At the end of a match a coach was overheard crying out to his team in frustration, anger and disgust: “I’m a good coach – why don’t you get it?” The sad reality is that it is often the coaches themselves who are the ones who do not get it! The coach in this situation referred to above certainly did not get it. He failed to see that if he was a good coach his players would have got it – the very fact, which he highlighted, that they did not get it proved that he was not a good coach. The coach had thought that because he had told the players what to do, if they did not do what was required it must be their fault, not his. The coach’s job is to get his players to get it!
A national sports association a number of years ago called a sub-committee to consider applications for the national team coach and gave the sub-committee the CVs of eight different coaches for them to consider. Anyone in business knows that one does not employ someone based on their CV so the
sub-committee asked to interview certain candidates. They were told that it would not be possible so they contacted each of the coaches and asked them each to submit their proposed training programme for the forthcoming international tournament. Two coaches did so – and ended up as the national team coach! Were they the best coaches?
Some will argue that the national team coach must be the best coach and some coaches believe that they are the best coach if they coach the team that wins the most matches, no matter how they go about the proceedings. Interestingly the eight CVs presented to the sub-committee were in effect all the same – all had reached the same level of certification, all had coached at the same level, so what would differentiate the coaches? What determines if someone is a good coach? Is it the one with the loudest voice or who gives the most instructions during a match? The good coach will not need to tell his players what to do all the time but will have them knowing what to do for themselves. Is it the one who has coached the winning team? That coach may simply have had the best players, the best training facilities and more practices.
The reality is that qualifications, experience or results do not make the best coach. Coaches often think that being able to teach technical skills and tactical systems qualifies them to be the best coach. Those are important and significant but such ability will only make up in the region of twenty percent of a coach’s success – though most coaches will think it will make up eighty percent.
There are two qualities that will mark out the best coach – the ability to bring out the best in each individual player and the ability to bring the team together. In short, it is about Man Management – and the coach who complains that his team does not get it clearly has no ability in man management. Furthermore, at school level, it is not simply man management that is crucial but Child Management, as handling children is very different to handling adults.
Firstly, the coach must seek to bring out the best in each individual player, identifying the areas of weakness, noting what can be done to improve it. A parent shared in a public gathering how his son’s cricketing performance had improved dramatically when he moved school as the new coach watched his son bat for five minutes and then made the suggestion: “Why don’t you bat left handed?” The previous coach had simply continued to hammer away with more practice of what had gone before instead of seeing what was wrong. The good coach will know how to motivate the different characters in the team, be they the Prima Donna, the Precious Darling, the Promising Debutant or the Private Doubter. He will see and treat them each individually.
The best coach, secondly, will know how to bring all the different individuals into a working team. He will know how to get the Privileged Disputer working with the Proactive Disciple and the Prolific Dreamer with the Prancing Dramatist. He will enable the team achieve the old adage: “The whole is greater than the sum of the parts.” [Aristotle] He will not have personal favourites or little cliques; he will not allow individual glory or disruptive influences. He will see and treat them as one.
Why do coaches not get this?
