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By Wayne Goldsmith
Change is
one of the most talked about aspects of sport.
But
change is also one of the hardest things to actually introduce successfully and
sustain in any sporting environment.
Why?
Because
people who introduce change are often seen as radicals or “ratbags”
or people who know nothing about the sport or people who don’t understand
the sport’s culture or similar negative label.
Change
innovators in sport have to fight through three phases to make a real
difference:
- Ridicule - Real
innovators, lateral thinkers and change drivers have to first face the
conservative thinkers in the sport who will label their push to change as
stupid, ill informed and ridiculous.
- Resistance - If the
idea gets through Phase 1, it then meets hard opposition from people who
are benefiting from the current thinking and who will fight hard to
resist new ideas and any challenge to their position and beliefs.
- Acceptance - finally
if you can get through the days, weeks, months or even years of fighting,
political maneuvering, back stabbing and other obstacles you have to
overcome, you can introduce real change and ensure the sport progresses.
There are two true but conflicting statements I
can confidently make about competitive sport:
- Change is critical -
it is essential to survive. In competitive sport, the faster you can
accelerate your rate of change - faster than your opposition - the more
likely it is you can sustain competitiveness and win BUT
- Sport is incredibly conservative.
It is more resistant to change than almost any other area of society and
some people will resist change to the point of seeing the club or sport
fail if it means changing their beliefs and their position.
How can
people possibly defend this conservative position?
In sport,
more than most other human endeavours, “success is a moving target”. Athletes,
coaches and teams who are first at introducing new ideas and innovations and
usually the winners, the champions, the gold medalists, the premiers - the
success stories.
So, if
change is the life blood of being successful in competitive sport, why are so
many people so determined to “open an artery” and let the sport
bleed to death rather than embrace the change process?
- “It’s different here”
- The most common “anti-change” comment you hear when you try
to change things in sport is “it’s different here”:
meaning this team or club or sport is different to the rest of the world
and doesn’t need to change, evolve or improve. Rubbish!
- “You don’t understand the culture of
this sport” - whilst it is true that all
sports and indeed all teams have a unique culture, what is also true is
that the core principles of success apply to every sport and team regardless
of their culture.
- “We don’t have the money to
change” - another common “anti
change” comment. My experience working with hundreds of sports
in 25 countries is that money is rarely
the real issue. The most common impediments to
effective change all over the world always has been and still are
personalities (i.e. people standing in the way of change) and
politics.
- “We’re on top so we don’t need
to change” - it is harder to sustain
success and repeat winning than it is to do it a single time
so logically, the people most in need of change are those who
have been successful. They are the people most likely to believe they have
hit on the “secret formula to success” and will resist change
to the “secret formula” harder than any group.
- “That’s not the way we do it
here” - a painful destructive mindset
which often permeates when former players and coaches from the
sport’s “glory years” sit on the Board and believe
the solutions to the Club’s current problems lie in going back to
the past.
- “You’ve never played the game”
- there is no doubt that current and former players can add significant
value to the quality of leading any team, but rejecting the ideas,
suggestions and expertise of anyone who hasn’t played the game is a
guarantee of failure. It’s like saying the only people who can
listen to music must be musicians or the only people who can go to art
galleries must be artists.
- “We need to introduce change slowly”
- a great idea……..if you want to improve slowly and let your
competition get away from you.
- “We have this dominating, hard headed, old
Chairman who refuses to change - we will never get anything going”
- guess what? There is one of these in every sport, in every team, in
every country in the world. The “old administrator” who has
been in a position for 30 years and will do anything to cling to power.
Unfortunately this is a fact of life - get over it, work around them and
get on with it.
- “I can’t get people to buy into the
need to change” - another fact of life.
Greek Philosophers BC have written about peoples’ resistance to
change - it is one constant in a universe that thrives on change. A
fundamental skill of great leaders is to convince people that change is
necessary and to get them to support the new direction.
- “It’s too difficult to change”
- No it’s not. Everyday things change. Technology. The way we eat.
The way we travel. The way we communicate. Everything is constantly
changing and evolving. If you can’t change, then you are out of pace
with the rest of the Universe.
Summary:
- Think of the great people in sport, in life, in
science, in art, in literature - why do we admire and respect them?
Because they were different
and difference means change: uniqueness is an
advantage: being the leader in the introduction of change is a prerequisite
for greatness.
- Change is uncomfortable for most people but in
elite sport it is as essential as having a training field, a quality
training program and the right equipment if you want to be
successful.
- If you want things to change - be prepared to fight, fight
hard, fight long but fight fair. Let the conservative thinkers in your
sport do the dirty stuff, the name calling, tell the lies etc - just keep
fighting a good, hard, clean fight and in the long run, you will win.
Wayne
Goldsmith
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