Coaching Tip #58

Tagged – Tip of the Week, Coach Development

The lot of the coach is lifelong learning.  It is a journey with no end.  To become good, even fleetingly, a coach must be constantly looking for ways to gain insights, experiences and knowledge.

One of the key areas of coaching is practice.  How a coach plans, implements, conducts, orchestrates, manages, runs and reviews* their practices will give you a lot of insight into how that coach’s team plays, solves problems, and interacts with each that you will not get from watching just matches.  It will also tell you a lot about the coach.

Go out of your way to go to practices.  Practices of any team, and any level.  Always ask the coach first.  Go.  Watch closely.  Make notes**.  Ask the coach questions.  The answer is often not what you think it is.  You will learn stuff.  You will make contacts***.  You will be inspired.  You will have 100 new ideas.

If you want to improve your coaching, go to practices.

* I know there is some repetition there.  I was trying to make a point.

**Very, very important.

***’That coach who came to practice seemed keen’ is the first step to more jobs than you might imagine.

The initial collection of 50 Coaching Tips can be found here.