Coaching – Sports Vs IT Career

Got the opportunity to become Career Coach in my current company. Been passionate about cricket also enrolled for becoming a level 0 cricket coach. Overall both truly an inspiring learning experience.?

This article expresses individual point of view of importance of coaching in IT Career.?Excited to put forward the thoughts which might be useful for people looking to build careers from grounds up.

Starting with cricket: Each and every skill in the game you need to understand theoretically, scientifically and practically. Be it a batting, fast bowing, spin bowling, wicket keeping, fielding every action Coach needs to demonstrate correctly with purpose.

There are broadly three categories of players who are coached –

1.??????Young & budding category, has true passion and interest for the game. They are raw and coach ensures they are imparted all the skills & technics the right way. They are taught the basics correctly and thus have very less chance of having technic issues later in the sports career.

2.??????Intermediate players who have learnt the game but do not understand own competency level. How to enhance the skills or what are the drills/exercises to improve the lacunas they look up to the Coach. Coach’s job is to

a.??????Introduce them to various techniques/drills to improve their weak skills and make strong ones stronger

b.??????Monitoring, continuously provide feedback and make them practice in correct way.

3.??????Expert players who has proven track record. There can be two primary categories -

a.??????Movement to the next level ( coming into the league of better players) make them underperform

b.??????Failing to perform consistently due to introduction of a flaw ( physical or mental) may be due to improper practicing

Coach has to challenge them with care because they are almost a finished product and introducing any basic change can hamper key skills achieved and mastered over the period of time.

Coach role is very vital for ensuring focus on all below five areas to transform into a complete player –

1.??????Physical Endurance

2.??????Technical Skill

3.??????Mental Strength

4.??????Strategies

5.??????Behavioral skills

Every player is unique, his/her transformation should be done based on the physique, core strengths, improvement areas and permanent/temporary weakness.

Bottom-line is as a Cricket Coach the person should demonstrate/perform ideal skills, teach drills, monitor & correct every individual players every aspect of the game.

Coming to Software Industry: As per my understanding, Coaching is not considered to be an essential element for someone’s career path/planning. At least this is my personal experience . As soon as someone enters the IT career people do not look for professional career coaches. When you talk about a professional journey of more than 30-35 years how do someone know that the path which is being traversed is correct?

Similar to sports a successful career is not only growing in technology or position. But there are other aspects, let me try to map all the five areas mentioned above to IT field. ?

1.??????Physical Endurance – Definitely person has to be fit and healthy to drive a long running sustaining career. Till this point not seen any successful leader who is not preaching about exercise, healthy eating habits, staying fit etc. This is most ignored aspect and lot of times have seen people at the peak of the career couldn’t take more responsibilities due to self-induced health limitations.

2.??????Technical Skill – Most focused and valued skill because it is mostly measurable, comparable and driven by demand. Everyone has a razor focus on it.

3.??????Mental Strength – As we being part of the entire digital transformation journey things are moving at much faster pace than 10 years before. Pressures for delivering on time, with quality, increased productivity, multitasking and taking on more responsibilities are going up. To deal with these pressures mental toughness is key.

4.??????Strategies – We are always acting against the market conditions and we need to prepare our response well in advance. It might be your current role, technology, domain or any other factor which eventually maps to your own interests in long term.

5.??????Behavioral skills – Felt this is one of the most challenging area. There is no formal way to measure, implement and grow model. It is a genuine feedback, learning & self-assessment rigor which everyone needs to go through. Clarity in business communication, documentation, creating consensus are to name a few but they do play important role in one’s career.

3,4,5 – are mostly acquired over the period of time , influenced by individual capacity, associated leaders, cultural background, location, education etc. Many organizations support with trainings but these skills are only thought to be important only when you move up the hierarchy. Which is absolutely not true.

Objective of Career Coaching is to let the individual identify his/her own career objective through probing & allowing to explore. ?Like sports it is difficult for Coach to demonstrate a skill but his proven track record, industry feedback, exposure to higher roles can be some of the parameters for identifying a good coach.

Like sports IT also has broadly three categories of individuals who can get help from career coaching. Someone who enters the industry if starts getting inputs about all the above areas from the initial phases can really become a complete individual in his/her area of interest. People with intermediate level of experience can understand the gaps and how to fulfill them. Experts can fine tune strengths and improve in the weak areas to sustain and grow in career.

Bottom-line – As per my opinion, whichever stage in your career you are right now coaching can help you to get to your version 2.0.