What Elite Sports Coaches Can Teach Us About Group Coaching

There is a moment every group coach knows well. The room goes quiet, something shifts, and you sense that a participant is right on the edge of a breakthrough. You can feel the energy in the group change. Do you stay with this person longer? Do you move on? Do you intervene or hold back?

That instinct, refined through experience, preparation, and deep attention to people, is exactly what a new article in Harvard Business Review describes in elite sports coaches. "How Elite Sports Coaches Make High-Pressure Decisions," by Alan McCall, Adrian Wolfberg, Johann Bilsborough, and Ricard Pruna, studied 11 elite coaches across the NFL, NBA, MLB, Premier League, LaLiga, UEFA Champions League, and Rugby Union. I really think that what they found has direct relevance for group coaching programs in organizations and for coaches working with groups in any setting.

The parallels are striking, and they are worth unpacking.

I’ve been inspired by watching the NBA finals (Go Knicks!) and this article came at the perfect time to push my reflection further.

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Preparation is the foundation of presence

McCall and his colleagues found that elite sports coaches do not rely on instinct alone. They prepare extensively for decision moments before they arrive. One Rugby World Cup-winning coach described it simply: "You have to anticipate situations that require a decision and find the solution in advance." Another said, "It's all about planning so you can be decisive in the moment, not have a panic conversation on the spot."

Group coaches will recognize this immediately. The most impactful sessions are built on understanding participants' goals, reviewing the themes that have surfaced across previous sessions, and thinking through the coaching moves available when a conversation takes an unexpected turn.

In group coaching programs, preparation looks like meeting each participant before the program begins, designing a structure that allows both focus and flexibility, and thinking in advance about how to handle moments of conflict, disengagement, or emotional intensity. The coach arrives ready and grounded. That readiness is what makes genuine responsiveness possible.

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Controlling the information that reaches you

I found that one of the most practical insights in the HBR article is about information management. The coaches studied were deliberate about how data reached them. "Never more than three pieces of information," one championship-winning rugby coach explained. An NBA coach put it plainly: "Too much information from too many people makes a cloudy decision. Just give me focused and valuable data."

For group coaches in organizations, this is a reminder to get clear on what you actually need to know before each session. An onboarding form that surfaces three or four focused questions, a quick check-in at the start of each session, a mid-program survey, these are all ways of receiving the right signal at the right time. The risk for group coaches, especially those who are also internal coaches or L&D leaders with access to a great deal of organizational context, is arriving at a session carrying too much information about participants. Too much context can lead a coach to over-direct the conversation rather than follow the group's energy.

For coaches working outside of organizations, the same principle applies. Know what matters most. Do not try to hold everything.

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Reading people in real time

What the HBR research calls "reading the room" is something group coaches do in every session. The elite sports coaches studied described paying attention not just to what people said but to shifts in energy, body language, tone, and behavior. One NBA coach made a practice of walking through offices and locker rooms, noticing individual differences. "If someone's behavior shifts, I know something is off," he said. "That helps me make decisions later under stressful conditions."

In group coaching programs, this kind of attention is one of the most valuable skills a coach can develop. A participant who is usually vocal suddenly going quiet, someone who typically engages in peer coaching avoiding eye contact, a shift in the group's collective energy between the opening check-in and the main conversation: these are all signals. The group coach who notices them is in a position to respond skillfully. The one who is focused only on delivering content will miss them entirely.

This is also why we are so consistent in encouraging coaches to create space at the start of every session for a genuine check-in, not a perfunctory one. That is where we take the temperature of the group. That is where we notice who is carrying something difficult into the room.

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Emotional regulation under pressure

The HBR article identifies emotional regulation as a core skill in elite sports coaches. The coaches studied did not suppress their emotions, but they learned to shrink them and return to the essential question: what matters right now? One European football coach described the risk of imagined reactions: "The biggest thing that can blur the picture is thinking about how the media will react. If you start adding ifs, fear takes over. Fear doesn't align with good decision-making."

Group coaches face their own version of this challenge. I know I have! The fear that a session is going flat, the anxiety when conflict emerges between participants, the discomfort of holding silence, these can all pull a coach away from presence and toward reactive behavior. A coach who jumps in too quickly to resolve tension is often managing their own discomfort, not serving the group.

This is true in organizational settings especially. Internal coaches may feel pressure to produce visible outcomes for leadership. That pressure, if unmanaged, can push a coach toward content delivery when what the group really needs is space for honest conversation. Returning to the question "what does this group need right now?" rather than "what do the stakeholders expect?" is the equivalent of what elite sports coaches do when they filter out crowd noise and focus on what is happening on the field.

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Normalizing error and learning from it

Perhaps the most human part of the research behind the HBR article is the section on what elite coaches do after high-stakes decisions, particularly when those decisions go wrong. The coaches studied were remarkably comfortable acknowledging error. "I may have got that wrong, but I always learn for next time," one experienced NFL coach told researchers. The goal, the article concludes, is not to be perfect but to choose well among viable options and own what happens.

This maps directly onto what I believe about group coaching programs. Not every session will land the way you intended. Not every coaching move will be the right one. A session that loses momentum, a participant who disengages, a group that becomes stuck: these are not signs of failure. They are data. The group coach who reflects openly on what happened, adjusts the design for the next session, and is honest with themselves about what they could do differently is modeling exactly the kind of learning culture that group coaching programs are designed to build.

For coaches working externally, this means building in genuine reflection time after each program. For internal coaches, it means being willing to share feedback loops with stakeholders honestly, rather than only reporting what went well.

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Preparation becomes instinct over time

The HBR article makes a compelling point about what experienced sports coaches describe as "gut feeling." What looks like instinct from the outside, the researchers found, is almost always the product of preparation, pattern recognition, and repeated exposure to similar situations. "It becomes freeing," one rugby coach said. "You can make logical choices on the fly."

I really believe that is the arc of development for group coaches too. Early in our practice, we are thinking consciously about our every move: when to ask a question, when to invite a peer to respond, when to slow a conversation down. Over time, that deliberate thought becomes embedded. We recognize patterns. We know when a group is performing cohesion rather than genuinely connecting. We sense when someone is about to share something that will shift the room.

That fluency comes from the same thing the HBR research found in elite sports coaches: preparation, reflection, and a genuine commitment to understanding people.

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What this means for coaching leaders and L&D teams

If you are building group coaching programs in organizations, the HBR research offers a useful reframe. Group coaching is not a soft skill. It is a high-performance discipline. The coaches who lead the most impactful group programs are doing exactly what elite sports coaches do: preparing thoroughly, managing information carefully, reading people with precision, regulating their own emotional responses, and learning from every session.

Investing in coach development, in training that builds these capacities rather than just providing frameworks, is not a nice-to-have. It is the foundation of group coaching programs that result in the leadership development, peer learning, and cultural change organizations are looking for.

The scoreboard may look different. The crowd may not be watching. But the quality of the coaching decision in the moment, and the preparation behind it, is what determines the outcome.

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