What is Coaching? A Theoretical Model

Coaching consists of tasks which can be categorized in and across four categories.

Collaboration > Facilitation > Education > Management

These tasks should be envisioned as circular, intersecting, and not necessarily in this sequence philosophically, but I don’t know how to draw what that looks like. They are interdependent and mutually perpetuating.

1. Collaboration

There is no philosophical hierarchy here, but there is a chronological one: the task of coaching always begins with collaboration, since the coach and athlete must first come to a mutual agreement to work together.

It is critical that the spirit of mutual agreement and interdependence permeate the coach/athlete relationship through it’s course, if the relationship is to be successful in progressing the athlete towards their goals. The athlete is the source of energy in the training process; they make the whole thing go, they are, pardon my french, it’s raison d’etre. Further, the athlete is the best source of information about the training process. In order to leverage that information and energy fully, the coach and athlete must work in collaborative fashion, behaving more like different positions in a team than like senior and subordinate.

In Practice: Collaboration begins with listening. Often the athlete’s perspective will reveal insights and open spaces of possibility which are simply unavailable to anyone but the athlete themselves. In turn, coaches will find that nothing builds trust and buy-in like being open and transparent about the athlete’s training process. The result is a fruitful relationship in which both coach and athlete get what they need to perform their role effectively.

2. Facilitation

The athlete, not the coach, is the source of energy and movement towards the goal in the training process. The coach is not (cannot be) in control of the gas pedal. Instead, our role is to keep the road ahead clear.

Facilitation is the mitigation of friction in the training process. It cuts a broad swatch across tasks: it is found in the use of language, nomenclature, and notation, in the social interaction between coach and athlete, in the cultural milieu which houses the training process. Facilitation is navigating the full context of the training process - athlete, task, environment - and clearing debris so that the athlete can move forward with ease.

In Practice: Facilitation helps athletes contextualize their day-to-day training in beneficial ways, to preserve a healthy mindset and maintain interest and engagement with the goal. Coaches facilitate by framing the training process in productive ways, with the aim of keeping the athlete in-process, without meaningful interruption, over a sufficiently long timescale to reach their goals.

3. Education

There is an old adage that bad athletes make the best coaches. If “bad” is considered relative to competitive success, perhaps this holds true. But, in keeping with a process oriented approach, I think there is more to being a “good” athlete than performing well in competition (though perhaps I’m biased, having never been a “good” athlete in that sense).

A good athlete is an engaged learner, seeking not merely to complete the training, but to exploit the training to it’s fullest extent. The athlete is both the most important and most useful source of information in the training process. In order to be effective in this role, athletes must be able to think and communicate with understanding, clarity, and precision about their own training. The coach, by explaining their decisions and reasoning, acts to bolster their open authority through open reasoning, to improve coach/athlete communication through the development of shared language, and to ensure that the athlete’s intellectual powers, as well as their physical powers, are brought to bear when solving problems in the pursuit of their goals.

In Practice: When an athlete and a coach begin working together, there generally exists an assumption on the part of the athlete: that the coach possesses something which can help the athlete achieve their goals, which the athlete does not themselves possess. It is critical that the coach continuously justify this assumption through explanation and open communication. In doing so, the athlete will unavoidably become educated about their training process and grow into a more effective actor as a result.

4. Management

Is there a synonym for management that ends in “-ation”?

Most of the time, when we talk about “coaching”, what we are really talking about is management: establishing goals, planning for competitions, writing the training program, networking and outsourcing for needed resources, etc. In order to ensure that the training process runs smoothly, it is important that the coach organize that process in a way which fits the athlete’s goals and needs. The coach must also manage their own role in the training process, ensuring that they are in a position to collaborate, facilitate, and educate.

Management is the critical substructure of the training process. Effective management requires a sound understanding of relevant bodies of knowledge, careful observation of athlete response and behavior, and effective organization of coaching tasks.

In Practice: Effective management begins with the coaches own process. By having appropriately organized routines, protocols, and practices, the coach is able to create the legibility needed to observe, understand, and manage athlete response.