Why do the best coaches and instructors often find it so difficult to explain exactly what makes them effective? And why do some people keep getting better while others 

In this episode of Optimising Human Performance, Martin sits down with coach developer and researcher Jamie Taylor to explore the science and practice of learning, coaching, skill acquisition and high performance. 

Whether you're leading a team, coaching others, building expertise in your profession, or simply trying to avoid becoming someone who repeats the same year of experience over and over again, this conversation will give you practical ways to think differently about learning and performance.

What You’ll Learn

• The difference between experience and expertise
• Why adaptability sits at the heart of expert performance
• What cognitive task analysis can teach us 
• The role of mistakes and error-based learning
• Coaching and instruction under pressure
• Reflection, critical friends and professional development
• How to develop better coaches, instructors and leaders

Key Takeaways

• Experience is not expertise
• Learning requires challenge
• Feedback drives improvement
• Expert knowledge is often hidden

About Jamie Taylor

Jamie Taylor is an Associate Professor at Dublin City University, where he co-leads CoEx|Lab. His research and applied practice is focused on improving expertise and performance in sport.

As a practitioner, he works with coaches and organisations across Olympic/Paralympic, professional, academy, and international sport, translating research into tools for understanding and developing coaching practice and skill acquisition. 

Useful Links

Jamie’s email: [email protected]

Jamie on LinkedIn

Cognitive Task Analysis 

Critical Decision Making 

Link to Naturalistic Decision Making Association

Chapters

01:17 Experience vs Expertise

02:53 Helping Experienced People Adapt

06:17 Making Tacit Skills Explicit

07:07 Cognitive Task Analysis

09:10 When Coaching Practice Doesn’t Reflect Reality

10:36 Error Based Learning

12:51 Desirable Difficulty

14:06 Coaching Groups at Scale

15:45 Standards and Superhumans

19:53 Pressure Transfer and Feedback

24:59 Critical Friends and Refraction

27:48 Burnout and Micro Innovations

31:00 Ethics of Experimentation

32:29 DIY Cognitive Task Analysis

35:27 Redesigning Training Big Rocks

37:59 Are Great Coaches Born

39:47 Closing Thoughts and Wrap Up

About the Podcast

For more expert-led conversations delivering evidence-based strategies to help you perform, recover, and adapt in high-pressure environments, check out our website https://www.ophp.co.uk/

Hosted by Human Performance specialist, researcher and educator Dr Martin I. Jones.

If you found this podcast valuable, please take a moment to rate, share & review.  If you have feedback, guest suggestions, or topics you'd love us to cover, email us at [email protected] or connect with us on LinkedIn. 

Thanks for listening to Optimising Human Performance.

This podcast is for people who can’t afford to fail. Each episode gives you practical, evidence‑based tools you can apply in the real world.

For more about the podcast, speaking, coaching, and mentoring, visit:

www.ophp.co.uk

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