An All Too Common Mistake....

    Amid the perils of coaching there is a massive misconception many coaches have within the game. As a coach I look around and see one fundamental error occurring over and over again. While it is my belief that anybody can develop the ability to be a highly effective coach, many coaches focus on the wrong thing. Too many concentrate on the structure of their training sessions rather than focusing on their delivery of the training session. What I mean is that the quality of the session comes from the delivery and not from the session itself. Obviously, the best situation is to have a coach that can
produce and deliver high quality sessions, but the hardest part about coaching is the delivery and should therefore be the coaches primary focus. Sure, you can look on the internet and find sessions by the world’s best coaches such as Jose Mourinho, Sir Alex Ferguson and the rest, but their quality does not lie just in the sessions they run, but in the way they run their sessions! Just by using these does not guarantee results. You can have the greatest session in the world on paper, but if you cannot deliver it in an effective way or get players to respond to what you want then it is meaningless. Any session is only as good as the coach running it.

Jose Mourinho- Confidence in abundance

“An effective coach can run a bad session well, but an ineffective coach cannot run a good session well.”    

    If we look at studies completed within the school system we can see that the biggest factor on a child’s school development is a highly effective teacher. This means that even though teachers must follow the same syllabus and protocol, a highly effective teacher makes the biggest difference to a child’s education. If this is the case in education, surely it is also the case in coaching.
   
    As coaches we should concentrate on the points we want to get across to our players and the most effective way of doing this, not just on the set-up of the session. Ask yourself these questions:
Is my session a reflection of who I am as a coach?
Do I believe in the session that I am delivering?
Does the session meet the needs of my players and team?

    Quality coaching sessions are important to develop our players and our teams. But quality sessions come from coaches who can deliver the information to their players in the most effective way. If you can transmit your message clearly to your players they will respond no matter what session you put on.

Be confident, be clear, and most of all enjoy it!

 Please see 'Interesting articles' for 'The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Coaches'.