Leading with questions.

Coach Mike’s Discovery Motto: QUESTIONS lead to Confusion, CONFUSION leads to discussion, DISCUSSION leads to understanding, UNDERSTANDING leads to Solutions.

At birth and through life we all grow and develop as individuals.   We all interpret the world and ourselves uniquely, we link the colour blue to an image in our mind, we hear the sound of a dog bark, we feel the warmth of the sun.  We assume that everyone else perceives these things the same as we do but how do we know.  Just because we perceive the colour blue as a specific image in our mind does not mean others do.  The signal we receive as a specific light wavelength is the same for us all but we may have a unique perception of it.  How do we know what blue is to others?  We may presume too much, we are only external observers.  We are only…

As the observer, as a coach, we see what is happening outside the athlete and can perhaps rightfully describe the environment.   However, only the athlete senses directly that environment.  Only they can ‘feel’ what forces they exert, what forces are created within their joints and muscles.  As coaches, we can only see the effect of their actions, we can make assumptions, we can make educated guesses to what they feel and how they create the outcome.  However, we can not feel it.

So I ask, who has the best information?  The coach, as the observer, who only sees the symptom and effects of the athlete’s efforts.  No, it is the athlete who has this knowledge plus the benefit of their full sensory system and supercomputer who has the potential to be the true expert.  If we accept the brain is the most advanced computer on earth and has access to the full and advanced array of sensors throughout the human body, should we not value the information it can gather and it’s decision-making ability?  I believe so, however, we often find the observer simply dictates instructions, treating the athlete like a puppet on the string.  The role of the coach is not to create a puppet, it is to develop the expert.

When we struggle to solve a problem or discover a solution we often seek out an expert in the field.   When the coach and athlete set out to perfect a movement or effort they must do the same.   Often this means video recording a performance and they breaking down each action in slow motion.  It may in some cases mean analyzing force data collected from advanced technology such as gyroscopes, acceleration and velocity sensors.   With all the information we have, we seek to identify and isolate action to eliminate, correct, or strengthen athletic motions.

In my sport of sprint kayaking and canoeing, I have the ability to follow my athletes from a motorized boat and constantly study their actions and the actions of the boat gaining insight to better provide guidance.   I am the expert the athlete looks to.  They often will ask a question like “how was that coach” or “how did that look” or even “was that better”.   I have spent years studying how great paddlers move, what positions they create at specific moments in the stroke and the effects that correspond with them so yes, I can give pretty good advice but this advice is always based on assumptions of information I don’t have.  Often it is information the athlete does.  It at best it is with information from the external sensors mentioned above.  However, the bodies built-in accelerometers, pressure sensors etc are much better than any technology I can instrument the system with.

So, why oh why are they asking me?   After all, I can not feel what they feel, I can not feel what they are doing to the boat.  Sure, I can see what they look like when they create a specific position, action or outcome but the reality is that all the top paddlers in the world look a little different.  Each person is unique and only they are the expert in their own body and only they have spent their lifetime perfecting its use.  Given that each athlete has a unique set of equipment and only they are the expert it is understandable why all the top paddlers have their own unique style. So it there a right way to look?  How could I alone give the correct answer when the ask “how was it, how did it look?  OK, OK…. it is not like I can not give a good opinion and I think I may even give the right one more often than not.  However, if the athlete has the supercomputer and the vast array of sensors that provide far more and far better information than I do why are they asking me?

Reflecting on this I have come to the following basic statement of purpose for coaches and athletes when developing technique.

It is the coaches role to communicate the desired outcome.  It is the athlete’s role to then discover how to achieve the outcome and then teach the coach how it is accomplished.   Although the coach may be the expert in what needs to be done, the how and the why it is the athlete who is the expert when it comes to the equipment (the athletes own body) and it is the expert we must consult to discover the best methodology.  For the coach to provide the best advice to the athlete we must gather all the best information.  Much of this will come from the athlete.

So, the coach is an expert and has some of the information, they are the expert of theory and required outcome.  The athlete, on the other hand, has access to the raw information of what is happening within the human system, they are the expert here.  The coach must gain access to what the athlete has in order provide good advice.

Unfortunately, many athletes have little practice in attending to the vast amount of information they have.  It seems many athletes would rather just ask the observer (the coach) what needs to be done differently.  “What does it look like Coach?”.   The wise coach will train and strengthen the athlete’s awareness of the information they literally have at their fingertips.   The coach may respond by asking some probing questions: what is it you were attempting?; how did you go about that?; how did it feel?   Prompting the athlete to critically reflect they become practiced at listening to all the information they have, and only they have.

It is the objective of the coach and athlete to work together and form a strong problem solving, solution finding team.  When we can identify a problem, we have identified potential performance not yet realized.  In this stage, we may both be confused as we struggle to understand the complex elements and their interactions.  Finding these issues may reveal performance gaps that can be narrowed.  This is a joyous thing, finding a performance gap is finding untapped potential, it is an exciting thing!

When coaches assume they are the only expert or when the athlete has little practice paying attention to personal information they are missing what it takes to reach their potential.  The interactions and investigative ability of the athlete-coach team must be practiced and perfected always.

So what is the process to find untold potential?

• Questions identify gaps that we struggle to understand, we call this confusion.

• Confusion leads to discussion, hypothesis and experimentation.

• Discussion and experimentation ultimately lead to understanding.

• Understanding leads to Solutions.

Without questions, we can have no answers.

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For more on discovery through questioning, investigate the Socratic Method.

“…Accordingly he asked questions, letting the other man do most of the talking, but keeping the course of the conversation under his control, and so would expose the inadequacy of the proposed definition of courage. The other would fall back on a fresh or modified definition, and so the process would go on, with or without final success” (Schiller, 2008, p. 3).