Whoopee!

You finished your Uni degree. Bachelor of Applied Science in Sports Studies. Or Bachelor of Science in Human Movement. Or Masters in Exercise Science. Congratulations!!! Mum, Dad and Aunt Lucy are all proud of you. You did it!

You have a nice shiny new degree, a huge brain full of ideas and intelligence and a heart full of optimism, passion and drive just itching to enter a career in high performance sport.

So you start digging through the Sports employment adverts, you visit the sports jobs web sites and you sign up for a few sports career update newsletters.

And you wait.

And you apply for a few jobs.

And you wait.

And maybe you get an interview.

And you wait.

And then, six months after graduation you find out that maybe getting a job in high performance sport wasn’t as easy as you thought and you might want to start learning lines like, “Would you like to Super Size that today, Sir”, “Can I tell you about our blackboard specials today Ma’am” and “Did you have discount coupon to get 4 cents off your fuel purchase?”.

So to help you get in and stay in the world of high performance sport, here is a guide on how to read those all too appealing job advertisements in the high performance sports industry.

The Three Golden Rules of Getting a Job in High Performance Sport.

There are three rules when it comes to getting a dream job in high performance sport – and for that matter a dream job in any industry:

1. It’s about who you know;
2. It’s about who you know;
3. It’s about who you know.

And, my friends, here’s another piece of advice – it is no good wining, whinging and complaining about it: you need to be as committed to making contacts and industry connections as you are about study, research, coaching and high performance programs. Fact of life: accept it – move on.

The next piece of truth for you budding high performance sports professionals to accept is that very few advertised jobs in the sports industry are actually really open to all applicants.

Take a list of 100 advertised jobs in high performance sport.

A large percentage of these 100 jobs, (particuarly the government sports jobs) are often opened to internal applicants only (in spite of what it says on the official job advertisement). It’s what large sporting organisations do when they have had a review, have re-schuffled a few roles, re-named a couple of departments and now have to get the incumbents to re-apply for their own jobs – usually at higher salaries. Goes on all the time.

Now take off another large percentage of these 100 jobs who are informally taken by head nods, hand shakes and agreements signed with cappuccinos, (with most jobs in high performance sport its more about dinner than your degree).

Now take off another percentage of the 100 jobs which will go to former athletes and coaches and people who have political and personal connections within the sport.

What are you left with? Three jobs out of 100 that you can actually apply for:

1. Development Officer for Junior Underwater Trampolining;
2. Sports Administrator for Regional Tug-a-war;
3. Assistant to the assistant deputy, vice, assistant Treasurer of Kurdistan Cricket.

Good luck with your application - feel free to list me as a referee!

Sports Speak

In addition to having great networking skills, there is an art to applying for jobs in the high performance sports industry: you have to master Sports Speak.

Sports Speak is a special secret magic language that people in sport use to communicate secret messages to other people in sport through the medium of position descriptions and advertisements and unless you are fluent in this language, your chances of securing that high level high performance gig are about as good as Paris Hilton winning the Nobel Prize for Literature this year.

Sports Speak must become your second language and to master it means that dream job with professional sport, an Olympic team or a government run sports institute is within your grasp.

Here’s some examples of Sports Speak to help you on your pathway to success:

• “Demonstrated experience in leading people“: Sports Speak Translation = Have been in charge of staff but never introduced any changes which upset them or created any problems;
• “Proven record of stakeholder engagement”:  Sports Speak Translation =Listen to everyone, pander to factions and splinter groups, compromise all decisions to avoid conflict and get nothing of real significance actually done;
• “Change management skills”: Sports Speak Translation = Must make a few minor, largely ineffective, cosmetic changes but not too many and not too fast – you might wake up some of the staff;
• “Demonstrated decision making skills”: Sports Speak Translation =  Being able to do what you are told to do;
• “Innovative”: Sports Speak Translation = Copy the best ideas of other organisations after doing benchmarking junkets all over the world and claim them as your own;
• “Ability to develop financial and strategic plans”: Sports Speak Translation = Desk Job - mostly administrative;
• “Ability to monitor progress towards objectives and use evaluation and research information to improve effectiveness”: Sports Speak Translation = Desk Job – totally administrative.
• “Understanding of the structure and dynamics of sport and government processes”: Sports Speak Translation = Have lots of connections and contacts in the sport world who you can use as consultants to help sort out problems.

The Position Description you will never see.

Here’s a list of things that you will never see on a position description or job application for a role in high performance sport – and this is a fundamental reason why sport continues to be a remarkably conservative institution around the world where change, innovation and creativity - and by extension the industry as a whole – does not progress to a level that is anywhere near it’s potential:

Wanted: Sports Leader – to lead us to be the best in the world.

Qualities and attributes:

• Someone who thinks about, talks about and openly embraces winning;
• Visionary leadership: able to lead consistently with passion, drive and enthusiasm;
• Team inspirer: able to create and sustain a high quality collaborative team environment where every one’s talent is optimised and every individual consistently contributes to their full potential;
• Creative and innovative: prepared to take risks, to think laterally, to think things and do things that no one else in the industry is prepared to;
• Uncompromising in their commitment to create a winning environmentfor all athletes, coaches and people involved in the sport (sorry – can’t say stakeholders. The only people who should be called stakeholders are those planting tomatoes or installing picket fences);
• Integrated thinker: thinks and acts across disciplines, across sports, across industries to search for the best possible solutions to performance problems;
• Experience valued but only if you are capable of thinking, learning and growing faster than at any time in your professional career;
• Change management not needed: you must live change and thirst for continuous improvement.

If the Universities and other sports industry training organisations were serious about preparing people for a career in high performance sport, instead of pumping students through a Bachelor of Applied Science (Human Movement), they would create a new, more practical, more realistic list of course offerings:

• Bachelor of Language (Sports Speak);
• Bachelor of Applied Sports Networking (Sports Management Systems);
• Masters of Sports Contacts and Connections.

What does your degree say?

Wayne Goldsmith

© 2011, Wayne Goldsmith. All rights reserved.

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Sporting federations, sporting organisations, sporting clubs, government sporting bodies and sporting associations all demand excellence and professionalism from the coaches they employ.

They also demand winning performances from the athletes and players in their teams and squads.

Sports administrators will expect coaches and athletes to consistently plan, prepare and perform like the best in the world: and rightly so – the name of the game is winning.

But here’s the big question: If there was an Olympic Games or Premiership title in sports administration, would the people in the nice suits with the big offices and new company cars perform as well as the athletes and coaches they lead?

As a sports administrator, sports manager, CEO, Operations Manager etc ask yourself this……”would I win the Olympic Gold Medal in Sports Administration or am I the Weakest Link?”

The Four at the Core.

There are four core groups of people in every sporting system, professional teams, sporting clubs, sports federations etc.

1. Athletes / players;
2. Coaches;
3. Support staff (e.g. sports science, sports medicine, strength and conditioning staff, technology and IT staff etc);
4. Administrators (including office staff, management, executive and Board).

In successful high performance environments which have learnt how to create and sustain success, all four groups strive for excellence in everything, every day. They form a performance partnership: working together towards a common goal…….winning.

As athletes and coaches seek to find ways of maximising their own potential through superior planning, preparation and performance, support staff and administrators must similarly be uncompromisingly dedicated and committed to the highest possible standards in everything they do.

“You can’t have high performance athletes and coaches working with low performance administrators”. 

The “Golden rules” of success in sport are:

1. To consistently perform to your full potential;
2. To consistently prepare better in every aspect than your competition;
3. To strive for continuous improvement and excellence in everything you do.

Athletes know this…and live it.

Coaches know this…and deliver it.

But do the people making the key decisions about your sporting organisation live and deliver it?

Make no mistake. Excellence in sports management is as critical for success as having talented, hard working athletes and committed, experienced, determined coaches.

Think about it this way: what’s wrong this picture?

• World class athletes;
• World class coaches;
• Mediocre Managers;
• Lazy Leaders;
• Bumbling bureaucrats;
• Bored Board members.

Just as champion athletes aim to out prepare, out train, out think, out recovery, out work, out practice and out smart their opposition, sports administrators must accept the challenge of winning with the same passion and drive.

CEOs should aim to be the best CEO of any team in their competition.

Operations Managers should focus on being better in every aspect of their performance than their counterparts in other sporting organisations.

Marketing Managers, Team Management, Office Administrative Staff, Accounts Payable Staff, the Membership Team, Sales Staff…everyone in the organisation must be committed to being the best at what they do and better than the people in their corresponding roles in the offices of their competition.  

So how can you ensure you are a “Gold Medal” sports administrator?

1. Apply the same standards to your own performance as you expect from athletes and coaches;
2. Accept the same level of responsibility and accountability for the performance of the organisation as the athletes and coaches do;
3. Strive for the “big three” of excellence: continuous improvement, accelerated learning and ongoing performance enhancement;
4. Speak honestly and openly to athletes and coaches: avoiding “bureaucrat-babble”;
5. Make commitments genuinely and with integrity and deliver on them;
6. Strive for openness, honesty, transparency and clarity when developing policies and procedures;
7. Keep administrative requirements for athletes and coaches to an absolute minimum. Every moment they have available should be focused on preparation and performance;
8. Regularly take time to attend practices, training and competitions and aim to learn as much as possible about the sport, the athletes and the coaches so that you develop a frame of reference for genuine communication and open discussion;
9. Admit to errors and mistakes with humility and honesty and do it immediately without sanitising your mistake through a media manager spin cycle;
10. Stand by your athletes and coaches during the tough times. It is easy to accept the public accolades and trophies when your athletes win. Stand just as proudly with them when they really need you. 

The general rule for Gold Medal Sports Administration is…. to demand the same standards of yourself as you demand of your athletes and coaches.

World class athletes deserve world class coaches and they deserve world class administrators.

Are you up to the challenge?

Wayne Goldsmith

(Thanks to JL and Hilly for the inspiration for this post).

© 2010 – 2011, Wayne Goldsmith. All rights reserved.

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One of the most critical initiatives any sporting organisation can undergo is the Building of the Board.

As the Board provides strategic direction, leadership and vision to the organisation, it is essential to consider the P-P-P of the Board, i.e.:

• The quality of the People who sit on the Board – who they are;
• The Professionalism of the people who sit on the Board – what skills, knowledge and experience they bring to the Board;
• The Practices of the people who sit on the Board – what they do and how they do it.

Seems simple enough, but why do so many get it so wrong?

Having dealt with sporting Boards all over the world, here are five commonly used sporting Board models that we all know do not work and are doomed to fail:

1. The “this Club is my personal play-thing” Board: Happens most often in start up and new professional sporting franchises where a bunch of local business leaders  (who are fans of the sport) apply for a license to start up a new team because they have lots of money and are looking for a “new toy” to play with;
2. The “we have ten Member Associations so we must have ten Board members” Board: The most common Board structure in Olympic sports around the world. Also one of the biggest problems in Olympic sport around the world because everyone acts in the interest of the State, Province or group they represent;
3. The “we know nothing about sport but we will have a go” Board; This Board structure pops up from time to time when sports are under financial pressure. The sport looks to recruit new Board members who are community and business leaders to drive the Board hoping they will bring in broad knowledge in marketing, finance, business practices etc.  However, Board members may have little or no real understanding of the unique needs and culture of sport / the sport;
4. The “we know nothing about business but we will have a go” Board: Often a transitionary sporting Board model when amateur sports turn professional and the existing Board members lack the business skills, knowledge and experience to take the sport into the new professional era;
5. The “I played the sport when I was at school and know everything there is to know about the sport” Board: Another common Board model where amateurs get involved running the sport using knowledge and beliefs that may be 20 years out of date. A frustrating Board to deal with if you are a CEO or Head Coach of a professional team.

 No matter what Board model you use, the critical components of a great sporting Board are:

• Vision;
• Leadership;
• Professionalism;
• Objectivity;
• The ability to think and act strategically;
• And….the commitment to keep their nose out of the daily operations of the organisation.

Without doubt, the biggest problems in sporting organisations occur when people cross the lines that define the clarity of roles and responsibilities.

You recruit players to play, coaches to coach, doctors to provide medical support and CEOs to manage – let them do their job – and let Board members do theirs – that is, to provide consistently high quality strategic leadership with real vision.

Here’s a really great 7 member Board model for sporting organisations to adopt:

• Enlist 2 people who really know the game, understand it’s nature and the unique culture of the sport – as it is today: they bring relevance;
• 2 people from within the sporting industry but outside the game itself who understand sport and what has / hasn’t worked with other sports but who are not constrained by the limitations, history and traditions of the specific sport they will be leading: they bring a broad, balanced, sports industry perspective;
• 2 people from outside of sport who understand business, finance, marketing, success and winning but who are not constrained by the limitations, history and traditions of the sporting industry; they bring objectivity, sustainability and growth;
• plus 1 real Leader – with real vision, understanding, knowledge and passion to see the sport become the best in the world: he / she brings leadership, vision and a strategic approach to the future success of the organisation.

What do the people on your Board bring?

Wayne Goldsmith

© 2010 – 2011, Wayne Goldsmith. All rights reserved.

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