A Paradox Inside of Our Coach’s Evaluation Tool

Since 2011, we have been built on a culture of coaches’ development. As you might expect, developing any skill is best supported by defining and measuring what excellence looks like. 

We have a specific way that we evaluate coaches. 

This grading sheet looks at any coaching performance through three progressive categories that transcends and includes the previous category:

• Standard. 

1. 1. a coach’s ability to ‘Set the Standard’
   2. a coach’s ability to ‘Communicate the Standard’ 
   3. a coach’s ability to ‘Build the Standard’ 
2. Context: a coach’s ability to place their students and the training in context. 
3. Leadership: a coach’s ability to own a remarkable training session 

Now, the paradox of any performance is simply that humans can manage what they can control and they cannot manage what they cannot control. However, both things they can control and things they cannot control contribute to the results. Leadership is about taking responsibility for the results (which leaders cannot control). Thus, they best they can do is master the controllable elements of the task. 

This is the paradox of performance. 

How we evaluate the leadership category of the coach evaluation, then, is by observing the results and then deciding how well the coach took control over the process. 

A class might go over by three minutes on time, for example, if six students share that they have a deadlift allergy (out of the coach’s control) or need to go to the bathroom 45 seconds before the conditioning is to start (out of the coach’s control). The million dollar question, though, is in the planning of the class: did the coach anticipate modifications and plan extra time for unforeseen events (in the coach’s control)?

Any high performance culture will find solace in process-oriented evaluation as it’s the only fair way to evaluate doing hard things in groups. While it is a paradox, our evaluation of leadership for our coaching performances is one of my favorite parts of the inner workings of DEUCE Gym.