athlete coach relationship
Wed, Oct 02, 2024 6:39AM • 55:32
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
coach-athlete relationships, sport psychology, relational coaching, conflict management, communication strategies, athlete-centered approach, coach-centered approach, interpersonal dynamics, emotional tone, commitment, complementarity, core orientation, remote coaching, leadership frameworks, positive psychology
SPEAKERS
Sophia Jowett, Paul Barnett, David Turner
Paul Barnett 00:00
Hello, Professor. Sophia jowitt, how are you today? And welcome to the great coaches podcast.
Sophia Jowett 00:07
Thanks very much, Paul. It's a pleasure to be here with you today. I've
Paul Barnett 00:11
been looking forward to this. I think I first started chasing you last summer. So very much. Looking forward to hearing from you today. But before I ask you the first question, I should also say hello to my co interviewer today. Dr David, very good to see you again. How are you good
David Turner 00:29
to see you? Paul, Yeah, I'm good. I'm here in sunny Cambridge at the hourly rusty campus, and really looking forward to having a deep dive into coach, athlete relationships.
Paul Barnett 00:38
Well, let's, let's start right there. And perhaps, Sophia, if you could just tell us before we begin. Where are you in the world and what have you been up to so far today?
Sophia Jowett 00:49
Okay, so today I am at Laur University. I am on campus, at my office, in my office. It's a lovely day, and it's a very busy campus, because the English school championships are being held here today. So I'm starting the day with you today. It's nine o'clock here in the morning, and what a way to get the day started. I was thinking, so yeah,
Paul Barnett 01:16
well, why don't we start with an even simpler question, perhaps than that one, which is, you're a world expert on coach, athlete relationships, but can you take us way, way back? How did your interest in coaching begin?
Sophia Jowett 01:33
Wow. Okay, so if we go back, well, the main reason that I got interested in in coaching is because of my engagement with sport. And right from the very start, my family was very sporty. My dad is an Olympian. Went to the Olympics twice in 1964 in Tokyo and 1968 in Mexico. I represented the Greek Olympic Olympic team in long jump, in athletics, track and field. And it was during that time that some of us, well, I wasn't born back then, but my dad keeps saying to me about this amazing Bob Beamon who has left a legacy in long jump, and he was privileged to know him and compete with him. And of course, my mother as well was very much into sport. See, I worked for various national, national governing sport organizations, including the Hellenic Olympic Committee, and both my myself and my brother were just socialized in and through sport. My brother became professional footballer, and I started with swimming. I was a pretty good swimming swimmer, and then I moved into athletics and followed my father's steps a little bit. I was more interested in 400 meter hurdles, though not in long jump, and it was a new introduced event in track and field athletics back then. So I was very happy to try something new with my coaches. And I guess the interest in coaching came from my own experiences, having experienced some great coaches, I had quite a few in the years I was an athlete, but two coaches I will always very fondly remember, and I think they were the catalyst for my interest in coaching.
Paul Barnett 03:35
Oh, fantastic. And who were those coaches? And was there anything specific that you remember when you think about them, that that was the energy behind that, that catalyst.
Sophia Jowett 03:46
I'm so very pleased to ask for this question, because my swimming coach, I only had one, but we spent about four or five years together in my very early, you know, time as a as a swimmer. You know, the age seven until about 1011, years old, this was the coach who at the 10, at my birthday, when I turned 10, he actually gave me a little gift and a little card, which I still love. And the card said, You're an amazing swimmer, and I'm so very proud to have you in my group, and I always, I don't remember if you asked me what he looked like, I might be able to give you a vague idea, but it was that gesture that really stuck with me, and it's a story that I tell now, 50 plus years old. It is just, you know, something that it stuck with me and in my from my athletics, sort of years in sport, again, one coach was the one that was really it is a personification of what we are going to talk today. He. So he delivered relational coaching. He really connected with me, especially as I remember, he completely wanted to know me as a person and as a human being, my, you know, my goals, my aspirations, and he performed the best. You know, I broke school records. I was the best athlete I could be with him, and then it was kind of a downhill from there. One once he had to kind of go and he migrated in Germany. That was the only reason why we kind of parted way so and then I had to move to a different coach, and the rest is a bit of history. I kind of dropped out following two years with that one coach. So yeah, these two coaches were the catalyst, I would say, for my interest in sport. And I can tell stories about about them, but who wants to listen?
Paul Barnett 05:54
I have a letter from the coach that I had when I was at nine, a guy called John telling and my my mother found it the other day and sent a picture of it to me. So isn't it amazing these the power of handwritten notes and the way that we hold on to them. I think it's a and many of the coaches I've talked about have taught, have spoken about getting their athletes to write notes to thank people. So I think it's a very powerful tool. But David, I'll hand over to you.
David Turner 06:24
Yeah, no problem. I think what's really powerful about those stories is, for me, They cement the connection that those coaches made with you. And I think it's really interesting that you can't remember what the coach maybe look like, but you still are deeply connected with that coach, through that through the letter. And I don't think it matters what it is handwritten notes can be powerful, but I think it's, it's the connection that seems to me to be really powerful anyway. Over to my question, then, so Sophia, it's a privilege to talk to you today. You're the world renowned authority on coach, athlete relationships, if I've got it right. I think you've been working on this for a quarter of a century. So what led you to devote so much of your working life to this topic? I know you've told us a little bit about the origins of that and maybe how have your thoughts evolved over time?
Sophia Jowett 07:16
I I did in my kind of academic journey as a as a student, studying an undergraduate degree in physical education and sports sciences. This is how I started. I did a four year degree at the University of Athens. I experienced a little bit of sports psychology. And much of the sports psychology was a lot about psychological skills, about motivation, anxiety, and that kind of continued when I stepped up and did a postgraduate degree here at Loughborough University, a master's degree. Again, you know the emphasis was very much at intrapersonal aspects of performance. And it was a clear lack of an interest at the social elements, you know, the social environment, the influences that people have with one another. And when I finished my masters, I kind of had an idea that I wanted to look into relationships, into coaching, into coaches, and what I realized was that, having looked at the literature, that much of the coach, athlete, interpersonal dynamics were captured, examined, and knowledge generated as a result, through leadership frameworks. There was a lot of information around what coaches do and how they influence teams and individual athletes. And at that point, I thought, well, it is not just what coaches do, it is also what athletes do and how this, behaviors, actions, interactions, influence coaches. But also, in addition to that, you got feelings and thoughts that can have an influence in one another. And I didn't feel that coach leadership frameworks really captured that reciprocity that went beyond behaviors and included also feelings and thoughts, and the concept of interpersonal relationship, for me, seemed to be the way to kind of expand the field and add a little bit more knowledge and make some valued contributions. Now, the problem I had at that time was I could not find a supervisor to supervise a project like that, because, you know, as I said, the interest was very much around intrapersonal aspects. But eventually I found a supervisor took me on, and the rest is history.
David Turner 09:54
I guess it was really interesting about that is the emphasis on intrapersonal. Personal qualities, like personal motivation, etc. Whereas I know you've said in the past that there was a gap in the gap in the field for the interpersonal dynamics which you explored, and I know it was interesting what you said there was, there was work on what coaches did. And it's almost like a reflection of the great man theory of leadership, isn't it? You know that there's this god like figure that does things that help athletes, and as you say, the reciprocity brings a much richer, more nuanced picture. I'm thinking of Becca's paper about great coaching, which I think is was titled, it's not what they do, but how they do it, which brings in the nice dimension of not being a great leader, but being someone who is a great developer of others. And I think that is a nice richness that comes out in your work. Um, okay, so just just to go into your work in a bit of detail, your your 3c plus one model, Coach athlete relationships, is one of the most accessible and certainly one of the most cited theoretical frameworks from my coaching students over the years, but some of them have also used your compass model, which I really like of coach athlete relationships, to frame their thinking. And I remember some of them using that as a theoretical framework for their dissertations, undergraduate dissertations. So can you tell us a little bit about the compass model and how that differs from the 3c plus one
Sophia Jowett 11:22
for sure? Yes, of course. So let us look at both models, and then we can compare and contrast the differences and any commonalities that they may have. So let us start with the three plus one C's, which is the most commonly used and more often known and referred to and cited. So the three plus one sees captures four constructs that are meant to describe, define the quality of quota and relationships. And of course, you know, I started with with this model because I felt it was necessary that we've got, we've got something touchable, tangible to capture, something that is so elusive, like the coach ethnic relationship. And importantly, you know, we often say we cannot, we cannot improve something unless we measure it. And I felt the relationship was one of those things that, although people did not talk that much when I got started back in 1997 as a as a PhD PhD student, but I felt it was necessary to crystallize it and understand it. So I kind of looked at literature outside sport as one does, to kind of understand relationship research much more broadly. And found myself in romantic relationships, in friendly in friendship relationships, in educational relationships, indeed in business and other such domains. And I put together, first a definition of what a coach of relationship is, which, of course, the literature helped me and the relationship is defined. We define it as a social situation, as an interpersonal situation, as something that fluctuates, that captures coaches and athletes, interpersonal feelings, interpersonal thoughts and interpersonal behaviors, and all of these are causally and mutually interconnected, interdependent. Now, once we had this definition, which was important for us, in order to capture, as I said, what was missing from the literature, which was just coach behaviors, we wanted to bring the coach and the athlete behaviors, but also feelings and thoughts. Once we have the definition, we felt that it was necessary to operationalize the definition. So how can we bring to life, to life, feelings, thoughts and behaviors? So interpersonal feelings were captured through the constructs of through the construct of closeness, and closeness reflects the emotional tone of the relationship coaches and athletes, mutual trust, respect, appreciation and indeed, liking and then interpersonal thoughts were captured through the construct of commitment. Commitment is essentially the intention and willingness to maintain close ties over a period of time. Again, very important to have this long term connection in order to bring about the necessary change. And complementarity captured coaches and athletes interpersonal behaviors. And complementarity is synonymous to cooperation or collaboration. It's coaches and athletes levels of responsiveness, receptiveness and the friendly attitude and being at ease or comfortable in each other's presence. But complementarity also captures the specific roles that the coach and the athlete hold in that particular relationship.
And. Of course, the coach has a specific role to fulfill, which is to lead, to instruct, to provide support and feedback, and from the outputs point of view, is to be able to listen to filter information in and out, and execute instructions as effectively as possible.
And last but not least, core orientation. And orientation, essentially is the strength that connects closeness, commitment and complementarity together. And is that what I call it is the common ground that the coach and the athlete established and from dyad to dyad, or relationship to relationship, that common ground difference, and it's the shared knowledge and understanding that these individuals have developed, which essentially help them to conduct their relationships better. So knowing each other's strengths and weaknesses is a good thing in a relationship. So these are the four C's. So three plus 1c model that captures something that is very complex in very simple terms, I would like to say, and then we've got compass. So whilst we have defined now the relationship quality, compass is the communication aspect of of of relationships. So we know that relationships, in order to be energized, to be activated, to to be built, need good effective communication. And compass is is a tool that helps us navigate relationships, help us, helps us build, promote, enhance and maintain a good state of good quality relationships and compass is an acronym that contains seven communication strategies, and I will just mention them very quickly, and we can explain each one of them, if you would like. So it includes conflict management, openness, motivational strategies of communication, includes preventative strategies of communication, assurance, support and networks. So all of these seven strategies, and there may be others, but these are the more the most common identified through our research, through our interviewing a number of coaches and athletes. These are the seven strategies that came through the interviews that coaches and athletes employ to maintain a good quality relationship.
David Turner 17:32
Sophia, let's, let's check my understanding and see it, see if I'm getting things right. So the 3c plus one gives us the concepts to think about Coach athlete relationships, and can help us with a snapshot of where those relationships are at certain point in time, whereas the compass model for me is one that is about establishing and maintaining coach athlete relationships over over a longer period and managing those coach athlete relationships. Am I doing? Okay? That's
Sophia Jowett 18:00
precisely right. And to help you, David, we often use this analogy, a metaphor. We say that the coach athlete relationship a good quality coach athlete relationship is the vehicle that takes coaches and athletes from place A to place B, and B is a is a better place. Hopefully you know where you can you know feeling that you are achieving, you're progressing, you're doing good things. And communication is the fuel that energizes, activates and actually moves that vehicle that you know that relationship from place A to B. And sometimes this communication strategies, they can be fortified, really fortified, so that can move our relationship quality to our goals much quicker, much more effectively. So hopefully that helps a little bit so communication is both what we call a determinant of good quality relationships, but also a consequent of good quality relationships. And out there as well,[PB1]
Paul Barnett 19:08
the compass model starts with conflict management, and it's such an interesting area. Some people avoid it. Some people embrace it. Some people chase it. What do you think the best relationships do when it comes to thinking or acting around conflict management?
Sophia Jowett 19:29
Now I'll start from the point of view that conflict is inevitable and happens in good quality relationships, in the best relationships, and of course, happens in those that are a bit less functional, perhaps a little bit less healthy, and so on. So conflict does happen. You know, whether the relationship is very good or very poor, it is inevitable. And like you said, if you have a good quality relationship, if the starting point is that. Have a good quality relationship. I think conflict management can be so much more effective, much more easier to manage, to monitor, to resolve. Now, what we see from the research that we are doing is that more often than not, athletes will expect their coaches to be the conflict solvers. So here we've got somebody who can actually take initiative, knowing that the athletes are usually the ones who expect the coach to initiate a conversation around conflict, perhaps because athletes are not often confident to bring that up to the coaches. [PB2]
And it may be the relationships we think that they experience that cause that causes them to think that, you know, this is the territory of the coach, but I think, I think, like you said, conflict can be very facilitated, facilitative, because if you have two people working toward resolving something which may be a disagreement, a misunderstanding and incompatibility, if you bring these two people trying to work out exactly what the problem is, trying to understand the emotions that perhaps it elicit, and then have a conversation around. Okay, so this is how the the problem is is understood. What What solutions can we put down in order to resolve it? Conflict can actually bring this to people even closer than before.
Paul Barnett 21:38
I have a working theory more from the corporate landscape that the speed with which you can resolve conflict is the key determinant of performance. So the quicker the routines you have in place to resolve it, even small or big, the more likely you are to keep moving on to other issues so you don't get sort of stuck. And I think, I think it's a skill that in a post pandemic world, has been damaged a little. And I think the words and mechanism with which we, which we, which we address it is something that we all need to reflect on and get a little bit a bit at. And as you talk about the coach, I mean, there's a real power issue there isn't there who has more power in the relationship and who is the person that has to instigate it. So I find it, find it a fascinating area, uh, particularly through the lens of of leadership.
David Turner 22:40
Yeah, there are some coaches that I've read about who seem to be very uncomfortable if there's no conflict.
Paul Barnett 22:45
Oh, Eddie Jones. Eddie Jones talks about it openly, sure.
David Turner 22:49
Yeah. Jose Marino, people like that, you know, but, and that's their particular model, but I guess they're atypical, so I'll come on to the atypical. But Sophia, for now, what great coaches come to mind for you as exemplars with positive coach athlete relationships?
Sophia Jowett 23:07
Yes, wow, that is a huge question. And where does one start? You mentioned a couple of names just before, and I will just refer to English football for now, because we tend to get a lot of information here from media and various journalists and articles and press, and therefore I got to get a filler. I got to get to know a little bit people like Jurgen Klopp and Pep Guardiola. These are amazing coaches who speak quite comfortably about the relationships that they have with their athletes and the values that they place on knowing and understanding them, and not as players, but also as human beings and their actions speak volume really, and each one of us have different stories to tell, to kind of bring that to life. But am I right? I think I heard earlier in the news, as I was driving to work that it is Pep Guardiola who decided to reward, not to reward, not the players, but the broader team that has helped him to achieve this, great successes over the years, with a financial reward, potentially out from his own pocket. That is, again, another huge gesture to show your level of appreciation, and again, to fuel positively the development of good quality relationships, and these people knowing that will give you even more going into this season. So these two people come to mind, alongside Jose Mourinho. I really loved the stories as they were unfolding when. He was in the Premiership. Of course, in his book, I think it's called Special leadership, I would have liked to call it special relationships, because it talks a lot about relationships in that book. But also ansoletti, sorry, ancillotti, and even Ferguson, who wants you know, some of us might think that you know it was a different generation coach. He does talk in his book leading about the respect and the trust and the level that he went to understand his players, which again, shows, you know, a huge level of connection. So there are many names, and I'd like to refer to a couple of female coaches as well. And of course, Emma Hayes is just an amazing football coach, serial winner. Coach, managing. You know her work and motherhood extremely well, and now trying her heart in a different culture in a different nation, with immediate success at the Olympics, and of course, Serena wigman a little bit closer nowadays. But I'd also like to refer to other coaches that perhaps are not as as popular or in the spotlight. I worked recently with people like Jane Figueredo and who is a diving coach, born in Zimbabwe, moved in the USA, made a coaching career there, moved to Russia, and now she's in the UK again, with tremendous success with their divers, and it was all in the Olympics when she was the level of appreciation through her celebrations for her diverse winning medals. It does so how much it matters to them to see their athletes succeeding. And and there are so many others one can refer Mel Marshall is coaching here. Adam pity again, a long term relationship with great levels of success and lots of ups and downs, but still staying together and working together. And if I may say so, if I don't ramble too much, let me carry on. But if I do, do stop me. But there are the coaches as well that have made a huge impression in me, names that perhaps are not household names, like Marcus Weiss, a German coach, a field hockey coach who coached women's Olympic team in 2004 and he went, he won their gold medal with them. Then he won't, went on to win with the menus Olympic hockey, field hockey team, a gold medal in 2008 in Beijing, and then again in 2012 I mean, if we're talking about serial winner coaches with male and female teams, and the person that has very publicly in various interviews has spoken about the importance of relationships with each one player in his team or squad. And in fact, he's using, and I'm paraphrasing, but he did mention in one of his interviews about getting to this toll of the athlete, you know, really diving deep into understanding that human being in front of him. And in fact, we have written an article together and we alongside a former PhD student of mine. And it does really, you know, highlight the significance that he puts in relationships and the ways that he tries to nurture them and build them over time. But I would like to finish, if I have a little bit more time, I would like to finish with one coach that really gave me courage to pursue and maintain my momentum as a researcher, particularly in the early days when I was trying to introduce relationships, and it was not very easy from a publication point of view. You know, when you introduce something easy, something different or new, you do get a little bit of difficulties and challenges that you try to break into a new area. But the name I want to mention is Mike kruchevsky. Coach K, yeah. Mentioned the name correctly. Coach gay. He wrote several books about about the ways that he leads, the ways that he coaches, amazing coach at the university level, Olympic level, and and he does lead, you know, with the heart and I. The relationships that he has developed with with his athletes and still exist today, like the relationship I have symbolically with my swimming coach and my athletics coach still today. And actually, I will also like to mention Bob Bowman as well, because he's an incredible coach. You know, of course, a lot of people know Bob Bowman because of Michael Phelps and his extraordinary success with him, but there are other athletes. The amount of Olympic Mendels he has won through the athletes that he has coached is just incredible. And everybody will talk about that amazing connection that that they have developed with him, and that relationship does carry you, you know, and you know, let's, let's be honest, being an athlete at the highest level of performance, it's not easy. It's very difficult. It's a very, very difficult. You really need to stretch and push yourself in pain thresholds that you never knew you had, and having a coach next to you, supporting you and believing in you is the power that each one of us need to really thrive in life and work.
David Turner 31:19
Absolutely I think I've read a story about Bowman that he could tell when Phelps walked into the swimming pool, what sort of training session he would have just which gives you an indication of the amount of connection there. And he talked about soul. I would use the word spirit, not not in a religious sense, but then something spiritual about sport at the highest level, and connections between people when you're more than the sum of your parts as a coach, athlete, relationship or or as a team. Okay, so just before we move on, a quick observation, which I know you'd want me to do from reading your work great coaching is not necessarily about famous coaches, so your work and the things we've talked about there can apply to having great relationships at grassroots level or for community coaches. And I said I'd return to the atypical. Excuse me, what are some of the atypical or unusual examples of coach, athlete relationships that you've come across that maybe don't fit into the frame theoretical frameworks we're trying to
Sophia Jowett 32:22
develop? Um, yes, I will not call them unusual. I will call them atypical. So, yes, a long time ago, David, I think we published a book. It is in a book chapter, we published the framework, and we kind of separated relationships, or coach athlete dyads in two main two main categories. One is the typical coach athlete relationship, and the other is the atypical coach athlete relationship. So the typical relationship is the relationship where the coach and the athlete are not related in any in any other way. They're just it is the the coach and the athlete roles that connect them, that have brought them together, whereas the atypical coach athlete relationship contains relationships whereby the coaches and the athletes are also related through other relationships. They're dual role relationships, I call them, so the coach is also the parent of the of the athlete, or the coach is the partner, the romantic partner, or a marginal partner to the athlete. And there are lots of examples in the field about these types of relationships. And in fact, it was one of the first type, the atypical type was one of the first type of relationship I was intrigued to investigate because it was closer to the literature I kind of was reading. And yes, examples, for example, let me just give you a few examples of these types of relationships so that we kind of bring it to life a little bit more. And I will refer to the parental type of relationship, taking some example from athletics. Armand duplatis, a lot of people know he again broke for the third time this year the Olympic sorry, the world record in Colwood. He's been coached by his mother and and father, who were former athletes themselves. So this is a typical, atypical coach athlete relationship that we can see. And of course, a lot of I'm sure you will have observed that yourselves in tennis. You've got a we've got a lot of parents coaching their own kids in the sport of tennis. And then, of course, the in the marital sort of side. One example that I have in mind is from a Greek individual, again, in Colville. I think they. Name is Katerina Stefani. She was an Olympic champion, world champion from Greece. She went to America, she found her husband and her coach, and now she trains in America and with with her husband, so And also, if I may add to that, to this atypical type of relationships, where, whilst they're atypical, when it comes to the culture relationship they develop, is very much typical in that, you know, you will find all the ingredients of good quality relationships that we expect in the typical Kota relationship, so that you have trust, respect, appreciation, commitment, collaboration, but what they have in advantage, as an advantage this type of a atypical relationships is that they have more time together, which means that they know one another very well and but at the same time, disadvantage can be a disadvantage if it is not managed well, because sometimes the one relationship can spill over in another, and then you can have a mixture of of unhealthy relationships developing that we need to be careful so how these relationships are managed are key. But there is another, third type, actually, David. It's which becomes a little bit more popular nowadays than ever before, which go which we call the remote quota relationship coaching that happens remotely and in certain sports, like long distance running, ultra running, etc, there are a lot of athletes who have coaches in other parts of the world, from the part that they they train. And we have done, we are actually doing, as we speak, some research in this, in this area and and, of course, as you will expect even in remote relationships, in relationships that happen you know, in different parts of the world, coaches and athletes do have that level of trust and respect and appreciation and commitment that you will expect in a typical relationship. But what if you see particularly in these relationships is a more business like approach. Often the code the athlete pays the coach to to undertake that role, and therefore you see a more business like approach to the coaching. And if I add to that, another little finding which is really intriguing is that the more often, the more often the the coach and the athlete meet remotely, the more the athlete will have to incur a cost which actually highlights The currency of communication, the value of communication and the value of relationship as well.
David Turner 38:07
Is it more transactional, though, in that case where it's been costed, etc, rather than transformational?
Sophia Jowett 38:15
I think it has to be transformational. It is transactional. But that is not leaning to you to being transformational, because let's think about it. If it is not transformational, that relationship will end, yeah, because it starts right with the contract. This is what we are going to achieve in XYZ time. So there is a combined transactional, transformational approach that coaches and athletes usually take. That's what we see. But for me, what is interesting is the currency, the physical currency that is placed on communication, on the frequency of communication, you know, bringing together these individuals, you know, you have to pay more,[PB3]
Paul Barnett 38:58
yeah. Sophia, if we take this relationship model, and we start thinking about it in the context of teams. What have you learned about the way the network of relationships within a within a team, there's often multiple college coaches, multiple players? What have you learned about that dynamic and the way it can influence an individual
Sophia Jowett 39:22
read for point. And I will say right from the start, we know very little around the network, so the coach and the athlete form a unique relationship, but we all know, particularly at the higher levels of sport performance, which he which a lot is at stake. Coaches and athletes surround themselves by a network of expert people. So you will find yourself surrounded with a physiologist, with a psychologist, with a nutritionist, a sleep specialist. You know. Is a team of people, and so how does the this cross boundary team of experts come together? It is a little bit of an unknown, but recently I wrote, actually a paper, and it's in a in it's been peer reviewed, and hopefully it will be published with some ideas about how this network of people can work really well together. And this is where it comes this idea of the coding golden triangle that I have, which is, if you want to be competent as a as a team, if you want to work effectively and to get the best out of the people that you have around there, there are three things that we need to pay attention leadership, relationships and communication. So we have talking so far, quite a bit about relationships and communication, but leadership is very important, and when coaches and athletes find themselves with this team of individuals, you know, the question we have to ask is, who is leading? Who is the leader? Why these people have come together? What is the vision? What is the mission, what are the objectives that we try to achieve? And this is a quite an open ended question, you know, is it the code to coordinate everybody? Is it the code to set the tone? And, you know, how do we get about you know, how do you do we understand one another, coming from different backgrounds and disciplines, speaking different language. And let's be honest, these teams come and go as well. They are very dynamic. So how do these teams come together and dismantle and come together again at different times? These are all questions that we have not quite answered yet in sport and need to be answered by but I believe that the answer revolves around sound, leadership, quality relationships and effective communication.
David Turner 42:16
Yeah, I've been taking a module, a master's module, or leading a module on interdisciplinary working in sports over the last two years, I think fascinating area. And as you indicate, you know, you may be coaching a team, but you're part of a coaching team as well. And there's, there's networks of relationships between various specialists and various athletes. And I think that's a fascinating area of future research. So looking to the future, let's let's look back a little bit. If you could communicate with your younger self, starting out researching coach, athlete relationships, what would you say and why?
Sophia Jowett 42:51
I would probably say, Well done for sticking with your original idea. As I, you know, briefly mentioned, it was difficult to identify a PhD supervisor back then to kind of take me on and do the PhD that I had in mind. So well done. And I also have to thank the supervisor who took me on despite the fact that this was outside his area, and I thank him very much for for taking a leap with me. And I think we did a pretty good job in that way. So, and that is something that will say to everybody, you know, if you have something in mind, do pursue it. You know, challenge people and go for it. And
David Turner 43:43
what do you think is the future of coach, athlete relationships in terms of future research or future applications in practice?
Sophia Jowett 43:53
From a research point of view, there is huge scope for more research. David, there is a lot of a lot of work that needs to be done. I often say to my students, we are just scratching the surface here. We need better samples, better methodologies, better research questions. We need to expand the field in so many different ways. There are so many unknowns that we can investigate around around this broad area that we call coach Arctic relationship. We need to know more about empathy, compassion, psychological safety and how culture of relationship, the relationship and leadership Interplay over time, you know the Golden Triangle, how all these three things come together? There is so much we can do. From a research point of view, it's endless. And I welcome everybody to come with ideas to work with me or other research labs across the world, because this is a buoyant area of research, and I have seen a couple of research papers. They're doing meta analysis on culture relationships. They're doing reviews on cold health relationships. There are a lot of papers that have generated a lot of good knowledge for us all. From a practical point of view, I will say that we need to do more about educating, developing coaches, awareness around the importance the power and the role and significance of coach art and relationships, coaches often do it alone. Try to work things out themselves, so I think we need to support them in order to understand the skill set that is required, and there is so much that we can say around that to help coaches understand the role and significance of relationships. And at this point, I will also mention that we need to also educate athletes about the importance of the coach athlete relationships, because they have a role to play. You know, it takes two to tango, and that is important for both parties to understand how to develop and maintain good quality relationships with one another in order to achieve their personal and interpersonal goals.
David Turner 46:07
Just a couple of quick things about that. I've heard you elsewhere talking about the fact that, well, Bob, first of all, as a masterclass in humility after 25 years to say there's much to be done, but well done. I've heard you say that, that although we've explored what good coach athlete relationships might look like, we haven't actually looked at what bad coach athlete relationships might look like. And that's an interesting one. I think I know Brian gerag has looked at poor coaching, but, but that's not quite the same thing.
Sophia Jowett 46:37
You've got a point there. Yeah. And I kind of often say, you know, I look at it from a positive psychology perspective, you know, my work is just kind of, you know, leans toward that sort of aspect or area or discipline than anything else, and maybe that's why we haven't really looked at the dark side of relationships. But with that point, I would, I wouldn't like to miss the opportunity to say that I think good quality relationships can't prevent bad relationships, you know, and the consequences of bad relationships can prevent abuse, exploitations, bad behavior, bad coaching. So that's why I'm leaning toward let's look what is positive and bring everybody on board with positive, good quality, functional relationships.
David Turner 47:26
I think that's partly about who you are coming to research, because you have that positive outlook. So that's how you see the world. It's your kind of onstological position, isn't it? Okay? I thought it might be good for us to quickly explore how you've translated your work into accessible resources for coaches. So I know you've done some work with UK coaching and people like that. So can you give us an example of how your work's been translated for practitioners?
Sophia Jowett 47:56
Sure. Yes. So we've got a free, online educational, coach and athlete program that everybody can access all around the world free of charge. The IOC has helped us with funds to create it. You can take as much or as little time as possible to explore it as a coach or with or just athletes themselves, they can find out a little bit about quality relationships, communication and conflict. And there's a lot of videos with high profile coaches, performance developers, all sorts of people from all different walks of life that can bring the concepts into life and their quizzes and all sorts that people can kind of engage and interact with. So this is available. I will happily share with you the link that if you want to to make it accessible to your audience. And of course, yes, UK coaching has got a lot of of the work that we have done translated so people can access it. But I think there is a paywall for that. If I'm right, by the way, we don't get anything. And of course, there is tandem as well. Again, I will give you the website whereby coaches and athletes can tap into trying to understand their own relationships, the relationships that develop with their athletes, from a quality and communication point of view, they quickly can get a form that generates their results, and they can visually have a quick picture of what the relationship is like and what communication is like. So these are a couple of things that we have done in order to kind of bring the knowledge that we have to the wider public.
David Turner 49:56
Excellent. Thank you. Is that certificated? Free coach athlete relationship program, just, just so I can encourage my students,
Sophia Jowett 50:06
we give them a certificate, yes, yeah, that's fine.
David Turner 50:09
And just final question for me. I'll let Paul start to wrap up after that, I've heard you talk elsewhere about how the pendulum has shifted over time with Coach athlete relationships from a more directive, authoritarian to maybe a more progressive athlete, centered. And I've heard you fascinatingly say that you think that pendulum might have swung a bit too far. Can you tell us a little bit about
Sophia Jowett 50:31
that interesting? Yes. So I was coached, you know, from the many coaches I had, apart from the good examples I mentioned, very much from a coach centered approach. So the coach was the leader, you know, the protagonist that gave the decisions, instructed. It was all about the coaches. And now we are seeing the pendulum as swinging to the athlete centered. If you are asked coaches, as I do in a lot of coach workshops that I give. You know, what is their approach to coaching, to their coaching, they will tell you, athlete centered. Now, athlete centered is an approach that from a pragmatic point of view, you know, it's very difficult to employ. You know, if you, if you read what an athlete center approach is. It's about athletes knowing their needs, their goals, being able to deliver skills, to deliver training sessions to you know it is very much athletes doing it themselves. And you know what is the purpose of the coach? And now I have heard many coaches themselves saying, I want to be redundant, but I'm sorry to say that if you're redundant, then your role will cease to exist. And athletes need you, need you. I mean, I cannot see. Do we know any athletes who have achieved, you know, the highest of you know performance success without coaches? Maybe I cannot think of anybody, but you may correct it. But even if there are some exceptions, there are very few. So coaches are needed. And I don't want to to kind of give the impression to the coaches that an athlete sender approach is easy, because, you know, the athlete has got to do much more than the court. The coach facilitates, observes, and that is their role. Because I have seen that as well, which is really frustrating. And, you know, letting the athletes do it themselves, they will never progress or not as fast as they could or would if the coach was part of the process. So I have introduced this idea. Let's merge the coach athlete Center and the athlete the coach centered approach and the athlete center approach into what I call coach the combined coach athlete centered approach, where really at the center of that approach is the coach and the athlete working together as one. And that, to me, is very important, because sometimes David, as we know, in real life, when coaches, Coach, you know, during, you know, long periods of time, sometimes they they will have to take a coach center approach. They will have to, you know, take a very much. You know, I instruct, I lead and please execute. And other times they will have to take a more athlete center approach, where the athlete is driving and leading. And you know, they have to be entirely on their own, like they are in the Olympics when they compete, compete on the track. But more often than not, they soon be together, working together, solving problems together, asking questions, offering alternatives, perspectives. It is all about collaboration. Coaching. At the heart of coaching is collaboration. Is the unit relationship the coach and the athlete develop, and therefore that's why I have kind of introduced some ideas that perhaps you know kind of don't sit with either of the approaches that are very widely available, and coaches use them. But let's see what happens. I don't know. I
David Turner 54:15
think it's really good that we conceptualize of the coach affluent relationship as dynamic and fluctuating and moving along a continuum over time, but always working together, which I think is a really nice place to wrap up there. Yeah, thank you. That's good. Sophia,
Paul Barnett 54:33
it's been a complete masterclass in a topic that I'm somewhat ashamed to say. I haven't delved into a lot over the 200 plus interviews we've done, but I will be making sure I include questions that go a little bit deeper into that relationship as we as we go on into the future with the podcast, but it's been a wonderful session. I've learned so much listening to you today, and I can't thank you enough for your time.
Sophia Jowett 54:59
Thank you, Paul. It has been wonderful to have a discussion with you about relationships, a topic that is very much at the heart of what I do. Thank you.
David Turner 55:09
I'll echo that. Thank you for your time. I'll also say thank you for your work. On behalf of theorists, practitioners and academics, which considerable body of work, really impressive over a quarter of a century, and all best wishes for the start of the new academic year that's coming up.
Sophia Jowett 55:27
Thanks very much, David, thank you for your questions. Really enjoyed it. You.