A lesson about coaching from a golf coaching lesson!

Here’s something that might be useful. I had a golf lesson recently and one of the key elements of the session was to check my fundamentals – things like my posture, alignment and grip.

Those of you who play golf will be familiar with this.  Subtle things you’re not consciously aware of can affect your fundamentals – stiffness, fatigue or stress for example – which can lead to hitting poor shots. Fixing the problem can be a challenge (no coaching allowed on competition day!) and being able to recognise and check the fundamentals that are most likely to be causing the issue can save you a lot of heartache on the course!

This got me thinking. If I wanted to regularly check my coaching fundamentals – the little things that might be a bit ‘off’ without me realising – what would they be?  I worked out I would check if I’m consistently…

1. Using questions to keep people focused on key areas of performance
2. Helping people come up with their own solutions
3. Agreeing realistic timescales
4. Following up to support progress

How will I check them?  I’m still fine-tuning how to do that but what I would say is that giving this some thought has been a really useful process – particularly in recognising that my coaching fundamentals are more robust in some situations (with certain people!) than others. That’s always good to know!!

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