Burn Down Your Training Room!!! Coaching Coaches in Context! By Wayne Goldsmith
‘Not everything that can be counted counts and not everything that counts can be counted’ (attributed to Albert Einstein)
As sporting organisations seek new and better ways of training, educating and developing their coaching workforce, coaching coaches in context is rapidly gaining in popularity. Where classroom based coaching courses, conferences and clinics were once the mainstay of sports coach education programs, increasingly sporting organisations are looking at sending their coach development teams into the field and delivering learning activities at the pitches, the courts, the training centres, the pools and the tracks where the coaches are coaching.
In the past, CONTENT was king!
Coaches seeking education had to attend courses, conferences and clinics to access the ideas, information and innovations they needed to coach athletes successfully. However, with the proliferation of hand-held devices offering immediate and convenient access to a practically unlimited storehouse of information on the Internet, coach education has shifted from being content focused to CONTEXT focused.
This article looks at the concept of coaching coaches in context and proposes a simple model – the T.R.A.I.N. Principle as a guide for coach developers designing, developing and delivering contextual learning experiences for their coaching workforce.
Chances are your list resembles something like this: • •
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Coaching Coaches: What Doesn’t Work. Write down a list of the most common coach development activities you’ve been involved in. Your list probably looks like this:
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While I was coaching; While I was watching, talking with, sharing ideas with another coach; When I was working closely with an athlete and we solved a problem together that made the athlete – and me - better; When I was talking with some old friends - people I know and trust in the business and we were just kicking around some ideas; When someone I respect threw a few suggestions at me which I tried – and those ideas took me in a new direction.
• Courses; Conferences; Clinics; Coach-the-Coaches programs, e.g. In other words, coaching coaches has mentoring. very little to do with courses, Now write down a list of the times conferences and clinics held in when you feel you’ve learnt classrooms, boardrooms, meeting efficiently and effectively. rooms or training rooms and everything to do with coaching Those moments when learning felt coaches in context. easy and effortless.
• • • •
Those learning environments where you felt like your learning was on fast-forward and you seemed to absorb knowledge and information at an accelerated rate.
