Developing Better Decision Makers in Team Sports

“Developing Better Decision Makers” is 4 workshop mini course over 4 online webinars in December 2023 to help coaches understand decision making, what is important and how we can create environments and design practice to allow decisions be made by the players on an on-going basis.

Kevin Mulcahy presents to the attendees the ingredients to what underpins every decision we make on a pitch - where those decision come from and how we can foster change and development in the athletes and teams we coach. From origins of modern coaching (and education/teaching) and how it has sent us down the wrong paths and arguably dulled the games we love.

Kevin shows how all skill is decision making, and decision making a skill, that can be developed and designed for by coaches in practice design both in the physical and learning environment.

After this course you will have a better idea on how to create environemnts that support better decision making , and cruciallly also a more rounded knowledge of how to design practice sessions that allow more problem solving - so improving decision making.

This course is embedded in Ecological Dynamics which drives the Constrain's Led Approach to coaching. We will show you what the CLA is and how you can take this approach in your coaching, and why it goes so far in explaining how we move the way we move and why we make the decisions we make on the picth.

We will discuss and present on how skill is embedded in us, in our decisions and how we are embedded in those decisions and everything is affected by us & who we are, the task and the enviornment.

The Why, When, Where, How and more...

• Why do we make the decisions we make?
  • Where has present coaching methods and approaches come from?
  • How do we make the decisions we make?
  • Why are our decisions wrapped up in our entire life, environment and experiences?
  • How can we make better decisions for ourselves on the pitch?
  • How can a coach facilitate those better decisions?
  • How can we make shared (positive) decisions on the pitch for our team?
  • How do we design practice to develop technical and tactically suitable decision makers?

It’s really important to have a decent understanding of these why’s, what’s, how’s & when’s so that you can design practice for your players and teams - and not just copy and paste from others. Coaches leave behind so much potential with copy & paste.

This is not an academic course, far from it. But we do give you some scientific reasons why this subject really is at the fulcrum of all good sports performance.

Good coaching is bespoke

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The course is 4 interactive dynamic group based workshops where i worked with the particpants to design practices as we go through the various subjects. Each 90-100 minutes in length with 3 key subjects/discussion points per night.

I suggest you as a post workshop participant bring a pen and paper and act as you are in the workshop and take part in the tasks as we go.

I also suggest, just like the course, you have a decent break between sessions, or even split sessions in 2 or 3 sections and take breaks. Ideally you'd even be coaching in between to help the ideas an content meet with your observations and experiences.

The course will be underpinned by research but practical applications will be a constant and i will endeavour to make the language of the course very digestible and useable.

This course doubles down on the importance of creating positive environment's and what we term a "Psychologically Safe Place". What is really means, and what its not - a place without accountability!

We will look at the Science of Decision making and how that fits into our actual day to day practice in a broad more holistic and ecological way.

The course will look at how you can assess decision making and follow progress using principles of human movement, your sport and what you are trying to achieve as a team.

After this course coaches should be more comfortable with designing environments and practice sessions that will challenge their players at appropriate levels and in contextual settings.

The course has 4 main themes;

Workshop 1 - Decision Making with The Ecological Mindset

Workshop 2 - The Coach as a Environment Builder - A Learning Environment

Workshop 3 - Enskillment - How everything in our lives affects decision making

Workshop 4 - Creativity - How to allow the magic happen?