What is Excellence in Coaching?

Yesterday, I wrote, What IS Excellence?  and promised to follow up with a specific example of measuring excellence in the gym business.
Below, you’ll find a sample Coach Evaluation Form from UpCoach.
This isn’t a simple “scale of 1 to 10”, but part of a larger conversation.
The first part of the conversation with your coach should be:
“What’s your perfect day?”
Then follow with,
“If you could coach one thing all day, what would it be?”
Finally, help the coach draw a road map from their perfect coaching day to where they are NOW.
That’s where the evaluation comes in: it’s a snapshot of their starting line.
Quarterly Evaluation Form
UpCoach Coach Evaluation
The first two are followed by a “Coaching Inventory” and then a specific assessment of the coaches’ strengths and weaknesses in weightlifting, gymnastics, endurance etc.
It’s important to understand that Professionalism, Group Management, and Attitude all come before specific knowledge. These are GENERAL skills, which are more important than SPECIFIC skills. Specific skills can be taught over a weekend; general skills take years (maybe a lifetime) to develop.
The traditional 1-10 scale is less relevant for general skills, because a coach can sit at a 7/10 in “Presence” forever, and be satisfied. It’s better to rate them as “Excellent”, “Good” or “Satisfactory” because these subjective skills don’t easily lend themselves to objective measurement.
The key question: why be anything LESS than excellent?
Usually, a coach is less than excellent simply because they don’t have a clear picture of excellence. Their idea of “excellent” is different from your own, and probably for good reason: you’ve been coaching longer, you’ve seen REAL excellence, and you know what clients expect. They don’t.
The first sheet clearly spells out the expectations associated with an excellent coach. The second sheet is a simple ratings scale. Use it for followup evaluations if you like. But always make sure you’ve clearly defined “excellence” in every role at your gym. If not…everyone’s shooting at a different target, and they’re all moving.

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