Closing The Knowledge Action Gap

The difference between knowing and doing is larger than many would suspect. Lots of times Coaches and others feel that just because they have learned something through either a conference, reading, or any medium that they will successfully be able to apply it. First I would question whether the information has been learned sufficiently to be transferred into long term memory. But I also question whether the information is able to be applied into real life situations.

Applying what we learn is a daunting task. Change takes time, and I think that we underestimate how quickly we can make those changes. The application of knowledge is harder than we give it credit for in coaching. Even if you were able to retain all the information from a meeting or conference how we go about applying that knowledge varies greatly. So how can we help close this gap?

Creating Space For Practice

Often coaches will leave workshops or PD opportunities and be extremely excited about what they learned and ready to apply that knowledge. Unfortunately once they get back into the swing of things it is easy to fall back into habits that they have created over an extended period of practice. There are several strategies that can be taken to help close this Gap between doing and Knowing.

The biggest adjustment that coaches can make to their own coaching is the Practice their coaching. This may sound silly. But how often are coaches asked to actually practice their coaching strategies? Especially strategies that they have just learned. A lot of times Coaches expect players to ‘Practice Like They Play’ but don’t do the same thing for themselves. Players are expected to make everything more challenging when they are in practice than it would in the game.

Let us consider this:

What would you define as the coaches ‘game’?

What would you define as the coaches ‘practice’?

I think we will all have different answers to this but I would consider the time when a coach is asked to perform as their game time. Practice time is the coaches performance time, just as the players performance time is the game. So where do coaches ‘practice’ then? Often they will sit and learn during meetings or within conferences or groups to learn new or explore new materials. How often are these coaches given the opportunity to practice or rehearse these different coaching strategies in a low stakes environment?

To me creating space for a coach to practice is something that is overlooked. Many times role playing or simulating situations where coaches are asked to implement strategies that were just taught is a way to help them feel more comfortable using them. Knowing is not enough when it comes to applying the knowledge. You can know the difference and importance of providing external instead of internal cues but if you are not given the space in practice to simulate using them how can we will ensure that they are used when coaches need to perform?

Ways To Implement This

You figure that when we get back to baseball ideally everyone will have a much more robust understanding of different terminology after ‘learning’ in this down time. How to be sure that coaches are able to implement these changes effectively lets look into three different strategies to help coaches implement them.

There are many ways that coaches to implement these changes among an organization but often times coaches are not asked to do them because they often prove to be slow, clunky feeling, and difficult.

Take for example the act of role playing or simulation of a situation. Having coaches take different turns when it comes to implementing different strategies is a great way to enable coaches to help each other and to simulate a practice setting. Whether it be with wording, phrases, or implementing technology. Role playing provides coaches with a low stakes setting that they are allowing to practice these different techniques and get feedback from others quickly.

Reflection is often another situation that can help coaches to improve. Often though reflection can be limited to what coaches think they experienced which can be wildly different than what happened. Consider if you are going to go with this strategy to use film or audio to help you pick up what actually happened.

It is unfair of coaches to ask players to perform like they play, if they do not do the same themselves. This is an important task to undertake. One that requires coaches to put their egos to the side and accept that their is possibly a way to do what they do better. By not practicing coaches are setting themselves to fall into habit ruts they already created. Allowing them a space to practice should be considered.