EDITOR’S NOTE:
The following was originally shared via the Prepared Blog for our sister project Prepared Athlete Training & Health, which was created in June 2019 to support aspiring athletes in Vancouver, Canada, and beyond. Behind the scenes at Informed HQ we are in the final stages of editing for a new book, which takes a broader look at human performance, and will be due for release very soon (so watch this space). In the meantime, I hope you enjoy the read.
The theme for this week’s offering is the need to go armed with the right questions when working with a coach or practitioner of any kind (the credit for this idea goes to a former colleague of mine who had the dubious pleasure of being my line manager). There are numerous steps and a host of pertinent questions when an athlete embarks on the search to assemble the best team of professionals to provide guidance, assistance, and support for our chosen mission. By extension, as coaches and practitioners we can help athletes and their representatives to ask the right questions and make good choices.
NARROWING THE SEARCH…
It can be a daunting task to trawl through the dizzying array of coaches, providers, gurus, and therapists across different disciplines that you are likely to be faced with when beginning the search with a casual google enquiry, or surf on social media. A better strategy is to seek out recommendations from a selection of well chosen people in order to first draw up a long list.
The community of coaches and therapy providers working in sport is typically small and interconnected, and certainly Vancouver is a great example of this. Even if two coaches or practitioners have yet to cross paths directly, in general there are at most a couple of degrees of separation connecting them. On that basis, a good strategy to establish whether somebody is credible and well regarded among their peers is to ask around the local network. If a selection of people you ask have never heard of the the coach or therapist you have found on google or social media, this doesn’t necessarily mean they are not credible, but equally it should give you pause. Conversely, the endorsement of a respected fellow professional should carry some weight.
The test that a fellow coach uses when deciding whether to pass on a recommendation for another coach is ‘would I want them to coach my child?’. In many cases, it is parents of young athletes who are doing the searching, so this question is directly relevant! On that basis, this is a good approach to establish what the person really thinks about the credentials and personal qualities of the provider you are enquiring after.
REAL LIFE REPUTATION BEATS SOCIAL MEDIA PROFILE…
In the social media era, commercially savvy coaches, practitioners, and therapists are now increasingly active on social media platforms. Given this is essentially now the norm, the fact that a practitioner might regularly post on social media is certainly no reason to discount them. Equally, in isolation social media profile is not a great test of credentials or real life credibility. It also pays to cast a critical eye on what content they post.
Word of mouth recommendation from those who have had personal experience is generally a much better indicator of personal attributes particularly. Beyond professional skills, an important criterion is whether the practitioner in question is a good human.
Clearly as consumers we may not necessarily have the frame of reference to make an informed judgement on professional competency. When we come across a great coach or practitioner the difference is striking and immediately evident. However, if you have yet to come across one of these unicorns, in the meantime it serves to ask around other professionals.
What word of mouth recommendation can provide is a character reference. To that end, one critical question to ask is whether they felt the practitioner concerned was truly invested in the process, independent of payment received. Another thing to query is the extent to which they demonstrated they genuinely cared about the person they were coaching or treating.
GRACE UNDER QUESTIONING…
Once we have completed our search and due diligence, ultimately the only way to establish whether the particular coach or provider is a good fit is to try them out. Nevertheless there are critical questions to ask during this trial phase. Aside from what answers they give, how the practitioner reacts to being questioned is highly instructive.
Good coaches and practitioners are essentially teachers. As such, they welcome questions as an opportunity to provide insights on the why behind what they are doing, and to educate and engage the person they are coaching or treating in the process.
In contrast, if the practitioner bristles at being questioned as if they perceive this as a challenge to their authority, this should be a red flag. Clearly, questions should be asked in a respectful way, however assuming this is that case, and the practitioner takes the query as questioning their expertise, then this should similarly give you pause.
ARE THEY READY FOR A FOLLOW UP QUESTION…?
As in the previous example, aside from being open to questions, the most critical and revealing questions often simply relate to the ‘why’.
You are entitled to expect the provider to have a clear rationale behind what they are doing. They should be able to explain what purpose the particular intervention is serving, and how it relates to the identified objectives and specific needs of the human in front of them.
As such, whatever the initial response, you should feel free to interrogate their reasoning beyond superficial answers. If they are able to give a cogent response as you ask follow up questions to go a couple of layers deeper, they are probably a keeper. If not, perhaps carry on the search.
WHAT IS THE PLAN..?
Beyond the initial assessment and their recommendations for addressing the immediate needs, it is important to establish at an early stage whether the provider has a plan beyond that.
Any provider has a shelf life. There is still clear value in enlisting their support to meet our immediate needs and resolve the current issue. However, when it comes to considering whether to continue working with them once the immediate issue is resolved, it is equally important that all parties are clear on what purpose they have to serve on the journey ahead.
To that end, seek to establish whether they have a longer term plan and a vision on how to progress towards whatever objective is on the horizon. Once again, to be clear, if the provider does not have a long term plan or vision this is not failing; it just means that they are more of a resource to be called on as and when there is a short term issue to be resolved.
WHAT IS THE TRANSITION PLAN (OR IS THERE ONE)..?
Here we return to the idea that our involvement with any provider will necessarily come to an end at some point. Clearly this scenario applies with sports injuries, for instance. The practitioner should have the aim of moving the athlete onto the next stage in their journey, at which time their involvement will become reduced or cease entirely. Even early in the process, it is critical to establish that the provider does in fact have this mindset, rather than seeking repeat business or reflected glory.
Returning from injury can be a daunting prospect, and therapy providers play a crucial role in the initial stages particularly in managing the athlete’s care and putting them back together. Equally, in the best interests of the athlete, the treating practitioner should seek to reduce their involvement and seek to pass over the reins to other providers as the rehabilitation process progresses, particularly as they get closer towards returning to sport. This is crucial, not least to reduce any dependency and help the athlete to become independent once more. It is therefore critical that questions are asked on when and how this transition will take place.
These principles equally apply with coaching, particularly with development level athletes. There is sadly a need to guard against the tendency for some coaches to cling to successful young athletes, rather than stepping away and facilitating the transition to another coach who is better able to serve them on the next stage in their journey.
The best development coach I have come across is somebody that very few people will have heard of (and that was never a concern). The coach in question is an Australian track and field coach named Ian Baird who lives and coaches in a small town in New Zealand. Without doubt Ian certainly has the knowledge and expertise to coach senior athletes at the highest level. However, Ian’s passion is developing young athletes, and once his part is done, he actively seeks to move the athlete onto another coach for the next step in their athletic journey. Ian is remarkable in that he does not feel any need to remain involved simply to derive the reflected glory when they ultimately do great things at elite level. This was exemplified with 2017 world champion, and multiple world medalist Tom Walsh.
Once again, for parents and athletes at youth level it is critical to have these conversations, to ensure the coach continues to act the best long term interests of the athlete. Ask these questions to make sure that the coach has a transition plan, and is committed to making the right choices with respect to their own involvement when the time comes.