Two Conversations

I was talking with my mother-in-law, trying to get a point across about coaching when suddenly she interrupted me, “Do you know what I am hearing? Blahdy, blahdy, blah.” She laughed…lots… and wandered off.

It was funny, but also reminded me about what we could term, ‘Two Conversations’. One of the conversations is the conversation the coach wants to have with their learner. The other conversation is the conversation the learner is already having inside their own head.

The problem with ‘Two Conversations’ is that often they are different.

An example of this might be the coach wanting to talk about technique whilst the athlete is thinking about and wanting to talk about performance.

Our coach might say, “Try to get your knee to this position”. Here the coach’s focus is on technique. Our athlete might already be thinking, “That throw wasn’t as far as last time”. Here the athlete’s focus is on performance. Two conflicting conversations – interference.

Effective coaching is often about minimising interference.

Performance = Potential – Interference.
(Tim Gallwey – http://theinnergame.com/)

‘Two Conversations’ is interference.

If we want to help our learner maximise their learning we as coaches need to help minimise interference, we need to have ‘One Conversation’ -the conversation that our learner is already having.

I think. I think a lot.

The problem with thinking a lot is that thinking is only part of the learning process.

KOLB: Experiential Learning Model, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Experiential_learning).

According to KOLB, there are four stages to learning from experience and these are:

Concrete Experience (Feeling)
Reflective Observation (Watching)
Abstract Conceptualisation (Thinking)
Active Experimentation (Doing)

If our learners are predominantly ‘thinking’ and doing relatively less ‘feeling’, ‘watching’ or ‘doing’, then our learners may not be maximising their learning from experience.

The learning situation: Practicing shot put.

Concrete Experience (Feeling)
Whilst practicing our aim as learners at this stage is to gather as much information as possible. We are trying to be mindful of the learning situation asking ourselves questions like:

What am I noticing?
What am I seeing?
What am I hearing?
What am I feeling?
What is happening?
What is happening to my balance as I release the shot?

We are trying to notice what we are noticing.

Reflective Observation (Watching)
Whilst pausing from practice or after our practice has finished our aim as learners at this stage is to be clear and detailed about what we have just experienced. At this stage we are asking ourselves:

What did I notice?
What did I see?
What did I hear?
What is the ‘stand-out’ information here?
What did I feel?

We are trying to notice what we noticed.

“I noticed that mostly my balance fell away to the left and forwards as I released the shot.”

Abstract Conceptualisation (Thinking)
Once we have gathered our information and noticed what we have noticed, our aim as learners at this stage is to try to generate a theory or come to a conclusion: “My balance is falling away because…” We are trying to make sense of the information available. We are asking ourselves:

What does this mean?
What is the cause of this?
What do I already know that helps me make sense of this information?

Active Experimentation
So now that we have our conclusions, at this stage as learners, we are now planning, goal setting, testing and trying to apply our theories in our next experience. We are asking ourselves, “Is my theory correct – let’s see?”

As coaches we can help our learners learn through their experiences by asking our learners the right questions at the right time to facilitate ‘feeling’, ‘watching’, ‘thinking’ or ‘doing’.

We need to help our learners who ‘think’ a lot to ‘feel’, ‘watch’ and ‘do’ more. It’s a process.