I came across a good quote recently from a guy named Ric Charlesworth. He’s a famous Aussie cricket and field hockey player and coach who also served as a member of the Australian Parliament for 10 years.
Charlesworth is credited with saying, “The interesting thing about coaching is you have to trouble the comfortable and comfort the troubled.”
One thing that always makes a quote good is the fact that it is true, and this one certainly is. Challenging the comfortable players on your team to get out of their comfort zone and finding a comfort zone for those on your team that don’t have one is among the more challenging aspects of coaching.
You all know about the comfortable player. He or she is the good player who seems intent on staying good, nothing more. You have yet to find the best way to motivate or challenge this player and you are almost ready to settle on the fact that nothing will change.
And you know all about the troubled player, who requires the opposite approach. He or she is struggling, and both the player and the situation don’t seem to be improving.
DRIVN provides tools to make that often-difficult and touchy process easier and smoother.
Communicating with your over- or under-confident player is essential in this process. With DRIVN, communicating is quick, informal and efficient. Coaches can send quick notes of encouragement or challenges to players, or have conversations that might be more productive than face-to-face meetings.
One way to trouble the comfortable and comfort the troubled is to set goals for them. With DRIVN, both the coach and the player can participate in setting and tracking goals. The coach is also able to monitor the player’s progress, offer encouragement or raise the bar, whatever might be necessary.
Earlier in this space, we talked about the use of objective data at the University of North Carolina. By using different “Trackers,” coaches are able to show a troubled player some positive aspects of their game, or show the comfortable player areas in which improvement is needed.
Learn more by watching a DRIVN demo.