Game Plan Coaching Podcast

Tom Hartley

Too many coaching podcasts waffle. We don’t. This is The Game Plan Coaching Podcast – short, sharp, and full of real coaching stories. Each episode is about the length of a car journey, or lunchtime walk, full of tangible ideas and coaching advice. In every episode, our guest adds something new to the 'Game Plan'. A shared playbook of ideas, stories, and moments that have shaped their coaching journey, and may rub off on you. Each episode ends with a piece of 'Game Changing' advice from our guest. Something that you might want to apply, adapt, or reflect on. Follow the podcast, share it with your coaching friends, and be part of a community that’s about being better at what we do. Real stories, practical tools, and coaching that makes a difference. You can follow me on LinkedIn here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tomhartleycoaching/

  1. 9 ago

    Tom Causer: The Coaching Expertise Model

    This is the final episode of series two, and it's a fitting way to close things out. Rather than a single coaching idea or a piece of research, this conversation zooms out to look at the systems and structures that sit behind coach learning and development. Tom Causer is National Coach Education Manager at Badminton Ireland, originally from High Wycombe and now based in Moira in Northern Ireland. He works across an all-island governing body covering everyone from volunteer grassroots coaches through to coaches working with Olympic players. He is currently leading a number of ambitious projects to transform how coaches in badminton learn, grow and feel supported, and the thinking behind it is well worth borrowing whatever sport you work in.   Three Key Messages 1. Formal coach education lays the foundation, but the magic happens elsewhere Tom is clear that coaching qualifications still have real value and a genuine place in any coach development system. But the research is equally clear that meaningful learning happens in the non-formal and informal spaces - communities of practice, reflective conversations, contextual CPD, peer learning. What Badminton Ireland are building is a suite of micro-learning modules, in-situ coach developer support, and technology-enabled reflection that sits alongside the formal pathway rather than replacing it. The goal is to make all of it contextual - learning that happens in the environment where the coach actually works.   2. Coaches need to feel part of something Coaching can be a lonely business. You turn up, you deliver, you go home. Tom talks about the ambition to flip that - to use technology to connect coaches with coach developers for regular reflective conversations, starting with just two hours a year and building from there. Not a heavy investment, not another thing to squeeze into an already full week, but a consistent check-in. He uses the analogy of an MOT - coaches have traditionally just done the big formal thing when they had to. What he is building is something closer to a regular service. Little and often. Someone there who sees what you're doing and helps you get better.   3. Get out of your lane Tom's game-changing advice and something that has shaped my own journey too. The worst thing a coach can do is stay entirely within their own sport, their own environment, their own network. Go and watch a coach developer from a different sport work. Shadow someone doing something completely different. Talk to people you would never normally talk to - a sleep coach, a drama teacher, a musician. The ideas are everywhere once you start looking.   The Coaching Expertise Model Developed primarily by Dr Vinny Webb alongside Tom, this model provides a framework for thinking about coach learning and development across the full pathway - from entry-level volunteers through to coaches working in high performance environments. It maps the emphasis of different curriculum areas - health and safety, technical and tactical, self-awareness, pedagogy, coach-athlete relationship - against the context the coach is working in and the level of the pathway they're operating at. Crucially it is non-linear, reflecting the reality that neither athlete nor coach journeys happen in neat, predictable steps. It's a useful tool whether you're starting from a blank piece of paper or checking and challenging a system that's already well established. View the model here: https://www.badmintonireland.com/page/get-involved/coaching/coaching-expertise-model   Series 3 coming soon... Series two is done. Series three is on its way - with practical coaching challenges to try between episodes and conversations with coaches who have been paying attention to how they coach and what they've found when they do. More details coming soon.   Get in Touch Tom Hartley's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tomhartleycoaching/ Tom Causer's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tom-causer-msc-61a553a1/ Badminton Ireland Coaching Expertise Model: https://www.badmintonireland.com/page/get-involved/coaching/coaching-expertise-model Coach Logic: https://www.coach-logic.com

  2. 5 jul

    Stephen Maxwell: From mind-ful to mindfull

    Stephen Maxwell is a man who wears a lot of hats, and wears them well. Coach and Match Official Education Manager at Cricket Ireland, director of coaching across four Gaelic Games codes, founder of No Other Game Around Performance Consultants, and a researcher whose MSc thesis at the University of Limerick was titled Do Coaches Fill Their Own Cups. He completed that degree with first-class honours, and his research on self-care in coaching is something he now shares with coaches and organisations across sport and business. He started coaching at 14, has worked across multiple sports and multiple countries, and brings a warmth and practicality to this topic that makes it feel useful rather than abstract.   Three Key Messages 1. You are the most important person: Not in a self-centred way, Stephen is clear on that. This is about being person-centred rather than coach-centred. Every coach arrives at training carrying something from the rest of their life. The commute, the difficult meeting, the argument that's still rattling around. Whether they're aware of it or not, that stuff comes with them onto the pitch. Stephen's challenge to coaches is simple - what's your process for parking that before you meet your players? Breath work, voice notes, a few minutes of silence in the car. Whatever works for you. Because if you arrive as your best self consistently, the people you coach feel that. And if you don't, they feel that too.   2. Mind full to mindful: Gold Dust! Stephen talks about the difference between a mind that is full - cluttered, stressed, running on empty - and being mindful, present, and genuinely engaged with what's in front of you. Self-care, he argues, is the process of moving from one to the other. And it looks different for everyone. Stephen walks his dog at seven every morning, no phone. Someone else might journal, meditate, or go for a run. The point isn't the activity, it's the intention behind it. Knowing your triggers, understanding what drains you and what restores you, and being deliberate about building that into your day.   3. JEF - Judge Effort First: A player beats three defenders, goes for a shot and misses. The coach focuses on the miss. Stephen's question is a simple one - what did you actually see? Because what you choose to recognise shapes what your players believe about themselves, and that matters far more than any single result. Focusing on process over outcome isn't soft, it is how you build confidence, sustain development, and create an environment where players want to keep trying. Judge the effort. The outcomes will follow.   Get in Touch Tom's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tomhartleycoaching/ Stephen's LinkedIn: https://ie.linkedin.com/in/stephenmax2404 No Other Game Around: https://www.nogaspc.com

    Stephen Maxwell: From mind-ful to mindfull

  3. 21 jun

    Rob Gray: Problems not solutions

    Rob Gray is a Professor of Human Systems Engineering at Arizona State University and host of the brilliant Perception and Action Podcast. With over 25 years of experience he has worked with elite sports teams including MLB and NBA franchises, and is the author of How We Learn to Move, How to Be an Ecological Coach, and Learning to Optimize Movement. He's one of the biggest names going in ecological dynamics and the constraints-led approach, and has this rare gift of taking genuinely dense science and making it sound like the most obvious thing in the world. His main applied sport is baseball, though his work spans golf, tennis, driving, cycling and even martial arts.   Three Key Messages   1. The environment should do most of the talking Picture watching a really skilful coach at work, what you'd notice is how little they actually say. Time spent designing the practice. Constraints that create problems for athletes to solve. The coach stepping in occasionally to guide rather than constantly instruct. It's a shift from coach as the holder of all the answers to coach as designer and guide, someone who sets problems rather than prescribes solutions.   2. Repetition without repetition One of the standout ideas in this episode, borrowed from neuroscientist Nicolai Bernstein. We don't get better by repeating the same movement over and over. We get better by repeating outcomes while constantly adapting the movement that produces them.   3. Make the mistake loud Mistakes aren't something to rescue athletes from, they're information. At the right level of challenge, a mistake tells an athlete almost everything they need to know to fix it next time. The coach's job is to understand why a mistake happened and design the next problem accordingly.   Find Rob's Work The Perception & Action Podcast: http://perceptionaction.com Rob's books: How We Learn to Move, How to Be an Ecological Coach, Learning to Optimize Movement   Get in Touch Tom's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tomhartleycoaching/ Rob’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rob-gray-8232b417/

    Rob Gray: Problems not solutions

  4. 10 jun

    Professor Adam Nicholls: The cost of closeness

    I came across Adam Nicholls on LinkedIn and his posts kept stopping me. Short clips of Klopp, Popovich, Steve Kerr - with Adam quietly unpacking the psychology of what they're actually doing. Not tactics, not systems. The human stuff. Care, compassion, what it looks like to genuinely back the people you coach. So I reached out and invited him on to the podcast. Professor of Sport and Exercise Psychology at the University of Hull, over 85 published papers, three books including Psychology in Sports Coaching. And outside of all that, a brown belt in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu who competes at the British Open and uses his own experiences of standing in a competitive bullpen waiting to be called to the mat to test the psychology he researches.   Three Key Messages 1. Tough and compassionate aren't opposites This came up early and kept coming back. Adam posts a lot about coaches like Popovich, Saban and Ferguson - coaches with reputations for being hard, demanding, sometimes brutal. And what sits underneath that, consistently, is genuine love for the people they coach. Adam's point is simple. You don't get to choose between creating a tough environment and creating a caring one. The best coaches do both at the same time. A coach who doesn't care enough to challenge their athletes isn't being kind - they're just being easy.   2. The closeness finding In a study of over 200 athletes, he and his colleagues found that the closer the coach-athlete relationship, the more pressure an athlete can feel not to let their coach down. The relationship itself becomes an added stressor. Think about it like this - having your best friend watch you parallel park is harder than doing it in front of a stranger. The care makes the stakes feel higher. Adam's answer isn't to back off and keep your distance. It's to name it. Tell your athletes explicitly - your relationship with me has nothing to do with how you perform today. I'm in your corner regardless.   3. Coping is a skill Adam's research on what effective coping actually looks like is full of useful ideas. Ineffective coping - speeding up your routine to escape the moment, withdrawing from the game, just stopping trying - is more common than you'd think even at the highest level. Effective coping looks like slowing down, logically working through what's happening, using visualisation, breathing properly. None of this is complicated. But most athletes don't do it deliberately, and that's exactly the gap a good coach can close.   Coach Logic Really pleased to share that the podcast is developing a partnership with Coach Logic. From future episodes onwards the partnership means real coaching challenges to try out between episodes, and conversations with coaches who've been paying attention to how they coach and what they've noticed when they do. More details coming very soon. Find out more about Coach Logic here: https://www.coach-logic.com   Get in Touch Tom's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tomhartleycoaching/ Coach Logic: https://www.coach-logic.com   Adam’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/professor-adam-nicholls-77453b20b/

    Professor Adam Nicholls: The cost of closeness

  5. 29 may

    Mark Cairns & Andy Muir: It's how, not what

    Mark Cairns and Andy Muir are the co-founders of Coach Logic, calling in from their bothy in Edinburgh - which, for anyone not from Scotland, is a shelter in the mountains. They haven't climbed a literal mountain to get there, but the metaphor isn't a bad one for what they're trying to do. Both rugby. Mark is a coach educator for World Rugby across Europe and comes from a PE teaching background. Andy has lectured in sports science at Edinburgh College. They built Coach Logic because coaches have no consistent way of knowing what they actually do when they coach. This conversation is about finding a solution to that - and it's a really good one.   Three Key Messages 1. How you coach matters more than what you coach Content is everywhere. YouTube, social media, coaching courses - finding out what to do in a session has never been easier. What's harder, and what makes the bigger difference, is the delivery. The question you asked and then immediately answered yourself. The huddle you called with nothing planned to say. That's the stuff that shapes how players experience their coach - and coaches need help seeing what is happening with clarity.   2. You coach from perception - and perception can be wrong Andy watched himself back and discovered that the high-tempo sessions he'd designed were wiping out everything else he thought he was doing. The open questions, the space, the relationships. None of it intentional. None of it clearly visible until he looked. This isn't unusual - it's can be what happens when you're coaching 18 players in 90 minutes. But you can do something about it when you see it.   3. Film yourself coaching A £10 microphone. A chest harness from Amazon. That's the starting point. Film a session, find two or three moments that stand out – and make a plan to be intentional for next time.   Other Things Worth Knowing What SAM does SAM - the Session Analysis Model - is Coach Logic's latest development. Upload coaching footage from your phone and SAM automatically analyses your coaching behaviours. Types of questions asked, feedback given, key interactions. No grades, no judgment, no tick boxes. Just a clear breakdown of what happened, which you can use on your own or with a coach developer to find the moments worth looking at and talking about. The data isn't the point - the conversation it makes possible is. Sort your audio first Before anything else. A wide pitch shot tells you about body language and positioning. It tells you almost nothing about what the coach actually said or how they said it. A chest harness with your phone captures your audio and your point of view. A second camera at the side of the pitch gives you the wider context. Both together is the ideal setup and neither costs much. Mark's advice - buy a microphone and a tripod long before you think about GPS units. The infrastructure point For the next generation of coaches, filming themselves and reflecting on what they see won't feel like a new idea - it'll just be what coaches do. Like having a session plan or using a whiteboard. The question is whether you wait for that to become normal or get ahead of it now. As Andy puts it, the return on improving yourself as a coach will outstrip almost anything else you can spend your money on.   Find Out More Coach Logic: https://www.coach-logic.com   Get in Touch Tom's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tomhartleycoaching/ Andy’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/muirandrew/ Mark’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/maccairns/

    Mark Cairns & Andy Muir: It's how, not what

  6. 21 may

    Jen Coe: Safe to grow

    Jen Coe is an HCPC Registered Sport Psychologist, Senior Lead for Workforce Development at the Football Association, and someone who has spent 25 years in sport from playground to podium. Before the FA she worked at UK Coaching supporting coaches across 13 high performance Olympic sports, and prior to that as Performance Wellbeing Lead in the WSL. She is a former international basketball player, and co-author of four books with the brilliant Amy Whitehead. Jen is a good friend and a former colleague at UK Coaching, where she inspired me every day.   Three Key Messages 1. Coach development is at its best when people feel safe to grow Jen's opening answer to the very first question, and honestly one of the best one-liners anyone has offered on this podcast. It sounds simple but it carries a lot of weight. Safety to grow isn't just about being nice or creating a comfortable environment. It's about clarity, intention, honest dialogue, and creating the conditions for people to be genuinely vulnerable without fear of what happens next.   2. Observation before intervention One of the most immediately stealable ideas in the conversation. Don't rush to fix. Sit with what you're seeing. Notice the tensions a coach is carrying before you decide what to do about them. Jen talks about the movement in a coaching relationship - how naming what's there, rather than glossing over it, is often what shifts things.   3. Model vulnerability, and mean it Jen's game-changing advice builds to a really important point. When leaders and coaches show up as the finished article - polished, certain, never wrong - they fill the room. There is literally no space for anyone else to contribute. But the moment you say I got that wrong, I'm not sure about this, what do you think, something opens up. Learning accelerates. People lean in. Jen's challenge to coaches is simple: start with one honest question at the end of a session, answer it yourself first, and hold the space for others to follow. When you model vulnerability, you give everyone else permission to be honest too.   Other Things Worth Knowing The five dysfunctions of a team Jen introduces Patrick Lencioni's framework in the context of coach development. At the base - absence of trust. Then fear of conflict, leading to artificial harmony and meetings that go nowhere. Lack of commitment when debate is shallow. Avoidance of accountability when commitment is weak. And at the top - inattention to results when individual ego overtakes collective purpose.   Naming the tensions A really practical idea from Jen, deliberately naming the tensions a coach is carrying rather than talking around them. Performance versus politics. Development versus survival. These are real pressures coaches live with and pretending they're not there doesn't make them go away.   The books Jen co-authored four books with Dr Amy Whitehead - Myths of Sport Coaching, Myths of Sport Performance, Women Working in Sport, and a fourth title on the myths of sports and exercise psychology. All of them are accessible, challenging and built around the idea of checking and challenging the things that have been accepted as truth in sport for too long. Jen talks in the episode about curriculum being rewritten on the back of the first book and coaches globally reaching out to contributors. Browse all titles at the publisher's website below: Sequoia Books: https://www.sequoia-books.com/catalog/   Get in Touch Tom's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tomhartleycoaching/ Jen's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jenny-coe-1a308a49/ Sequoia Books: https://www.sequoia-books.com/catalog/

    Jen Coe: Safe to grow

  7. 17 may

    3v3 Special: Fit for the future

    Recorded live at St George's Park at the Football Association's 3v3 showcase event, this episode is a little different in format, multiple conversations across the day with former England internationals, FA staff, grassroots coaches and parents, all exploring one of the most significant changes to children's football in a generation. From next season, under 7s football in England moves to a 3v3 format. No referees, no coaches dictating from the sideline. Just children playing football. This episode explores what that means, why it matters, and what coaches can do to make the most of it.   Three Key Messages   1. Get out of the way and let them play 3v3 asks children to trust the children. No referees, no instructions from the sideline, no adults solving problems that children are more than capable of solving themselves. Children self-officiate, communicate, lead. They do on a proper pitch exactly what they do on the playground. And they love it. 2. More touches, more decisions, more love for the game The numbers are hard to argue with. A child playing 3v3 gets 100% of their potential playing time. In a 5v5 format with substitutions, that can drop to as little as five hours of actual football across a season. More time on the ball means more decisions, more problems to solve, more moments where a child can feel the game.   3. This is bigger than a format change 3v3 is not just a smaller version of the game. It is a philosophy. It is the FA saying clearly that children's football should be designed around children - their rights, their enjoyment, their development as people as well as players.    Get in Touch Tom's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tomhartleycoaching/

    3v3 Special: Fit for the future

  8. 13 may

    Craig Morris: Prepared, not planned

    Craig Morris spent 20 years as Podium Technical Coach at Paddle UK, coaching across three Olympic disciplines - kayak, canoe and kayak cross - and overseeing three athletes to four Olympic medals across Tokyo and Paris 2024. At Paris he coached Kimberley Woods to double bronze and Adam Burgess to silver in the men's canoe. Since leaving British Canoeing he has moved into coach development, working across multiple sports.   Three Key Messages 1. Prepared, not planned Craig's game plan contribution is one of the most immediately useful ideas in the whole series, and it came directly from one of his athletes, Adam Burgess, during a review of the Tokyo Olympics campaign. The idea sits on a continuum. At one end, meticulously scripted practice with everything timed and controlled. At the other, turning up with no intention or direction whatsoever. Neither extreme serves the athlete well. The sweet spot in the middle is what Craig calls a zone of presence - leaning into what you know to be stable in your sport while staying genuinely open and responsive to what emerges. In canoe slalom, the river doesn't care about your plan. The best performers are the ones prepared for anything, not the ones who've rehearsed everything.   2. Coach alongside, not above A thread that runs through the whole conversation. Craig describes the shift in his coaching from a place of technical certainty, where he had the model, he had the answers, and the athlete's job was to fulfil his vision, to something far more collaborative and genuinely curious. Coaching with, not to. Situating yourself alongside the performer rather than above them. He talks about sessions becoming noisier, more joyful, athletes taking more ownership and showing more patience with problems. And athletes having longer careers because they found a new love for the sport.   3. What do we need to let go of to see things as they truly are? Craig's closing question to coaches is one of the most honest things anyone has brought to the game plan. It comes from a long personal journey of recognising that when you have a rigid technical model of performance, you risk seeing only what you want to see rather than what's actually happening. What might you be getting in the way of?   Other Things Worth Knowing The wisdom of not-knowing Craig co-authored a paper with Keith Davids and Carl Woods called On the Wisdom of Not-Knowing: Reflections of an Olympic Canoe Slalom Coach, published in Sport, Education and Society. The paper questions whether coaches in high performance environments have come to rely too heavily on secondary information - data, reports, analysis - at the expense of what the world is sharing with them directly. It's a genuinely thought-provoking read and sits right at the heart of everything Craig talked about in this conversation. Well worth tracking down. Read it here: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13573322.2022.2140135   Verbs above nouns A small but significant idea that Craig picked up from researcher Carl Woods. Thinking about coaching in terms of verbs rather than nouns. Response-able as a skill, not just responsibility as a concept. Performing as an ongoing verb, not a fixed outcome.   The adaptability folder A very practical idea. Craig used to keep a folder on his desktop collecting clips of moments where his athletes adapted brilliantly, situations that previously might have been labelled mistakes, but reframed as evidence of responsiveness and skill. Over time his athletes started bringing moments to him, asking for them to be added. They were actively looking for opportunities to be adaptable.   Skilled intentionality Craig introduces this idea, keeping as many options open for as long as possible, as the hallmark of the best performers. He draws on the work of a coaching colleague who describes it as poker not chess - always playing with a rich hand available rather than committing too early. It's a useful lens for thinking about what you're actually trying to develop when you design practice.   Let the practice breathe Craig talks about the importance of not filling every gap, giving athletes time and space to sit with problems, struggle productively, and find their own solutions. The framing and contracting you do before and after a session matters as much as what happens during it.   Get in Touch Tom's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tomhartleycoaching/ Craig's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/craig-morris-1768b81b2/

    Craig Morris: Prepared, not planned
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Too many coaching podcasts waffle. We don’t. This is The Game Plan Coaching Podcast – short, sharp, and full of real coaching stories. Each episode is about the length of a car journey, or lunchtime walk, full of tangible ideas and coaching advice. In every episode, our guest adds something new to the 'Game Plan'. A shared playbook of ideas, stories, and moments that have shaped their coaching journey, and may rub off on you. Each episode ends with a piece of 'Game Changing' advice from our guest. Something that you might want to apply, adapt, or reflect on. Follow the podcast, share it with your coaching friends, and be part of a community that’s about being better at what we do. Real stories, practical tools, and coaching that makes a difference. You can follow me on LinkedIn here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tomhartleycoaching/

Información

  • Creador
    Tom Hartley
  • Años de actividad
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodios
    36
  • Clasificación
    Explícito
  • Copyright
    © 2025 Tom Hartley
  • Mostrar sitio web
    Game Plan Coaching Podcast

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