Often experts in the field of coaching expound to young coaches, “Have a philosophy to stand on!” I’ve told many young coaches they should develop and define their coaching philosophy. Too often we forget to really explain why.
Why does it matter what you stand for? Because then you have a way to make decision. Plain and simple. As the saying goes; stand for nothing and you’ll for anything.
I was really reminded about this topic when talking with a coach a while back about the business he was working in. He was in the private sector, as the head performance coach and frustrated with the business management. He had received feedback he was not making everyone happy and they had imposed some changes on his programming. It was a conversation to several I have had in recent months.
As we got to talking, I was searching for the reasons, the business manager was reacting that way. The reason was simple, they ran the business reactively. Reacting to monthly cash flow and to customer complaints. They couldn’t define a financial business model of what their services needed to generate per hour, per coach, and what mix of services would achieve profitability.
They also couldn’t define what they believed in from a sports performance perspective. They have a business manager with some ideas, another “consulting” manager with other ideas, and this new coach trying to develop and implement some other ideas.
There is no way this will work. It can be hard enough to integrate a coaching and development philosophy with a profitable business model. To have neither in my mind guarantees you wont get any.
If all you are doing is reacting to the money coming in right in front of you, you are going to put tremendous stock in any customer feedback. “My kids not sweating enough and I pay good money for this!” can push the business manager to demand “better” coaching intensity. This kind of complaint is a lot easier to answer if first you have a coaching philosophy. “Mr. Jones, you’re right that little 10 year old Johnny won’t always come staggering out, soaking wet. What we’ve found and the research confirms is that optimal motor learning requires an athlete to work in a non-fatigued state to create new motor programs. Still it’s important feedback, so let’s get our head coach and find out what’s going on…”
This works if the business model has been built on getting quality results that lead to a longer customer lifetime. Then you can expect this type of complaint once in a while and take it in stride. You believe in your approach and accept you will try to educate these parents, but also recognize you will lose some. You have to believe that you are doing it the best way possible, otherwise it will be hard to watch someone walk away.
On the other hand if your business model dictated maximizing profit on a sale by sale basis, you may want to take that feedback and make sure you increase your energy systems focus to please this type of customer. Whatever you believe though, you better know what it is.
For the performance model, not only do you need to justify why you do what you do, you need to be able to decide what to do next. Should you add more kettlebells, maybe adopt a crossfit style, more sport specific training? If you don’t have a philosophy, you just keep taking whatever comes next. Growth is important and means you will change, but if you have no foundational beliefs you will be all over the place and really end up nowhere.
Having a defined model of training and business lets everyone in your organization make decisions, have conversations, and answer questions more clearly. It creates the “rules of the game” for you and everyone. Rest assured, in a for profit setting, everyone walking in your door, won’t be best served by what you offer. That’s OK. Just define what you offer, why you are doing it, and stick to it.
