HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT (MBA 616)

TERM PAPER ON

HOW COACHES MOTIVATE TEAMS

SUBMITTED TO: Prof. A.P.Sinha IME DEPT. IIT Kanpur

AUTHORS AVIJIT SARKAR (11125011) RAKSHA AGARWAL (11125045) SAPTARSHI SARKAR (11125052) MBA 2011 2013 INDIAN INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY, KANPUR

Table of Contents

Abstract: ................................................................................................................................................. 3 Literature Review: ................................................................................................................................... 4 Descriptions of a coach: ....................................................................................................................... 4 Roles of a coach ............................................................................................................................... 4 The Questionnaire: The underlying logic, the results and the analysis: ..................................................... 7 Analysis of survey results:........................................................................................................................ 8 Conclusion& Future Scope: .................................................................................................................... 11

Abstract:
The purpose of the term paper is to provide an insight into the realm of coaches in their task of motivating teams. We have investigated the roles of a coach, the skills and qualities of a coach required to effectively motivate the teams, the coaching process as a whole and the characteristics of a coach that works towards the team being motivated and at the end of the day, successful. For the implementation of the term paper, we have taken up a case study of one of the teams at IIT Kanpur. We have conducted a survey regarding the characteristics of the coach from the point of view of the members of the team. From the results of the survey it is evident that the motivation and ultimately the success of the team depends on the supporting, encouraging, and innovative capabilities of the coach and the leadership style he advocates. As we move in to the details of our work in the following pages we shall describe in more details about the various characteristics of the coach that is required for a team to be successful, especially in the Indian context.

Literature Review:
In this segment we bring forward the description of a coach and the respective roles of a coach and also some literature relevant to the same is going to be presented.

Descriptions of a coach:
The activity of coaching is different from other apparently similar roles such as an advisor or even a boss. Coaches believe that their purpose is to add value to the organization, or team, by helping the team to learn, grow and to develop in a holistic manner (Phillips, 1995 ).We will bring forward the roles of a coach ,the characteristics of a coach and the styles of motivation to describe effectively what the essence of a coach is all about.

Roles of a coach: According to Silsbee (2005) most people agree that coaching is a vital part of
managing and leading, but doing so can be burdened with complications. Important elements to consider are the authority of the leader over the employee, and the potential for the leader's interests to separate from other individuals' interests. Handling these difficulties in a straight forward and realistic way is crucial to establish a trustworthy relationship with an environment of security where real learning and development, and a co-creation of value can take place. The role of coaching is to create an environment and conditions so that people can learn, develop their skills and ultimately perform to the best of their ability. The importance is that the player is learning rather than the coach teaching. Coaching can, and in fact , should always look forward to cut across hierarchies and functional boundaries. Although sometimes equated with the concept of delegation, coaching is actually much more. Most coaches and managers claim to be well experienced at delegating work. Usually, this involves work they are too busy to do or simply do not want to do, which is delegated to people they feel will do the work effectively. (Phillips, 1995) The coachs role is not as a teacher, but as a partner who introduces the highperformer to new challenges, options, and behaviors. (Witherspoon & White, 1996).The successful organizations of tomorrow will be those that describe what is possible, not onpresumptions drawn out of past practice, but as being limited only by the reach of their own imagination. The role to drive, organize, punish must give way to challenge, empower, encourage, and reinforce, a transition that is ultimately dependent upon the ability of those in key leadership roles to coach. (Burdett, 1998) Since the role of a coach is not dissociated from that of a leader consequently, the concept of leadership qualities can be included to reflect on the qualities required from that of an effective coach. In this respect the concept of seven competencies of a leader can be brought into focus. The seven competencies are as follows:

Emotional intelligence The leaderships ability to monitor his or her own and others emotions,
discriminate among them, and use the information to guide his or her thoughts and actions.

Integrity The leaders truthfulness, dedication and tendency to translate his words into deeds. Drive The leaders inner motivation to pursue goals. Leadership motivation The leaders need for socialized power to accomplish teams goals. Self-confidence The leaders beliefs in his or her abilities Intelligence The leaders cognitive ability to process enormous amounts of information. Knowledge of the business- The leaders tacit and explicit knowledge about what he is supposed
to do. From the above study, it is evident that the above factors and parameters also need to be present in a coach in order to impart his duties effectively. Consequently we have considered these seven competencies in order to form the questions that are later stated in the questionnaire. Skills of a coach: According to King and Eaton (1999) a good coach must believe in the potential of the individuals and operate on the assumption that the people receiving the coaching are experts about themselves and their work. However; an attitude of mind is just as important as the skills and procedures of coaching. HR Focus (2002) has made a study where they have set ten steps that are critical for effective coaching: 1. Be clear with performance standards and expectations.Leaders with excellent coaching skills make their employees know what they must accomplish. (Clarity) 2. Give regular feedback on their performance. Coaches should initiate the feedback conversation and pay attention to the knowledge, skills, and qualities that are important for the employee success in their current jobs. If an employee has to take initiative to a feedback conversation, the leader is not focusing on the employee relationship. (Participative) 3. Observe on-the-job performance and interaction with players. Those who overlook this may be considered out of touch and their feedback could be resented. (Interactive) 4. Be aware of excellent performance and give rewards for it. Coaches must give public praise and make sure that their employees are recognized or receive a concrete reward for exceptional performance. 5. Effective coaches offer their team members opportunities to grow by providing professional guidance and training and support them in applying what they have learned to their jobs. (Supportive)

6. Top coaches create personal relationships with their team members and work on their interpersonal skills. Less effective leaders or managers focus only on the administrative and mission aspects of their work at the cost of individual relationships. 7. Decide if the employee has a will or a skill problem.A will problem can be solved with motivation while a skill must be solved with patience and training. 8. It is important for an effective coach to be open-minded and consider all aspects of the performance before making a decision. 9. Provide opportunities for the employee, good coaches introduce them for other strong leaders from whom they can learn. 10. Undertake separate team spirit building activities other than regular practice sessions to improve the morale of the team. Especially during times of crisis, when the team is not doing well and is morally down, special motivational speeches should be undertaken. 11. The game plan should be a combination of ideas from coach and the team so that the plan can be effectively implemented by the team on the field. (Participative) 12. Give a sense of autonomy to the team members. (Participative) 13. Ensure a sense of brotherhood amongst the team members especially in times when there are incidents of conflict in the team. (Conflict resolution) 14. Avoid biasness by any means. (Fairness) 15. Experiment with new ideas wherever possible and teach by example. (Innovativeness) The term paper is centered on the above mentioned qualities of a coach and also through the length of the term paper we have tried to investigate those qualities which are applicable in the Indian scenario. For the purpose of the term paper and the required analysis of the coaching methods which has interrelation with the qualities possessed by the coach, we have formed a questionnaire which was circulated to the team members for the purpose of survey. The team selected for the purpose of the survey is the football team of Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur. The reasons being that the football team has been coached by the same person for a considerable duration of time and under his mentorship the team has been quite successful in various sporting events. So it would be convenient for the purpose of analysis to match the qualities of the coach of that team, which in fact is successful, to those ultimately required for a team to succeed on the field. Another important point to be noted regarding the questionnaire is that for each of the questions put forward in the questionnaire, a particular quality of the coach is being judged, or mapped. From the responses of the team members, we would be able to analyze the characteristics of the coach which motivates the team and ultimately contributes to the success of the team under him.

The Questionnaire: The underlying logic, the results and the analysis:
We have utilized the following set of questions for the purpose of the survey. For most questions, we would also state, within parentheses, the underlying characteristics and qualities of the coach we have tried to map through that particular question.For the other remaining questions the question has a more generic significance associated with it. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. The direction given to you by the coach is clear to you.(clarity) Apart from the regular practice there are extra team sprit building activities.(enthusiastic) Before any game or match, the game plan is decided by the coach.(participative) The strategy is imposed by the coach or the team.(directive) The coach takes one to one sessions with the players, as and when required.(personal care) If someone in the team is under performing, the coach gives extra personalized attention.(supportive) 7. There are sufficient feedback sessions.( interactive) 8. If in case of high pressure or crisis situations there are instances of conflicts between the team members, the coach takes enough steps to diffuse the conflict.(conflict resolution) 9. The coach teaches by example. 10. The coach is biased (fairness) 11. You benefit from the coach being experienced (knowledgeable) 12. The coach promptly justifies and explains any sudden decisions. 13. The coach is able to control his personal emotions while in work.( emotional intelligence) 14. The coach provides every team member with equal visibility.(fairness) 15. The coach experiments with the ideas.(innovative) 16. The coach considers the job of coaching just as a routine 9 to 5 job, just for the monetary benefits.(question designed specifically for the Indian perspectives) 17. You are given a sense of autonomy or a degree of independence. (participative) 18. You feel sense of insecurity within the team under the current coach.(trustworthiness) If agree or strongly agree: The effects are: Not going to field Not giving my best Quit Committing suicide 19. There are situations the coach treats you rudely. If yes: what are the effects on you. 20. When the team is morally down; there are enough motivational speeches/ uplifting exercises to restore the morale of the team. If yes: you have positive effects from the motivational speeches etc. 21. There is enough reward system If yes: is there any standard for rewarding. 22. The coach follows which of the following policy regarding praise and criticism: Praise in public and criticism in public. Praise in public and criticism in private. Praise in private and criticism in public. Praise in private and criticism in private.

Analysis of survey results:

From the responses obtained from the team members we are now in a position to analyze the characteristics of the coach that motivates teams and helps it in the path towards glory. In the questionnaire the first seventeen questions are Likert based questions in which the responses are graded in a basis of 1 to 5,the explanations of which are given as follows: 12345Strongly disagree Disagree Neither agree or disagree Agree Strongly agree

In these Likert based questions; the responses would be used to map a quantitative attribute to the respective qualities so that the extent or intensity of those qualities in this particular case may be determined. In other words, how much a particular quality is present in the coach, which has contributed to the success of the team is to be determined from the Likert based questions. The remaining questions, however, are not associated with any quantitative attributes but rather from each of these questions, the purpose is to derive a qualitative response which would signify some generic characteristics of the coach. The qualities included in the questionnaire for the purpose of the survey were derived after thorough investigation of the research papers and thesis materials available on this topic including the materials , the references to which has been made in the literature review section. We have also considered the leadership traits commonly found in a leader, and since the role of a coach is, to some extent, similar to that of the leader, we have considered the seven competencies of a leader to represent the qualities needed to be in an effective coach.

Now we move on to the results of the survey as obtained by us in the due course of the term paper. The respective responses from the different respondents to each of the questions have been depicted in the following figure: 1 3 4 5 5 4 5 5 4 1 4 4 3 5 5 4 5 5 4 1 4 Average 4 Median 4 Mode 4 2 2 3 4 3 5 4 5 4 4 3 2 3 4 3 5 4 5 4 4 3 3 4 5 3 5 3 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 3 4 5 4 3 5 4 4 4 3 4 3 3 4 3 3 3 4 3 4 3 4 4 3 4 3 3 3 3 5 3 4 5 5 4 4 5 3 4 5 3 4 5 5 4 4 5 3 4 5 6 2 4 4 4 2 4 4 4 2 4 2 4 4 5 4 3 5 4 2 4 7 3 3 3 3 2 3 4 3 2 3 3 4 4 3 3 4 3 3 2 3 8 2 4 4 5 4 3 4 3 4 3 2 4 5 4 4 3 4 3 4 3 9 2 3 5 4 5 5 4 4 4 4 2 3 5 4 5 4 5 4 4 4 10 4 1 1 5 3 2 1 2 4 2 4 1 1 5 3 2 1 2 4 2 11 3 4 4 5 5 5 4 4 4 4 3 4 4 5 5 5 4 4 4 4 12 3 4 5 4 5 3 5 4 3 3 3 4 5 4 5 3 5 4 3 3 13 4 3 4 5 3 4 4 4 4 4 2 4 4 4 3 4 4 4 4 5 4 4 4 14 2 4 4 5 3 5 5 4 3 4 2 4 4 5 3 5 5 4 3 4 4 4 4 15 4 4 5 4 4 5 4 4 4 5 2 4 5 4 4 4 4 4 3 5 4 4 4 16 3 3 1 1 1 1 1 1 3 1 3 3 1 1 3 1 1 1 1 1 17 4 2 5 2 2 2 2 2 4 2 2 4 2 5 2 4 2 2 2 2

3.7 4 4 5 4 5

3.4 4.2 4 3 3 4 4 3 3 4 4 3

4 4 3 4 4 2 4 4 1

4.2 4 4 4 4 3

1.6 2.7 1 2 1 2

18 19 20 21

Y 3 4 19 18

N 17 16 1 2

22 Praise in public criticism in public

From the above figure of the obtained results we can see that the responses to the questions, which are related with the seven competencies of an effective leader, and those associated with the qualities like clarity, interactivity, personal care, knowledgeable, feedback, emotional intelligence, trustworthiness, fairness, and innovativeness show that they are in sync with the expected results as derived from the various readings from authentic sources. For the question number 18 and 19, the results show that a majority of the respondents have replied with a positive outcome from the point of view of the coach but only a handful has said otherwise .On closer investigation of the matter we came to know that all the 3 respondents who have given a negative outcome in question number 18 and 3 out of 4 respondents who have gone for a no are not regular players but have been benched for quite some time now and reportedly, according to them, they have not been given any regular matches like the others for some time now. The same logic also applies to question numbers 20 and 21. In case of question number 22, the expected outcome was praise in public and criticism in private but the actual results show otherwise. Most of the team members gave a response of praise in public and criticism in public. After studying the players opinion, we came to know that the policy of criticism in public that is being followed is working out since the team members accept the criticism in a positive way and thus it helps them to improve their performance on the field. Another important issue in the findings from the survey was regarding the responses to question numbers 3 and 17. These questions are related with the Path Goal leadership theory. Now from the various authentic readings and research materials it was derived that a participative style of approach is more suited to that of a coach and especially for teams that have been successful. But in our findings from the responses we obtained, the responses clearly indicated that the directive style of approach is both preferred by the team members and also imposed by the coach. Digging deeper in this issue we were able to come to the conclusion that the readings we considered were of a foreign origin and were mostly centered around teams abroad. But our study has brought out the Indian perspective of the issue. The difference can be explained with the help of concepts of Power Distance. India being an Asian country is reported to have a higher power distance than most of the European and American countries. This means that Indians prefer to obey their superiors, and are comfortable receiving commands from their superiors. This is why the team members prefer being instructed by the coach and promptly following the coachs instructions.

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Conclusion& Future Scope:

From the survey thus conducted we may come to the conclusion that the participative style of coaching, though applicable to western cultures, may not be that much applicable in the Indian scenario for the reasons stated above. Rather in the Indian context, due to the impact of a considerably higher power distance, a directive style of coaching may be the better option. However, the other qualities that we have mentioned has to be effectively present in a coach to be successful. These are the qualities that are required to be in a coach so that he is able to effectively motivate his team and ultimately lead them on to success. With respect to the survey conducted, the sample size could be increased further and include all other teams available. Teams, which have not being that successful may also, be included so as to compare and contrast the traits of the coaches in the two situations.

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