SKILFUL COACHING

For a variety of reasons there seems to be some reluctance to use questioning as a coaching technique. Some people believe that a coach who asks questions does not know the answers. Indeed some coaches may find it off-putting to design questions that produce a high level of thinking from players. To stimulate players’ optimal learning a coach has to listen to players and then redirect, prompt and probe for more accuracy or detail.

Using what questions allows the coach to gain more information. For instance, what’s stopping you, or what if you could and what if you did do. Using how questions allows the coach to dig deeper. For example, how much more or how many more.

The better the questions the better the answers are likely to be.

‘Stimulating questions are an extremely powerful means of inspiring athletes (players) and enhancing intrinsic motivation – Lynn Kidman

Some coaches will pay lip service to the notion of co-operative player centred coaching. They use questioning techniques that put players at a disadvantage and exercise a sinister and covert control over them.

These ‘games’ are played at two levels, the social level where things appear to be straightforward and honest and the psychological level where the motivation is manipulation. After all, there are many ways to ask people stuff. It is the motivation behind the questions that is the kernel of the idea not the question itself.

An example of this could be when a coach asks a player a ‘loaded’ question for example ‘where should you move to next?’ What the coach is really asking is ‘guess what’s in my head?’

Coaches have played this game with players for years and of course a coach is bound to win. Used in this way question and answer techniques ensure a player feels a bit slow on the uptake and a coach feels superior i.e. I’m OK; you’re not OK, and players don’t enjoy it one bit.

If the motivation is genuine and not sinister players will gain significant benefits from questioning techniques where the right players are asked the right questions in the right way at the right time for the right reasons. Question and answer techniques like everything else have to be practised and learned and some people are naturally better at them than others. They have great value if used properly.

Good coaches explain things – both about their sport and about learning. But they do so at a rate and in a way that players are able to incorporate into their own developing expertise. They remember the Mayonnaise Model of learning. When you are making mayonnaise – if you can ever be bothered to – you beat up an egg-yolk with a little vinegar – and then you add oil, beating hard as you do so. To begin with, the oil has to be added a drop at a time, and thoroughly beaten in before the next drop is added, or the whole thing will curdle. After a while, the oil can be added a little faster, but always with plenty of beating at the same time. The oil is information, and ‘beating’ is practising. Add too much information too fast, and learners’ minds likewise get curdled. – Guy Claxton

Natural ability needs nurturing. The co-operative coach constantly faces the complex task of balancing structure and organisation with choice and freedom of expression. The right balance creates an ‘optimal’ environment for that mysterious and elusive process we call learning.

If a coach is too judgemental, too authoritarian, too threatening and has unrealistic expectations there is a better than even chance that a player’s learning environment will be compromised.

A coach must learn to trust players, empathise with their individual needs and encourage independence, but sharing these responsibilities takes courage and a strong mind backed up with a robust and durable coaching philosophy.

The skilful coach practises a learning model of skilful neglect giving support through a variety of media when it’s needed but knowing when to ‘back off’, and let players make decisions and take up more responsibility for their learning. In this way young players will not only learn more effectively but become more innovative and creative footballers.

I believe allowing players to problem solve and make their own decisions through exposure to the right practice and games supported by coaches’ giving the right challenges and supporting these with a questioning approach, allows players to discover, create and generally experiment with the skills, tactics, strategies involved with their sport. Enabling players to problem solve enhances their learning over the longer term. This is the most desirable outcome for player development.