Why Tech Coaching is kind of like riding the Tour de Pologne

 . . . year after year after year . . .

Over the summer, as I caught some glimpses of the Tour de France on tv, I couldn't help thinking about the similarities (and differences) between Tech Coaching and operating/coaching a cycling team.  At first, the similarities were obvious and plentiful, but as the analogy grew in my mind, the many differences became apparent and a little bit amusing.  So let me explain my thinking . . .

This is my "fifth running of the Tour de Pologne", and it has been a frustrating yet adventurous, tantalizing but in some ways disappointing race over the years.  Each year, e results have improved, and in some respects the team has been completely victorious, but the race never ends, there is always another race to run, and sometimes the team results are middling at best.  Sounds pretty strange, right? Well, being a Tech Coach is like being a cycling team coach in many ways, and traversing the school year is like running a team on a major tour event like Giro or the big one - the Tour de France. But my school is not the biggest fish in the big pond of international schools, so I thought that I should not compare it with the most prestigious cycling race in the world.  As we are in Poland, which hosts one of the bigger cycling tours in Europe, I felt the analogy is a little cleaner with the Tour de Pologne . . . the obvious choice in the end.

As I prepare for this coming school year, and reflect on the previous one, I have been thinking about how it must feel to be a cycling team coach . . . and how it is so similar to my role as a Tech Coach working with the faculty at my school.  My role as a coach allows me to work with a group of professionals to improve and move forward as a team over the course of the year.  During a race, the coach would ride in the support vehicle day after day, running in front/behind/beside the riders on your team.  When something breaks down you have to stop and help to fix it.  You have to continually communicate with your team as the overall strategy changes throughout the stages of the race, as accidents happen along the way, or as fatigue and injuries disrupt the team.  As a coach, you have to help manage the team members to work together effectively and efficiently or they will never finish.  In the end, the glory goes to the winner, but they will never even finish the race without the complete support of their team.

On a cycling team, you would have all manner of riders, including front runners and break-away artists, hill climbing specialists, sprinters, supporting team members and others who like to ride in the pack, seasoned veterans and young up-and-comers with lots of potential.  As team coach, you have to encourage and support everyone on the spectrum as they are all on your team and you are going to finish as a team.  Can you see where I am going with this?  My team of faculty still has a wide range of talents, interests and abilities with educational technology, much like the specialists on a cycling team.  There are the sprinters - who will tackle any new technology quickly and efficiently.  There are the hill climbers - who will take on the heavy lifting and the big jobs without complaint, methodically moving forward and upwards.  There are the support members - happy to follow the pack and help the whole team move forward.  And there are the front-runners - who are always pushing the pace and driving everyone ahead.  On first glance, Tech Coaching is just like coaching a cycling team through the Tour de Pologne, but with some huge differences . . . and frustrating complications.  

 

Keeping with the bike racing analogy, imagine if you had to deal with some of the following problems during the course of a race:

• having members on your team who do not want to ride or even look at a bike
• giving everyone on your new team new equipment for the upcoming race, but they give it back to you because they don't know how to use it . . . and people say fill in the blank is just like riding a bike?!?
• breakaway artists who just want to go out hard right from the start, but have no idea where the course is (so they end up hopelessly lost or out of touch with the rest of the team)
• riders who are quite content to be pulled along in the peloton day after day, never really contributing to the success or failure of the team . . . they are just content to be there
• team members who seem to always be distracted by the equipment that the other teams are using, or are continually focused on any new bike technology that is being developed/used somewhere else
• stragglers who are happy to be left behind in the race and just want to left alone, never to finish any stage of the tour

If working with a group of faculty were as easy as coaching and managing a cycling team, then things would be golden. You see, in my annual race, I do not have control over the makeup of the team that I work with, nor do I have any input into the breakdown of the "specialists" on the team. The problem areas mentioned above are real and always present, in my current school, in my pasts schools, in any school.  With the natural turnover of faculty in international schools, there will always be a wide range of talent, abilities and interests when it comes to educational technology.  It's just part of the job.  It's the nature of the beast.  Unless leading the ed tech race is the primary goal of the senior leadership of the school, then we will always have varied results each year.  Again, it's the nature of the beast.  The race never ends and you never actually win (or lose) the race . . . it just goes on.  So I do not mean to whine or complain here - this is just my thoughts and observations.  I can be the best coach in the world, but unless everyone is on the same page with the same goal in mind (year after year) then the results will never be truly great . . . just good or satisfactory . . . or worse!  If you want lasting change, then it all comes down to school culture, which we all know is very difficult and slow to change, especially when you are not in a position of senior leadership.

So my challenge is how to help guide the breakaway artist, to staying on the course.  Or getting the reluctant rider back onto the bike and to the finish line (whether its their first time on e bike, or after a big crash).  Or turning the peloton support rider into a mountain climbing specialist.  Do I have all of the answers on how to accomplish all of these tasks?  Nope, not at all.  Every rider on the team is an individual work in progress.  I guess I have to take consolation in making the team just a little bit better each year.  I guess that is one of the main differences between being a faculty/peer coach, rather than my old job as a classroom teacher . . . students eventually finish your course and cross the finish line.  Being stuck on the tour just means that once this year's race is done, it's just time to start preparing for the next one.  

So are you a tech or instructional coach?  How do you deal with this difference between teaching students and coaching faculty?  How cohesive is your team, and how do you keep everyone on course?