Operation
the game, thankfully
I was never one of the kids who had the fancy board games, but we were never bored. We were privileged to have video game consoles growing up, and more recently I've been noticing how much of what I do is ultimately inspired by game design. Even just considering myself a designer completely changes the way I interact with learning environments, and I've taken for granted that seeing myself as an architect of learning opportunities is not the role that other 'coaches' think they play.
I've hosted a number of workshops of late, with many more to come, and there is an underlying passivity to a lot of what I'm seeing, this idea that the world goes on without us and the most we can do is control our own little corner of it. The interplay of those two ideas fascinates me (now, because I'm trying to approach everything with abundant curiosity instead of frustration - and its working!). How can we both be passengers in the game of life and then also exert overwhelming control because we don't like the idea that we are not steering this ship? When I join a podcast as a guest, you can almost play bingo nowadays with the topics I discuss, and certainty is almost certainly 😉 one of them.
You would think then, that even in grassroots sport, that if we want certainty SO BADLY that we would plan for it right? Have every moment accounted for, back up plans on back up plans knowing full well that our initial plan is almost guaranteed to get thrown out. I remember visiting a football/soccer club a friend was working at a few years ago, and they had done exactly that. Minute by minute breakdown of the session with exactly what to say for each section, very clear pre-determined outcomes that everyone *must* get by the end of that 8-minute block, and of course, a whistle to get everyone's attention at a moment's notice.
To say that it felt militaristic was an understatement, especially as someone who was not familiar with such training design. It might not have been the participant experience, but if someone told me to move on from a problem that I was moments away from solving, and then told that I have failed if I hadn't solved that problem yet... well, you can almost hear the echo of that sentiment through everything in life. Again, I hear it in passing comments, casual conversations like an undercurrent that is pulling young people into the kind of rip that means they never want to swim again: "they just don't get it."
The number of times I've almost bitten my tongue off in an attempt not to react to this statement has resulted in scarring. When I'd get back to the office the next day, people would ask how much blood I've lost... it's dramatic, I know. But when you're wholeheartedly invested, as some of these people are/claim to be, of course it means a lot when these dangerous sentiments get thrown around like nothing.
They. Just. Don't. Get. It. Now is a good time to reiterate that until now, I have primarily worked in grassroots sports which centres on 5 to 18 year olds with the primary intention of helping people fall in love with moving their bodies.
It's not even about the sport anymore, whatever they are playing is just an excuse to love being active, and the openness of that goal has completely shifted my relationship with health and physical activity (but I'll save that story for another time). We may not be able to predict too many things about sport with certainty, but we do know that negative experiences with sport and physical activity has significant ramifications for lifelong health and wellbeing - across generations!!
We are getting to a point now where people who have been exposed to hyper-professionalised youth sports and repeatedly told that if they shouldn't bother if they are not good at something immediately are having children. Their relationship with moving their bodies will filter down, if/where they choose to sign up their kids for youth sports will be tainted with their experiences in those environments - as we all are. I've written before about the idea that we are reincarnating the practices that hurt us, but that will continue to get deeper as we (unintentionally) harm more people.
Okay, so why after all this talk about certainty and game design and generational experiences of sport, the newsletter is called Operation?
Well, if you've ever played the interactive game, you'll remember that the objective is to extract little models of organs and bones from this person laying on an operating table, without touching the edges of the spaces. It took focus and control and a steady hand - a terrible combination for a hyperactive person like me. This little game came to mind when discussing how to support others through evolving their coaching practice - I've somewhat renounced the idea of "coach development" because it feels like such a deficit approach, a manifestation of "here, let me help you because you're doing it wrong". No wonder people are often so combative and threatened when that's the shadow of a role that is designed to help coaches.
I feel like the game of Operation is a fitting analogy for what we are doing on many levels in the 'developing coaching' space. At a surface level, it feels like the practices we want to evolve are these little organs that we are extracting, trying so hard not to touch the edges and set someone off. That little shock as you hit the sides wasn't even enough to jump some days, but it was a stark reminder that you're doing it wrong. When I'm working with someone to help tackle a challenge they're having in their practice, I can also feel that buzz when it doesn't quite work. You could see it in the way someone's eyes would dart away uncomfortably, like genuinely touching a nerve. Other times it was looking me dead in the eye and telling me 'no' when I'd asked if they'd be open to creating something to tackle that problem (a stark reminder that asking some people to be creative is a very challenging thing).
There is another layer to this analogy that I'll briefly touch on.. the extractive nature of it. Now, I've been careful not to say that at any point, those little game pieces are "knowledge" that I am taking out of the person, and neither is our interactions some extractive process of me trying to get to the bottom of why they do something (although building the kind of relationship where those values and beliefs become apparent is incredibly important). They, like the broader world around us, are not simply a collection of resources that are there for us to exploit and yet, we treat people (and the planet) as such.
The game of Operation is a developing coaching context is more about getting the learner-coach to interrogate their own practice, so stand over the patient on the operation table that is the learning environments they create and the practices they use to develop and support others, and pick out the things they don't want to be there. We can help steady their hand and inquiry about the pieces as they appear to support their appraisal, but that's it. And when they inevitably move a piece and hit the borders and find that haunting buzz, we are there to encourage them to try again.
I think we underestimate how much we need that support in the moment: when you make something, create something, try it, and it fails spectacularly. When you're just 'doing your best', one moment like that can be enough to never try it again. Not just the activity, to never try making and creating again. The pressure of getting things right all of the time, perceived or otherwise, is contagious. You can't be safe to fail as an athlete at training if the coach isn't willing to try something that maybe doesn't work, and the athletes know that.
So, how do we tackle the Operation together? Well, first we need coaches who are willing to scrub in.
(I'm having too much fun with this analogy and there is nobody to stop me).
The game cannot begin if you are not willing to step up and start thinking about the world you create every time you arrive at training. I'm not being dramatic this time, to some people, this is their whole world, and we have the responsibility (and response-ability) to make it a positive place for learning and growth and challenge and success in so many ways. Are you willing to take a step back and take a long hard look at what's on the board, and wonder how it got there? Don't worry, if that piece (of your practice, not your actual femur) doesn't belong there anymore, we can find a new place for it together.
You might find some useful approaches in the book about John Wooden's style of coaching as well as running practices. The title is You Haven't Taught It Until They Have Learned It, by Nater and Gallimore. Nater was one of his players on the 2nd team and Gallimore a researcher who spent a year studying Wooden's methods.
His teams were incredibly successful and even many of his players who spent most of their time on the bench in games went on to be immediately very successful professional players.
The info may challenge some of the impressions you have but his practice organization. While somewhat "militaristic" practice was high focused on the kind of things that actually happened in games about which players had to not only understand but respond to without hesitation.