Army needs to be investing more time and resources into developing our people as better ‘coaches’ rather than simply ‘instructors or assessors’. We need coaches who are experts in the theoretical knowledge and practical application of skill acquisition.

Introduction

Army, and Defence more broadly, places a significant emphasis on developing excellence in our people, both professionally and personally. To achieve this from date of enlistment, through ab-initio training to the trained force, we are always in pursuit of developing the requisite skills, knowledge, attitudes, and behaviours (SKABs) that we require of our people for them to serve and (more importantly) go on to serve as leaders. For this to occur we place an enormous emphasis on developing excellent instructors to deliver excellent instruction.

We therefore teach our instructors about learning styles (visual, auditory, kinaesthetic), yet we neglect to teach them how to coach an individual based on those learning styles as it relates to skill acquisition. We teach our instructors the art of ‘fault correction’ (I cringe when I hear this term) – ‘identify the fault, identify the trainee, correct the fault’ – yet we neglect to give them the underpinning knowledge around practice variability and the impact of contextual interference. As Ken Blanchard wrote in his book The One Minute Manager: “Catch people doing things right, it’s much more powerful than collecting behaviours that are wrong”.

And finally, we teach our instructors feedback mechanisms such as ‘the bathtub method’; yet we neglect to teach them to understand how different types of feedback affect performance.

Perhaps this may just seem like a play on words; however, from an exercise scientist and strength and conditioning coach perspective there is a deeper justification here that should be explored, particularly regarding the aspects of coaching that underpin motor control and skill acquisition.

Learning Management Plan (LMP) / Publication Review

Before I go any further, I would quickly like to side-step in order to highlight some findings from a recent LMP/publication review. I will caveat this by saying that I am well aware that the majority of LMPs do not hold the length of detail in their content summary (teaching points) or assessment criteria that would be taught on a course, and I am by no means a current subject matter expert on any or all of the courses listed below. These were just some of the findings from several LMPs/publications that were reviewed:

Military Instructor Course (Army)
I found only a reference to ‘providing coaching and mentoring’. This is interesting, as the foundation course for Army instructors does not deliver any teaching in relation to coaching.

ADF Instructor Course (Navy & RAAF)
I found only reference to the following:

• Facilitated discussion/mentoring/coaching etc
• Applying coaching techniques.

I am still unsure at this point as to why, as a Joint organisation, we are teaching different instructor courses for different services.

Army Combative Program – Instructor
I found no reference to coaching. Again, this is interesting, considering this suite of courses has a slower rate of skill acquisition contrasted with a much higher risk of injury.

Subject One for Corporal
I found only two references to the word 'coach' (three if you include reference to a bus). This is noteworthy when you consider this is the foundation course for our junior leaders who could have the biggest impact and influence when coaching at the section level.

Small Arms Coach – Rifle Course
I found 214 references to the word ‘coach’. Despite these numerous references to the word coach, the assumption here would be that the coach is an expert (as they should be) with the weapon system, but possibly not an expert in the coaching of skill acquisition.

Combat Shooting Instructor Course
I found only references to the following:

• Accelerated learning techniques
• Instructor Skills, Knowledge and Attitudes
• Adult Learning Principals (Knowles)
• Explain, Demonstrate, Imitate and Practice (EDIP)
• Visual, Audible and Kinaesthetic (VAK) theory
• Art and psychology of coaching.

LWP-G 7-1-2 The Instructor’s Handbook
“In many cases the requirement for a trainee to receive coaching is a result of training shortfalls or deficiencies”. This is an interesting sentence which highlights that perhaps if we are only looking at the best utility for a coach is to fix deficiencies, then we have potentially misunderstood the true value of what a coach can deliver.

ADF-P-7 Learning (Publication)

“Coaching and mentoring enhance learning through personnel-centric methods. Mentoring is a long-term informal association based on mutual trust and respect. The mentor normally has firsthand experience of the mentee’s line of work and aims to develop the mentee’s skills relevant to current and future employment. The mentee usually asks the questions, tapping into the mentor’s experience. Coaching is a structured and formal approach for a short period of time. The coach does not require experience in the same field, and the process aims to improve career performance. The coach asks thought-provoking questions to guide the learner’s thinking and recognition”.

“The coach does not require experience in the same field” – I believe this to be a flawed statement. As a skill acquisition coach, most definitely you should be an expert in the field you are coaching.

Skill Acquisition

Regardless of whether we are coaching an individual to squat, kick a football, or learn and operate a new weapon system; the neurobiology of how we process information and adapt to our environment from a motor control and skill acquisition perspective is the same. This applies regardless of whether you are coaching a recruit on the EF88 for the very first time or all the way up to a supervisor coaching Special Forces on Advanced Close Quarter Battle.

To that end there is more specific theoretical knowledge and practical application that we can be delivering to our coaches that pertains to such things as:

• Theories associated with Skill Acquisition, for example:
  • Kahneman’s Theory of Attention
  • Broadbent’s Bottleneck Theory
  • Information Processing Theory
  • Ecological Systems Theory
  • Dynamical Systems Theory
• Decision making and judgement
• Coaching approaches for skill acquisition, including coaching styles
• Practice Variability & Specificity:
  • Blocked, Random or Serial
  • Impact of Contextual Interference
• Situational awareness
• Types of feedback:
  • Task intrinsic (Internal)
  • Augmented (External)
    • Knowledge of Results
    • Knowledge of Performance
• Skill acquisition and technology.

As in elite sporting clubs and Olympic institutes of sport, considerable amounts of time, money, and resources are spent on developing excellence in players/athletes, yet they often neglect or fail to see the same value in developing and educating their coaches. Noting that ‘a coach’ has the biggest influence on any player/athlete or playing group, I believe that we (in Army) need to start focusing more on further developing the ‘Army Coach’ rather than relying on the assumption that because an individual may be ‘instructor/assessor qualified’, that they hold the same level of SKABs that an elite coach would possess.

Put simply: we can’t expect our people to be great coaches if we never teach them how.

Conclusion

There are some excellent coaches within their own right in all areas of our organisation (be it physical training, Army combatives, combat shooting, etc). All these coaches have potentially invested their own time to upskill themselves professionally. This article is therefore aimed at sparking thought and conversation to change the system and the way we do business so that we future-proof ourselves as a learning organisation to ensure we are always striving for excellence in coaching.

While the focus of the Future Ready Training System has often been on virtual and augmented reality, we have perhaps neglected the most simplistic form of being able to teach more people, faster, and to a higher standard of skill acquisition: coaching.

Work is currently underway aimed at developing a coaching course that delivers both the theoretical and practical academic knowledge that is taught at the tertiary level, in relation to both motor control and skill acquisition.