Coaching a student is much more in line with the traditional idea of coaching than my last topic. We do this all the time in the judge program. We call it mentoring. In fact, L2 judges are required to show a “willingness to mentor” other judges. While this practice is more commonly discussed than coaching […]
The idea of coaching a mentor, someone charged with the training and education of another, may seem to contradict the very idea of coaching. After all, isn’t the mentor the person who is supposed to be doing the coaching?
Advancement reviews are some of the most important reviews that we give judges, and they often serve as an introduction to the peer review process itself. They not only remind judges of what happened during the interview and exam portion of the advancement process but also provide tools for success at their new level. With […]
Quick: Think of a time you’ve failed. That’s precisely the challenge I posed to about 20 judges at the Northeast Judge Conference earlier this month. My workshop, “Practicing Radical Candor,” was an exploration of our experiences with failure — and how we can grow from them. I’ll start this article the same way I began […]
Remember how it felt when you first heard “Welcome to Level 1?” I often ask judges why they joined the program, and as a result, I’ve heard a number of humorous and inspiring stories. No matter how different each judge’s reasons and motivations have been, stories about achieving Level 1 typically share a similar response to the […]
You know how excited parents celebrate their children’s first tottering attempts at walking? How they ooh and ah and cheer and gasp and take dozens of pictures to post on social media? When I visited my parents recently, they did not cheer even though I walked quite well. Obviously my parents love me, but they […]
You know, writing and judging really have a lot in common. That probably has something to do with why I enjoy both of them so much. One of those things, one that it took me an incredibly long time to get over, is that it’s hard to know how you’re doing unless someone else tells […]
Let me tell you a story about the 4-minute barrier for the world record one-mile run. For nearly a decade, the record stood untouched at 4:01.4. People thought running a mile in under four minutes was literally impossible. Then, in 1954, Roger Bannister ran a mile in 3:59.4. The next month, John Landy broke the […]
Communicating areas for improvement can be difficult. You want the judge you’ve been observing to improve, and you’ve got some ideas for them. Those ideas need to be communicated. But successful coaching takes more than that. If you want a judge to act on your feedback, they need to agree with what you are saying. […]
As an educator, I constantly notice educational processes at work in the judge program. When we’re not learning how interacts with or what to do when a player doesn’t discard a card to , we’re teaching players about why they receive a Warning for missing their trigger. In the realm of the ideal where judges and […]