I have been watching a TV show called 'This Is Going To Hurt' recently, based on a book that has been in my to-be-read pile for an embarrassingly long time. And while the show absolutely lives up to the title, in a satisfying 'I told you so' kinda way, I wanted to talk about a different kind of heartbreaking scene. It was somewhat subtle compared to the overt tragedies that happen throughout the show. It was the destruction of hope.
I'm not even sure many people would have thought twice about the moment where a senior consultant tells the junior doctor 'maybe you're just not cut out for it' when things get tough. These moments are sooo prevalent in every day life, that maybe it was a familiar resignation, a somewhat reassuring realisation that 'it's not just me'. I don't think I take solace in that anymore. The idea that when things get hard, it is your inability to cope that is to blame infuriates me. Why do we accept the aftertaste of 'you're the problem' when we know the system is broken?
To their credit, this idea pops up in a later episode. Enter the annoying little cousin of 'you can't hack it' - the effervescent 'well, can't do anything about it anyway'. Or worse, and probably the one that I've felt in my various roles through coaching, research and lecturing: how dare you be ungrateful for your role. It's never said out loud, that would be too obnoxious. No, you feel it in the corridors, it's written on the walls, like a fog or a bad smell left wafting in the air. It's strong enough to make you stay in your lane, to not complain, to keep your head down and trudge through the rain. Because the show is based on doctors in a labour ward, a quote that stands out to my coaching brain is "even if you leave the profession with a line of dead babies to your name." A harsh reality of working in an environment like that, but it reminded me of a similar quote I love in a sporting context:
Talent is a graveyard of evidence, nobody sees the bodies
Mark O'Sullivan
I know there are some parallels here, but I get worried when we try to connect these worlds too closely by claiming its for "safety". For example, when I find myself in discussion with sport coaches about skill acquisition and I personally opt not to use direct instruction often in my examples, this spirals into a (very one sided) debate about why it is necessary for skill development. I say one sided because I don't inherently disagree at that level, if you believe it is a useful tool in your practice, and you apply it thoughtfully and intentionally, then that is up to you. The only time I do disagree is when the reasoning doesn't match up, and there's one particular story that has been bothering me lately.
"If my child ran out onto the street and was about the get hit by a car, I would grab them and pull them off the road, or yell an instruction. I wouldn't stand there and as a question if that was a good option in that moment".
I mean, first of all, obviously. A safety concern at that level, in that moment? Guided discovery has its time and place. But the first thing I do in this thought experiment is ask, why did they run out on the road in the first place? Did they check for cars? Did they know that this level of risk is dangerous? If I indulge the straw man fallacy for a moment, my first thought is that if your version of road safety is 'follow my instructions or you'll get hurt', then the absence of those instructions increases the chances of danger - not the presence or absence of the car. When you are paying attention to information that is not relevant, then you may make a decision that is not relevant, or in this case, safe.
A brilliant friend of mine likes to use this instead:
As safe as necessary, not as safe as possible
Cal Jones
But I want to stop indulging this example now because it is not helpful. Drawing comparisons between road safety and skill development in a sport, a made up game that we play, only attempts to divert the argument rather than understand it better. The "safety" concerns are exacerbated when we're talking about the risk of being hit by a car compared to someone not being able to find a movement solution to a sporting problem they are trying to solve. Even if we do look for moments that might need more caution for safety, such as when the risk for injury is high because a movement may cause physical damage or pain, an interjection here does not guarantee safety. Moving a person like a marionette doesn't guarantee that they will return to this position when you walk away or release their limbs, so does it really help above and beyond the extra time it may take to explore that space?
I often like to stop and ask myself if I am just trying to speed up time by interjecting here so the learning happens faster, on my timeline, like meditating in a video game to make the sky go from day to night whenever I feel like it. Tools like direct instruction and verbal feedback are not inherently bad, but I've often seen them used poorly. It's easy to hide behind the idea that we are doing it for safety, but if we rob someone of the opportunity to explore that moment, to directly experience it for themselves, to learn how to solve that problem rather than just how to move in it, is that really safer? Or are we worsening the odds for the moment when we are not there to intervene, which is usually every time there is a match played.. some food for thought this time.