7 Steps to Coa By Jackie “Voice of Billiards” Karol
A team is a reflection of their leader. Follow these 7 Steps to coach your team to success with their best chances of winning! 1) Credibility:
Establish trust, credibility & build rapport. Get to know each person individually. For example, find out their likes and dislikes, strengths and weaknesses and habits. Demonstrate your credibility and list your resume and background as to why you are an expert on coaching. If you don’t have a lot of experience coaching, let them know how committed you are to their success. They must also feel and know that you really do care about them. Once they see how committed you are to them and their success, their commitment rises.
2) Meeting:
Call a meeting and state the general goal of meeting. For example, to get in the money on your league, win a championship or move up to top 30% in league, etc.
3) Questions:
Ask the following questions. Go around the room and let each person speak. Just listen. Write down people’s responses on a white board. Question #1: What’s there for them regarding achieving the general goal? How are they feeling about it in general? For example, they are worried that they don’t have enough time to practice, they don’t know what to practice, they get too nervous during competition, their confidence is low, etc. Question #2: How do they want to be perceived by other competitors and spectators and family and friends regarding their pool game? What do you want people to say about you? For example, they want their competition
to see them as a threat or dominating, their family and friends to see them as a winner or hardcore bad ass. Question #3: What concerns and requests do you have? For example, they don’t feel like they are good enough, or don’t like some of their teammates, or don’t like the equipment, etc. Question #4: How can they make their goal quantifiable as a specific measurable result? For example, if they want to win the championship, how many balls would they be able to run in a particular drill. Question #5: Ask everyone to do the ‘Zero Regrets’ exercise from book called, ‘The Way of the Champion’ by Jerry Lynch. Imagine it’s game day or the day when your results will be measured. Imagine you kept doing things the same way that you’ve been doing them and you lost… Now, imagine you are on game day and specifically imagining looking back into time. What would you have done differently? For example, would you practice more, have a more positive attitude, invested in a better pool cue, hired a coach, or were you too hard or yourself or not allow yourself to have fun?
4) Positive:
Be positive. Rephrase any negatives into positives. For example, if someone says they are afraid they won’t practice enough, rephrase it and ask how many hours per week are you committed to practicing? Before this though, you have to inspire your team and get them to want to be committed. Another example, is they say don’t feel confident. Rephrase and ask how many hours a week would make you feel confident? What if you were given specific things to practice and you 55
