Category Archives: Leadership

Some days… it feels like everything is going right and progress is found in each coaching session. The athlete is hungry to learn, they are progressing, we are discovering new, better methods for skills training. The struggle is paying off. In these times, ‘a-ha’ moments are occurring in rapid-fire. I live for these times. I love working with the athlete to search out and find the missing element, to fill the gap between good and great.

Most of the time I work directly with the athlete, but what about the times I need to step back, to give the athlete time to struggle, to self-discover and the ‘just do it’. These are the times I hate. In these times I am not able to contribute, I am not in control, not even a bit. I am forced to watch and wait for the next time I am needed. In the progression these times happen in semi-regular intervals. However, I know the next problem and the next hurdle to overcome is around the next corner. Once the athlete can consolidate and cement the new lesson or ability, we will need to move on to the next. However, in these times where I am forced to step back I am still uneasy.

I know it is the athlete who is in the game, on the start line, in the gym and on the podium but when I am contributing it is like I am in the game too. When I am not, the result and process both are out of my hands. I feel helpless.

Trust is a big word and a important word. Is it that I don’t trust the athlete to do what they need to do on their own. I do trust them, so why is it that I get so anxious while I can’t have my hand or voice in the game in one way or another. The goal of the coach is after all to develop the athlete to the point they no longer need you and they can move forward on their own.

The we have done a great job the coach may become more of a spectator who waits longer and longer between being needed. Eventually perhaps, if all goes well the coach becomes a full time spectator as the athlete performs the magic on the field of play.

Perhaps I don’t want to be a spectator. I want to be a coach. I don’t want to celebrate this great and final coaching success, the success of no longer being needed! I want to struggle in the trenches; I want to solve problems; I want to teach each day and revel in each discovery.

How I do I celebrate letting go of the process I love. This is the paradox of coaching success.

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).

What is success? – Influencing the result and the path.
Victory is not always success.

When asked to think about my coaching philosophy I very quickly find myself asking familiar questions: What is the goal? What is it that I am trying to build? What is important? I have answered these questions long ago but must continue to ask and answer each time I set out on a new coaching challenge. The answer will shape my philosophy and behaviors. What will be the measure of my success?

The coach must sometimes direct or push the athlete and other times simply guide but the coach must in one way or another move the athlete to the goal. This is sometimes thought of as the Hard or Soft Style of coaching. A coach is rarely a full-on autocratic dictator with absolute power over the actions of the athlete or team, nor function completely on the Athlete-centred, servant end of coaching style where direction comes from the athlete. In reality, I think the coach must be able to shuffle back and forth a bit on this line between the two. However, I hope that most of the shuffling is done on the transformational end where using sport to develop great people along the way is the focus.

After all ’Growth’ is the key, the growth of the athlete and perhaps of the coach as well. We start the partnership in one place and with one set of skills and ability and it is our job to then move beyond these. At the end of a career we all must be proud of what we have grown to be and the journey we have taken to get there.

I like to say ‘the result is a symptom of who and what we are in any given moment’. Growth can take so many forms but what we develop, what we choose to develop, of what we design our coaching to develop is where we ultimately find our core values and philosophy as a coach. The symptom (result) is not the most important thing we can build. Coaches that lean more to the transformational style are often good at the ‘soft’ stuff’. This is not to say great coaches and athletes in this ‘soft approach’ culture do not expect great results. In Wade’s Gilbert’s presentation, it was mentioned a number of times that coaches and athletes thriving in this approach have very high expectations of winning. The ‘Soft stuff’ is not always warm and fuzzy stuff!

Although a win-at-all-costs approach may produce victories, these victories alone do not guarantee anyone has gone through substantial personal growth. It does not even suggest people are at all happy. To me, this would be a failure. The result without maximizing the joy and pride in the process would not be a victory with much value.

I believe that when the coach and athlete work as PARTNERS to develop skills, knowledge and abilities along with growth as people, citizens, brothers, sisters, parents, teachers, leaders etc…. will have great results. Great people who are also trained to be great at their game produce great results.

Smiles and joy of the game are the marks of a ‘successful’ winning team and I hope would be how a coach values the result over just the outcome. A miserable win and a joyful win are clearly different. A great coach and a great team will win but is is success. Successful teams strive to be better than before, they recognized their limits only to smile and wave as they pass them by.

I know coaches that have great results who are positioned at many places on the continuum. However, if the athlete has a choice I would never wish them a sports career with the dictator where the only thing achieved is the win. Athletes who love the journey the process and the growth environment are the ones I wish to develop. They are the ones I wish to spend my days with, they are my legacy as a coach. I hope this ultimately is my contribution and how I am remembered.

In the end, the pride in who you have built yourself into is the goal worth training and fighting for. The trip to the podium is a symptom but that trip to the podium is only worth it if done with a smile.

When we leave the training session, the game, and the career we must be better people on the way out then we were on the way in.

It is not my job to have my team win. It is my job to make a team of great people and athletes that are capable of winning.