Hi everyone, this is Dave Wright and welcome to the Play Development Project podcast. I hope you're having a great week where you're listening. Many communities around the world are still facing enormous challenges with the current pandemic and we hope you're staying safe and healthy out there. It's been a busy few weeks at PDP with more great content hitting the website, we've been delivering workshops for our partners, and we've also got an exciting free webinar event happening next week with Assistant Academy Manager at Birmingham City Football Club, Stuart English.
Since our last podcast, we've also released part three and four of our Gold Coast Live sessions with PDP Coaching Advisor James Coots. Coots who got out on the grass with a great group of under 11 players to film some sessions on playing around and through and the final two parts of the session are live on the site for members. We've also shared another great Q&A conversation on the importance of 1v1s in Play Development and featured a new blog article from research at Coach and PDP contributed Joining McMurtry on the importance of connection with athletes. Today's podcast is a portion of our latest Masterclass discussion which I hosted earlier this year with world leading clinical psychologist Professor Stephen Roenack.
Stephen's a true innovator in Coach Communication and today we share a portion of the conversation with you. As always, the full version is available for members on the PDP website. If you haven't joined our community yet, you can sign up as a PDP member at Play Development Project.com and access a free 30-day trial to explore the platform and enjoy the content. We've got some awesome new ideas in the mix including additional practical and tactical content as well as some other ideas we aim to roll out in 2021 for members.
Head to Play Development Project.com, select a monthly or annual membership and dive into our huge range of resources from learning modules and live sessions to Q&A videos, magazine articles and Masterclass discussions plus much more. Thanks for joining us today. I really hope you enjoyed the conversation. Hi everyone, my name is Dave Wright and welcome to another Play Development Project Masterclass discussion.
I'm absolutely delighted to be joined the Seagling by Professor Stephen Roenack. How are you Stephen? Yeah, I'm doing good. It's early morning for me.
I just said breakfast and I'm fresh and ready for the day, man. It's exciting to have you back. I know you've sat down and had a couple of chats with Jimmy Bournale of research from the past. Obviously, you've been kind enough to share a number of articles on the website over the years and it's really, really good to check in with you and we're going to cover a few different topics tonight.
So thank you for your time. Pleasure, man. Pleasure. Well, look, for those who perhaps haven't come across your work, whether that's through your writing or some of the work you've done through your own channels or even on the PDP website, can you share a quick insight as to your background and I guess how you've recently transitioned into the sporting space a little bit?
Yeah, it's been quite a journey in a way. It's like it's been a completion of a circle in the sense that I've always been a sports nut and I was a surfer cricket lover, Arsenal supporter from the age of 11, Cape Town. So that's where I grew up loving those things. And then like 30-class years as a psychologist in mental health and hospital and general health care, all focused on one question.
Looking back, I can't say it was like that going through, but looking back with a wisdom of hindsight, what makes for an effective conversation about change that really promotes growth and ownership? That's what I think is defined in 30 years. And we developed something called motivational interviewing, which is really a way of structuring that kind of conversation. And then I retired and decided the start could be relevant for school teachers and I wrote a book on that subject.
And then I hit a point where I decided actually I want to have fun in sports. So although I still work in health care a bit, particularly in difficult environments in South Africa, sport is where I am and where I'm going to stay. And I'm 67, but if I could put it this way, when I grow up, I want to be a sports coach. And my kids just laugh at me.
But sports coaching and why they behave the way they do and how they can improve their skills is my current passion if you like. It's an amazing transition. I think it's so nice to see people from different, I guess specialists from these sort of disciplines coming into the sporting space. And I think I will ask you, from that outside coming in means that external perspective, have there been things that have really stood out to you that have been challenging or observations you've made that you've just sort of been astounded by yourself?
And have you just sort of been astounded by us and why they're happening in sport? Yeah, and I've seen both sides. I've seen shadow sides and I've seen wonderful things happening and uniting them. Something is the reason I went into it, which is the joy of play.
I've got four kids, I even got one who's eight. But if we just separated out and think about the shadow side and the positive side, they call it coach communication or soft skills. Like it sits on the box to one side of the ritual click. And I call it the fluffy stuff, someone who could coach call it the other day.
And I got a lot of men because imagine if you are unable to speak, you know, it might be quite fun to do that actually to put things over a mouse and see what goes on. But really, you know, speaking as the principle channels through which we convey what we do, you might say, yeah, well, it doesn't matter because as long as I get my message across, you know, I can use hand signals and stuff. But for this, like, this is my starting point day, which is what do you say and the way you say it impacts outcome. Okay, and I don't want to go down a rabbit hole now.
Give us some examples from healthcare or mental health or whatever. Trust me, the way you speak to people is as important as what you say. And there's very hard evidence. We talk about the words of skill.
There's evidence that this impacts very hard healthcare outcomes. So this was my starting point. And I go into sport. And when I thought about this question before we spoke, I thought, okay, write down a list of the sort of shadow side of your concerns about what you've seen in sport.
And then I'll notice something which is the list is almost identical to the concerns I have about healthcare, criminal justice. So I think I'll be able to articulate them. I can't, that very striking. It's like almost like you know what I mean.
But should I get a bit specific? Absolutely. I'd love to hear a couple of examples of your observations. You know, you see really good people in chaotic and often toxic exchanges with very uncertain outcomes.
So that's like what the initial impression was a lot of dog barking, violence of your dog barking at players. And different sport, I've eaten quite a few different sports. And I've seen variations on the theme of dog barking and arrogance. This is how we do it.
You fit in or bust. And I've seen near universal struggles and even dislike of player reviews at the elite level. I've seldom come across any coaches that are, yeah, I've got a player reviews as often and I'm looking forward to it. I noticed that.
And then I noticed something which I suppose is a bit deep in philosophical, which is like a cleverness delusion, which is like the more you know about something, the better a coach you'll be. And ideally if you were an ex player, that will make you so they'll know it and that will make you a better coach. And that cleverness delusion I've seen elsewhere and it doesn't always hold. It doesn't always hold that you have to have the experience.
You're good at teaching. And then something I know all of you coaches will know about, which is a succession of targets, results and outcomes. You see a lot of sunglasses on people. And across their forids, I am very busy.
So there's this and I find that very intimidating because the sunglasses like hide them from almost like being who they are or letting you know who they are. And I am very busy, but comes. It feels dysfunctional to me and I find it very difficult to like I work as a mentor in an elite cricket club with the coaches and the captains. And I find this very difficult when guys come I'm too busy with sunglasses on.
I noticed a praise is usually like confetti as a sort of external reinforcement of good behavior. Well done guy. That's good. So the strategy for motivating people that stands out very strongly and in sharp contrast to what something like motivational interviewing would suggest this being useful in addition to that.
Sure. Instead of it. And on my list here and I'll stop soon and give you some reading space. I've noticed that very poor group facilitation skills.
Very important sort of low levels of skillfulness and hide you speak to a group of players to get the best out of them. And in its worst form it's just basically dog barking, which takes the form of both motivating them and giving them information in one kind of verbal promise if you like. And that seems dysfunctional to me and could be improved. So, you know, there's a list of shadow things and I don't want to see wonderful things as well, which I could clarify.
Yeah. Yeah. Well, I think we'll get to some of those. And I think there's two parts to my response.
There's a brilliant and I've made a few nights here in terms of some of those observations. Firstly, arrogance for me is something that I have seen more and more throughout my time coaching and I've written on this because it's something I feel really passionate about that if you're going to be an effective coach, you need to remove your ego from the equation. There's lots of different books and different content out there on ego and how that works and that's a complex topic in itself. But I do find it's staggering at times where the track circle badge might give you that sort of feeling that suddenly there's the self importance, which perhaps doesn't happen before you walk on to the training ground.
And I think the best coaches I've interviewed over the years through PDP have been those that put the players interest first and understand everything we have to do. What to be an effective coaches interest first. So that's an interesting one. We'll touch on craze and a couple of those others as well.
But before we go further, I thought it'd be really good just to perhaps and I know this won't be an easy thing to define briefly. But what is motivational interviewing for those who haven't heard of it before? It's a style of conversation about change. It's a style.
Very similar to that of a good guide, which football coaches, that's the essence of it for me. For talking to somebody about growth and change and improvement or for addressing problems. Okay. So it has a set of associated skills with the style for making that more effective, satisfying and with better outcomes.
Okay. And is there a sort of collaborative approach to this? I mean, are you, you know, we talk in traditional coach education, you might hear things like trial and error or guided discovery or Q and A or these kind of coaching communication methods which get taught on formal courses. Is this something where there's a lot more of a collaborative feel?
Are you leading the person you're having that conversation with an interaction or are you just trying to collaborate almost 50 50. I suppose it's, I don't know if you've heard of that phrase, you're a guide on the side rather than a stage on the stage. Yeah. Okay.
Or instead of telling people in persuading them about why or how they should change motivational interviewing reverses that. Right. And it's a conversation in which you connect first and foremost. And then use these core skills to encourage the player rather than you to say why and how they should, they might change, could or should change.
And the logic is this, the more they hear themselves say why and how as opposed to using how and why the better will be the outcome. Right. And perhaps one other piece I'll just put in there without plunging us into into to my detail is that we discovered this way of speaking with people in situations where where people were feeling very uncertain or ambivalence about change. And over the last 30, 40 years, I've realized that this is part of the human condition.
And it needs widespread in sport, you know, should I change this position to that position? Should I do this? Should I do that? And the more you try and persuade someone who's feeling like that to change, the more they kind of react against it.
So if someone's feeling uncertain about the worst thing to do is to try and persuade them out of their uncertainty. And what we discovered was the best thing to do was to connect, listen to what the uncertainties about for them and help get out of the way, actually get out of the way while you are a privileged witness to them saying why and how they might do it. And this is very similar to the work of say, an outdoor mountain guy who meets someone and says, Okay, so where would you like to go? So it's far better to understand where someone wants to go and where they feel the limitations are than to tell them each step of the way what to do.
Yeah, yeah, really insightful. And I'm sort of there's words flashing around in my head like empathy and understanding and patience and these kinds of things which are required, but also autonomy. I mean, it seems to me like the key to this particular skill is to be supportive and then empower or create some ownership around this particular chain. So whether that's a player working towards improvement or somebody in your care who's been working to overcome trauma or a condition or whatever their sort of needs were at the time, it seems like there's a lot of empowerment happening here.
Absolutely. Absolutely. And that's something that's held dear by many sports coaches and teachers this idea that you respect someone's autonomy and you emphasize their choices they will learn more. And you and I know that self determination theory is a model that's what quite widely used.
The people who developed it would probably say that motivational interviewing is very close to a sort of practical application of that model. And I noticed in going into sport and in reading about it that coaches often polarize things into it either tell people what to do or let them get on with themselves. It's kind of dichotomy is quite widespread. There's a lot of between there.
What we're saying is that in between is the heart of quality coaching, which is a person who is a guy who sits alongside someone who doesn't just let them get on with it who doesn't impose their ideas all the time. We're how they decide will offer suggestions will give the person space if they need to be heard and listened to but will be centrally standing two feet in the guiding style looking forward at the question of, what's going to help you improve. And if what I've just said makes sense to you as a football coach will I would say motivational interviewing is 80% what I've just described. Right.
Okay, so it's very familiar to people. It's the 20% on top of it that defines such as motivational interviewing which really is about using some of these core skills to best effect. It really resonates to me personally. I know I had a lot of conversations in the last class I was working at where often, if I was working with, let's say, younger coaches or interns, you might say, well, let's just work off the core question on this best for the players.
And if the answer is no, or the player individually, in terms of what they're trying to achieve, if the answer is no, then we've got a question why we're doing it, right? So I think that's something that, in terms of that supporting people to get better, for me, was a practical question that I like to tie things back to. Just going back to a couple of those concerning things that you've seen as well, I want to touch on the idea of busyness. Like we know that coaches, they work hard, and they're very hard for a lot of reward as well in the industry.
But there's concept of busyness. Is this a case of the tracksuit goes on, suddenly there's a bit of bravado, I don't have time, I'm under pressure, I've got to deliver my session. Or is this something that comes across this busyness as more of a swagger? Is it something that, is it both, or is it something?
How would you say that a little further? Yeah, it's a tricky one, isn't it? Because I didn't mean to criticise committed, passionate, busy coaches at all. And I've seen them and admire them hugely.
But it can slide into what you were describing as ego driven and are often wondered whether there isn't fear on someone's shoulder. Yeah, yeah. When they give that vibe. And I've noticed in some settings where, you know, people don't have secure job stability.
Some boss can walk in, it's quite unusual actually. You don't get it in healthcare and other settings as much as you do in sport. People can walk in and say, okay, right, you're sick, you're sick, you go, right, I bring my team in, so there is a lot of fear on people's shoulders, I worry about. And that might be quite an understandable reason why should I pay that a few of us because they all the time, like, you know what I mean?
So it's a little bit complex and I didn't mean to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, over-simplified. But it seems a pity because actually, if people took the sunglasses off and really connected with others, they might find they didn't have to be so busy because many of the answers sit in the players, not in, I've got to do this, do this, do this, because I've got to get this right, because otherwise they won't perform. You know, I've seen that in healthcare, okay, where you can really burn out if you think you've got to solve every problem in front of you. And the shift to, from a director to a guide involves letting quite a lot of those things go.
You know, I don't have to be clever in order to succeed. I don't have to clutter my mind with 101 tech and tech things to succeed. I can trust that these people have it in them to find their way with support from me. That, that, that hasn't, is liberating for practitioners and myself in healthcare and other fields.
And I've seen coaches who appear to say nothing and I'm not elevating the silent coaching to the kind of God-like, the integral character. But actually what they do is they're observing and they're wondering with humility about what's going to help fire people up and strategically what might be a better shift. And then they're choosing their moments when to intervene. And they don't have, I'm too busy to talk on their worry.
How's that? Is that? I think that's a really good explanation. And I can say that I've seen and been involved with theater environments where I've had concerns over the motivational climate.
And I've been in environments, you know, I can recall working environments where there's a lot of trust in autonomy and suddenly the creativity of the coaches goes through the roof. You know, we often talk about creating a safe place for our players where they can express themselves, where they can feel free to go and fail and try things. I think clubs and sporting organizations have a duty to coaches, to build them up and empower them and to provide them that opportunity to try things just like the players. You know, I was, I can share a recent example.
I was lucky to spend the day at Auckland Cricket not too long ago. And their coach, Henry Nalan, who's a really lovely guy, you know, he's there running a session the day before a match and made an enormous amount of time for me as a guest to go in and observe. And the thing that I noticed was that he was able to still effectively work with the players one to one to get the outcomes for the individuals he was working with on the day. But too, it was also exceptionally welcoming and open.
I wanted to have conversations. It was a really nice insight to an environment where the players seemed very comfortable and content. There was a level of work going in, obviously, in that professional environment. But there was real detail of what was being worked on, I guess, within the group.
So it was a very safe place. And you sensed that that was a coach that had confidence to do what he needs to do. And I think that is so critical for sports clubs to empower coaches like that. You know, and I don't mean to mystify this, but in the end, it comes down to us and inside us as people.
I mean, in a way, that's probably where we got to start. And what you're describing, I think it's David Mullan, I think it's a character I know about. You know, how can I put it? If I'm reflective about myself, about just what I've got to learn about my sport, but how I am with other people.
Sure. If I start there, I'm going to be a better coach. Thanks for joining us on the Play Development Project podcast. You can follow us on Twitter and Instagram at PlayRDP or Find us on Facebook.
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