Steve Dorey, FA county coach developer, outlines the benefits of getting coaches together – both in person or online – to solve coaching problems together.

My experience of coaches’ meetings, both in grassroots and talent development settings, are that these are places to come together and talk about anything other than coaching!

At these get togethers, my fellow coaches and I would bemoan the lack of equipment, poor training facilities, what fundraising activity we were doing. It always struck me as odd that here we were, coaches of all levels of qualification and experience giving up our evening, and we never came away with anything more useful than getting things off our chests.

Therefore, I started to ask and listen to what coaches wanted:

• what do coaches want from their coaches’ meetings?
• who would they like ‘in the room’?
• should the session run in person or online?
• what problems were they facing in their everyday coaching?

What do coaches want?

What came back was that people were passionate about coaching and wanted to get better. Although there were lots of different responses, they fell into some common categories:

• player engagement
• ideas for sessions
• how to help players get better at something.

Resources, both time and financial, were limited so signposting to courses wasn’t a viable option for everyone.

What is a community of practice?

I did some reading about ways to get coaches together and discovered the term ‘community of practice’:

‘A group of people who share a common concern, set of problems, or a passion about a topic, and who deepen their knowledge and expertise in this area by interacting on an ongoing basis.’

This summed up what I wanted perfectly. My next step was to find a time and place which suited everybody and invite them along.

The only slides I had for the evening were ‘ground rules’ which had been established as part of coaches registering to attend. I was really nervous that nobody would turn up or if they did, nobody would have anything to talk about. I was delightfully proved wrong.

The room was buzzing, coaches were talking about coaching and sharing their experiences and know-how with other coaches. I had to shuffle people out as the venue was closing but the conversations continued in the car park. Turns out coaches like talking about coaching.

The challenge was then how to move it forwards. The next session was a ‘Pie and a Pint’ night which was a great success. The concept has since been extended to incorporate UEFA B Alumni, coach development and female coach development groups to broaden the coaches’ networks and link them with other similar and like-minded people.

My experience suggests that these are great ways for coaches to get to know other coaches whilst addressing their real-life coaching concerns. There are very few unique problems in football, there will usually be other coaches who either are going or have gone through just what you’re going through. Knowing that gives a great sense of belonging to a football community.

Starting your own community of practice:

• Consider your audience – who do you want to engage with? In a grassroots club, it might be coaches of certain age groups.
• Seek first to understand – what do coaches want? That way you could group coaches together who want to talk about the same thing or theme each get together.
• How can you make your session EAST: Easy, Accessible, Social and Timely.
• Be mindful that this won’t be for everyone – that’s ok.
• Set some ground rules such as length of session with the coaches. Ask the coaches to come up with the rules.
• Try to keep the groups small so everyone has a chance to contribute. 4-5 people per group would be ideal.
• Let the conversation flow. If this is a challenge, try asking coaches to bring a current coaching problem along with them.
• Find a ‘table lead’ to look after the conversation of a small group – this could be an experienced coach or someone with excellent interpersonal skills.
• Build on previous sessions: what did you talk about last time? Has anything changed?
• Keep it consistent: encourage regular attendance where you can.

References

Covey, S. (2004). The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change. Rosetta Books LLC.

Culver, D. & Trudel, P. (2006). Cultivating coaches’ communities of practice: Developing the potential for learning through interactions. In R. L. Jones (ed.), The sports coach as educator: Re-conceptualising sports coaching (pp. 97-112). London: Routledge.

Culver, D. & Trudel, P. (2008). Clarifying the concept of communities of practice in sport. International Journal of Sports Science & Coaching, 3, 1-10.

Culver, D. Trudel, P., & Werthner, P. (2009). A sport leader’s attempt to foster a coaches’
community of practice. International Journal of Sports Science & Coaching, 4, 365-383.

Jones, R., Armour, K. & Potrac, P. (2004). Sports coaching cultures: From practice to theory.
London: Routledge.

Lave, J., & Wenger, E. (1991). Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation. Cambridge university press.

Stoszkowski, J. & Collins, D. (2012). Communities of practice, social learning and networks: exploiting the social side of coach development, Sport, Education and Society. DOI:10.1080/13573322.2012.692671.

The Behavioural Insights Team (2014, April 11). EAST: Four Simple Ways to Apply Behavioural Insights. Retrieved from https://www.bi.team/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/BIT-Publication-EAST_FA_WEB.pdf

Trudel, P. & Gilbert, W. (2004). Communities of practice as an approach to foster ice hockey coach development. In D.J. Pearsall & A.B. Ashare (Eds.), Safety in ice hockey: Fourth volume ASTM STP 1446 (pp. 167-179). West Conshohoken, PA: ASTM International.

Wenger, E., McDermott, R. & Snyder, W. M. (2002). Cultivating communities of practice: A guide to managing knowledge. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press.

Author bio:

Steve is an FA county coach developer, supporting a regional coach development programme and has previously worked in football development as well as academy football.

Steve is interested in how coaches learn from everyday experiences. He values personal development, appreciating anyone who wants to get better at their passion.

His advice for coaches is: be willing to be vulnerable; it’s OK to not have all the answers, trying to find them is what counts.