Why deliberate practice matters
La version française de cet article est disponible ici.
As winter was drawing to a close, I started to consider the parallels between skiing and coaching. I realised that analysing my favourite sport could offer an effective way of helping others — even non-skiers — to better understand certain aspects of coaching, a profession that remains misunderstood by many. This article is part of that series (you can read the introduction here).
Continual improvement is essential in order to avoid stagnating in one’s career. Picking up on the theme from last week, a skiing analogy can help us understand why, with the same amount of effort, some people advance while others get stuck.
In my previous article, I spoke about the importance of staying focussed on long-term objectives, and not allowing emergencies to make you put them off for another day. But even if keeping one’s long-term objectives in mind is necessary for continual progress; it is unfortunately not sufficient. The way that one practises something is a key factor in ensuring steady advancement.
My experience working on skiing technique with a ski instructor is illustrative. First, he helped me to break down each of my turns, showing me what each of my body parts was doing at any given stage. In this way, he helped me to analyse why I was unable to do certain things : I had trouble with moguls because I tended to lean back at key moments, thus causing me to lose control; tight turns gave me difficulties because of the way I twisted my shoulders at the end of each turn, etc.
Thanks to this more granular understanding of what I was doing and the impact that had on my capabilities, I could practise more intelligently. Instead of heading down each piste with the intention of “doing better”, I developed objectives that were more specific and, consequently, more effective: for a few runs I focused on the movement of my shoulders; on the next few I focussed on the position of my torso in relation to my legs, etc…
The same general approach applies no matter what you are practising, including at work: if you want to improve in a certain area, simply doing it over and over again will not do the trick — you must have a specific idea not only of the elements you want to improve, but also of the result for which you are aiming. You must also be able to analyse if you are progressing or not, and the small adjustments you must make in order to take things forward the next time around.
The external viewpoint of the professional coach helps a client not only undertake this analysis, but also to stay focussed on their objective. The coach also helps the client to draw lessons from each success or failure. In this way, the client is sure to practise intelligently, maximising their gains from the time and effort spent refining their efforts.
Do you have any questions about executive coaching? Click here to contact me and ask me anything you like. You can find more information about my background and qualifications here.