Andrew Longley – Article 6 – Coaching with Clarity

Andy is a team performance expert with a background in psychology & applied neuroscience, who will over the coming months share insights ground the art and neuroscience of high-performance coaching. Each article will share a little of the latest applied neuroscience plus give simple tips on how to practically bring it to life in your own coaching.

Great to be back with you. In my Fifth article I introduced you to another part of the coachup model of high- performance teams and coaches, which you can see below. We looked at what makes a goal meaningful & how to create these for your athletes and teams.

The coachup.academy model of high-performing teams/coaches

Today we’re going to take a look at how to coach with clarity and why this is such a fundamental requirement for high-performance.

In our last article I shared the three things our brains are doing 24/7, both consciously and unconsciously. To recap these were:

Searching for meaning and purpose.

Stripping out uncertainty.

Seeking social connections & growth.

Today I’m going to revisit and focus on stripping out uncertainty. Our brain hates uncertainty or a lack of clarity and treats it as a threat (rather than clarity which
is treated as a reward, but more on this soon). This means that anytime we experience a lack of clarity, our brain automatically detects this and activates our threat system. When our brain enters a threat state, it undergoes a series of physiological and psychological changes aimed at ensuring survival (avoiding the threat). Our amygdala, a key region in our brain associated with processing emotions, particularly fear, becomes highly active, triggering the release of stress hormones like adrenaline and cortisol. This activation leads to heightened alertness, increased heart rate, shallow breathing, and enhanced focus on potential dangers. Simultaneously, the prefrontal cortex, which is the part of our brain responsible for rational thinking and decision-making, is likely to become less active, leading to impaired judgment and impulse control. This is one of the main reasons we make poor decisions when under threat or stress.

Now let’s look at this through the lens of high-performance sport. If our athletes (or us as high-performance coaches) experience a lack of clarity in the team environment, they’ll automatically and unconsciously move into the threat state. Some examples could be a lack of clarity over the team gameplan for a particular opposition, or on the race strategy in an international meet, or over whether the athlete is in the starting team for the upcoming playoff match.

Being in a threat state is extremely unhelpful in the short- term because athletes will have difficulty making decisions, using their judgement, working as a team, problem solving and other critical aspects of high-performance sport. No matter what the sport, we always need our athletes to

do these things whether it’s when preparing for a match
or event, during a match or event, in training, or when connecting to their teammates. Additionally, if we spend a lot of time in a threat state due to a constant lack of clarity the long-term implications are also huge and may include weight gain, elevated blood-pressure, a weakened immune system, reduced memory and cognitive performance, and potentially mood disorders or mental health challenges. So coaching with clarity is at the heart of supporting athlete wellbeing too!

Therefore, great coaches understand that when they coach with clarity in the short-term, they’re helping their athletes to remain calm and use the pre-frontal cortex to solve problems effectively, make better decisions, be a great teammate and use good judgement. In the long-term they’re helping their athletes to remain healthy, maintain a healthy weight and experience more positive wellbeing. These are the benefits to coaching with clarity.

When we coach with clarity, not only do we avoid the negative consequences of a threat state, but we also enter a reward state. In this reward state our brains trigger a cascade of neurochemical and physiological responses that reinforce positive behaviors and feelings. We are flooded with dopamine, serotonin and other positive endorphins which creates feelings of pleasure, satisfaction, and motivation. In a reward state we experience a heightened mood, increased energy, improved focus, and enhanced learning and memory.

So again, when we look at this through the lens of high- performance sport, when we coach with clarity, we’re
likely to increase the motivation and satisfaction of our athletes which is going to lead to better training and event performances. We’re also going to be improving our athletes focus, energy, learning and memory. What coach doesn’t want that?

Be clear on your expectations towards your athletes. Are they clear on the training standards you expect? Are they clear on the effort you expect to see in training? Are they clear on your expectations around their nutrition and how
they prepare to perform? Are they clear on your expectations for how they behave in the team environment?

If not, then take the time to align on these expectations so they’re crystal clear.

Be clear on their roles. Are they clear on the strategy or tactics you’re hoping to play? Are they clear on their role within these tactics / formation? Are they clear on their role in shaping the team culture? Are they clear on their role to support new teammates? Are they clear on their role to support the team when injured?

If not, then take the time to clarify their roles both individually and in the team forum. Clarifying this in the team forum helps bring alignment and role clarity amongst the athlete group also.

Be clear on where they stand. Are they clear on what they need to do to take their performance to the next level? Are they clear on what they need to improve to get a starting position? Are they clear on whether they’re starting the next match? Are they clear on what their strengths are that they can leverage further? Are they clear on what is holding them back?

If not, then take the time to go through these 1:1.

Be clear on what’s around the corner. Are they clear on how they should prepare for the upcoming trip? Are they clear on what plan B is if plan A doesn’t work? Are they clear on what the tactical change is if a key player goes down injured early on?

If not, then take the time to go through different scenarios using If-Then planning (which is the topic for my next article).

So, there we have a little of the applied neuroscience behind coaching with clarity. We’ve seen both the short-term and long-term benefits plus we now understand that the aim
of coaching with clarity is to promote the reward state wherever possible.

The seventh article in this series will focus on why a high- performing coach must use If-Then Planning to drive individual performance and build a high-performance team culture. Stay tuned.

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