Give the coach a decision. Then teach the content.

In a recent LinkedIn reflection, I argued that coach education still leans too hard on lecturing. We put up slides, explain the content and share the answers. Then we ask coaches to return to a setting that rarely behaves like a slide deck.

Coaching means reading the situation, choosing what matters and adjusting with people in front of you. A learning experience should make room for that work.

Start with a decision.

Before asking what content belongs in a session, ask what decision a coach should be better prepared to make afterward. That shift gives the content a job. It also gives the facilitator something more useful to listen for than whether participants can repeat a definition.

For example, a session about adapting practice could begin with a group whose experience and ability vary. Ask coaches what they would change, what they would keep and why. The discussion matters because the reasoning becomes visible.

Imagine two coaches choosing the same smaller-sided game. One wants each player to get more touches. The other wants players to make decisions with less time and space. The activity looks identical, but the intended learning is different. Ask what each coach expects to happen and what they would watch for.

If one coach cannot explain what would count as progress, the facilitator has found something worth exploring. Repeating the activity description would miss it. The next question might be: “What would you change if the players were getting more touches but making the same rushed decisions?”

A question I have carried for years.

In a 2009 article on teaching softball skills, I wrote: “Knowing the game is the easy part; teaching it is the hard part.” I was writing about giving players a clear explanation, letting them try and checking what they understood. The same difficulty follows us into coach education. Expertise in the subject does not automatically help someone else use it.

Let experience into the room.

I have facilitated more than 500 NCCP module deliveries since January 2020, across in-person, virtual and blended settings. In my published reflection on facilitation, I described the sessions coaches remember: opportunities to wrestle with an idea, discuss what they have tried and leave with something practical.

That does not make content unimportant. It means content needs an encounter with experience. Ask a question. Allow thinking time. Invite a different interpretation. Help participants connect an idea with the conditions in which they coach.

Give the next step a shape.

My work as an Advanced Coaching Diploma cohort mentor with the Canadian Sport Institute Ontario included weekly sessions, reflection, applied learning and coordination with Coach Mentors. The program connected learning with continuing support. A single workshop may have a smaller scope, but it can still make the next step explicit. At the next meeting, ask: “What did you change, what happened, and what would you try differently?” That brings the discussion back to evidence from practice.

Adapt the activity and follow-up to the coaches, the topic and the support available.

My starting point remains the same: do not stop at asking what we need to tell coaches. Ask how we help them think, apply and improve.

Adapted and expanded from my LinkedIn reflection published July 30, 2026. The earlier quotation appears in a 2009 bylined reprint on teaching softball skills. Professional examples are drawn from my coach-development experience.