Coachamatic

A couple of weeks ago, I happened to mention to someone that I had a meeting the next morning with a coaching client.

“So what’s his problem?” I was asked.

I was a bit taken aback by the question. Like most or all coaches I know, I’ve been a paid up subscriber to the concept that everyone, even the people most outstanding in their field, can benefit from coaching. They don’t need to have a “problem”.

And to explain how even the best, most rounded, most balanced people in their field can get value from coaching, I’ve often asked rhetorically, “Why do you think even Olympic gold medal winning athletes have coaches?”

A news item from England has put a dent in my confidence about using the sports analogy to help people in business understand how coaching can benefit them.

Shane Warne, no doubt unknown in North America and continental Europe but renowned from London to Karachi to Sydney to Cape Town and Barbados as one of the most gifted and successful cricketers of all time, has been quoted as observing that a coach is the thing that takes the cricketers from the hotel to the cricket ground. Clearly no fan of the relatively new phenomenon of (people) coaches for cricket teams.

Here’s the quote from Shane Warne, as reported in Australia’s Daily Telegraph :

“I’m a big believer that the coach is something you travel in to get to and from the game.

“You need some sort of team manager more than a coach – like we have at Hampshire, where the captain runs the team and the manager sorts out everything else.

“International players know how to play.

“You don’t need a coach getting too technical.

“You can forget that you just need to bowl the ball.”

Commenting on the story in his article Coaching No Use to the Greats, telegraph.co.uk journalist Derek Pringle allows some limited role for coaches, but more in terms of helping out the strugglers and being basically irrelevant in terms of helping the more outstanding players do better. He gives examples, meaningless to those who do not follow cricket, but potentially persuasive to people in India, Pakistan, Australia, the UK, etc etc.

So while the North American market may still be open to persuasion about coaching by reference to basketball coaches, Olympic track and field coaches, swimming coaches etc, it looks as if those of us coaches doing business in the cricket-playing countries are going to have to come up with a better story.

Posted on Sep 18th 06 by Des Walsh.

Formerly a senior government executive and for the past eighteen years a business owner, Des Walsh mentors business owners who are keen to go to their next level and keen to stay unfried in the process. He is also a blogging evangelist, specializing in strategic business use of blogging and other social media tools. His home base is Australia’s Gold Coast region. http://www.deswalsh.com

Other posts on Coachamatic by Des Walsh.