Agree with your comments too. A lot of people get confused on the issues of Creating A High Performance Environment and Creating a Winning Culture: they are two very different but related things.
I have seen a lot of people spend a lot of money trying to find a way of building a winning team but often all they end up with is some nice new buildings and some fancy gym equipment. Creating a professional looking high performance environment is easy – making it work to it’s full potential is completely different.

WG

WG

Here’s my crystal ball on the matter.

After the London 2012 Olympics, some genius – hopefully me because I need the money – will come up with what I call THE NON SYSTEM SYSTEM or NSS. This NSS approach will state that each athlete / coach will be funded to prepare to the best of their ability and funding will be targeted to the specific, unique needs of the individual. There will be a worldwide “anti-high performance system” philosophy embraced by most of the leading nations preparing for Rio 2016.

This will go on for one-two Olympics before it too will be shown to have some deficiencies (i.e. nothing is perfect or permanent) and the pendulum will swing back a little towards the systems approach. So by 2024, I think most of the world will have a mature, sophisticated high performance sporting philosophy with the right balance of systems support and targeted individualised non-system support.

Seems like most progress happens like this. Change is hard to initiate but once it gains momentum it is impossible to stop shifting too far and over-correcting. Then things calm down and things shift back just a little to a more realistic level.

At the moment, (unfortunately) we still have a lot of know all high performance sports systems “pushers” who are still finding naive would be zealots all over the world to pay them to come in to set up miracle one size fits all solutions for athletes and coaches.

Bring on the future.

WG

What I mean by difference and uniqueness is that the greatest people I have met – athletes, coaches, managers, leaders, scientists, artists and others do not comply with the rules, regulations and standards of the majority – they set new standards and take the lead in changing their industry. So it is amazing to me that even in the most lucrative and supposedly professional sporting competitions, e.g. NFL, Premier League etc that coaches are generally very conservative – preferring to copy others than actually lead the introduction of new ideas and innovations.

To add to this, the government funding agencies of many nations are now putting in place funding rules that specify to coaches, athletes and organisations “do it this way or we will not fund you”. They are putting limits and restrictions on creativity and innovation. And…anywhere in the world, at any time in history, where governments have tried to stifle individuals being unique, the system has failed….as the current high performance systems will undoubtedly fail.

Thanks for your comments.

WG

Jeremy Pryce
Mölndal, Sweden

Are there enough sporting organisations in the world that have had a prolonged period of success based on talent development to figure out what is truly important and what just seems important? Or is this what the single system messiahs are claiming to have done already?

As we both know there are companies promoting a “one size fits all athlete development model” all over the world which, although the basic concepts make good sense, the ability of these “magic models” to produce winners at elite level has not been demonstrated anywhere.

Yet, governments keep falling for the “super sports system sales pitch” – i.e. people selling a miracle, guaranteed to succeed sports system to help the government solve all its performance problems.

The lessons are there for all to see but few want to (or can) see them…..do it your own way, embrace difference, creativity, innovation and uniqueness, do not copy systems and structures outside of the culture that created them and….above all, there is no one single “magic model”, system or ideology that is guaranteed to work for all athletes in all sports in all nations…….is it that difficult to see????

I would go so far as saying that the nations, sports and coaches who will be the most successful in the future will be the ones who DON’T buy in to one of the “magic models” currently in vogue.

Other nations are experiencing what you describe. Some sporting federations and even government funded national sporting systems have become “zealots” of the “magic model” formula and will only fund coaches and athletes who comply with rules and systems of the “magic model”.

Like you say, so much for the innovative and creative new generation of coaches trying to forge the future.

Thanks again,

WG

Brilliant news for all innovative Coaches at the grass roots level.

I agree with you in part but my experience is that audit usually means internal review, which is about as useful as singing to your parents on your birthday: everyone feels good but you don’t get any meaningful feedback!

Also, continuous improvement to most people means tracking the progress of pre-existing plans and not embracing new, exciting, innovative and creative ideas to accelerate learning and enhance the performance of the people and program.

Thanks again for the comments.

WG

“Point 8: Put in place ongoing “audit” and continuous improvement systems”

address the winning part of the issue anyway?