Supporting coaches to be 'prepared rather than planned' - a conversation with Alex Lascu - The Talent Equation Podcast

Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Hi everyone, Stewart here before weget into today's podcast, I wonder if
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(00:20):
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in advance via support. Welcome tothe Townent Equation Podcast. If you are
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(02:10):
podcast seeks to answer the important questionsfacing parents, coaches and talent developers as
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(02:32):
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to join the discussion at the TalentEquation dot co dot UK. Enjoy the
show. Well. Making a welcomereturn to the show all the way from

(03:07):
Perth in Western Australia, Alex Lascuwelcome back, well, thank you,
it's nice to be back. It'sbeen long enough. I think way too
long, way too long, andI even I even teased you with several
several reconfigured call that will be Ihad to cancel the scheduling like I'm having

(03:30):
all the time. So once again, thank you for your patient No,
I mean this is what almost exactlya year after we met face to face
pretty much for the first time.I think when I was in England.
Yeah, Sport Women's Edition. Iremember that was good, wasn't it.
Yeah? Yeah, right, Sowhat's going on in your world? Well,

(03:53):
actually, before we jump into that, some people might be new to
the show. They haven't heard theprevious episode because they haven't gone through the
entire catalog yet. So if youwouldn't mind giving people a bit of a
low down on your journey in thisworld we operate in. You're pretty prolific
and most people will know of you, but some may not. I mean,

(04:14):
I wouldn't expect them to know ofme, So it's perfectly fine if
you don't. Yeah, I mean, I must be early in the archives
after the first time I came on. Our first chat was very much around
how the brain is not a computer. I still actually use that metaphor a
lot in terms of the way thatwe process information and interact with the world.
I guess you call me a skillacquisition specialist, so I still operate

(04:36):
in the space between as many sportsas I can get my hands on.
One of my favorite things is justlearning from unique contexts and the people that
find themselves in them. So Itry to collect as many different sports as
I can and still try to playas many different sports as I can to
remember what it feels like to bea beginner. I primarily operate in coach

(04:58):
education and development now, which isbeen incredible fun. I never thought i'd
actually work for the sport that Idedicated my life to, but to be
in this role after twenty seasons ofplaying cricket and now finally getting to support
the coaches that are just out theredoing their best is my happy place.
I spent most of my PhD inskill acquisition talking about how community coaches and

(05:20):
the downfall of why we don't havea lot of the skill development enjoyment through
movement because they're just unsupported. Andnow it's literally my job to support them,
so really enjoying the space and justtrying my best to make sure that
we take all of the lessons andlearnings along the way. But we also
recognize what people already do know andmeeting them in the middle. Yeam,

(05:45):
lot's happening. You're well known fornot just because you obviously spent some time
doing your PhD working in the academicfield writing articles and papers, but you're
well known or fairly well known,i'd say, for not just leaving the
insight in journals that can be abit impenetrable for the average person or community

(06:12):
coach or whatever it might be,but actually translating that and using you know,
kind of digital media as a mechanismto convey some of those ideas,
either through this medium podcasting or videosor conversations or likewise just before I usually
do this at the end, butit's probably worth just reflecting on where you

(06:34):
place some of this stuff, becauseyou've got a number of different channels,
and again I've lost track of it. You probably created a new one since
we last both. I try notto make too many now, but it
is very much responding on what peoplewant, right. So a big thing
for me is I draw mind maps. Actually I've had open right now just
in case anything good pops up.But yeah, a lot of my mind

(06:55):
maps have posted either on LinkedIn orTwitter, more recently, though, I've
that people are looking for quality videocontent, and one of the hard things
about where we operate is that alot of the content is just not palatable
for normal people. There is almostlike this wall that you have to scale
before you can even begin to dropinto a lot of this content, and
a lot of the research, asyou say, is just locked away and

(07:17):
impenetrable. So creating more YouTube videos, like being more active on things like
Instagram where people just accidentally stumble uponyour content rather than intentionally going out looking
for it is a space that I'vemore recently started to enjoy, especially because
there's so much misinformation. If anything, I've spent so much time sitting on

(07:38):
social media going, oh my god, people believe this, or like they
just said it with such convention thatof course they're going to believe this.
They're never going to dig deeper intowhere this comes from. So spending more
time here on Instagram and things likethat, trying to just combat the misinformation
that's out there and how easy itis to stumble upon. I figured if
I had an attempt of maybe beingalso accessible to stumble upon, we might

(08:01):
actually get somewhere in those spaces niceand where can people find you? On
Instagram? I have to admit it'sa medium that I don't tend to utilize
myself because obviously I'm old, butyou know, you usual types because where
you live right, well, yeah, I'll never download TikTok, but I
will maintain my Instagram. Yeah atskiel like Glasgow is where I find all

(08:24):
my sport content, being posting alot more videos and stuff lately around and
my YouTube channel is the same,trying to be more consistent across the tag
so that people can find me whereverthey go. But yeah, Twitter,
Instagram, YouTube, all the samehandle, all majors talking sport nerdy stuff.
I'll be ski double l a ql A s CU correct a CQ

(08:50):
yeah aq Okay, all right,got it right. So one of the
reasons we are coming together is totalk all coach education and development, which
is obviously your operation because your InCrestwas peak by my latest dog Walk diary
theory called coach education is broken.So I'm happy to jump. This is

(09:13):
almost a bit of a reverse podcastbecause I guess you're going to ask me
stuff and we're just going to riffand have that general conversation about all the
things that are in there, butI'm happy for you to create the starting
point. Yeah, well more thanhappy to. I think one of the
biggest things is how did you cometo that logical flow of the episodes?
I quite liked how we went fromyou know, transformation not transaction to change

(09:35):
you the paradigm, to qualifications andprofession and recognition. It kind of all
flows and it was quite logical.Is that something that you had planned before
or the second you start talking itstarts to kind of fall out and you're
like, oh, these things arevery tightly connected to just to sort of
explain where they all came from.Still in the middle, likely we've got

(09:58):
two to go, but the sevenin total, and there may even be
more than that as we go forward. But where they came from was this
is where the sort of day joband the and the kind of my outside
world not not working in kind ofin the in the industry, so to
speak. But one of the thingswe did we did we in looking to

(10:18):
create a new blueprint, which wecall it a blueprint, and it's deliberately
designed to be a blueprint because itdoesn't mandate anything it's not and it's also
not necessarily about you know, alist of sort of thing. It's about,
I guess, creating a gramatic forthe creation of a new coach education

(10:43):
and development ecosystem, and in thedesign of such or in the creation of
such a thing, obviously it's incumbentupon us and this will obviously resonate with
you to effectively engage with stakeholders.So in the main, it's you know,
the people on the receiving end,so practitioners, coaches, group exercise

(11:09):
instructors, personal trainers. You know, we're walking across the sports landscape or
a physical activity landscape, not justnecessarily in the community support channel or performance
sport channels and particularly you know,what would happen is, you know,
you'd normally be the needs of performancewould then be sort of mandated into participation

(11:30):
and always fit. And we've clearlyseen some really quite high profile impacts of
taking such an approach. So likethat, So when you're listening to people,
then you're in listening mode and you'rein full engagement mode, you know,
and then what you then do isyou go through a process of synthesis.
Now I won't say all of thiswas done purely by that process,

(11:54):
it's actually also to do with youknow, I'm very fortunate that in this
role as in as a podcast andto a certain extent, you know,
I guess a personality within the spaceof coach development. You know, I've
asked to speak and I run workshopsand I do a lot of development,
and I speak at conferences and I'mdoing a lot of listening. I speak

(12:16):
to a lot of practitioners and alot of people who support them, you
know, system builders, you couldcall them if you like. So it's
a combination of that piece of workcombined with you know, kind of I
guess a synthesis of some experiences thathave formed a worldview around where coach education

(12:39):
might need might need to move,and you combine that then with some of
the ecological literature, combine that withkind of alternative models around learning and acquisition
of skill coaching skill in this case, but new models of learning that would
go alongside that, and a movementin the what you might call the adult

(13:03):
learning space around particularly you know,towards more experiential learning models rather than the
sort of theoretical ones. And youaggregate that together, and then you know,
you can aform this and then yourproblem is is that right, well,
how do you convey that in arelatively simple and coherent messaging framework that

(13:24):
people would be able to grab holdof and utilize as a mechanism to bring
about internal system change. So theidea being is that the system shift are
what people are calling for. It'ssupposed to be a representation of what people
are calling for in a range ofcontexts, and they're designed to be a

(13:48):
different way of thinking or a wayto challenge thinking. Because one of my
experiences has been in the last howevermany years of working in this space is
that I think one of the biggestrate limitters to genuine transformation in coach education
are is the people within the systemdesigning the system who are not blaming them,

(14:09):
by the way, because there's anawful lot of constraining artifacts, and
I guess in many ways, notjust even artifacts like proper dysdemic kind of
barriers or infrastructure that does need tobe dismantled in order to think differently,
but they're very constrained by some ofthat. They're constrained by popular culture and

(14:31):
expectation. They're constrained by some youknow, kind of different ideas around things
like qualification and all that sort ofstuff. So I guess the systems just
are a way of articulating a visionof the future, one where practitioners are
not seen as a means to anend and looked over whilst we search for

(14:52):
the participants and try to grow sportsor develop skills and develop capabilities for performance
and performance. But one where thepractitioner is seen as a genuine you know,
kind of part of the sports ecosystemwith value not hidden in plaine side.
You know, they're genuinely there asyou know, you don't just give

(15:13):
them some training to get them todo a job. You treat them as
as really valuable participants in the sportsexperience, and in so doing, they
then are then better equipped to provideexperiences to others that we hope will lead
to growth in participation and all theother potential goods that come with sport visical

(15:33):
activity. Yeah, so that's thesynthesis. Now, I'll be totally honest
with you. The logical framing.I'm glad you said it's a logical framing.
I don't think there was necessarily agreat deal in that. It's just
they seem to flow. But Ididn't necessarily design it like that. I
guess it's probably how my brain worksthat there's the flow, but it wasn't

(15:54):
a specific thing I was doing.It was just these are seven things I
think we need to consider, andlike I said, it's not exhaustive.
I'll probably add to it as wego along, but for now, seven
system shifts have a nicerlliteration, sowe'll go with that for now. I
know that means a lot to you, something that sounds just as catchy as

(16:15):
it looks. But I do think, and I find myself I always find
podcasts really difficult. And I've neverunderstood the people who can listen to podcasts
and cars, because I always haveto take notes during podcasts, and so
I can never Sometimes we go fora walk and I will look like that
dingy millennial who's addicted to their phonebecause I will be constantly and typing out
notes as I'm listening. But Ido think every time we hear those words

(16:38):
out loud, every time there isjust another knock at the door of hey,
you could do this differently, itdoes actually make a difference. And
seeing them sort of fall out inthat order made it a lot easier for
me to think about Okay, well, how many of these do we actually
need to change? In my owncontext? What am I seeing as the
things that are ready to move andthe things that I'm maybe still in super

(17:00):
glue, you know, dug down. I often use like a gnger analogy
nowadays of we've spent so much timejust like pulling all the blocks out thinking
that they needed to move, andkicking the tower over in the process,
and that tower being an actual functioninghuman being who's just trying to do their
best, and we're literally driving themout of the system because we're not paying
attention to what they need to Insteadkind of just tapping the tower and seeing

(17:23):
which blocks are ready to move andbe like, can you can move that
one? I'm like to want todo that together and to create like the
conversations that actually start the systemic shifts. Like definitely there are days where I
feel like I'm banging my head ona wall, not because anyone's doing anything
wrong, but because half the timeit's an expectation of what people think we
should be doing in this space.Who said, what you hated your education

(17:47):
experience as a child, you wantme to recreate that? Is that what
you're expecting right now. Oh well, I'm sorry to disappoint you, but
I'm not going to do that.First of all, because I'm not the
font of all knowledge, so I'mnot standing at the front of the classroom.
We're gonna go outside because that isthe context that you work in.
I love that gender analogy. That'sa really great metaphor the idea of yeah,

(18:08):
we're not just going to push itat all, and it all falls
down and then you're left with nothingand you've got to rebuild it. You
push it the ones that are thelooted, that are ready to shift if
those and in so doing we createa different a different shaped out love that
context. It's it's just destabilization really, and like it makes sense. Nobody
wants to feel entirely untethered or unstable. Of course, we're going to be

(18:33):
able to do maybe one or two, if we're lucky, things that will
take them out of the comfort zonesor the sphere of expectations. But realistically,
I can only really get away withone big systemic change. What a
year, a season, maybe amonth if I'm lucky, and people that
are ready to buy into it.But we're in a stage now where we're
just trying to convince people that ongoinglearning and development is good for your own

(18:56):
sake, not just for the sakeof your participants. But aren't you bored?
I would hate if someone came upto me and go, Wow,
you're exactly the same coach that Isaw five years ago. I hope not.
I've learned a lot in that time, thank you very much, a
lot of what not to do,primarily how not to make eight year old
girls cry, I hope, butthrough trial and error more so than anything

(19:19):
else. But I do think thereare so many people who are just the
exact same coach they were when theystarted or when their kids started a sport,
because they've not turned to an organizationand thought, wow, these people
can really help me, even thoughthat's exactly what we're trying to do.
Yeah, I mean, I lovethe I mean, obviously, the metaphora
genga is one related to play ingames, which we love, so I

(19:41):
love that. Interestingly, you mademe reflect a little bit that I suppose
you could think just think of thesystem. So your point about you can
do one a year or so.One of the interesting things about this particular
frame work and framework for cha changeis as you do this sort of stuff,

(20:02):
you begin to realize that you almostyou can't do one without doing many
of the others. So it's nota linear process of change because it's almost
like it's what's the word, it'salmost like it's working outwards from a spiral
in the middle, you know,like almost like a ripple effect to a
certain extent. But it's I'm tryingto think of the model of learning that

(20:26):
they refer to that as it'll comeback to me in a minute. But
it's like a cyclical process because,for example, if you want to move
away from qualified once competent forever.So the idea that qualification is a proxy
for expertise and the fact that Idid some kind of a learning experience that

(20:47):
created some form of assessment which thencertified me at a moment in time is
going to last forever and I'm goingto be able to inhabit that. And
actually, like you say, ifyou as an individual, you in over
five years go through quite considerable growthas a coach, it'd be great,
wouldn't it for somebody to be ableto recognize that and go, actually,

(21:08):
you really have developed and grown andI want to be able to put some
kind of a badge or a recognitionmechanism around you to say, actually that
that's really cool, right, whatyou've done there, your commitment to your
practice, whether it's experientially driven orit's through additional formal learning or whatever resources

(21:30):
that you use, and that's transformThat transformed you as a practitioner, and
therefore you're providing an enhanced experience forwhoever it is you're working with to recognize
that. I think it's a reallypowerful motivational force and one that those who
do commit could deserve. But theproblem you have is qualification is such a

(21:51):
blunt instrument because it doesn't differentiate fromthose who did that and then did nothing
and those who did that and thenreally committed to their ongoing development. So
the real to the motivation for development, it's pretty low amongst practitioners because well,
why does it advantage? What advantagedoes it bestow on me? Now,

(22:12):
in an ideal merisocratic world, youwould hope, wouldn't you, that
those who do commit are the oneswho are going to get the opportunities later,
you know, whether they want toget you know, in somewhere in
the pathway or whatever it might be, but it doesn't work like that necessarily
because life isn't fair, and sothis recognition mechanism is a really important aspect

(22:36):
to move beyond that. So,just to extend the metaphor arounding, it's
almost like their dominoes in many ways, but they're not dominoes that you push
and one topples, the next topics, the next ops and yes, that
does work, but it's almost likeone of those amazing domino things, you
know, where you press one dominoand then all of a sudden, this

(22:56):
picture appears like a mosaic because theyall go off on different routes. It's
more like that. Yeah, andI do think we haven't really stepped back
to think about what that mosaic shouldlook like, and it's not. And
that's one of the hard things,right it is that you don't want to
predetermine what somebody's learning should be becausewe don't actually know enough about those people

(23:17):
yet, and they don't trust usto tell us yet either. We're still
building those relationships over time because theeducation system hasn't been an enjoyable experience,
So why would they come and tellus what they need if it hasn't serviced
them in the past. But atthe same time, if we have absolutely
no plan whatsoever or no oversight ofwhat we could lead them towards, what

(23:37):
that progress could look like, orhow do we move closer to something that
actually does maximize the participants experience,then we are just kicking over dominoes for
the sake of it, and they'renot connected to anything. So I think
a lot of people struggle with youknow, prepared but not planned. There's
probably something that I've just embedded inliterally every coach education person in cricket in
Australia. I've heard it quoted afew times now and I'm so glad that

(24:00):
it's called on. But even justthat notion as like, well, no,
we still have a plan. Ipromise there is a plan somewhere,
but I'm not telling you in whatorder to do it or what it should
look like. I'm prepared to giveyou the next thing that you need,
exactly when you need it, andall of that information exists somewhere. It's
there, but I'm only prepared enoughto make sure that I pay attention to

(24:23):
what you need and then service itin that way. And yes, it
is going to be probably the extentof my time in lou will be maxed
out this season, but I thinkit's still so worth it for someone who
has the energy to genuinely go outthere and do it while we can.
And yeah, I think it's justso much easier to kick over a domino
and just hope that it actually createssomething. No one's really stepping back to

(24:48):
see, Okay, well, howwe actually put these in place? So
when well, when someone does getthat momentum, when they do get that
first taste of oh I could bebetter at that, not because someone else
told me to, but because Iwant to be, then I don't think
we actually reward that initiative enough.No, exactly. Yeah, And that's
the thing I think that you knowover the years that I've heard you know,

(25:10):
and I find it's still quite fascinatingthat we have a move from this.
I mean, I'm not necessarily sayingthat we don't need some form of
qualification, but what I'm what I'mtrying to say is how somebody obtains that
is would be very very different.So I think in I can't remember exactly

(25:32):
which one it was, but Itell the story of Carol, who's one
of the coaches at my club,you haven't done at a recreational level working
with you know, the women's thirdand fourth team and doing things like you
know, back to hockey and youknow, really great at that and loads
of people playing, and you know, we see great you know, as

(25:56):
a as a chair of that club, you know, it's a really good
membership growth as a result of that. You know, it's brilliant and actually,
funnily enough, we've sort of stoppeddoing some of that stuff partly because
of not having the right people inplace to run those activities. Seen the
decline in numbers, and now we'refacing potentially having to drop a team.
So it's interesting how you know,these things need to be really thought through

(26:19):
and a lot of people. Onething I'm astounded by before I became a
pair of a community club is howfew people on the kind of governing group
we call it a committee, butyou know, I now call it the
leadership team. How many people inthat group they never really gave any thought
to who was leading the activities forthe members. Really didn't didn't think that.

(26:44):
I was like, well, anyone'sas good as anyone really, as
long as there's someone well no,no, no like so UH. Anyway,
the reason I'm saying that is becausewhen we talk about Carol, you
know, she clearly had stuff.It's pretty intangible. It's difficult necessarily to
grasp what it was because it certainlywasn't anything necessarily technical. You know,

(27:07):
I think she had a degree oftechnical knowledge, but she wasn't the strongest
necessarily. It wasn't like she was, you know, kind of high flying
player, so massively disabuses the notionthat you have to be a high level
participant in order to be a practitioneras a coach. That clearly disabuses of
that notion, but had other qualities. That was recognized by a developer who

(27:30):
was working in situ who said,I, if I had the mechanism,
the world needs more people like Carol, And if I had the mechanism,
I would give her this certification arecognition of her expertise, as opposed to
this idea that you need to havegone and done the learning thing that we've

(27:52):
designed in order for UH to ordainyou as appropriate for action. And I
think this so this idea altogether thatyou know, we must have obtained some
form of we must go through thisformal learning experience that's designed by some sort

(28:14):
of authority organization in order for anindividual to be deemed suitable or appropriate to
practice. I think it could toturn it on its head because actually we're
missing out on so many great peoplebecause of the limitations and the barriers for
them to engage. Yeah, andwe do joke a bit like especially now.

(28:37):
I'm not used to being in likea position of power, so I'm
definitely trying to see how far wecan take it. But my catchphrase more
recently is to accredit a conversation,and people think I'm kidding, I'm not.
All of our coaching courses are free, so there is no prior learning
or experience that you have to do. There aren't even realistic online modules that

(29:00):
you have to complete when you attenda coaching course, and we try to
run as many as possible throughout theseason. It is a three hour time
commitment and it's out of context.So I even I'm not the biggest fan
of that placement, but that's whatpeople expect from a coaching course, so
it's not like we can take thoseaway immediately. So I've been playing more
of the improv yes, and well, what else can we do around these

(29:22):
coaching courses. If this is whatpeople think coach learning is, great,
we'll provide those, but we'll alsogo the other way and go and visit
them in their own context. Whatif we just take the learning to them.
What if we do a follow upsession? What if we let people
request a follow up session so thatwhen they do a course and they tick
yes at the end, they getpersonalized one on one development for a night

(29:45):
for a member of staff. Youget that feeling of someone in the polo
coming down to your training session andcoaching alongside you, guiding you through that
moment, not predictating what it shouldlook like or what you're doing wrong,
and holding a checklist and saying whetheror not you've passed those competencies. I'm
sorry. The only competency that mattersis like, how much laughter is happening

(30:08):
at an under ten session? Tome? Like, if I could actually
put that on the checklist, I'lltick off any time they hear laughter.
Great, you're a community cricket coach. And so if we're already having as
low a bar as possible to getpeople into their coaching journey, why don't
we accredit those conversations. Anyone whocan go to a course like that or
not, or even just walk intocoaching for the first time and say,

(30:33):
I don't think this is activity isactually achieving what we tried to do.
But I'm going to go ask themreal quick, and then we're going to
co design, like how we adjustthis activity to get back on track to
what they wanted to learn today.I'll give you a Level three coaching qualification
for that level of reflexivity, butI can't do But that conversation alone shows
more reflection, more depth, moreintentionality than any coaching course is ever going

(30:57):
to teach you, regardless of howwell we design those formalized education offerings.
So yes, you are now officiallya community cricket coach accredited because you had
that conversation with me. Why whycan't we do that? Can't we do
that if we're the ones designing thecourses and we're the ones ticking off the
participants? Ultimately I can say thatwas a course me attending your training session,

(31:19):
and every coach I spoke to inthat context has just officially done a
community creditation. Congratulations, Like Ijust say when their actual outcomes and behaviors
are better from those interactions than anycourse that you can sign up for.
Why don't we actually just move tothe point where that is an equal learning
opportunity systemically as anything else. Yeah, I mean that's perfect, That's exactly

(31:45):
what we're talking about. But I'vegot some interesting questions I'm going to ask
you, because these are the questionsI get that. So, working alongside
a coach or group of coaches intheir contact with them and learning together and
then reflecting on our experiences and havinga you could call it a professional discussion

(32:07):
if you like, but we couldjust have a you know, a an
open community of learning style conversation aboutour experiences. All well and good,
But you're working across significant geography andscale, So how do you do that
at scale? M So we maynot have the answers to this, by

(32:30):
the way, we can co createthem together, but let's talk about that
exactly. No, I'm more thanhappy to you. I love these kind
of conversations to see where our actualroadblocks are or where the systemic issues might
come. But we're really lucky inthat we have amazing staff in every regional
area. So, and that's probablyone of the benefits of working for such

(32:52):
an organization that's actually committed genuinely tocommunity sport in that we made everybody go
through a coach develop a training.When we had the opportunity to do a
road show where our national governing bodycame along and actually provided us with upskilling
and training, we took that veryseriously, and every single person in the
department, including the specialist areas whodon't actually work directly with coaches, all

(33:15):
did the same level of coach developertraining. So there's not a single person
in that office that I would worryif a coach ever came up to them
and asked them a question. Iknow that their line of questioning and the
potential answers that might fall out ofthat conversation are probably exactly what I would
think of as well, and ifanything, they might be better because they're
closer to that context. They're hopefullyworking with those stakeholders more closely than I

(33:38):
can, because that is their role. I'm only in charge of learning in
development. I don't actually get todo the site visits as often as some
others, so regionally, I'm reallyhappy with the way that we have dedicated
our staff and our own learning anddevelopment as staff members to make sure that
anyone can have those conversations, sothat helps. And in terms of scale,

(33:59):
because we're at the point now wherewe're working through a new national coach
development framework, we've actually decided thatour most important stakeholders are the ones that
don't know any better. So insteadof trying to service everybody in exactly the
same way at exactly the same time, we wanted to prioritize the people who
are new to cricket because that isit's easily one of the most intimidating sports.

(34:21):
People apologize to me for not knowingcricket, which I think is just
sad, Like you shouldn't have toapologize for not knowing a sport. I
should apologize for not remembering the positionsin basketball, like I've be scrutified to
apologize every sport I don't know themechanics of so targeting every single community coach
that is brand new or at thefirst stage of learning, so for us,

(34:44):
that's sort of like under tends tounder thirteens. Those are the coaches
that we are going hard and fastat to make sure that their first experience
of coaching, just like an athleteis not isolated, is not unsupported,
and it is not feeling like youhave no idea what to do next,
and then we can scale up fromthere. I think a lot of the

(35:04):
people who are working in the higheststages with older children in particular, of
course, their learning needs are different, so we can tackle those in different
contexts. We can bring them togetherand probably have richer discussions because their challenges
and problems are quite complex and havingthe space to talk about them might be
more beneficial than someone who genuinely justdoesn't know how to set up the wickets

(35:25):
on the weekend, or how farthe pitch is or how long the boundaries
are. So trying to make surethat we actually provide more tailored support to
the beginners, to the people whojust starting their coaching journey has allowed us
to kind of target who needs thatsupport to start with, and then we
can scale all that, not inthe way of spending the same amount of

(35:45):
time in the same amount of context, but actually redesigning it for the existing
coaches so it is more suitable towhat they need from them and building those
connections within clubs. There's going tobe a big piece for us. I
really love to have just one personwho loves coaching as the first tax point
in every club, and just theirjob is just to tap someone on the

(36:07):
shoulder at training and be like,hey, how are you doing? That's
it. That's your job as thecoaching champion is to ask how another coach
is doing. That's it job done. So as you move forward, your
goal would be do you've got whatclearly you've already got. You've got a
stack that are now more equipped tobe able to support coaches on the ground,

(36:30):
recognizing the value of that workforce you'retargeted in terms of yeah, we're
not going to try and be allthings toward people. We're going to focus
a little bit on a particular prioritygroup and we're going to give them the
support that they need because we knowthat that's going to be a acute need
there. And probably where you seethe most prop off I guessed and then
and then and order and to augmentthat, identify and support people within the

(36:58):
club environment to do that pastoral supportas well, because they've got some qualities
that you can identify. So there'sthat sort of informal peer to peer support
combined with more slightly you know,semi formal relationship with a stapping you know,
like the polo shirt. Like yousay, who can come in and
give that sort of verification. Okay, so that's that's good. Now.

(37:21):
One thing that's interesting is is thatI hit one of the things I hear
a lot, you see, isthe reason I ask that question is it's
a question I get asked a lot. Oh yeah, it's all very well,
we can do we can do insitu coach developments, you know,
but we can do that in thesort of talent pathway or performance because they've
got less coaches there. But whenyou're going to try to do it at
scale, we just haven't got thecapabilities. But they have because they're spending
a fortune on tutors to deliver courses. So what if you re what if

(37:47):
you sort of reappropriated that workforce tobecome more about we're not going to do
our tutoring in We're not gonna doour tutoring in these courses. What we're
gonna do is we're gonna do thelearning in the place where the coach are.
Now that changes to the dynamics,but the workforce exists. It just
needs to be kind of repurposed.It's where you put your value right,

(38:09):
Like to me, if we wereto have to index the quality of learning
experience in a course that takes youaway from everyone that you're working with,
away from the unique cultural and environmentalconstraints that you have to go back into,
and then give you these tasks thatyou think you can already do and
we're more than capable of doing beforeyou left, but now can't do back

(38:31):
in that environment because there is somethingdifferent about having eleven year old staring up
at you I'm wondering what to donext, and parents glaring from their cars,
and allocated space in the nets thatyou have to use because somebody else
told you to. So going outin the field feels impossible right now,
Like there are so many things thatare just it's almost like we're adding bricks

(38:53):
on somebody's back and then we takethem all off to do a course and
we put them back on again andsay, now go and do thing you
just learn how to do. Whyon earth would anybody want to carry around
that bag of bricks Like I wouldmuch rather stand next to them and carry
those bricks for a night, soI remember what it feels like and then
go, Okay, if that iswhat you're dealing with in a context.

(39:15):
What else can I do around thatcoach to make sure that load gets lighter
Because the power of working in anorganization isn't just the fact that I can
show up in a polo shit,is that I have an entire staff behind
me who is looking at club development, who is looking at volunteer recognition,
who is making sure that every diversitygroup feels catered to. Like our job

(39:36):
isn't just that one person, butalso to making the whole load way easier
to carry. And so I thinkwe missed that when we only do courses
because we don't feel what those otherenvironmental, social cultural constraints are that they
deal with every day and can't tellus about because they don't know they're there
until they hit them, until theywant to try and change their behavior.

(39:58):
And there is even have to bea tangible thing. Sometimes it's just the
feeling of a coach looking at theback of your head. You're like,
oh, I'm not gonna I'm notgoing to go be adventurous today because that
head coach is looking at me likeI'm an idiot for being out in the
field right now. Like any examplethat I use like that is something that
I've felt in my coaching career.I've had parents turn on headlights behind nets

(40:19):
that I've been coaching in trying tomake them fun by carrying a deck of
cards at all times and making kidscome up with their own games to try
and you know, make even themost dry coaching environment entertaining. And because
they disagreed with it, they flashedtheir headlights at me. So we immediately
said the car was worth a hundredpoints by all means, go hit it

(40:40):
like sh like, come on,why would anyone want to change their behavior.
We're teaching them something away from allof the things that are going to
stop them from changing that behavior.So to me, like as much learning
as you can do. If it'sone hundred points for doing a course,
I'm sorry, but anything that theylearn in context is probably worth two.
So why would I waste my timewhen I can maximize my impact by just

(41:05):
going to see that person? AndI think it's a very hard sell.
It's still a hard sell. I'mstill trying to work out what my kpms
are this season so I can sellit to every version of management that I
have to respond to. But tohear other people keen to do similar things
to hear staff be like, youmean, I can go out there and
do a workshop absolutely, because youknow exactly what they need. Because they're

(41:28):
telling you. Why not respond tothat, I'm not going to hear it.
Why make them say it twice?Go out there and design the thing
with them, and we'll probably havea better learning environment than any course could
give them anyway. Right, Ilike this notion of a bag of bricks.
Exactly what we heard when listening thecoaches was the role, the demands

(41:53):
and the burden of the role isincreasing because the expectations a higher that the
actual capability you need to be ableto manage young people nowadays, where particularly
with you know, got much muchmore young people with diagnosed behavioral difficulties who

(42:14):
need to be catered for. Youcan't just say no, and you know,
and all those sort of things.The skills required, capabilities, the
dispositions, the attitude, the mindsetare such that you know, it's really
and not only that the compliance stuff, you know, the safe to practice,
not decrying any of that. It'simportant. You know, you need
to you know, need to doall that sort of stuff. And I

(42:35):
think there is a responsibility to providesome of the kind of the basic building
blocks around working with different young people, safeguarding, you know, to help
practitioners avoid inadvertently contravening. You know, the safe to practice construct is important.
But yeah, that shouldn't be presentedas a burden, just another burden.

(43:00):
And this is the problem is isthat whenever there's a challenge, oh
is another training course to do,and the training course is designed to alleviate
the burden, but in reality it'sjust another burden. So the bag of
bricks gets heavier because it's a differentlevel of expectation. I've learned this,
I must do that, and sothe burden gets heavier, and eventually people
just get weighed down by it.And the problem is is that the resource

(43:22):
is just don't keep pace. Sothe role, the demands of the role
increase. The resource is don't keeppace, and any resources provided actually just
create more demands, and no doubt, you know, no surprise is it.
People leave And this is why we'retalking about fixing the leaky bucket.
People just decide I'm disenchanted, I'mundervalued and demotivated and burnt out. I'm

(43:45):
actually quite afraid all these emotions comethrough and people just decide, well,
I'm just going to walk away fromwhatever the role is. And I've experienced
that myself, walking away having felttaking advantage of, you know, while
the reap the benefits of my voluntaryfree labor, you know, and is

(44:06):
making thousands of pounds in membership feesand this, that and the other,
investing very little into supporting coaches,providing very little to provide coaches, you
know, getting the days where aclub thinks, well, will give you
a hoodie, you know, andit's good enough, right no, no,
no, no, no, comeon, So it'd less less think
a little bit differently and recognize theskills involved. So, you know,

(44:29):
so and I walk away, youwalk away. Eventually, I'm not doing
it anymore because now you're just Ifeel like you're taking advantage. You're not.
You're not providing, you know,any more acts of recognition. That
makes such a difference. But anyway, the long story short is, if
organizations bought the organizations would would liketheir their kind of environment to be throughout

(44:54):
our environments where people thrive, notjust the participants but also practitioners, somewhere
that's joyful, you know, andthere's a great experience for everybody. Then
it's worth thinking about this in adifferent way because otherwise, eventually people will
begin to just walk away. Andyou know, if you then end up

(45:15):
having to just pay people to dothe job, and that's fine, but
all that does then is increase cost, which then prevents people from participating or
whatever it might be. Or ifyou want to foot the bill, you
can do that if you want to, you know, And but I've done
the maths on voluntary labor. Ifhe take say England, where you've got

(45:35):
approximately one point seven million volunteers doingat least one hour a week of voluntary
coaching, if you were just topay them minimum wage, which over here
is about eleven pounds twenty three orsomething, you know, adds up to
something like, you know, nineteenmillion pounds a week. I mean,
if anybody wants to find nineteen millionpounds a week to pay these volunteers,
you can, or you can supportthem a bit and they'll carry on doing

(45:58):
the job with a great big smileon their face, making everybody happy.
Not that difficult to do this,And I believe that the I'm trying to
create a bit of a burning platformbecause I actually genuinely believe that community sports
is at a bit of a crossroadsand a bit of a knife edge where
expectations are rightly increasing. I don'tthink that's a problem. I think it's

(46:19):
but like I've said in my ownclub environment, I don't believe that being
able to run a community sports clubentirely on voluntary labor is either moral or
possible. Like I think, ifI've got a lead coach with a lead
coach responsibility, then I'm going tofind a method of remuneration to recognize the

(46:42):
role that they play. It thenmeans that you can have volunteers working under
the lead coach. Because those volunteers, if they can't turn up, it
doesn't mean a session won't run.But when you have somebody as a lead
coach who then becomes it says like, well, if you don't turn up,
we can't run the session. They'renot volunteers, they're unpaid, paid
workers. And people who are unpaidworkers, after a particular point in time

(47:05):
begin to start to question Nang ona second, why am I doing that?
Most people do it through the love, the joy, the passion.
I've got no problem with that.We always we never ever want to take
that away. But in my particularcontext, I'm going to recognize those people
by providing them with some form ofremuneration. Now, it doesn't mean they're
getting paid. We do a lotthrough what we call like an honorarian right.
It's just a recognition that you know, there's a piece of for it.

(47:29):
Most people don't take it, orthey donate it to foundation or a
charity of their choice. Perfectly happyfor them to do that, entirely fine.
But it's more the act of recognitionthat is the reason we've done it.
Yeah. Yeah, I think weunderestimate how much that means, and
we probably instead of sharing the roles, like I've been thinking a lot more

(47:52):
recently around like why do we onlyhave one coach when we have at least
and especially in a lot of oursports team sports where you probably have a
minimum of like eleven kids, probablycloser to fifteen for you know, if
you want to get the right numberof kids on the park. A friend
of mine in crime Can Tredeller,actually does this perfect example of any time
you watch a press conference for aprofessional sport, they've probably got twenty other

(48:15):
staff members that have briefed them onwhat they should say in the presser.
They've got your head of you know, strength and conditioning, you've got your
physio. You've got multiple skill specificcoaches sometimes as well to train a professional
squad of people. And you've gotone person standing in the middle of the
field of twelve kids who do notwant to be there because they've just had

(48:37):
a bad day at school. Andyet we expect the same level of performance
from that one person in the middleof a field compared to an entire workforce
who are very well paid in aprofessional context. Who said it had to
be one person. I was tryingto think of ways in my first season
of different ways that we can seewhether or not, like there's an innovation

(48:59):
in coaching, what does that looklike if we actually go down to the
system and have a look at it. And to me, it was having
more than one coach working on ateam at the same time. It was,
you know, like, I lovethe idea of having mini leadership teams
that all do their own thing withinnercontext, especially in a sport like cricket
where game day is man management,it's not actually any sort of level of

(49:22):
you know, learning and development.It's a great opportunity to be like,
WHOA, we need to work onthat training next week. But other than
that, it's very much just balancingit so that everybody has an equal opportunity
on the morning. And that isit. That could be, That could
be a task that somebody does thatone person does. Okay, your job
is just to make sure that whenwe do the team list this week,
we've actually changed it up enough sothat every person gets a fair go in

(49:45):
the batting order. That is yourtask that you have. I need a
task. I need someone to lookafter fielding this week because our fielding was
terrible. I need one person tocome up with a fielding activity that we
can do, and if you setit up over there, I'll do a
batting activity. And now we've justdistributed those roles over three people instead of
one. Now, I think alot of the reasons why people don't want

(50:07):
to volunteers because they're expected to dofifty million things in a season. But
what if we didn't, because asyou were saying, you know, what
if you know eleven one million peopledid one hour, It's never just an
hour. I wish it was justan hour, but it never is.
But it could be if you actuallyspread the load across more people, it
could just be an hour over threeor four people who are already going to

(50:30):
be there anyway. Why don't wetry to make it easier on each other,
Like, don't we spread the loada bit more? And it's just
because a lot of these tasks theyseem way too big because one person has
traditionally taken them all on and nowthey're walking around with the bag of bricks.
But you could easily redistribute those andthat actor what you're talking about there

(50:50):
is a good one. So thatacts as a barrier again from people stepping
forward because they believe they've got tohave all of these things to going back
to your point about like people whoare a non cricket specialist thinking that they
can't play a role in coaching.No, no, hang on, we've
got a team and that that person'sgot the cricket knowledge, so you've got

(51:12):
that cupboard. What they haven't gotis maybe the some of the qualities whereby
they can sort of tap into motivationsof young people and understand more about some
of their social emotional development. Ifwe've got somebody who can do that,
so that when, for example,inevitably somebody's you know, got out for
a golden dock or something and they'recrying because they're like ten and they're forced

(51:34):
to play. You're out, You'reout cricket. Still don't understand that,
But let's just let's leave that asidefor one second. Thank you, Thankfully
it anymore. But yes, okay, yeah still goes on, you know,
and you've got a life. Sowhen you've got a ten year old
crying their eyes out because basically theday's over and it's the end of the
world and they're humiliated in front ofall their friends, there's someone who's going
to put an arm around them andgive them a and give them a whole
you know. You don't need anytechnical knowledge to do that. And in

(51:55):
actual fact, sometimes having that kindof technical knowledge means you're only focused on
the game and you're not focused onthe well being. So actually, if
we could blend a series of skillstogether, we're not going to because in
the community context with a volunteer,you're not going to find somebody with a
whole package. But what you mightdo is in the aggregate, put together
four people or two or three peoplewho blend their skills together and actually provide

(52:17):
the entire package to everybody. Yeah, and I just don't think we see
it. It's a being a bigpush lately as redefined volunteering is something that
it's like micro volunteering. Well,you're actually going to have to do this
one task. And I've really lovedhearing that shift, because yeah, I
could do that. I don't reallyknow the whole game of basketball, but

(52:38):
I could do one activity and Icould then have feedback on that. Actually
vit be like, great, okay, will you leave that with me.
I'll make that change over here.I'll keep these kids busy. You go
do the thing that's like hypertechnical thatthey need to learn. Right now,
I'm just going to go play thetag games. So I'm going to go
make kids dribble with a tennis ballin their hand to actually get them to
control the ball. That stuff Ican do. I can do that and

(53:00):
just about any sport nowadays, becauseI've spent so much time across different sports.
But we just don't leverage that.Like I guarantee you there are people
on those sidelines of every single trainingenvironment, of every single sport who know
way more than they think they dobut have stopped themselves or stepping out on
the field because they don't have thisperceived technical knowledge that you need as your

(53:23):
entry ticket. What if I toldyou that caring about kids is your entry
ticket, you are now officially acoach. And even better, you don't
need to have those that knowledge becausewe have an entire application filled with activity
ideas that you can go into toactually find something to do if you don't

(53:43):
know where to start. So evenwhen we have these like much easier entry
points, we're still too scared tostep out of that space on the sideline,
that peripheral space because nobody's invited themin and that looks way too.
I don't want to be the headcoach, don't have to deal with everything.
I don't want to sit there andcount five minutes. Okay, Johnny,

(54:04):
you need to pat it up nowbecause you're about to go into the
net for five minutes, five fiveminutes. I could stare out the window
for five minutes and wonder where thatfive minutes went, Like that's how am
I going to learn anything in thattime? So yeah, we have a
lot of sort of perceived barriers,just as anything else, to make sure
that we people actually feel like theirknowledge and experience is valued regardless of the

(54:28):
context that you're in. If youumpire in a different sport, great come
and umpire cricket because you've got thetemperament that we need to deal with people
who are yelling in your face.Thank you. I can't do that,
so please come along, Please doanything you want in every context. But
yeah, we just don't really tapinto it enough. It's interesting because I

(54:51):
think people don't sort of fully realize. So there's an additional value in relating
to what you're talking about here tohave it the I call it an institue,
but let's talk at it. Let'ssort of like a you know,
a context led workforce. So youhave whether it's you have that or you
have peamental based in your environment.The additional advantage of that is what I

(55:16):
call the who me affect? Sofor whom this? So this is people
who have no idea of their skillsand qualities and somebody boxed it in them.
You know the kind of the peoplepeople and says, you know what
you'd be, you'd make a reallygood coach, and they go, who

(55:37):
me because they didn't know their assumptionof coach is like a very what every
technical knowledge, generally speaking, male, generally speaking, dominant personality, generally
speaking, instructing. That's their imageof coach. And when you say to

(56:01):
them, actually, coaches, thisdoes this sound like you? Because you
have these qualities and we we'd lovethose qualities to be part of our coaching
infrastructure. And we've got some interestingresearch that we did with a couple of
sports around this it's whom effect andwhat it helped. It helped to diversify
the workforce because particularly when it cameto women who didn't see themselves, they

(56:24):
didn't see themselves as coaches because theimage then you were able to find people
who had these qualities. Most famouslyis that it's actually netball. They were
looking for coaches or a particular participationproduct that they'd created, which was called
walking netball. So it was targetingan older demographic and it was about engaging

(56:46):
people in the sport and using thatas a form of physical activity and health,
et cetera, et cetera. Andthey knew that they weren't going to
look find the word coach really,you know, so coaches often an organizers
of activities, you know, theycreate the experience for others without necessarily the
sort of technical space, you're stillcreating a space. And they said,

(57:08):
well, there's no way these peopleare going to resonate with the word coach.
So they created they created the termparty host. They have a walking
netball party host. And the waythey found them was they would what do
session happen, and then wait tosee the people who were there, like,

(57:28):
you know, half an hour,three quarters of an hour afterwards,
still chatting to everybody the social glue, and they'd say, you'd make a
great party host, and then therest would then snowball from there. So
it's interesting how these innovations in differentkind of context based on the audience that
you're engaging with and the qualities youneed in an individual in order to engage

(57:52):
that audience and then designing recruitment strategiesand learning experience for those individuals based off
the context, and how powerful thatcan be to support participation and growth and
diversity them as well. Yeah,I've always struggled with female only coaching courses

(58:15):
for that reason, because I thinkit just reinforces the fact that you don't
belong in a space where everybody elseis learning how to coach, like,
your context has to be uniquely different, even though every context and every coach
in that room is actually different.You have to be in your own space
away from everybody else. And it'salways really annoyed me because when we do

(58:37):
break it down to skills and characteristics. I did this in a workshop recently
that I was a part of.Well, we had to draw our ultimate
Cricket Blast coordinator. So for us, Cricket Blasts is similar to All Stars,
a sort of five to ten yearolds. It's an entry level program
for kids. It's mostly game based, but you hide the skill learning and
a lot of engaging activities. It'sfun, it's loud, it's chaos,

(59:00):
and so the ultimate people in thosespaces are often adaptable, great communicators,
patient through school teachers like those arethe kind of people that you want to
run those contexts. And when wehad to draw them, like actually physically
draw a person, it's usually drawnas like a twenty year old woman,
because those are the kind of peoplewho are energetic enough to match the kids

(59:22):
and could probably walk around with kigshanging off their legs if they want it.
It'd be perfectly fine and still havethe session going. On flawlessly.
But those aren't the people who areactually our coordinators in real life. If
I were to drive around person actuallyhave a look at our cricket blast coordinators,
we have so few who are actuallythat person. So somewhere along the

(59:42):
way we've miscommunicated the message of whatmakes a good facilitator in that context who
our coordinators actually are. And soI said, great, well, I'm
so glad we've all drawn this youngwoman. But now our only measure that
matters is whether or not you actuallysee more people who look like that you
do your training, because you've communicatedeffectively that those are the skills and characteristics

(01:00:05):
that make someone good at this role. And again, we're trying to move
away from roles where possible and tryto see it as tasks. But even
then we don't really reach out tothose people on the sidelines and say,
hey, I think you'd be reallygood at this. Can you just go
and catch a ball with Sam?Because she's like just really needs a friend
right now, and the other kidsare annoying her, Like, I don't
even care if you know who thatchild is. Right now, our job

(01:00:28):
is to make sure everyone feels included. So yeah, I do find that
when we break it down two skillsand characteristics, it's amazing how many people
think of their female mentors and theirlives or you know, people who have
had a positive influence in their sportingcontext. In that area, it's usually
females. Yeah, I mean somethingyou said right at the start of that,

(01:00:49):
which was about this idea of femaleonly coaching courses. So personally,
of course it. See it's theonly tool you've got is a hammer.
Every problem looks like a nail,right, The answer to every single issue
is a core. Right. SoI've got this mantra about like a stole

(01:01:09):
it from Harold Yarky, who's afamous learning and development consultant. He talked
about like what would you do anythinganything? Book courses? If you couldn't
do a course, what else wouldyou do? So, like, you
know, I do think if wecould almost as a constraint on coach education,
if you ban that the notion ofcauses as a constraint, what other

(01:01:32):
things would we create to support coaches? It would be interesting, wouldn't it.
My boss is going to hate me, but yeah, I will say
one of the things I do haveto do is to find like an exploration
KPI. I love that a lot. We've gotten to the point where one
of my things has to genuinely beto explore, and I'm going to have

(01:01:52):
a two week period. I thinkthere's going to be a Fortnite where we
just run anything BUTOK courses and runwith that idea and then just get people
to brainstorm this. I call thisthe parable of the toxic fish. So
basically, what happens with something likea female only course, I understand it,
right. The idea is we're goingto create a safe space, and

(01:02:15):
it's going to be a place thatmight attract more individuals. We can talk
about the unique issues faith and youknow, we can have a different kind
of concept. Understand that, right. So yeah, but the problem you've
got with that is that so whatyou've got is you've got you've got this
fifth that's living in the colluded lakescalled community sports, right with all of

(01:02:37):
the issues around sexism and misogyny andall the other bits and pieces that exist
often in the community sports space,particularly in traditionally male dominated sports that have
now obviously opened their doors but havestill got a lot of that kind of
embedded cultural stuff not necessarily overt,but still there underneath, rippling away.

(01:03:00):
So and so you've got this sortof toxic lake, and you take the
fish out and you put it intolovely, new fresh tank and it gets
better and it has a lovely experienceand it's now really healthy. And then
you go, right, you're nowreally healthy. Fish come back into your
toxic lake. What happens They dieor they get so we're not dealing with

(01:03:24):
the lake, We're dealing with thefish in the lake. So I've heard
this used before by groups groups focusedon the idea of women in coaching,
So you know focus groups that areor think tank that are working around this
space, and one of the thingsthey say often is we need to fix
the fifdom, not the women.And the assumption is that we need to

(01:03:45):
do female coaching courses because there's somethinginherently, you know, there's a defect
in females, which means they can'tcoach. So we do these courses so
that they can they can coach andthey can come back and coach in the
world. But actually the reality isthey're not. There's not a defect.
There's a defect in the cultural fabricthat means that women often feel very unwelcome

(01:04:08):
in those environments, or at thevery least not necessarily directly unwelcome, but
they feel, what's the word,they don't belong senter belonging and always having
to prove their worth, whereas theirmale counterparts don't have that same sense of
responsibility. They're they're apported a deferencebecause of the fact because of their maleness,

(01:04:31):
and presumably also because of their experiencespreviously. So I mean, I'm
not I have obviously speaking third handhere because obviously I haven't had those experiences
myself. But this is what youknow, these are the things that have
I've learned and learned through studying andworking alongside these individuals and the things that
they say, and it feels veryreal to me because actually I've experienced those

(01:04:55):
things myself. But you know,as a you know, somebody who's male,
pale, and stale, I've stillexperienced, you know, when I've
been coaching in environments that I'm notnecessarily versed in, experienced that level of
automatic feeling of not belonging because you'renot of the of the system. I've

(01:05:15):
worked in sports where I don't belongin the sport because I haven't been rooted
in the sport and I've I've beenothered in those worlds, so totally,
I totally understand how that can feelfor people. Hmm. I was pulling
a face there because hockey was likeone of those sports for me where I
showed up and they were like,what are you doing here? You've never

(01:05:36):
played hockey before? What on earthare you trying to do? I don't
know, mate. I bought ahockey stick off Facebook marketplace. I'm wearing
normal shoes and football shin pads insteadof hockey shin pads because I haven't decided
if I like your sport enough toactually buy the kids. What's the worst
that could happen. I make afool of myself and it's not your problem,
Like, just let me train,buddy. I think it's fine.

(01:05:59):
And they're like, okay, butthat's weird, Like why on earth would
you pick up this sport at liketwenty seven? I was like, why
wouldn't you? It's a sport,it's dip seven? God, what am
I going to do? Miss theball between my legs? Wow? I've
seen someone else do that five timesin the warm up and they've played hockey
their whole lives. So I feellike I'm going to be okay as long

(01:06:19):
as I can trust the ball.Right now, you're not setting the bar
very high, buddy, But sportis very much like that they love to
be like, unless you've been inthis your whole life, you couldn't possibly
understand the complexity of what we're tryingto do here. My complexity is I'm
trying to make a six year oldkid laugh with a cricket ball in his
hand. That is my objective here. I think you've maybe over complicated what

(01:06:42):
we're trying to achieve. First ofall, I spent way too much time
trying to pick what the color ofthe toxic lake should be. By the
way am I drawing, because that'sexactly it, And I think that is
the same in every context. Itdoesn't matter which way you slice it.
That is exactly where it feels likewe're taking people out of the toxic environment.
We're pretending like we're helping them inthis perfectly sterile world, and then
we're throwing them back in there andbe like, why didn't you change your

(01:07:05):
behavior? You're now a bad coachbecause you did a Level one coaching course,
but you're not a better coach becauseyou didn't change. Why would they
change. That's struggling for their livesright now in this toxic water. I
may have a presentation on Friday whereI will absolutely use this analogy. I
am. I would be delighted foryou to do so. I've even got

(01:07:26):
a visual for you if you wantone, I can share. Yes,
please, people atting sick of mymind? Absolute work. I uh yeah,
I mean, you know it's funnythough, because it goes this goes
back to the sort of coach educationis broken construck because this notion of courses
as a mechanism for learning, solike you'll know as well as I do,
I think it was ebbing how youknow, probably about what is it

(01:07:46):
sixty odd years ago maybe longer thatcame up with the old forgetting than the
notion that you know, you dothese formal learning experiences where you candense learning
into a very short time frame forefficiency's sake, and the assumption being is
all that knowledge is going to magicallytransfer into practice. Well, we know

(01:08:06):
from our own kind of ecological understandings, you know, both inversed in that
research that transfer gills transfer doesn't worklike that anyway, you know what's learning
something out of context. But secondly, so we use the ineffective learning paradigm

(01:08:29):
as a mechanism to try and impartknowledge into a human being. That it's
like, it's going to put knowledgeinto you, and it's the idea is
is that knowledge is going to gointo the brain and magically transform into behavior
in context. Right. Well,so we know this is a flawed construct
from the get go, but thisis the idea that this is based upon,

(01:08:54):
and this is where it's It's rooted, very very rooted in a lot
of educational paradigms, and we justre create it for adults and expect different
results. Right. So, butwe're not doing we're not equipping people for
the challenges they go into faith becausewe're using a paradigm that is perfectly designed

(01:09:15):
to not do that. And oneof the reasons we do that use that
paradigm is because we're driven by notionsof compliance that we are given a KPI
that we must verify an individual competenceat a moment in time so that we
can meet the demands that we needto meet in order to be able to
service our sports. Right, Sowe do it in the most efficient way

(01:09:38):
possible at the expense of effectiveness.Now problem again, so that that that
in itself is a problem, themodel and the paradigm is a problem,
but equally and the secondary problem isthat those individuals are then ill equipped with
the job. And like you say, you know, you said, you
know, the job is make ora ten year old laugh, you know,

(01:10:02):
with a ball in the hand.You know, it doesn't have to
be any more complicated than that,right, That's that's our goal here.
But you know, inherently there aresome other complexities involved with us. But
the problem you got is is thatyou're not going to cover off all those
eventualities. And the reality is isthat because you're in a time constrained environment,

(01:10:23):
you know, whether it's a weekendor it's two weekends or have And
of course the longer you make itthe more the more it becomes a barrier,
the more it becomes a burden.So you're forced by the fact that
people have got limited time nowadays,that you've got to do things in this
compressed time window. We package itall together, we do it as quickly
as possible, and you can't coveroff all the eventualities. So then you

(01:10:45):
leave people to go into the wildernessand they're just like, wow, my
god, it's like you know,and they're they're stumbling into all sorts of
different pitfalls and they don't know howto handle it. They make loads of
mistakes, they find it really difficult. Now, of course you can put
a guide by the side as wellto help them through that journey, and
then that's definitely the most powerful learningmodel, And then you can then you

(01:11:06):
can re examine that later. Youcan engage them afterwards and make sure that
they're developing on the journey, andyou can give them sort of accreditation as
they go. So there's no longerthis notion of CPD. I go on
a course tender course, I getrewarded for my attendants, and off we
go from that. You know,CPD is actually just a recognition of the
things that you're experiencing and your abilityto reflect upon them positively with another actually

(01:11:30):
brilliant Like you've learned something huge there. You had a really terrible experience that
you've managed to sort of make senseof, and now you're going to do
something differently going forward. Oh lookhow your behaviors change from like three months
ago when you were really struggling inthis space and now you're engaging with questions.
It's really changed, hasn't it.It's really changed the environment that you're
operating within. Somebody else recognizing thateven though you may not, even though
you're doing it yourself. Well,somebody coming along and saying, oh,

(01:11:53):
by the way, I noticed youwere doing this over here. Did you
see yourself doing that no amazing thingthat you've done there? Or did you
notice that time that you were thereand he was talking to that individual for
quite a long time, and younotice how the other people started to disengage.
Now, I didn't see that.So it's being the eyes and ears
around someone. It's so powerful,it's so enormously supportive. So this flipping

(01:12:16):
of the script a little bit,it doesn't necessarily have to be entirely throw
the baby at the bath wall toget rid of this notion, of course,
but just recognize its role. We'reasking qualifications and coach education to carry
too much water. And what we'renow saying is is actually, let us
recognize that it's part of it couldbe it doesn't have to be, but

(01:12:39):
it could be part of the learningexperience. But it's a small part it's
about some basic stuff to give youa learning experience to begin with, but
it's it's a very very small partof an overall learning journey, and the
learning journey is what you then goon to do and you go on to
continue to do on an ongoing basis. Yeah, and I think we can

(01:13:02):
still take elements of those and putthem back in those formal education environments,
right Like I would like to thinkthat a lot of the time we spend,
you know, the first thirty minutesof a session, is actually just
asking people the kind of coach thatthey want to be. What does what
if someone was to drive past yourtraining session right now, what do you
hope they would see when you werethere at training and we do a drive

(01:13:24):
by. We also ask about thereasons why they get into coaching. Why
were you the last person to stepback? We all know you're volunteered to
be here, and that's perfectly fineown that, Like, why has you
accepted that role now instead of just, you know, trying to palm it
off onto someone else, because somewheredeep down you said, you know what,
I can I can do this orI need to do this for the

(01:13:45):
sake of other people. Great,I can leverage that within this environment and
speak to that. But ultimately,I think one of my favorite things that
we did last season was we triedto get realistic challenges going. So we
would ask people, hey, here'sa particular skill that a lot of people
spend time in this space. Iwant you to come up with a problem
that you have at training around theskill and the activity that you would use

(01:14:08):
to try and address that, andthen we'll co design what we can do
in that moment if we notice thatsomething's missing, if maybe we have someone
who's difficult or different or has adifferent set of needs, and we cater
for all of those people within thisawesome activity that you're already doing. So
we start with that validation of yourability to design an activity by showing us

(01:14:29):
what you do in your own context, and then we can work through those
activities together so that you have theconfidence and competence to actually change them when
something doesn't work. And I likethat's I think that's the best that we
can do in a formal education space. But it's so much better than just
being like, here are our bestcase scenarios. Here is the best practice
activities. This is what you shouldbe doing unless someone asks us. For

(01:14:51):
those, we've got them ready,but we're not going to set them out
unless we have to. The onlyones we do for the difficult skills,
like you know we can keeping orspin bowling, which people don't even know
where to start in terms of askinga question. So we try to make
the barrier to entry as well aspossible. Here, Let's just see how
many times we can make this forcemanhere, Let's try and wrap it around
a code or something to make itseem less intimidating in that space when we

(01:15:14):
do have them. But I dolove the idea of if we are going
to move away from these spaces wherewe have an over reliance I guess on
the formal elements that we don't losethe social elements of them too. Like
to me, that's something that weneed to recreate in different contexts and get
people working together. And something Ipicked up recently from this amazing week that

(01:15:36):
I spent in New Zealand with theircricket people was I coach, we coach,
you coach This idea that when youare on site with a coach,
if they are really struggling, youcan step in and make an adjustment as
a coach developer and then step backout and reflect on that process. Right,
I can coach for you in thatsecond, but ultimately we coach together.

(01:15:58):
We are now working on this problemto get so you don't have to
do it alone. And then we'llget to the point where you know,
you go coach and you come tellme about it. You don't need me
there in that context as much asyou did before one off. Our coach
development was exactly the same. Theeye coach is a workshop for a very
technical thing that a lot of peoplewant to know about. The we coach
is actually going into those social learningspaces. But you know what we're going

(01:16:21):
to add kids this time, We'regoing to get a team down, We're
going to do something so it doesfeel like we're really coaching together, not
that you're coming to me for help, even though that's what traditionally a course
is. And then the you coachis that site visit. Can we follow
up with you? Can we followyour journey? Can we keep that touch
point? Can we send somebody elseout there? Can we ask your club

(01:16:44):
how you're doing so that you arecoaching out there, but you're not doing
it by yourself. You are nowthe lead of this journey, not us,
Like that's something that I hadn't connectedthose two pieces until we had this
conversation. Wow, we just piellowcity chair at the bottom corner of my
planning seasons perfect. So can youbelieve we've been going at this for nearly

(01:17:13):
ninety minutes. I was looking atthe time, thinking it's going to listen
to Oh, you'd be surprised.Those people who make journeys across countries that
last five days. They need stuffto listen to, right, So true,
ran out of albums very quickly,I can imagine, so arguing about

(01:17:33):
what you're going to play next.Hey, listen, I've I'm glad we
could reconnect. It's been too long. I'd like to keep the momentum of
this and keep keep these conversations going. It's great to hear that. You
know, you're kind of at thecold face now of obviously taking some of

(01:17:55):
the things that you've studied and learnedand now placing that into how you can
support others to have gleeful experiences.Because, let's face it, we talk
a lot about the difficulties and demandsand everything else, but largely speaking and
for the most part, coaching isa pretty joyful experience. You know,
I miss a lot of my Fridayevenings on the cricket field, and I
you know, I've stepped away becauseyou know, it was the right thing

(01:18:16):
for me at the time for myown well being. But I do miss
it. It was a big partof my social life. It was a
big part of you know, mychildren's upbringing. And I used to love
those days when you know, we'dfinished the coaching session and you know,
having a beer and watching the kidsall play on the park and that you
know they're doing the proper skill developmentthere aren't they They're really like inventing their

(01:18:38):
own games and things. I reallymiss it, and it is a genuinely
joyful experience, and I, youknow, always want to provide the support
that we possibly can. So thereason for the shift, I suppose,
and the reason for this sort ofyou know, kind of reconceptualization of coach
ed is because you know, weshould value those people who are prepared to
put their hands up and do thisand not just expect that, oh,

(01:18:59):
well we'll get someone else, someoneelse will come along, someone else will
come along. Anyone's as good asanyone else. I just don't. I
think we really need to rethink thatconstruct. Yeah, and I look forward
to now that this is my secondseason at it. We spent so much
time talking to as many people aswe can get our hands on and say
what do you want from the season. And I mean that quite genuinely.

(01:19:21):
I'm not saying it because I'm hereto be like, great, well,
I'm going to go against that.No, I would rather do absolutely none
of what we did last season ifnone of it suited anybody in this space.
But we don't have that level offeedback yet, so we are very
much running on both We're running onthe fumes of the few sources of research

(01:19:42):
and education that we have in acommunity space. But primarily we're just trying
to put the loud speaker in thehands of the people who need this stuff
the most. And I want tomake your life easier. I don't want
to add to that bag of bricks. That's the only version of education that
matters in community sport. I think, awesome, break the tap to you.
I've really enjoyed the conversation all thebest. And then when you've got

(01:20:05):
through your season, which you obviouslywas just about to get get ramped up
into Maybe we can reconvene and youcan reflect on the learnings and then we
can create our own little mutual supportsociety. Well, we've got to start
somewhere. Maybe if if other peoplelisten, that will start their own.
Yeah. Indeed, Alex quick tochat to you and all the best.

(01:20:30):
Thank you, thanks for listening tothe Talent Equation podcast. If you like
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(01:20:51):
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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Supporting coaches to be 'prepared rather than planned' - a conversation with Alex Lascu