Issues of the Coaching Process - Literature review Example

Coaching Process Overview The world of ours has been place of constant activities. Humans have been indulging in various physical and mental activities. Although these human activities is carried out as part of their daily lifestyle, there will be occasions when people will exhibit both physical and mental activeness in a specific setting, independently or as a team, following certain rules and guidelines. This form of specific activity in a specific setting with specific rules only constitutes sports. Majority of the sports are extensions of various human activities and so they are played not only by the trained athletes as well as by common people. However, natural skill or talent will not be enough for an individual to optimally perform in any sport. With so much at stake in sports events including country’s honour, professional life of the sportspersons, fan expectations, etc, etc, individual or the individuals (team) involved in any sport need specialized tuning up or if aptly said coaching to elevate their skill to the expected levels of the competition. So, sports teams are using the services of experienced, equipped and talented individuals or experts to coach their under-skilled or underperforming members as well as further tuning the performing players. This role of coach will discussed as part of the literature review, with focus also on different coaching styles for different situations and the differentiation that exists within sports coaching. A review The term “coaching” is used when one individual teaches or trains another individual or group of individuals in certain aspects, in which they are failing short, by contributing physically, mentally, technically and also emotionally. The international coaching accrediting body the International Coach Federation (ICF) defines coaching as, “ an ongoing partnership that helps [people] produce fulfilling results in their personal and professional lives and…deepen their learning, improve their performance, and enhance their quality of life”. So, coaching is mainly given as part of acquiring the lacking aspects, as demonstrated from its origins in sport. That is, term coaching came into popular parlance, when sports teams all over the world had a “head person”, who observed how the players in the team played the game and corrected any weaker aspects. “By late 1800, in the US, most college sports team employed coaches as well as managers and by the 20th Century, non-sporting coaches were emerging, those who were not specifically experts in the skills of their clients but who offered what Wikipedia terms ‘generalised motivational and inspirational advice.” (trainingzone.co.uk). The United Kingdom Coaching Strategy describes the role of the coach as one that "enables the athlete to achieve levels of performance to a degree that may not have been possible if left to his/her own endeavours" (brianmac.co.uk). Roles of a coach The role of coaches will not be just limited to tuning the physical skills of the players, but also to provide wholesome development particularly mental and emotional development, so he/she can perform in his/her sport event and also fit into the team, if it is a team event. The main role of coaches is observing the activities of the target group of athletes or individual athlete and finding out what is going wrong and then help the individuals correct those wrongs by themselves. “They are skilled in questioning and listening (as are many mentors) but it is the coach’s role to enable the individual to find answers within themselves” (trainingzone.co.uk). Also, the coaches will monitor the outcomes, and if the outcome was not up to the expected levels, they will again involve themselves in finding out the correct solution, to get the desired results. As Luecke (2004) states always “Impart greater know-how and effectiveness through coaching and people will work smarter. Another role, the coach need to fulfil is helping the individuals accomplish the set goals. That is, coaches will be appointed by the leader or the management team, to achieve certain targets within a specified deadline. To do that, coaches has to assess and improve the individuals focusing on that set targets. That is, coaches have to mainly focus on what the individual should do, to reach the set targets, mostly ignoring the individuals’ personal issues or non-target issues (if those issues hamper the target oriented initiatives of the individual, then only the coach will deal with it). So, the coaches’ focus should only be on the targets and it is his/hers’ duty to make the individuals also focus on the targets. The other important duty of the coaches is that, coaches have to achieve those targets as mentioned above within a set deadline. “Coaching is usually a ‘time bound’ relationship with a defined duration to meet the specific goal identified.” (trainingzone.co.uk). Cross and Lyle (2002) has this to say about the time-bounded nature of coaching, In normal circumstances, a coach manages the process of purposeful improvement of competition sports performance within a time- and context-bound agreement or contract, although there will be considerable variety in the implementation of the process.’ The main role of the coach is to create the right conditions for learning to happen and to find ways of motivating the athletes to keep on learning, thereby optimizing their performances. That is, new opportunities always present themselves to the athletes or any other individual, and it is up to the athletes to tap those opportunities, and even if they make mistakes while tapping the opportunities, learn from the mistakes. Coaching or coaches provide the conditions, under which the sportsperson can create new realities, explore new opportunities and importantly learn from the unintentional mistakes. “Coaching facilitates achieving results through a goal directed process of self-regulated accountability, powerful questioning and active-listening and is only made possible through a process of learning” (Griffiths 2005). Kolb (1984) contends that people learn as they either reflect or act on an experience. So coaches has to create conditions that allows the athletes to capture their experiences, reflect on them and explore and experiment with new experiences, with these experimentations acting as the catalyst for transforming their behaviours as well as performance in the future. Different coaching styles for different performers, with Differentiation theory Coaches have to come up with new or different ways of doing things, according to the arising situations, so that it opens up possibilities and unlocks potential. No longer will it suffice to manage by control and compliance with money, job security and fringe benefits are unlikely to push the boundaries of creativity and possibility. So, the coaches have to adopt different coaching styles according to the different situations or different wants of the athletes. ‘a (coaches) job is to do everything in their power not just to promote self-understanding but encourage risk taking’ (Kottler 2003). Kolb puts forward the point that once a person including any sportsperson has reflected on a particular concrete experience, which may be a disruptive event or breakdown issue, they can or will begin to re-frame and explore possibilities through abstract conceptualization, allowing the coaches to look at other possible courses of action or responses to that experience. At this stage, we can create concepts that integrate these observations into logically sound theories like Differentiation. The term Differentiation is used, when the coach after seeing a specific shortfall in a particular individual, develops or gives a special or separate training schedule for that particular athlete to overcome that shortfall. “Differentiation is the matching of work to the differing capabilities of individuals or groups of pupils in order to extend their learning.” (pace.wlv.ac.uk). In a way, the coaches by offering separate or specialized coaching to particular individuals is exhibiting different coaching styles. Thus, it is clear that coaches could exhibit different coaching styles during different scenarios, thereby fulfilling the differentiation theories. One of the situations, when coaches has to exhibit different coaching style is when cultural resistance has an impact on the coaching experience. That is, any sports teams will have ‘collage’ of individuals from different backgrounds or religion or culture or race or ethnicity. Based on these identities, they could form various groups or sub-groups among them, thereby making it difficult for the coach to actualize a common playing culture or cultural practices. This negativity could erode the power of the coaching process. In those times, the coaches by adopting apt coaching styles should do more man-management than any technical coaching. That is, through clear communication, the coaches, without any forcing has to make all the athletes to place the common playing culture or practices above all their personal cultures. However, the limitation is older players with their ‘accumulated’ cultural leanings could resist the common culture. ‘Old cultural mindsets foster cultural resistance’ (Tichy 1996). Sports teams or any athlete today operate in a rapidly competitive and changing environment, with competing teams utilizing various tools including technology to get one-up with others. ‘Change is the business world’s most persistent challenge’ (Koestenbaum 2000). So, in these fast changing scenarios, the coaches has to be fully updated and should also need apt communication and interpersonal skills to influence the employees, and make them adaptable to rapid changes (Sherman & Freas 2004). Conclusion A wholesome coaching program will do a world of good for the athletes and all sportspersons, as they will become equipped skill wise by improving their shortfalls, and will be able to participate in the events with renewed confidence. Also, the coaches can make them focus more on set targets and help them accomplish it within the time-frame. Importantly, the coaches have to develop conditions for the athletes to keep on learning. Different scenarios needs different coaching styles, and so based on differentiation theories, the coaches can exhibit apt coaching style. So, an optimal coaching approach to the teams or individuals generates an empowering climate for individuals to create optimal results. References International Coach Federation, What is Coaching? viewed on November 18, 2010 http://www.coachfederation.org/ICF/For+Coaching+Clients/What+is+a+Coach/ brianmac.co.uk, Coaching Roles and Skills, viewed on November 18, 2010 http://www.brianmac.co.uk/coachsr.htm Cross, N. & Lyle, J. 2002, The Coaching Process: Principles & practice for sport, Butterworth & Heinemann, Oxford. Griffiths, K. 2005, Personal Coaching: A Model for Effective Learning, Journal of Learning Design. Koestenbaum, P. 2000, Do you Have The Will to Lead in Fast Company Kolb, DA 1984, Experiential Learning: Experience as the source of learning and development, Prentice Hall, New Jersey. Kottler, J. 2003, On Being a Therapist, Josey-Bass, San Francisco. Luecke, R. 2004, Coaching and Mentoring: How to Develop Top Talent and Achieve Stronger Performance. Harvard Business School pace.wlv.ac.uk, Inclusion, Equal Opportunities and Differentiation, viewed on November 18, 2010 http://pace.wlv.ac.uk/download.aspx?oid=908850&useroid=0 Sherman, S., & Freas, A 2004, The Wild West of Executive Coaching, Harvard Business Review, vol. 82, no. 1, pp. 82-90 Tichy, N. 1996, Simultaneous Transformation And CEO Succession: Key to Global Competitiveness, Organizational Dynamics. trainingzone.co.uk, Coaching and Mentoring: Understanding the Differences, viewed on November 18, 2010 http://www.trainingzone.co.uk/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=154289 Read More