S2E16: When Passion Turns into Poison with Mark Gannon
Mark is the CEO of UK Coaching and Chair of Boccia England.
He is a familiar face within the sport and physical activity sector. He started his career as a PE teacher and later went onto roles at Youth Sport Trust and then British Gymnastics.
During his time at UK Coaching, Mark has steered the organisation through significant change and just as coaches are there for their participants, so UK Coaching is there for the coach.
Mark feels that it is about time that coaches were perceived as people too.
UK Coaching is an association that connects and supports approximately 180,000 coaches from grassroots to elite level through its UK Coaching Club.
It’s tagline:
“The team behind the nation’s coaches, providing support, tools and guidance which assists coaches to be GREAT, inspires people and transforms lives.”
And this is why Mark is an obvious choice to have on the Untapped Potential Podcast.
Some quotes from Mark:
- “Coaching is all about the right environment,” he tells the Leaders Performance Podcast. “So we’ve got psychologists, nutritionists, that sort of athlete support personnel that we wrap around the athlete and I think what we need to start thinking about now is that coaches are people too and how do we wrap the same sort of support, differently, around the coach?
- “If you work for a financial organisation, you’ve got a head of culture or people or HR, and there’s certain things in place in your work environment. Well, that shouldn’t be any different in our sector, maybe in our sector there’s a bit of catching up to do.
- “People are your greatest asset and the more that we can look after people and the more we can make the environment the right environment, the more people are going to succeed.”
Talking Points:
-
The journey of supporting the coach
- Mark's path to supporting people
- The "hard skills" not the soft skills of human connection
- The blind spots of CPD
- Time out to reflect and develop
- There is no end point in achievement
- The bigger piece
- Make time for your health
- Balance never stops
- The power of nature
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Resources:
- Practitioner Rites of Passage
- Radical Candor by Kim Scott
- Profound mind-body connection research - Dr Joe Dispenza
