How to Make Ordinary Instructors Extraordinary

It has been said that your school’s instructor team is only as strong as it’s weakest instructors. Your weakest instructors, or “ordinary” instructors best represent your school no matter how great your best instructor are. If an ordinary instructor runs a class or a drill and does a poor job, then your students are the ones that suffer. At the same time, your students will feel like they are getting ripped off every time your ordinary instructors take the helm. In this article, I will reveal the formula for making your ordinary instructors extraordinary…

Let’s get started!  

Think about it:

Have you ever heard the dreadful comment: “Classes are not the same when you do not teach?” Chances are you have. If you haven’t then chances are you’ve heard something like: “Classes are not the same when Mr. or Miss X are not running class.”

If you haven’t heard either of those comments, then two conclusions can be made. Conclusion number 1: you’ve already discovered the formula for making your ordinary instructors extraordinary. Conclusion number 2: you are a “one man show” and you are the only one running class, therefore your students don’t have a chance to make either of those comments. If this is the case, then chances are you WILL hear one of the above dreadful comments once you have other martial arts instructors teach in your place – unless of course, you figure out the formula for making your ordinary instructors extraordinary.

So how do you avoid both of the dreadful comments from above? Mind you, I say dreadful because once a parent or student makes one of those comments, chances are it won’t be long before they quit. At the same time, you won’t have a choice but to have ordinary instructors run class because that’s the only way that your bench strength becomes better.

So again, how do you avoid it?

The solution is easy, but it is not simple.

To avoid the dreadful damage that most ordinary instructors do, follow these tips:

  1. Create a system for your curriculum that is consistent. What I mean by this is set up a system that rotates your curriculum in a way that functions the same regardless of who’s in charge that class. In other words, don’t allow your instructors to have so much freedom that they run their own warm-ups, drills, and curriculum based on what they think or prefer to teach with time frame and format that they choose to follow. Instead, have a format that every instructor must follow. You can give them the freedom to select from a collection of content that fits within the system, but don’t allow them to create their own system entirely.
  2. Make the system easy enough for your weakest instructors to understand. If you select a person to be an instructor, then they must be able to understand the system in order to fulfill their role. I always say that if an emergency happened and my weakest instructors were the only ones that could take the lead, could they understand and follow my system? If so, then I’m in good shape.
  3. Make sure the curriculum within the system generates results. Systems are great, but they must function to help the students develop new skills and abilities on a consistently measureable basis. Just assuming that each class your instructors will teach “X” warm-ups, then run “X” drills, then review “X” content for testing, and then play “X” games is not enough to keep a student -OR- an instructor for that matter. People are motivated by RESULTS. The minute someone doesn’t feel like they are learning or growing then they will get bored, and they will ultimately quit. At the same time, if your instructors feel like their job is not generating results, then they will no longer feel like their role is rewarding, and they will ultimately quit.

In conclusion…

If you create a system for your curriculum that is consistent enough to satisfy your students’ expectations; easy enough for your instructors to follow; and comprehensive enough that it generates results, then you have an easy formula for success. This is not a simple task to accomplish, but the end results will become the heartbeat of your operations. Instead of getting comments like those mentioned above, you’ll get comments such as: “Wow! Your instructors teach just like you!” Or even better: “Your entire instructor team is absolutely amazing, especially your younger ones!” Replace those dreadful comments with either of these two comments, and you’ve discovered the formula for making ordinary instructors extraordinary.