Tuesday, January 29, 2013

Coaching 101

IF you have a young athlete in your family, then you've probably been exposed to many diverse personalities and coaching styles.  I've done my fair share of coaching over the years and it's a blessing to work with kids and their families.  You care deeply for each of them.  Over time, you begin to form a framework for coaching and deep convictions.  Personally, I've also been able to adopt my professional work & strategic marketing framework tactics - and apply them to coaching.  One of these frameworks is really very simple to apply.  It is the WHO WHAT HOW WHEN methodology, and I strongly believe in it.  This is a P&G marketing framework that was introduced companywide years ago - in an effort to simplify the global language and methodologies used between the agencies, business and P&G brands.  The WHO, refers to your targeted audience and consumers. In the case of coaching - the players & families.  The WHAT is the message, content and reason-to-believe in the product or service.  WHAT is the most critical component a coach or business leader can author and deploy.  HOW & WHEN refer to the execution.  The COACH is responsible for laying-out the WHAT.  The coach owns the WHAT.  What is the plan? What are the convictions, content & culture of the program?  What are the offensive and defensive sets and practice routine?  These set plans & convictions should be presented in such a way that there is no doubt in the framework, the content and plans.  Net, the coaching staff is 100% responsible for the WHAT.  These plays and routines should be presented and executed in such a way - that everyone involved is comfortable with the WHAT.  The young athletes need to be comfortable with the WHAT.  When they are on that stage, they need to feel sponsored and comfortable.  Job one of the coach, in my opinion, is to ensure the kids are comfortable and confident.  And yes, this leads to FUN.  Your employees and colleagues should be very comfortable & understand and believe in your WHAT:  The reason-to-believe in your framework.  Once everyone believes in the WHAT, the players can move forward & deliver the HOW.   How athletes get it done.   How the individual employee gets it done.  This HOW is brought to life by the players.  The HOW must be delivered by the players.  And when this happens, when they do the HOW with confidence and their unique skillset, this HOW is beautiful to watch playout on that stage.  Ya see, once a coach lays-out the strategy and plan and convictions, then cuts loose those young athletes to provide the HOW, you find out very quickly just how comfortable and confident the kids are out there.  They are sparkling, creative young athletes, and it's up to them to deliver the HOW, but like any performer, they need to feel comfortable and confident on stage.  And they will deliver, but ONLY if they feel very comfortable and enabled to deliver THE HOW.  If your child is not having success, and losing many games and their confidence, and the culture is not very good - I suspect you can point back to the WHAT for that program.  And chances are, the what, is not in a good place.  The student athletes are not in a good place.  The WHAT is broken.  And a broken WHAT leads to lots and lots of interchangable parts and constant switching of athletes that are not comfortable nor confident and unsure on how to deliver the what.  Worse, over time, players and employees will start to challenge the leader, the plan and the WHAT.   Job one of a manager or director or coach - is to get the WHAT right.  Then, and only then, can a coach cut loose those wonderful athletes to confidently deliver the HOW.

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