Master

Introduction

Hello Professor Welsh, can you please introduce yourself?

Case Coaching Series

Can you please tell us what this series is about?

The videos are about the coach and the team working together. I think we're much more successful when the coaches and the team members all trust one another about where they're going and the idea that practises are primarily about building trust building teamwork and assisting the team members in developing knowledge skills that will help them in the resolution helping them in the presentation phases and competitions pieces.

As I always tell my team, I think those are teams that are going to put together a competitive case and leave it in the judge's hands. And if they can leave it in the judge's hands at that point, we really have no control, so I'm satisfied with my teams. I think you're going to be successful if you arrive at a competition as a team, including not only the team members but the coach or the coaches that are associated with this.

The Process of Coaching a Team

Can you explain what is the process of coaching a team?

The approach I've taken with teams over the last 15 or so years, because again, a lot of the coaching has been focused in those last 15 years, when I think about it there's a lot of trial and error that's happened, a tonne of failures but at the same time we've had a tonne of success accompanied by a tonne of learning.

I believe that case coaches should kind of understand the approach that I've taken and maybe be able to aid them a little bit because I know that I have learnt from many other coaches and that many of those have provided me with really useful expertise. In my opinion, it's also important to let kids see what the coach does and some of the thinking that goes on when you're engaged in that type of practice. If my students watch it, I think they'll begin to understand why I always tell them at the beginning of the process that I don't really care about the content; instead, I care that you show up and present me with something, and I can ask you questions about the content if you'd like. However, when we get to the debrief, we don't discuss the content at all. Then, as I believe teams move through this process of maturing from a group of individuals into a well-tuned team, ready for pretty much anything that the case competition organisers are ready to throw at them in terms of a case, I think teams get educated about not only how to approach the case but also how to go and find the knowledge and all of those pieces that they need to find.