Active Triggers for Coaching Results

Active triggers produce coaching results

Triggers are signals which set off specific actions, changing mindset and behaviour to get a desired action and result.

A person’s triggers are activated through sight, sound, touch and emotion.

As coaches, we need to be able to pick the trigger that best suits the person and personality we are working with. You get better triggers by understanding learning modalities and connecting accordingly.

People who learn by sight often use sentences like, “Wow, did you see the sunset this morning?” or “My new car looks amazing”.

Audio learning personalities may say, “Can you tell me what you want?” or “I heard the weather is nice today”.

Kinaesthetic or touch learners will talk about how nice something feels or how touched they felt by their team winning.

The best coaching is in the present or active coaching and we should apply active triggers that are applicable to getting the result for the present outcome.

In the baseball movie, The Natural, Roy Hobs had been out of form and in a batting slump, then became injured and was having trouble focusing mentally and physically. He was then informed that his son was watching him in the stands. Not only did he know he didn’t have a son but he was watching his dad in the world baseball series.

Roys emotional trigger sparked. He responded and he hit the ball out of the park with a home run. An emotional active trigger.

A martial arts coach was instructing one of his students who could not get correct placement of their feet.

The instructor kept telling the student to put their right foot behind the other foot. He told me later that the student was frustrating him as they kept doing the technique wrong. The student was also getting agitated.

Then it struck him that he was giving lazy direction. He switched to the what, what leadership of instruction and told the student to put the right foot behind the left foot and make a Capitol T with their feet. It became known as the T stance.

When we are coaching talk and breakdown your instruction as if the person you are working with is a child. If the direction is too complicated for a ten-year-old it may be too complicate for the person you are coaching. This is where the what, what leadership style brings clarity to success.

What I want you to do is put the right foot behind the other foot and then what I want you to do is make the letter T. Active coaching by sight and listening.

My friend’s son was playing soccer and being smaller than the other boys he was getting pushed around a bit. The coach told him when he gets bumped and shoved, run to where the ball isn’t.

He soon stared getting possessions and goals. The parents started saying it’s amazing how he knows where the ball is going to go and he’s there.

This lifted his confidence and he continued to play soccer. If the rough play had continued without him knowing how to break free from the packs he may have lost interest and stopped playing the game.

This trigger turned a negative situation into a winning opportunity for the boy and his personal growth to stay in the game and be competitive. An Active touch trigger known as Kinaesthetic or learning by feeling.

In 2002 Winter Olympics. Steven Bradbury consulted his national coach Ann Zhang about a strategy to get a medal in the ice skating. Knowing he was slower and could not match the raw pace of his competitors over the final series.

Steven decided to stay behind the leading bunch, knowing if they fell he would have a chance at a medal. With fifty meters to go in the final he was fifteen meters behind the pack. They all slipped and fell on the ice. This was his trigger to move around them and claim a medal. Their falling was his active visual trigger to skate around them and claim his gold medal.

An old horse trainer gave this direction to his jockey. When you see the finish line give the horse a crack of the whip, you will feel his energy lift and then smell the rush of victory as he flies over the finish line.

How many triggers did he give to the Jockey?

Enjoy using triggers with your coaching. If the person you’re coaching needs support to lift their game, this is your trigger to adapt or invent an active trigger to get the result needed at that moment.

Know your learning style and match it to the styles of people you coach either visual, sound, touch, or even emotion. Better results are produced when you are both on the same learning page.

My trigger for you, write up a list of triggers for three people you are going to coach this week.

And then action the strategy.

Darren Kerby is the Franchise Support Manager for ActionCOACH Asia Pacific. The world Number 1 Business coaching Franchise.

He works with over 70 coaches daily and writes coaching programmes for the company.

He has a diploma in Coaching / Sport development and Instructed martial arts for over ten years.

Darren recently had a student he was teaching kung Fu that the style didn’t suit. He introduced the student to another style who was his rival martial school. Two years late the student won a world title.

“Coaching is about helping people reach the potential, questions are often the best triggers to get their mind in the game. If people say the answer then they believe it and will do it with more conviction.”