Coach driven, Athlete Focused, Administratively supported? Isn’t it time we did something different?

By Wayne Goldsmith | In Hot Topics

 

Thanks for visiting the “Brain” today while doing your daily web surfing.

While you are in the surfing mood, go and check out some other sporting web sites.

Specifically check out the web sites of the funding agencies, Institutes and Academies of the major Olympics sporting nations.

You will see something like this – on all those sites:

“Our philosophy is to embrace an athlete centred, coach driven and administratively supported high performance environment”.

WOW – This is a fantastic philosophy.………for about 1993!!!!

Isn’t it time we did something different?

Athlete centred / athlete focused

Sounds like a great idea but it rarely means the athletes get lots of money, which matches (or exceeds the rate of inflation) and real, relevant, meaningful support at appropriate times.

Most of the time athlete focused means: “Our administrators have set up programs which we think will meet the future needs of our athletes based on our benchmarking of what other nations and systems (and we) have done in the past”.

Few of them are innovative, even fewer have ever asked the athletes themselves what they really need and most of them are set up for ease of administration and accountability rather than real impact on peak performance.

Coach driven

Again – sounds perfect. In all effective elite sports systems, coaches are the driving forces of real change. However not all coaches have the skills, experience, knowledge, leadership qualities or abilities to drive the change process.

So empowering all coaches with a mystical ability to drive programs just because they coach good athletes is insane. Nations and systems adopting a coach driven philosophy must invest heavily in elite coach developmentto ensure the system drivers have all the tools they need to do it successfully.

Administratively supported

And here is the big problem.

Government Sports Administrations do not drive high performance sport – in spite of what they might believe.

Where a “big push” is on, e.g. increased funding for a home Olympics, the funding agencies and government sporting administrations provide some start up expertise, some initial funding and a basic framework to kick start a high performance system. After that, their primary function is auditing and funding management.

But central funding agencies and national systems do not create excellence or genius. Within a short time, the real change drivers – Coaches and athletes – accelerate their rate of improvement and knowledge faster than the national funding agency or Academy or Institute so that they – (the administrators) - become “handbrakes” to success: overly bureaucratic and increasingly report and audit driven more than performance focused.

The Future

The answer has to be somewhere in a combination of:

  • Clearer, more direct funding channels to athletes and coaches;
  • Simplicity:
  • Better trained, educated and developed coaches;
  • Fewer administrative, bureaucratic and reporting requirements;
  • High Performance Managers / Program Managers who are in touch with the real needs of coaches and athletes and work in partnership with them;
  • Real accountability for everyone involved in the performance process, i.e. coaches, athletes, managers, sports scientists, administrators;
  • An integrated, efficient, problem solving approach to performance enhancement.

But what’s the best way?

How would you change it?

What are some examples better ways of doing this?

I would be interested in your views.

Wayne Goldsmith

© 2011, Wayne Goldsmith. All rights reserved.

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September 7, 2011

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Comments

2 Responses to “Coach driven, Athlete Focused, Administratively supported? Isn’t it time we did something different?”

  1. Ben on July 13th, 2009 3:26 pm

    Sounds like you are suggesting the 1993 mantra is the correct one, it just doesnt work all the time.

    instead of changing the mantra as you suggest, why not focus on achieving it. Why is change for changes sake good?

  2. Wayne Goldsmith on July 15th, 2009 7:32 am

    Thanks Ben.

    I am a big fan of accelerated learning and changing faster and more effectively than your opposition.

    In this case, the point is that sporting systems are adopting the ATHLETE CENTRED / COACH DRIVEN mantra without real thought as to their own needs and doing something different and specific to their sporting culture.

    This article was inspired by a visit to an overseas client who had adopted the ATHLETE CENTRED / COACH DRIVEN concept because they had read about it on a web site from another country. There was no real thought or passion behind it – it was just copying someone else’s idea – out of cultural context.

    Agree with you – let’s give all athletes and coaches the best possible opportunity to realise their potential.

    WG

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