By Craig Hysell
You are a coach. And probably a pretty darn good one if you take time to read articles like this.
From what I read, watch and from my own coaching experiences in the last decade, the mark of a professional coach is this: a professional coach understands that they are an ambassador of change, a manager of objectives and a mentor to mindfulness.
A professional coach understands the objective of the team AND the individual, the value system of the team AND where the individual needs help or can be of help in this regard, and a professional coach has fair, consistent and relentless standards.
The only way this works for the individual is when the coach understand the one number that matters the most out of ALL the stats and measurement tools we use to feed and weigh progression: attendance.
If our clients and athletes aren’t showing up, we can’t win.
It’s our job, as coaches, on the field and the training floor, to keep our athletes ENGAGED. This can be difficult.
It is easy to just “go through the motions” as a coach as personalities bubble up to create friction, we let our personal lives interfere with our work lives, or we just begin to wonder how many times we have to say the same thing over and over again before the athlete “gets it”.
A professional coach uses their knowledge of past and the objectives of the future to create a clean slate in the present. The NOW is the most important part and when an athlete or client is completely present in the activities of the NOW, magic can happen.
How can you work toward improving your ambassadorship, increase engagement and keep attendance high so you can help your clients and athletes make more magic?
1. Let your athletes and clients know you care. Ask them how their families are, their businesses are, how that big test went. Spell their name right on the whiteboard. Know WHY they are there and how that fits into the overall WHY of the objective or the Team.
2. Monitor attendance. If you’re not checking your athletes and clients into class or practices, how can you tell who is missing?
- Reach out when they are absent (or… on the opposite end of the spectrum, when you’ve noticed them putting in the work and doing awesome things in training!). Not via text and not via email. Call them. A phone call when someone is missing or, on the flip side, crushing it (re: rewarding the positive) is a powerful communication tool and lets your athletes and clients REALLY know you love em.
Look at your coaching game. How are you doing? What are you doing well? What’s not going so great at the moment? What can you do to make it great again? If YOU do this, your athletes and clients will follow suit.
If YOU show them YOU care, they will care about YOU, the team, the objective and showing up. Magic will happen! And you are the leader. You must go first.