The Power of Coaching Through Questioning!

About this episode

The episode discusses the failures of traditional coaching methods and advocates for a questioning approach to empower teenage athletes.

Three Key Learning Points: * The “sage on a stage” coaching model is failing teenage athletes and contributing to the dropout crisis. * If a swimmer solves the problem they own the solution - and ownership leads to self-responsibility which changes everything. * Coaching through questioning isn’t “soft or weak” - it’s exactly how the best teachers and university lecturers operate. When you ask most adults about the coaches they had when they were growing up they will often describe very similar experiences: The coach spoke. A lot. The coach gave instructions. The coach set the program. The coach told them how to do drills. The coach was always telling or yelling. It’s what we call “The sage on a stage” i.e. “I’m the custodian of all knowledge and information. I’ll tell you what to do and you do it.” That model of coaching is broken and the dropout data is screaming at us. We have a dropout crisis: Teenage dropout rates in swimming are extraordinarily high around the world and they’re only getting worse. It’s not just swimming either. Rugby, rugby league, AFL, hockey - most of the sports I work with are seeing the same thing. The response from most sports has been to tinker with…

People in this episode

Host: Wayne Goldsmith

Topics covered

• coaching
• teenage athletes
• dropout crisis
• self-responsibility
• questioning in coaching

Keywords

• coaching
• teenage dropout
• self-ownership
• sage on a stage
• sports participation

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