The Coaching Elite: Empowering Players

By Imago Group - Liz Herbert
Tuesday 25 October, 2005

Many of Australia’s greatest coaches, and performance academics, gather in Sydney in early November to deliver the latest thinking from the world of elite coaching. The signposts to creating world-beaters include empowerment of players, the ‘how to’ of developing a winning culture, and techniques for achieving truly elite performances.

SYDNEY - After its recent inaugural management course featuring leading academics and industry leaders of sport such as International Cricket Council Chairman Mal Speed and AFL CEO Andrew Demetriou, Sport Knowledge Australia is set to embark upon its second live-in learning experience this time with elite coaches as the beneficiaries.

Some of the most astute coaching minds in the world will gather at Sydney Olympic Park between 7 and 10 November to deliver the course. They include Australian Cricket’s John Buchanan, and an ardent and widely published student and educator on the art of coaching - the deep-thinking Dr Istvan Gorgenyi – winner of Olympic gold in 2000 as national women’s waterpolo coach.

In modern coaching, Gorgenyi says autocratic tyrants are a retreating breed among the top echelons giving way to more inclusive methods, “The attitude that the coach has to be tough is still alive in some places - that was the fashion - but it is changing,” said Gorgenyi.

“I see coaches developing who understand the importance of the atmosphere within the team and that players are partners not subordinates. More and more coaches involve the players into decision-making and allow them more freedom and show more appreciation for their expertise."

“With growing understanding, people realise there is no creative gain without creative players and there are no creative players if you suppress players.”

But, there is delicate balance to be struck warns Gorgenyi, “There is a fashionable model of leadership they call ‘empowerment’ and in my view there are certain stages in team life when you can use it and at other times it can be suicide for the team, and the coach.”

The delicate group workings, which include conflict identification and resolution and issues around selection, are key topics of Gorgenyi’s presentation. A special game-video analysis based on his “Hunting Territory Theory” is used by Gorgenyi to examine team dynamics and urge elite coaches to develop a deep understanding of the knock-on effects of coaching decisions and selections. “I feel often that coaches don’t realise what’s going on in the team and the effects of their decision-making on the team structure and the subsequent performance of the individual players.”

One of the key pieces of knowledge that Gorgenyi imparts is, “about giving them an understanding of the nature of their team’s life so they are not guided by emotion or political intent in their decision-making.”

As well as Gorgenyi and Buchanan, others delivering the four day course are - Ric Charlesworth (of cricket and hockey fame as an international player and coach), Don Talbot (former National Head Coach, Australian Swimming), Kenneth Graham (Head of Sport Science at the NSW Institute of Sport), Professor Kevin Norton (SKA’s Director of Research and Knowledge Services and School of Health Sciences, University of South Australia), Associate Professor Martin Thompson (School of Exercise and Sport Science, University of Sydney), Dr Donna O’Connor (Faculty of Education University of Sydney), Dr Cliff Mallett (School of Human Movement Studies, University of Queensland and Australian Track and Field Relay Coach).

ABOUT SKA: Launched in June 2005 with a Federal Government grant of $8.6 million, SKA is jointly owned by the University of Sydney, University of Technology, Sydney and the Sydney Olympic Park Authority. SKA delivers executive level education and knowledge-sharing on sports management, coaching and science via educational programs, commissioned studies and research within Australia and through partnership programs overseas. SKA will assist the continued global growth of the sports industry, helping more communities around the world to benefit from Australia’s strong sporting culture. Since its launch in June this year, SKA has run seminars in China on sport venue management and in Australia on player valuation strategies and executive sport management.