So...I've been thinking...

December 09, 2019

I feel a strong urge to remind everyone these “So… I’ve been thinking…” (SIBT) posts are me thinking aloud, to provide something concrete for you to react to while also getting more details on the direction I’m being pulled. In many cases, it is also my first draft of putting my thoughts to paper. Consider yourself warned 🙃.

Coach-Athlete Alliance

One of the core assumptions underpinning this CoachApp project is that a few simple structures and frameworks will unlock additional value for coaches while requiring similar or ideally, less effort. The relationship between the coach and athlete within the context of a single season’s goals is one such area where I think a little bit of structure could add significant value for coaches. The term I am using for this coach, athlete, season mixture is Coach-Athlete Alliance.1

It’s only a model

To help me think…
I believe endurance coaches are trying to help each athlete achieve a “successful season.” Managing “successful seasons,” for multiple athletes, requires coaches to use many different systems and tools. This CoachApp project is exploring if there is room in the coaching toolbox for new or different tools. It’s not about if a specific tool is useful or not in isolation, it’s about “What is a coach trying to accomplish?” and “Is the tool fit-for-purpose in that context?” Is the tool useful in the bigger context of what it means to coach? One step in answering those questions is to identify where current tools might be under-performing relative to what coaches need. The Coach-Athlete Alliance model is an attempt to describe the coaching process, or at least aspects of the coaching process, in a structured way, to better identify unmet needs of coaches.

To help me communicate…
I’ve told several coaches “I want the CoachApp to consider the Coach-Athlete Alliance explicitly.” Which sounds great, but I’m not sure the meaning is clear. This SIBT is an attempt to explain what I mean by Coach-Athlete Alliance and build out a common explanation we can refer back to.

All models are wrong…
… but some are useful. Just a reminder that the “map is not the territory.” What a coach does in terms of running a practice is a huge topic. Even the coaching process contains a huge amount of activities and behaviors. The Coach-Athlete Alliance is only a single description of the coaching process from a single perspective — it is definitely incomplete in a number of ways. This model is a way to simplify the entirety of endurance sports coaching to help me think and communicate with coaches in a structured way.

Definition

It is awkward to profess a definition when I have more questions than answers. I have an idea of how I want you (coaches) to feel about working with athletes and your coaching practice, but I don’t have a prescription for getting there. I believe managing athletes can be better than what I have observed. I am not proclaiming a universal formula for coaching success. However, not knowing the answer, is not the same thing as knowing nothing. I can share the basic conceptual building blocks I am using to make progress.

The inspiration for Coach-Athlete Alliance is from non-athletic reference material2. The adapted Coach-Athlete Alliance comprises four major components:

  1. Athlete’s affective relationship with the coach
  2. Athlete’s ability to work with purpose
  3. Coach’s empathic understanding and involvement
  4. Coach-Athlete agreement of Goals, Tasks….”Mission for the season”


Explorations of each component

1. Athlete’s affective relationship with their coach

You can bring a horse to water, but you can’t make ‘em drink

The way the athlete perceives the coach and the relationship has a major influence on the success the athlete might achieve; the stronger the athlete’s perception of the coach and their relationship, the greater the likelihood of success.

The counterfactual example is more intuitive to grasp. Imagine a situation where the Coach-Athlete Alliance is very weak. In terms of the athlete’s perceptions, it might be like the following:

  • Athlete does not trust the coach, does not trust the plan, and does not trust the advice the coach is giving.
  • Athlete thinks coach is not honoring the relationship.
    • Athlete feels like coach is just going through the motions.
    • Athlete feels coach is being disingenuous or inauthentic.
    • Athlete feels hidden in the process, like they don’t have a voice.

Do you think that athlete is more or less likely to be successful ?

I think it is pretty clear that the relationship as outlined by the bullet points above would be described as a “weak relationship,” or possibly worse. Here is the tricky part, a “weak relationship” is not a guarantee of failure; the claim is that success is still possible, but it will be harder than it needs to be, and less likely to achieve.

According to research, 30% of the outcome variance (was it successful or not) of integrative process of therapy is attributable to client’s perception of the alliance2.

While the exact percentage may not be identical in the endurance sports context, the coaches I’ve spoken with intuitively agree based on their experiences, that the importance of athlete’s perception applies to endurance sports success as well. A common sentiment among the coaches is that, “Athlete buy-in is a huge part of [the athlete’s] success.”

2. Athlete’s ability to work with purpose

A dream doesn’t become reality through magic; it takes sweat, determination, and hard work.

  • Colin Powell

Endurance sports take work. Life is complicated. People are complicated. Getting the work in, is not always simple. The athlete’s ability to do the work depends on a number factors, and not just physiological. Mental toughness, perseverance, supportive friends and families, training buddies, time available for training, and more; all these factors play into the athlete’s ability to do the work.

Over a long period of time, maintaining a high ability to work is a challenge. Commitments change. Motivation is not a constant. People get illnesses or injuries. Loved ones get illnesses or injuries. The more focused work that is completed the greater the chances of success. This point is very straight-forward to understand, and much harder to consistently execute over long periods of time.

3. Coach’s empathic understanding and involvement

Empathy is about being concerned about the human being and not just their output.

  • Simon Sinek

Training plans are important, as are processes, and tools and metrics, etc, they have a clear value. These aspects however, are focused on the athlete’s outputs. There is a trade-off a coach can make of how much value to place on the individual athlete and interactions with that athlete vs the training plan execution or other “outputs”.

The counterfactual here is also intuitive:

  • If an athlete is not sleeping, it will impact their ability to do the work.
  • If an athlete is not eating, it will impact their ability to do the work.
  • If an athlete is stressed out at work, it will impact their ability to do the work.
  • … There are too many factors that might impact the athlete to enumerate every situation…

Also in this bucket, I put the non-quantitative aspects which might define a “successful season” such as, growth, awareness, education, decision making, etc. That is, for a specific athlete, awareness might be more important than watts for achieving a successful season.

How much time and energy a coach wants to spend thinking about the athlete vs thinking about the athlete’s output (training plan execution) will vary by coach. The point here is not that more empathy from coaches is better, it is that the coach’s empathic understanding of and involvement with the athlete, is a part of the Coach-Athlete Alliance model.

4. Coach-Athlete agreement of Goals, Tasks….”Mission for the season”

Those who plan do better than those who do not plan, even though they rarely stick to their plan.
–  Winston Churchill

I chose the word “mission” in the bullet title, because “plan” comes with a connotation of determinism (amongst other things). A plan lists the steps, Step 1, Step 2, Step 3, and dependencies, if A, then B, as if simply executing the plan is all that is necessary to achieve success. Which is not how athletic endeavors normally unfold (extreme counterfactual: nobody plans for an injury, yet injuries happen even though they are not in the plan). I think the word “mission” captures the ‘unknown future’ quality that is the reality of any major endeavor, while also retaining a specificity of purpose to direct and organize the activities along the way.

A mission also contains a plan, or many plans. Plans may vary in substance and granularity by context. A career plan will have different level of granularity than a weeks worth of workouts or a race plan. They are all considered plans, and also part of the mission.

In the context of this post, I am using the term ‘plan’ for any structure that aids in:

  1. Communication
  2. Learning

Regarding Communication
There are many more aspects of a plan than are included in the list below, but the gist is to use some basic elements of planning to create as much clarity as possible.

  • When does the mission start
  • When does the mission end
  • What is the goal of this mission
  • How will we measure progress towards that goal
  • What’s on my (coach’s) plate, what’s on your (athlete’s) plate

The more clearly defined these basic elements, the more useful the plan can be (1) to assess if progress towards the goal was actually made and (2) to reflect on what worked well, what needs adjustment.

Regarding Learning
Here is an obvious thing that bears repeating: Athletic success is not a calculation. It is not a matter of collecting inputs and computing success.

As a result, coaches frequently “just make it up.” I actually think this is a positive thing. It means there is room for adventure, and creativity, and for the unknown. It’s one of the reasons I think folks find coaching enjoyable — trying to solve the puzzle for each athlete, of how do we get there from here, in the context of that specific person’s life. If coaching were simply “plug in X inputs, get a 100% certainty plan for goal achievement,” it’d be pretty boring.

Most Coaches will have an idea what might work, but they don’t know for certain. They simply make their best guess (intuition + experience), and adjust the plan based on what actually happens with the athlete. Effective plans will contain large amounts of trial and error. To speed up learning, structure and clear boundaries help. These structures and boundaries provide coaches a mechanism to assess and integrate what they’ve learned about the athlete in the last block of training, and to make the necessary adjustments for next block of training, while keeping an eye on what the athlete is trying to accomplish.

A problem well stated is a problem half solved.

  • Charles Kettering

No-one knows how the season will unfold for an athlete. Having a shared map for the journey ahead, enables the coach and athlete to identify when they are off-course, and a framework to use in charting a revised course to the goal when necessary. Clear understanding of the goals and roles of the coach and athlete is a critical part of the Coach-Athlete Alliance.


Closing Thoughts

I hope this SIBT is helpful in establishing a shared understanding around the Coach-Athlete Alliance. I tried my best to stick with explaining what I mean by Coach-Athlete Alliance and not exploring how I have used or plan to use the model in building specific features of the CoachApp. I am confident there will be more to come on those topics.

The more important topic is how does this benefit coaches. This is also a topic for another day, but it relies on a close partnership with the coaches I’m lucky enough to be working with. They are the litmus test for success. These ideas are useful, only in so far as they are useful to coaches in helping them execute their craft. Which is to say, any and all models might change, as we uncover more useful approaches to helping coaches.

Hot Take & Lingering Question

From a systems perspective, the Coach-Athlete Alliance is a useful lens as it captures my belief that coaching is a combination of relationships (points #1 & #3) AND progress towards a goal (points #2 & #4). Also useful is the fact that each of the four components of the model are interdependent but can also be viewed and analyzed independently.

I’m curious what your coaching take is:

  • Did you find the Coach-Athlete Alliance definition useful ? Interesting ? Pointless ?

  • Does the four component framework of the Coach-Athlete Alliance seem applicable when you reflect on coaching your athletes ? Did it bring any interesting characteristics to light for you ?

  • Does this framing help you think about how you might better engage with an athlete to achieve a “successful season” ?

  • One thing in the back of my mind while writing this was using the Coach-Athlete Alliance model as a gauge to evaluate the impact of decisions. That is, think about the impact of decision specifically against each of the four parts of the model.

    • (#1 Impact) What is the impact on the athlete’s perception ?
    • (#2 Impact) What is the impact to the athletes ability to work with purpose ?
    • (#3 Impact) Does this decision demonstrate the amount of empathy I wish to show ?
    • (#4 Impact) To what degree is this decision aligned to mission for the season ?


NOTES:

1: Disclaimer: This CoachApp project is not about invention. I am not claiming I have invented the Coach-Athlete Alliance concept or any specific terminology. I am pulling concepts from my own personal experience, from conversation with coaches, from my reading and research, and from materials I interact with in my daily life. This project is about finding the most useful concepts and packaging them into a set of solutions that resonate in the specific context of coaching endurance sports athletes. I doubt any of the materials I present will be new to you. However, I do hope you can connect to the materials in a new way, or recognize a new way of using existing materials.

2: “The Client’s Theory of Change: Consulting the Client in the Integrative Process”, Duncan & Miller, Journal of Psychotherapy Integration , Vol 10, No 2, 2000
Tyler McMaster
Outcast Systems