Coach Education is Broken

A new dog walk diary where I begin a new multi part series talking about all of the ways that coach education and development needs to change to meet the needs of a new generation of learners.

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Episode Transcript

(00:01):
Good morning again the Ork Diary ahbeen have been a busy time, lots
of things going on and managing toget some bookcast conversations going which has been

(00:22):
great. And yeah, just checkin with some thoughts. There's gonna be
a little mini series I'm going todo with probably I don't know how quite
how many episodes going to record,but they're all going to be a long

(00:45):
similar theme and the reason for thatis it's what's occupying a bit on a
daily basis and probably the singular biggestarea of focus for me professionally and personally.

(01:07):
And when I say personally, Imean a professionally perspective of my own
experiences, and in particular I'm reflectinga little on the role I have as
a coach, developer or a supporterof coaches, but not not as a

(01:30):
direct support as in someone if youwould either work alongside or that kind of
thing, but somebody who is anemployer and a deployer of coaches. And
I've just been going through a processrecently of recruiting for head coach lead coaching
and looking into, you know,what would a job specification look like,

(01:53):
behaviors and looking at things like professionalstandards of coaching, band of coach,
those kinds of things, what theyentail, they involve, we need to
include in when you're recruiting and designinga specification for somebody. So I've I'm

(02:17):
working on all of that. I'mnot going to get into the super technical
detail, but what I've been reflectingon is how well, basically the whole
series is more or less the titleof it. The working title could be
why coach education is broken? Andthe reason for that is that everywhere I

(02:44):
go, everywhere I look, whatI see is coach education, coach development
models that are designed or built usingthe kind of thinking that provided education during

(03:09):
the Industrial resolution. It is ingeneral, mass produced, maximum volume,
high volume. I'm going to speakin generality because there's a lot of good
stuff that happens, and it's notto say that some of this stuff doesn't
have an effect, but in themain, looking across the landscape, I'm

(03:36):
talking predominantly in the UK, butalso extend having worked with several international organizations.
But in the main, what yousee, what I'm seeing is a
word a radically constrained thinking to thepoint where I think people are finding it

(04:04):
extremely difficult to design and even conceiveof approaches that would be different to what,
you know, what is currently thecase. I'll speak in more concrete

(04:25):
terms. So I'm working with anumber of organizations that are really trying to
innovate trailblazes, pioneer, whatever itis. And there are some really difficult,
difficult challenges in changing the way coachhas done, not least of which

(04:46):
what people expect from a coach educationexperience. So people who go on coaching
courses, and I'm going to usethis word courses, people who go on
coaching courses expect a certain thing andto break free of that it's quite difficult

(05:10):
because people find it odd and weird, and to use different educational paradigms as
a mechanism to do this it isquite, uh, the very difficult.
Why because people have begun to associateeducation with a particular format. You know,

(05:30):
there is yes, it might bepractical, but there will be a
classroom element, you know, andthen and and so you know, you
have to go and be taught somethingby someone and then you know, and
then you can apply some of thatpractically and then you go and you know,

(05:54):
do something else. But that isthe model, you know, that's
the model of people expect that youwill go to somebody more knowledgeable than they
will teach you some things. Youwill learn to apply them in a concept,
and that'll all be packaged together ina relatively short timeframe, so it

(06:15):
will be like a lot of informationin and the individual is then you know,
expected to then take the information andturn it into practical application in the
environment that they offerate with all itscomplexities and variables. So and that's kind

(06:43):
of the way, you know,everyone does it. It's kind of the
way everyone expects it to be done. And at the end of that,
by the way you'll be given usuallythere'll be some sort of assessment and that
will determine that you'll let your levelof competence will be said. You'll be
called competent or not yet competent,and then you know, if you're competent,

(07:08):
then you'll be given your certificate,and your certificate then will allow you
to practice and it will give youa certain level of accreditation that suggests that
you have, you know, kindof taken on board some information and been

(07:33):
able to show its application in thissituation in a sort of manufactured and sterile
environment. But that will then giveyou competent, and in some cases that
will deem you competent forever. Becausevery few organizations see it as their role

(08:00):
to ensure that individuals can continuously demonstratetheir level of competence. Very few some
do through so for example, theymight say, oh, you need to
do x number of CPD sessions orgain x number of CPD points in order

(08:28):
to demonstrate competence, which means thatyou have to go to sessions and workshops
that are generally run by this singularorganization, hand over more cash to gain
the requisite points to then say thatyou are maintaining competence. Of course,

(08:48):
going to those sessions doesn't necessarily translateto increased competence. And very very organizations
if you were to ask them,and if you was ask them to say,
could how can you show me thatyour educational experiences lead to greater competence

(09:13):
And how do you evidence the factthat you know your educational experiences are determining
that your coaching workforce is competent?Very few can do so, very few
are able. And when I sayvery few, I'm literally talking one hand
counted on one hand that they cando that. So it's very very strange,

(09:41):
very very odd that this entire worldof education that you know, costs
significant sums two just put on andrequires individuals on the receiving end, you

(10:01):
know, the potential practitioners to outlaysignificant sums because it costs a lot of
money to put it all on,and it actually there is no real evidence
to suggest that it has an impact. What you sometimes get is you'll get
an evaluation, you know, atthe end of the course, and the

(10:24):
individuals will say it was a greatcourse, I really enjoyed it, I
learned a lot and this, thatand the other. That's usually the kind
of evidence that you might get,but it doesn't do anything to suggest that
that individual has actually is practicing inaccordance with the things that they've learned.
You know. And when you speakto a lot of coaches, and I

(10:45):
do, many of them will privately, sometimes publicly admit that, you know,
when they do some kind of CPDor a coach education course of some
kind, it's really just to sortof, you know, kind of jump
the hurdle and tick the botox todetermine that they are you know, they
get some sort of verification and thenthey go off and then they coach in

(11:07):
the way that they kind of work. You know, it's it's pretty well
documented that that's kind of what happens. And the other problem you've got as
well is is the the old famousebbing House forgetting curve, where you know,
the assumption is that you know,if you do mass information transfer,
that an individual will be able tosort of firstly remember that and then secondly

(11:31):
apply it. And the reality isis, as ebbing House showed us,
that actually, when you do thingsin that way, people forget I think
from memory it's like ninety percent,so you haly forgot what they've learned,
whereas actually if you learned things ina more interleaved way over a period of
time, you get far greater attention. And that's just about knowledge, never

(11:54):
mind application. And it's separately aboutapplication anyway. So this is sort of
paradigm that we're operating with it,and this is how people are leading these
sessions, this is how they're runningthese systems developing systems. Now, some
of that is driven by a needfor efficiency, i e. You know,

(12:15):
package your learning experience up, deliverit in a you know, sort
of relatively narrow time frame, andthen you know you know, then you
you have to sort of minimize yourtutor time. And we have tuators.
I mean, that's the words thatare used. They are called tuotors.
I mean, like that's if that'snot a word from a bygone age,

(12:39):
like what what? So we havetutors delivering content, you know, and
you know, usually it's a slidedeck and all this sort of stuff people
you know, produce are so manyslide decks. Some of this from the

(13:00):
fact that well, again, youknow, you look at quite across quite
a lot of organizations involved in coached and one of the things they'll say
is that, well, no,whenever there's a problem of any kind,
the solution to it, you know, and it involves coaches, and it
usually does because coaches are humans,and humans are interacting with other humans,
whether their children are adults, andsometimes those interactions can lead to negative consequences.

(13:24):
And so whenever there's a problem,the solution is training. But huh,
the solution is training, and itis just training. We need to
train these people in this so thatthey won't do that, or train these
people in this so that they'll domore of this and less of that by
association. Now and so training isthe answer, and then the delivery vehicle

(13:52):
is through this sort of paradigm ofyou know, put it into a box.
Now what we've seen post pandemic.Oh sorry, So the industry is
beset with a mindset that can bedescribed by the what is now a fairly
cliched phrase, but this idea.You know that if if, if the

(14:16):
only tool you've got is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.
But we our solutions are always thesame, training, training, training,
and what coaches tell you when youask them, because we did. What
coaches tell you is that I'm giventhese things and they're described to me as
tools and resources. You know that'sgoing to help me in my role,

(14:39):
But actually they're just more burdens.I've got to do this course. Now,
I've got to spend time doing thisrefresher, or I've got to do
that, or I've got to dothat. So we put burdens on the
practitioner because it's always their fault,isn't It's something to do with the environment
they operate in, or the prevailingculture within the sports that basically forces coaches

(15:05):
to make ethical decisions sort of everyday, which is do I drive towards
the performance outcome to the detriment ofthe human being that I'm working with or
a potential detriment, or do Iplace the needs of the individual in front
of me first and foremost and helpthem. And so coaches are facing those

(15:26):
dilemmas, and a lot of thosedilemmas are stemming from this performance culture or
sorry, the cultural environment, whetherit's the environment they operate in because it's
their job and if they don't getresults, they lose their job or status.
If they don't get results, thatreceives status amongst you know, parents
and all that sort of stuff goesdown. It's diminished. Their own self

(15:50):
work is diminished because of the prevailingculture of in order to be a good
coach, you need to get results. And that's part of it, isn't
it. Most of us will know. And if you've just watched any of
the stuff related to say Jurgen Plot, regardless of your you know, kind
of footballing affiliations, you know,just watch the outpouring of love and affection

(16:18):
for someone that's not just because theman gets results. I mean you could
argue that, you know, someof the results have not gone away.
He would have liked over the years. But it's not because of that.
It's because the stuff he does transcendthat, and the genuinely great coaches like
they do that they know that that'show they operate. Anyway, I digress,

(16:38):
So let's circle back and come backto this educational system that's basically designed
around this singular model, and andthe problem we face into is the fact
that people have almost got to apoint now where they actually can't conceive of

(17:00):
doing it any other way. Theycan't conceive of just providing training. They're
not providing training. Training is somethingto do well. They've got to be
able to show that they've done that, because then they've made an attempt to
solve the problem. But remember,like, it's not you haven't solved the
problem because somebody's from the training.You've solved the problem if somebody takes action

(17:25):
as a result of the training,and the assumption is always made that that's
what happens. We've provided the training. Therefore, we can be reasonably confident
that those individuals would have taken onboard what they learned in the training and
they would have changed their behavior accordingly. But there's never any evidence of that.

(17:45):
There's never they can't provide it.And given the advances in technology,
the capabilities that people are presented withnow, the advances in educational paradigms,
the advances in technological communication mechanisms,wireless and otherwise, why why hasn't anyone

(18:11):
been able to create systems the evidenceand I'm talking about the lord of sport
because they exist in other educational paradigms. It's just sport hasn't yet. Well,
things are about to change, andthey're about to change really quite radically,

(18:33):
because if they don't, there's areal great danger that sports is going
to find itself in a very veryvery difficult position whereby people begin to ask
more and more questions about the experiencethat they receive and maybe start to make

(18:56):
different choices. And we're already seeingthe signs of that, and in particular,
it's what you might call the traditionalsports. So the sports that have
held sort of a you know,a very like dominant position in the sporting
landscape, largely because they've got bigTV platforms and professionalized competitive programs and high

(19:22):
visibility and all sorts of things.But even also some of the sports that
don't have that level of visibility buthave a very very strong, you know,
kind of traditional base, either throughschool sport or beyond, but those
sports are finding it increasingly difficult toattract people to participate, and some of
that stems from the delivery mechanisms whenpeople have their experiences and those being like

(19:49):
not what people are looking for anymore. So there's a real need to try
and change a paradigm, and there'sa real need for us, as the
there creators of educational systems and educationalexperiences for practitioners to do it really quite
differently, and also more importantly,if we are interested in actually having people

(20:15):
stepping into those roles, whether they'repaid or voluntary, we're going to have
to do it an awful lot better, and we're going to have to give
them a lot greater support because weactually owe it to them because they are
giving. In many cases they aregiving their time to do that, and
in other cases if they're not.If they're not giving their time and they're
getting paid, they're doing so inan attempt to support and foster the growth

(20:40):
of those physical activity forms. Andof course we're all in the business of
wanting people to be more physically activeand provide them with experiences that are going
to encourage them towards being more physicallyactive life long and beyond. Now,
so this is the setup. Soover the course of the next however,

(21:03):
many episodes over this, I'm goingto delve into some individual components and basically
I'm going to call I'm going tobe talking about a series of system shifts
that need to happen in order forthis kind of change to materialize. And

(21:29):
so that's what you can look forwardto over the next few weeks as I
really dig into these shifts and thisway different ways of thinking. The next
episode you'll hear from me, we'regoing to dig into assessment, and everyone

(21:51):
will go assessment. But actually there'ssome really exciting and interesting models that could
really open up the way we identifyand recognize the expertise of coaches and really
help people to stand out from thecrowd for their great practice, but equally

(22:15):
help individuals to identify where, whatkind of experience they'll get from where and
from whom and all those sorts ofthings. So hope you might look forward
to that anyway, Thanks for listening. I'd love any comments, questions,
thoughts, perspectives, and I'll seeyou in a week's time,