Chemistry or complex calculations: Finding the formula for coaching
/Firstly, I hope this blog post finds you, your family and friends in good health; as the strange times continue with new territory for us coaches, I hope we can continue to follow the advice of health professionals and leaders of our countries to keep our communities safe and well, including all our athletes, coaches and administrators involved in our respective sports. Writing from Australia, the light at the end of the tunnel is getting closer and brighter from the commitment of many and I encourage everyone to follow the guidelines offered.
For me, one of the positives from the isolation periods is the influx of ideas and material from all sports through webinars, blog posts and shared chatting services (plus the additional time to share, create and collaborate with other coaches!!). A real silver lining for me has been the volume of material looking past the technical and tactical aspects of individual sports and greater discussions around ideas around the WHY’s and HOW’s of great coaching including coach-athlete relationships, communication techniques and emotional intelligence. I want to touch on some of the ideas through webinars and pieces of writing I’ve shared and been shared over the past 10 days….
The English FA continue to encourage coaches to consider how effective their coaching has been and can improve in the future. They recently shared multiple articles (http://www.thefa.com/learning/coaching/10-coaching-skills-to-reflect-on-during-lockdown), reviewing ways to build knowledge and skill in many different areas. These included ideas around developing positive relationships with players, maximising your effectiveness within sessions, understanding player emotions and effective communication styles…you know, all the small subjects!! Reading through many of the articles reminded me how complicated coaching can be, which was echoed during the ICCE webinar I chose to be part of last week also (https://youtu.be/NL-P2VEcvLI). Coach developers Matt Wilkie, Malcolm Brown and Daragh Sheridan discussed ideas and complications around support coach learning and development. They collectively discussed their excitement towards one of the ideas I’ve discussed as being a potential growth area which is the potential increased collaboration across sports; this is due to processes, behaviours and relationships skills become increasingly more valuable and in demand than technical and tactical guidance. However, they addressed a number of current challenges with current coach development included:
The number of coach developers with the skill set and ability to meet the development needs and expectations of High Performance coaches.
The human and financial constraints upon national governing bodies that restrict their ability to service High Performance coaches to the desired level, standard and frequency.
The inability of High Performance coaches to allocate sufficient time to personal and professional development programs, coupled with the increasing pressures on them to produce immediate performance results.
Ability of Coach Developers to quantify their work and accurately measure the impact of Coach Development programs.
The challenges mentioned by English FA and ICCE coaches were also touched on by Gilbert Enoka, mental skills master of the New Zealand All Blacks (https://www.facebook.com/volleyballnz/videos/1163195977349463), during a discussion hosted by Volleyball NZ. He discussed how his role has evolved due to professionalism expectations, helping players (and coaches) to pull together issues around mindset, skillset and structure to understand what may be hampering performance and development. Even under current constraints, he reiterated the importance of being present as a coach; be where your feet are and offer your attention in the right place at the right time. For me, his main takeaway for coaches was:
Your skillset is to help people perform at the peak of their abilities.
Enoka also mentioned how successful teams need diversity and collective progression as a group for long term success. This point, along with other comments and coach’s insight, highlights the challenge of successful coaching; acknowledging the social interactive dilemmas within individual and team goal setting and development, offering suitable scenarios and choices with all members’ involvement and collaboratively dealing with matters as opposed to eradicating them. Past research by Mageau and Vallerand regards the “actions of coaches as (possibly) the most critical motivational influences within sport setting” and therefore, 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. But with all the various needs of athletes and limitations of time, resources and abilities of coaches and their developers, could a formula be proposed for getting the coaching ballance right??
A post from Tom Hartley, senior coach developer at UK Coaching and Arsenal Womens Academy coach, proposed just that. Tagged below, he attempted to formulate an equation for juggling the many dynamic aspects for coaches as mentioned by Enoka, ICCE coaches and English FA. These parts of the equations and details around them are (hopefully!!) outlined adequately by me below:
Q; Quality of athlete-centred interactions: As mentioned by Hartley, do the athletes have a say in their learning journey? A coach should work with athletes and team members to identify the needs within the group, creating a vision and executing strategies in tandem with committed members of the playing group.
C; Consistency and regularity of interactions (both formal and informal): Do involved coaches intuitively understand the importance of social inclusion, relatedness to athletes and display emotional intelligence through supportive actions for athlete’s decisions?
E; Environment created and developed around practice and performance: Adopting the ideas of athlete or needs centred coaching allows us as coaches to continually reflect and constantly adjust to the players and learning environment. Coaches should design practice and develop learning environments which are reflective to the identified goals of the players and their current capabilities, both as individuals and as a group, and cyclical in reflection and adjustments.
K; Range of knowledge and experience contributing to practice design and development pathway: Can coaches adopt ideas of developing knowledge, skill and expertise through Vygotsky's ZPD (Zone of Proximal Development) where coaches take on the role of more knowledgeable other (MKO) and assist the learning process, offering scaffolding support and encourage the players to test and be willing to step back and ask for assistance from MKO?
A great concept with excellent ideas around each area, which for me led me to another “equation”; self determination theory. I believe many of the areas outlined also point towards autonomy (Q&K), competency (C & K) and relatedness (Q, C & E) yet all coaching environments need to adopt and offer players ingredients for genuine motivation; mastery, autonomy and purpose. These ingredients are echoed within research conducted in sports coaching involving study of SDT, which addresses these innate psychological needs. Amorose supported that “the more athletes felt autonomous, competent and have sense of relatedness, the more reasons for participating were self-determined in future” (Amorose, 2007). Mallet researched and explained that “self-determination theory underscores the role of environment in fuelling people’s perceptions of (autonomy, competence and relatedness) in contexts of sport” (Mallett, 2005). Vallerand and Mageau’s research has shown that intrinsic motivations and self-determined extrinsic motivators are necessary ingredients for athlete’s optimal function (Mageau, 2003) and it’s understood that self-determined forms of motivation also result in optimal behaviour, resulting in peak performance and persistence (Deci and Ryan, 2008). So, as we understand drive 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, where do or can coaches fit within the complex mix or equation of developing these motives?
The foundations for self determined athlete motivations are simple; offer autonomy in practice design, ensure competency is self assessed and recognised and build an inclusive environment where athletes can collaboratively learn and develop in their areas of interest. However, how can the coach find the right mix or balance for athletes to be in control and committed to their development? The role of performance coach for specialising or committed athletes is highly important; coaches are “preparing athletes for consistent high-level competitive performance” (Côté, 2009) 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. This is supported from research which showed athletes who perceive coaches to be supportive of decisions, provided with clear feedback concerning goal pursuits and engage with them in genuine and empathetic manner report greater need fulfillment, more self-determined motives and more perceived effort in sport (J. Pope & Wilson, 2012). These points are both highlighted within Hartley’s proposed equation as areas of importance and deemed as extremely complex by coaches involved in the webinars mentioned.
Pulling all these ideas together, Enoka’s quote of helping people perform at the peak of their abilities, trying to find pillars of solid coaching using Hartley’s equation and SDT while understanding the complexity of coaching from all the areas highlighted by FA and potential stumbling blocks of coach development shown by ICCE coaches, I believe the focus on how we are coaching as opposed to focusing too heavily on content, complexity and balance shall offer clarity to the needs of your current cohort of players. Sports coaches of athletes should act as pedagogues and adopt comprehensive and holistic roles in the moral development of their athletes through their adopted and shared practices, languages and beliefs. Kidman’s research (2001) addressed ideas such as coaches developing player’s complex skills and tactical knowledge through encouraging abstract thought processes by asking high order questions, which require athletes to apply, analyse and synthesize information. If coaches are to develop knowledgeable athletes, capable of performing learned tasks when under pressure and not under direct instructions , I believe this shall require continual transfer of knowledge or total ownership by athletes of their development, with support from the coaches as “more capable other”. I believe we as coaches should assist players to identify problems as opposed to solving them, offering ideas and assistance for how to think and act as opposed to offering solutions. This allows coaches to act as mentors, supporting players to develop metacognitive skills where the athletes are aware of and take responsibility of appropriate practices and thinking strategies, offer autonomy in practice design, ensure competency is self assessed and recognised and build an inclusive environment where athletes can collaboratively learn and develop in their areas of interest.
With these ideas and supporting research, what tactics or modifications can you make to your coaching practices?
Coach where your feet are: Similar to comments in Enoka’s interview, take this isolated time to ask questions and better understanding your athletes to gain a holistic view of involved players; the art of coaching is knowing how and when to communicate, and how this varies from 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. Know your players, know their story, know their context and then put it into practice.
Listen first…..then ask, don’t talk: A great way to make a meaningful connection is to get to know them and if possible talk about something other than their sport. Ask empathetic questions around family, friends and hobbies so you find areas of common interest, especially during these times of distance. For sports related areas, listen to player’s ideas and opinions before offering advice as they may offer you the answers you were going to offer.
Be adaptable and complementary: People, personalities and environments shall change…therefore, so do 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 tomorrow or whenever our sports shall return.