within the relationship. Both performance enhancement and psychological well-being is deeply ingrained within the coach-athlete relationship; for example, studies have shown that athlete satisfaction is related to the degree to which athletes understand their role and responsibilities within interactive sports teams. (Eys, 2007). Coaches need to acknowledge and recognise the effects of positive, interdependent relationships, which are dynamic and interlinked with cognition, feelings and behaviours to achieve common recognised goals (Jowett, 2007). Therefore, a coach’s ability to acknowledge, adapt and develop positive interpersonal connections, driven by interpersonal skills and united sense of purpose and achievement, can offer solid base for positive relationships and learning atmospheres.

I believe quality, adaptive coaching and practice structure combines recognising the backgrounds of the players plus the needs of the group or individuals, encouraging athletes to be creative, adaptive and make decisions which shall transfer into competitive environments. We understand drive and innate motivation in most sporting participants is found from intrinsic motives; their internal desire to master their sports and challenge themselves through committed engagement in highly repetitive activities. So where can we as grassroots or high performance coaches fit within developing these motives and creating dynamic, player driven learning environments in modified post COVID coaching scenarios? Where are possible areas of improvement for coach adaptability and learning opportunities? One immediate avenue of opportunity would be the introduction of communities of practice between sports; new ideas and digital avenues have been opened over the past few months for gathering ideas, effective adopted practices and even cross code reviews to develop understanding and add value from other sports. I believe pre-COVID we had become very content focused and over analytical towards how we believe and perceive players within team sports SHOULD be played, coached and reviewed. However, during this period of isolation, I believe many coaches have recognised how many sports have lost the concept of acknowledging the social and interactive side to coaching; offering ideas, choices and solutions to scenarios which may be sport applicable or just socially responsible when required for all players and coaches involved to collaboratively overcome and improve.

The challenge of successful coaching is acknowledging social interactive dilemmas within individual and team goal setting and development, offering suitable scenarios and choices with all members’ involvement and collaboratively being adaptable to socially dynamic issues as opposed to ignoring or eradicating them. Past research by Mageau and Vallerand regards the “actions of coaches as (possibly) the most critical motivational influences within sport setting”. Coaching should be recognised as an educational dynamic relationship, where the coach can satisfy player’s goals and development but both sides have an investment of will capital, where human initiative and intentionality are both dedicated to show commitment towards goals and relationships. The role of performance coaches such as O’Gara for professional, HP athletes is highly important; coaches are “preparing athletes for consistent high-level competitive performance” (Côté, 2009a) through effective tactics such as integration of professional, interpersonal, and intrapersonal knowledge and developing player’s specific competence, confidence, connection, and character needs on regular basis. O’Gara certainly admitted that his time in NZ showed that he HAD to acknowledge the role of developing the player as a person and not solely as an athlete, something he ignored during his playing days in Ireland and something AFL has gradually adapted to also.

As many players and organizations are returning to sport, we as coaches should reflect and adapt our interpersonal skills to better know and understand our athletes and gain a holistic view of involved players. The art of coaching is knowing how and when to communicate, and how this varies from each individual. Work on empathetic relationships and having a better understanding of your athletes or players as this will allow you to modify your environment or approaches for greater impact and understanding. Like outlined in the tagged blog post; Know your players, know their story, know their context and motivations before putting plans into practice. Be adaptable and complementary; People, personalities and environments shall change…therefore, so should your coaching methodologies. Asking questions and understanding the answers and whom they’re coming from will give you a snapshot for today yet this needs to be continually addressed and worked on. Be willing to change ideas or structures to match what your athletes or players need today and be reflective and flexible to change to what they need in a post lockdown world.