The Coaching Cycle Is Not a Judgement-

Free Zone
By Jon Miller • Published: April 12th, 2021 • 0 Comments

Planet Fitness famously calls itself a

judgement-free zone. This is an effort to combat the image of gyms as aggressive, competitive
spaces. Beginners or casual users may not feel as comfortable. We are all beginners at one
time, and we’d never get started if we worried about what others thought about how we
exercised or looked. A judgement-free zone is accepting, self-paced, and open to individual
interpretation of what to do in that space. In contrast, workplaces are rarely judgment-free
zones. Sometimes this is an unfortunate legacy of the prevailing culture. Other times, it is
salutary and by design.

Judgment During a Coaching Cycle

Judgement-free zones are all well and good for

individuals engaging in self-paced exercise at a gym. However, “There’s no judgement here,”
is not an appropriate phrase when attempting to learn a specific pattern of movement such as a
dance, a musical instrument, or scientific thinking. For these we rely on the judgment of a
coach.

In a kata coaching cycle, the coach must judge the correctness of the learner’s practice of the
improvement kata. The coach does this by asking a set of scripted questions each time. The
learner answers, using information prepared on their kata storyboard. This allows the coach to
evaluate the learner’s recent efforts, but more importantly to understand their thought process.

Judging Adherence to an Agreed Pattern

Kata coaching is an exercise in interactive metacognition, which is to say, thinking about the
coachee’s thinking. The coach is not concerned with the content of the answers. Was the last
experiment a success or was it a failure? This doesn’t matter to the coach. What matters is
how the learner answers the question, “What actually happened?” The coach listens for clear
thinking, fact-based descriptions, and the limits of the learner’s knowledge.

An important point is that the coach is never casting judgement on the person. Their focus is
strictly on how the person is following the agreed practice patterns of the improvement kata.
This is no different than what a teacher does in any pattern-based practice, such as martial
arts, music, or learning a foreign language. Learning happens through repetition of correct
practice habits. The coaching cycle is an opportunity to observe these habits and give
feedback on future practice.

How to Be a Good Judge as a Coach

The interesting thing about being a coach is that it’s not a requirement to have performed at a
high level. In sports, business, or other fields, many coaches are not former superstars. In fact,
top performers rarely make the best coaches. At the gym, there are exercises I can do that my
trainer can’t. However, they have done those exercises themselves with less weight or
resistance. And more importantly they understand exercise physiology, sports psychology,
and proper form.

Coaching is a skill like any other. A kata coach must not only know the pattern in theory but
also through the repetition of personal practice. The scripted questions only go so far. A coach
must develop skill in asking clarifying questions. A coach needs to be a good listener and
observer of people.

Coaches must celebrate the performance of a correct pattern, but also be ready to firmly judge
thinking errors or habits that are out of bounds. A coach must be good at giving feedback in
small, attainable increments for the learner to practice and correct daily.

This is a lot for a coach to remember during every coaching cycle. For this reason, the kata
approach recommends a second coach who can periodically observe the coach-learner
interaction. The coaching cycle is also not a judgment-free zone for the coach.

Daily Practice Is Judgment-free

A gym may be a judgment-free zone, but when we hire a personal trainer, we welcome their
judgment of our form and other practice habits. An athletic competition must be a judgment-
free zone, because it’s game time and the clock is ticking. Judgment and feedback come at
halftime, or after the match. The exercise of developing our scientific thinking in our minds is
no different.

After each coaching cycle, learners take their coach’s feedback and continue practicing. They
run experiments, collect data, study the results, and prepare for the next coaching cycle. There
is no expectation that their daily practice will be error-free. It’s important that the coach,
learner, and other members of management state this explicitly. Daily work must be a
judgment-free zone. This is where learners take the coach’s feedback, apply it in real life
situations, and test the strength of their thinking patterns.