A fascinating work appeared in The New Yorker yesterday, entitled "Coaching a Surgeon: What makes top performers better?," by Atul Gawande. The author is a surgeon, who considers the nature and role of coaching in performance. Interestingly, he largely avoids discussing the role of coaches in sport (doing so only to illustrate a traditional coach, typically understood). Instead, Gawande focuses on the role of coaches in less-traditional settings, including teaching, music, and surgery. He suggests that coaching in these fields--properly done--can improve performance, even with experts; "Coaching done well," says Gawande, "may be the most effective intervention designed for human performance."
The author's conclusions are not based specifically on any scientific studies on the subject, but are instead an attempt to answer the question posed in the sub-heading of the article: "Top athletes and singers have coaches. Should you?"
Further investigation suggests that the answer to that question is, "yes, if done properly."
So what makes a non-sport coach useful for performance in non-athletic aspects of life? On one level, Gawande suggests that a good coach acts as an "outside" set of eyes and ears to the performance. This is important, because whether it's music, sports, or some professional skill, the performance is going to look, sound, and appear different from a different perspective. Using the example of violin virtuoso Itzhak Perlman, Gawande describes how Perlman claims his wife helps him "hear" his performances as his audience might. As Perlman states in the article, "'Your physicality, the sensation you have as you play the violin, interferes with your accuracy of listening.'" For Perlman then, having an ear "outside" himself provide a vital perspective on the ways his audience might perceive his performance. The insights from that perspective improve his ability to communicate with the audience through the music.
Citing a five-year study by California researchers in the 1980s, Gawande finds that coaching is also useful for improving teacher performance; more so, in fact, than workshops and other forms of feedback. Research suggests that the failure of the workshop system wasn't necessarily that the techniques and methods were unsound; rather it was the low rate at which teachers were able to transfer their workshop-learning to actual teaching situations. From studies, it was found that only about 10% of teachers were able to adopt what they learned at a workshop to the classroom. That number improved to 20% when feedback was included. However, when teachers were coached following their classroom performances, the rate of workshop technique use increased to well over 90%, yielding not only better teaching, but also higher test results by students. The problem wasn't with the teaching techniques taught at the workshops; it was with the development of those skills in the performers (teachers) who employed them.
So how does one coach a teacher? Gawande poses that question to a fellow by the name of Jim Knight, a director of the Kansas Coaching Project at the University of Kansas. In short, Knight's method is to get coaches to observe individual components of a teacher's performance, and considering which components are well addressed, and which are not. "Knight" says Gawande, "teaches coaches to observe a few specfics: whether the teacher has an effective plan for instruction; how many students are engaged in the material; whether they engage in high-level conversations; whether they understand how they are progressing, or failing to progress." These criteria become the framework for later coach-performer interaction
During class-time, the trained "coaches" looked for these criteria, then discussed them with the teacher afterward. They considered what worked, and what didn't. They discussed why the things that didn't work failed, and how those things that didn't work might be improved for the next time.
In short, the coach and the performer had a conversation, where an attentive, outside perspective was brought respectfully to the attention of the performer. The coach's observations were considered by the coach and the athlete, and then a plan to improve the defects is hashed out between them.
Gawande later uses a similar system by asking an old teacher to observe some of his surgical procedures. The teacher simply showed up to the procedure and watched. Afterward, he would sit down with Gawande, state his observations, and together they would discuss the details of what went well and what did not. The coaching not only led Gawande to notice things of which he had previously been ignorant, but also led him to commit fewer errors in his practice. In short, even an expert benefited from a little coaching.
What can we take from this? In broad strokes, the article suggests that "coaching" can improve performance in a wide variety of fields and practices, many of which are of great practical benefit to society.
On a narrower scale, it also suggests that good coaching requires a particular type of approach, namely, that of an attentive, respectful observer who can convey observations without judgment. A good coach is an outside pair of eyes and ears that can see and hear things which the performer cannot. These observations, thus brought to the fore, become the foundation upon which the individual components of performance are assessed. From these assessments, rationally conceived plans for the improvement of the weakest components can then be made.
These lessons would seem applicable to a wide range of activities, but that does not make it easy to put into practice. Convincing so-called "experts" to submit their performance to the critique of a coach is but one such challenge. Indeed, it would appear that the attitude of the performer is nearly as important, if not more so, than as that of the coach. A coach can make his or her observations as plain and respectfully as he or she likes, but the performer must be willing to consider them for the coaching to be effective. In this way, developing coaches for society is but one side of a coin that also includes fostering an ethic of open-mindedness and willingness to consider the thoughts of others. Mutual respect therefore seems crucial for the partnership to work.
So whether we realize it or not, good coaching can make a difference in many aspects of our lives. Individuals and society alike stand to benefit from the development of effective coaches in all walks of life and profession. A coach's unique perspective has the power not only to shed light upon our faults and virtues, but also provides the knowledge that can help us improve ourselves and our world. Something to consider.
Happy Tuesday, friends :).
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