VOL & VOLF

Week 3 (9/3 – 15/3)
Gone through the notes. Performance coaching was mooted about 20 years ago by Timothy Gallwell in his book titled “Inner Game” both for tennis and golf. This has dismantled the conventional wisdom of his day in relation to athletic performance. Gallwey had opened up the subject of the “mental game” that has been mastered by sports giants like Tiger Woods and Michael Jordan. Self-mastery had now become the decisive element in any competitor’s arsenal of skills and competencies. The self mastery is so crucial to unlocking human potential that a manager coach seeks to bring about in his or her coachee. Gallwey defined the essence of coaching as unlocking a person’s potential to maximize their own performance by helping them to learn rather than to teach. Of course every athlete need to train in their respective game in order to master the necessary skills required in order for them to excel in their particular game. Although coaching could also results for athletes to train and practice more, the mental game and also mental toughness is the “edge” required which will sustain the level of performance expected.

James Flaherty, in his book “Coaching – Evoking Excellence in Others”, listed the following as the products of coaching:

• Long-Term Excellent Performance
The coachee must, on a sustained basis, meet high objective standards of performance. A standard is objective when it can be observed by a competent person. For example, scoring goals and winning matches are obvious examples. Meeting revenue and profit targets are typical business examples. So are meeting project timelines, safety targets and budgets.

• Self-Correction
Well-coached people can observe when they are performing well and when they are not. As such they will make any necessary adjustments independent of the coach. This is a very important criterion. By keeping this in mind coaches can avoid the big temptation of becoming indispensable and, instead work to build the competency of the client.

• Self-Generation
Well-coached people are made to realize from the onset that they can always improve. As such they will always find ways on their own to do so. They become self-starting and pro-active. They begin to practice more, they observe and learn from how others perform or they’ll learn an activity that will strengthen them in a new way that improves or expands their competence.

The amount of work that a manager can perform by himself or herself is inversely proportional to the magnitude and scale of responsibility. That being the case he or she begins to rely more and more on the ability to harness human capacity – talent – in order to deliver on progressively higher expectations. How much can be achieved through direct supervision and instruction? Clearly the manager or executive must have better methods and tools at his or her disposal than skill and sheer will. Coaching is one of those tools. It can be the manager’s intervention-of-choice for creating the attitudes and conditions needed to sustain excellent performance.

Need to sleep on this coz this is somewhat important in the overall principles of coaching.