1 Who are coach developers?
You’ll start by hearing from two coach developers discussing their own experiences.
To introduce this section, watch the video with Lucy Moore and Stuart Armstrong where they reflect on aspects they wish they had known more about at the outset of their experience as coach developers.
Transcript: Video 1
STUART ARMSTRONG: If you were to have your time again, being a coach of coaches in all the different roles that you've been in, what would be the sort of things that you wish you'd knew beforehand that would have perhaps helped you on that journey?
LUCY MOORE: How can I be helpful? How can I help somebody to be better at what they want to do and understanding what can I do, what tools can I offer them, what do I have for me to use, what should I be watching for, what should I be talking to them about? Just understanding how to build that relationship with somebody who I've maybe never met before. Those kind of tools that will help me to help them. That would be really invaluable.
STUART ARMSTRONG: When somebody is on a learning journey, I've often found that, sometimes, the mistakes I've made in the past have been I've been wanting to step in a bit too early and offer some thoughts and advice, and they're not always ready for that. So the one thing I wish I'd learned beforehand was to establish the relationship first and understand what it is that they're looking for before then beginning any process of helping them on a kind of learning journey even though you might feel that there's something really obvious that they need to know. Stepping back and allowing them to almost invite that information, that would be a key thing for me that if I was to have my time again I'd want to do a lot better, and I want to learn about.
LUCY MOORE: Yeah, I think, because ultimately we're helping them to understand their practise and themselves. So, actually, it's not necessarily about you having all the answers and information and imparting that on them. Actually, it's about helping them to reflect better or understand what they've done and, and that's really powerful.
There are three points that can be taken from the discussion:
- Knowing the range of ‘tools’ that coach developers can use to help coaches.
- Not being too eager to ‘step in’ and start giving advice before understanding the needs of the coach and what they want.
- That coach developers don’t have all the answers and instead should be helping coaches to reflect and discover knowledge and ideas for themselves.