Be prepared to break the mould
Dan explained to tutors that the composition of the All Stars Activator Training Course had been put together as a framework to follow, not a blueprint to stick to. Activators are encouraged to adapt the sessions if the need arises.
And this was something UK Coaching Lead Tutor Adam Colley was at pains to reiterate when he delivered the Developing the Person in Front of You workshop to tutors at the John Charles Centre for Sport in Leeds.
"If you are delivering the two and a half-hour face-to-face All Stars Activator session, those who are attending are all going to want different things from it," said Adam.
"So, what you deliver should not be rigid; it’s for you to pull apart and mould and blend to how it fits with your group of activators, coaches or players to suit them.
How many of us (if we are honest) strive to understand others before we seek to be understood ourselves? "Most people don’t listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply" (Stephen R Covey). Active listening is just one simple method we can use to understand the individual on a deeper level.
Tools and techniques a CUT above!
The three core principles explored in the workshop – Connect, Understand and Thrive – are simple enough to remember. But in case you forget, it might help to think of it as a fitting acronym for a powerful framework that proposes to help activators cut their teeth in coaching cricket while developing their confidence so they can cut it as an inspirational children’s coach!
Tutors were given plenty of ideas to reflect upon as they learned, through a series of innovative strategies and fun interactive games, the importance of engaging with people and building connections, and how to hone their skills around understanding to help their activators, and ultimately their participants, thrive.
"We want participants to have a great experience and activators to have the best experience too," explains Adam – a former All Stars activator himself – about the need to make learning fun and person-centred.
And that includes the workshop delivery. ‘For us as lead tutors we must practice what we preach. So, it is about how to make sure the principles that we are getting across to our learners, that we are living that through our delivery as well.
"I try to give them different games they can use in their sessions to help them underpin some good practice they are doing already, which they can then share with other tutors. And hopefully there may be one or two lightbulb moments when they think, 'Ah, I can do that!'."
Learning how to break the ice
Yorkshire Cricket Board Development Manager Gareth Davis felt the flash of inspiration on the very first task, when Adam set a challenge that sent tutors scattering and chattering.
Gareth explains: "When our activators come onto an All Stars course, the more information we can have about them, the better it sets us up for the session. So, what resonated with me were the strategies for facilitating connectivity and how we can best engage with activators and parents.
"One of the activities was a random sheet of ice-breaker questions that asked us to mingle and find out a bit more about people in the group, including what other skills people had. So, for example, can they juggle, have they got a red car, a sibling, what’s their favourite song – things we haven’t got access to.
For Gareth Moorhouse, Cheshire Cricket Board Clubs and Participation Manager, the big takeaway from the workshop was learning about how to create environments in which people can thrive, with an appreciation that ‘thrive’ will mean different things to different people. He says it has helped him reflect on his own tutoring skills.
"It’s not just about teaching people cricket skills, it’s about enlightening activators to go on and inspire others. And that means understanding what makes people tick in order to help them achieve their goals for getting into coaching.
"Everyone gets into cricket, into tutoring and into activating for a different reason, so trying to understand what motivates them helps us to shape our practice and tailor our response.
"By [understanding and connecting] it allows us to have that flexibility and adaptability when you’re tutoring or coaching. So while recognising there is a central theme, it’s about not sticking to the script all the time and appreciating that everybody reacts differently to different situations and so learning to sprinkle a bit of personality into the mix. At the end of the day, we are all working to one goal essentially, which is to give everyone a fantastic experience in cricket."
Here to help
UK Coaching’s workforce development team is keen to work with more partners around utilising and fully maximising the power of the Connect, Understand and Thrive principle to develop tutors, mentors and coach developers.
As Dan testified, UK Coaching can offer a highly bespoke service, committed to supporting the wider learning journey, beyond the coach and participant.
"UK Coaching asked us about our programme and about what we would need and created something that would be suitable for that," said Dan. "To be able to put into practice a pilot that is bespoke for our programme and works with our tutors to be able to deliver that was just what we were looking for.
"We’ve had comments from our tutors that it’s really clear the UK Coaching staff have done their research in terms of understanding All Stars cricket, and that’s come across in the delivery."
Want to upskill your tutors, mentors and coach developers and promote a person-centred approach? Curious about how Developing the Person in Front of You might look for you? Get in touch to discuss running the training for your workforce.