Do the common thing uncommonly well...

The soccer team I coach just competed in league playoffs, and as I wrote this from my hotel room in beautiful southern California, I contemplated the range of emotions generated by coaching. We entered the playoffs not really understanding how we’d compare to other teams. And, I think to our surprise, we managed to win our first game. But just a day later, we lost our second game. One final performance determined whether we would head home to Colorado or move through to the next round.

Over the course of the tournament, we got a glimpse of our potential, while also realizing how many gaps we need to fill to really compete for a championship. It’s a curious feeling to look back and feel really proud of what we accomplished while looking forward and seeing how much further we need to go. The only way to deal with this range of emotions is to break it down into smaller parts: enjoying the moment of being here and being realistic about what we need to improve.

There really aren’t many new concepts in coaching. Several years ago, I wrote a blog on behavioral areas such as communication, leadership, and organizational development. Writing helped me better understand and articulate the concepts and practices my teammates and I used.?However, I found that most of what I wrote mirrored other content. The basic traits of great coaches, communicators, and agents of change remain the same. We have rapidly evolving technology, data, and access to information. However, we still need to determine how to make human behavioral theory relevant in today’s context and how to transform the understanding of a concept into real behavioral change.?

Understanding and practicing concepts are essential steps in the same process. As a coach, I sometimes confuse a player’s understanding of a concept—"Yes coach, I get it!”—with my player’s ability to apply that understanding, especially when small variations in context occur. What it takes to be a great leader is fairly straightforward; the challenge lies in the practice and art of influencing a long-term change in someone’s behavior. Inspiring a group of people to want to commit, work, and (at times) struggle together toward a common goal can be extremely difficult. We often make the mistake of assuming easy concepts make for easy application.?Coaching a player to consistently improve their performance on the field or to develop their leadership skills requires perseverance in the face of changing variations in the context.

I found a quote on David Geurin’s leadership blog that states: “The best learning requires students in action.” He discusses the difference between knowing, understanding, and applying new information or skills from an educational context. These concepts also apply to learning and coaching in a business setting. Guerin references his students learning by doing. The majority of business trainings I have seen devote a large portion to knowing and a small amount to understanding, but hardly any attention to the application. Many people can design a PowerPoint, show a group of people the concepts, and then check the box that they’ve been “trained.” However, the skills must be practiced, applied, and reapplied over time. Otherwise, the training can be a waste of time, money, and energy. We need the three components of knowing, understanding, and application to real situations for there to be a change.

“Transfer of learning” describes applying what you’ve learned in a particular situation to another in a different context. You can read more about ways to teach students to apply knowledge in this article.?The author, Valerie Strauss, said, “For example, after students learn the qualities of a successful presentation, instead of giving one presentation in front of the entire class, they could give it multiple times in small groups with time for structured feedback from classmates and revision.”?She goes on to outline some actions teachers can take to increase the odds of learning transfer. These include activating prior knowledge, practice simulations, group learning, and using analogies & metaphors and can apply to coaches in all contexts, especially in our business organizations.??

Coaching requires a lot of time and effort from both the coach and those being coached. If you have tight hamstrings, you need to do more than read about stretching. You must implement those stretches with the guidance of a professional consistently over a long period of time. Learning how to better communicate, become a fantastic negotiator, manage change or become a more effective coach works in a similar fashion.?

I believe people applying and doing work each day that “stretches” them creates the best learning environments in companies. While the training department offers great value, it’s just the table of contents. You need skilled, practicing coaches throughout your organization who work with their teams day in and day out. These coaches must be passionate about developing their people and pursuing their development with the same rigor as their pursuit of customer satisfaction.

Being an effective coach is a lifelong journey requiring wisdom and humility gained through experience. Effective coaches show interest in the learning process and acknowledge that growth takes time. They also understand how our egos need to be checked so that we can be authentic with ourselves. This includes accepting our true realities, being open to conflicting opinions, and being real with our intentions and motivations. While you’ve likely heard statements like this before, it’s important to understand the difference between the simplicity of the concepts and the difficulty of the tasks.

Although my team didn’t achieve the ultimate prize of winning a championship, I got to see the cumulative progress of the players. They worked hard and became a much better team throughout the season. We can all feel proud of what we accomplished and as we look to next season feel excited for another opportunity to compete. It's back to the drawing board of creatively illuminating and filling gaps in our performance and becoming a little better tomorrow than we were today.