The Craft of Coaching: 34 Principles for Leading, Teaching, and Helping People Grow
Coaching and leading others is one of the hardest but most worthwhile thing you can do. But too often, we focus on the wrong things. In athletic coaching, all of our education and time is spent on designing better workouts, figuring out the perfect sets and reps for an adaptation. In teaching, we increasingly see districts spend their time searching for the magical curriculum that will solve all of their problems and boost test scores. In leadership positions we search for the perfect operating system, the protocol that will help us sell more widgets.
We treat coaching as if the prescription, the telling folks what to do is the thing. It’s not. I was fortunate to be a part of a panel with NBA champ Shane Battier, author David Epstein, 9 time Olympic medalist Ryan Murphy, and Sloan professor Shira Springer. We spent an hour going around what matters in performance at the mecha of data anlaytics. And where did we end? All of the data and processes are fascinating and important, but you’ve still got to connect with the human sitting across from you, and figure out how to get them to change their shot or mindset.
Early in my coaching career, I was convinced it was all about the workouts. If I could just figure out the perfect training plan for the athlete sitting across from me, everything would take care of itself. It didn’t work like that. I quickly realized, I had to coach humans.
Former football coach Pete Carroll had a similar revelation. As outlined in a wonderful article in a conversation between Carrol and Steve Kerr:
“How are you gonna coach your team?” Carroll said.
“What offense are we gonna run?”
“That stuff doesn’t matter,” Carroll said.
“What do you mean?”
So Carroll told him his theory of coaching. His main job was to decide what emotions he wanted his players to feel every day and then foster an environment that created those emotions. What’s practice gonna feel like? What’s the vibe?
Coaching is a craft. It’s about creating a philosophy that helps you impact, and ultimately change the people you work with. So with that in mind, I put together 33 coaching principles I’ve collected over the years. It’s my little cheat sheet guide to my coaching philosophy. I hope you enjoy, and let me know any that you’ve picked up along the way that you found valuable.
Coach from dependence to independence. Coaching is about making your own job kind of obsolete. Works towards having our athlete be more self-sufficient, with a coaches role moving towards a kind of mentor and partnership.
Coaching comes from conversation. And most of that is observing and listening. The athlete tells you everything you need to know…if you're paying attention.
Caring comes first. If they know you don’t care, the perfect plan won’t matter. The old saying “They don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care,” is still true.
Standards without warmth makes them fragile. Warmth without standards leaves them lost. You need both. In parenting research they call this authoritative instead of authoritarian.
Be opposite the moment. When they’re frantic, be calm. When they’re flat, bring intensity. Your job as the leader isn't to amplify the room. It's to counterbalance it.
“Coach the athlete you have. Not the one you wish you had.” Robert Collins. Don't fit the athlete to your preferred template. Adjust the template to whoever's in front of you.
The story they tell themselves runs the show. Coach the story. Knowledge doesn’t change behavior. Story does. “It’s hard to outperform your self-concept.”
You can't want it more than they do. The day you start trying to is the day you've lost the room. Your job is to set the conditions and pull the lever, not push the cart.
Effort is contagious. So is dread. Pay attention to which one you're spreading. You are the thermostat not the thermometer. You're changing the room temp.
Challenged, not threatened. We do our best when we're stretched, not when our worth is on the line. Hard things land different when failing doesn't mean you're worthless. Stretch the challenge. Keep the worth out of it.
People perform best when they feel valued as a person and not just an athlete, that they belong, and when they’re performing out of joy instead of fear. Joy is a performance enhancer.
Reward what you preach. If you say process and only celebrate outcomes, the brain hears the second message.What is honored will be cultivated. Watch what you praise.
Action is the antidote to anxiety. One purposeful step convinces the brain the situation is manageable. Don't wrestle the monster. Point at the work and start moving.
Confidence is quiet. Insecurity is loud. Arrogance sits on insecurity. Confidence sits on experience. The brashest voice in any room is usually the one most afraid of being found out. Real confidence comes from earned experience. Do the work.
What gets your attention becomes important. Choose wisely.
Teach the inner critic to coach. Acceptance drains the power. Fighting amplifies it. Often the critic doesn't know the threat has passed and keeps yelling. Give it a useful job and directions.
The athletes who feel safe take more risks. The ones who don’t, hide.
Ego kills sync. It crowds out the signals that lead to connection.
Always stay in learning mode. Be curious. “Once you stop learning about your athletes, you've stopped coaching.” Brother Colm O’Connell
“Fun is a performance enhancer.” Holly Benner. We forget that it’s still supposed to be fun, even for the best of the best.
Explain the why. The why is half the workout.
Skills come from struggle. Don’t over coach or step in too early. Rescue them too soon and they don’t keep what they almost figured out. Productive failure beats premature help.
Empower agency. We perform best when we feel autonomy, like we’re contributors that make a difference. It’s why micromanaging kills motivation.
Plant seeds constantly. And water them. Any coach, teacher, or parent will tell you of the kid who told them years later they finally get it. We can’t force understanding. Just keep cultivating the space for it to grow.
Define success yourself. Don't import a definition that gets in the way of the person you're trying to help become. The borrowed definition almost always fails the person who's actually in front of you.
Lower the bar, raise the floor. Too often we focus on those rare days when everything aligns. You can’t control when those show up. Focus on raising your floor, making the average days better.
If they can only succeed with you, you’ve failed. The goal is to give people autonomy and agency. To teach them how to do the thing, and then ultimately let them go.
The first person you have to coach is yourself. Don’t ignore your own needs and what you can get better at. It’s easy to get into coaching mode where you’re always focused on helping others. Take care of your own needs, have the support system that allows you to do the job over the long haul.
Teach, don’t just train. Too often, we get stuck in prescriptive mode. Remember, you are fundamentally changing the person in front of you.
Prior success only buys you time. Then you have to earn it again. No one really cares what you’d done in the past, they care about how you’re going to help them.
Coaching is pattern recognition. We pick up patterns when we pay attention. Build a database deep enough that you can see what an athlete is showing you. Then trust it.
Be in love with an idea, just don't marry it. Don't become the person who swears by a single diet for everyone. Every system eventually fails, and if you've tied your identity to it, you go down with the ship.
The car ride home is the practice. After a hard race or a bad workout, the brain is wide open. What you say in those minutes lasts longer than anything you said in practice all season.
Get out of your own way. Most of coaching is helping people stop self-sabotaging. Under-preparation is a coping strategy. The athlete who skips the work is protecting his ego.
Thanks so much. I’m conducting some research on people’s experience as coaches or being coached. If you have 5 minutes consider filling out this survey.
-Steve Magness
Steve this is a great list. Thanks for the outstanding reminders, clarifications, and new thoughts. I am going to make it a practice to read through this list repeatedly throughout each season. The points about being a good teacher are particularly noted by me.
There's another book here, Steve