Touching Lives

What is revealed when catching up with paper work

Today I was doing the admin for my cricket work time in schools this calendar year so far. The total exceeds 100 hours. Add to those hours some District Level coaching, plus voluntary hours at the Colts Section of my own Club and also at another Club in my home town where we are building the Colts Section; and then add in all the background stuff ... the meetings, the planning, the organising ... that would then probably double the 100 hours figure. 

In terms of my working life - and this year in particular - this a lot of hours. It is a quantifiable measure of the time I have spent in working at educating, building and improving upon the technical abilities of a considerable number of young people - albeit in one small part of their lives.


Influence below the Surface 

Of course in all technical coaching there is also a relationship in terms of rapport between players and coach. And within that rapport there is influence at play, an influence that falls into the area of mental and performance coaching. For me this influence translates into linguistic, somatic and temperament areas - and is going on ALL the time. Certain words, a chuckle or a smile, here and there are hugely important in the relationship and, particularly with coaching a group. 

I am often seen as being very patient, easy going and, to put it bluntly, a bit of a pushover in terms of my strictly managing the unacceptable. Yet this is far from the truth, and I don't allow my laissez-faire attitude to over-ride my values for I really do want my players to be influenced by my values. On one day this week, for example, I had (i) to both call a player out, and then report him, for bullying and later (ii) I had to reveal to a squad of under 11 players, in no uncertain terms, what was and was not acceptable TO ME in terms of their engagement with our practice game. 

In spite of these rare occasions, I'm delighted that my players reflect back their acceptance of my influences - mainly because I know that somewhere in the confines of their minds they have taken on the need to be grounded, and to not take themselves too seriously.
That ALWAYS seems to work best!


Conclusions

Yet because everything we do as coaches makes a difference, the next step is about going the extra mile. And so 5-10 minutes helping a little girl with her catching, at the end of her brother's All Stars Cricket session this evening is an essential component in making that difference a positive and worthwhile one. Of course receiving genuine and grateful thanks from her Mum makes all the difference to me too! When the extra miles are noticed it reminds me that being generous with our time is also very valuable at human level. 

And when we add up our EXTRA miles in a year for instance, they can actually be much more valuable than our "200+ hours". 

Never under-estimate the impact of YOUR extra miles!