Money (rarely) Matters: Why believing that Money is the Only Solution to Problems in High Performance Sport is silly.

By Wayne Goldsmith | In Hot Topics

I get asked to help athletes, coaches, teams and sporting organisations all over the world.

My process is simple.

Find out what the problems really are, find out where the problems really are, find out who the problems really are and figure out how to fix them: what I call the PPP approach – Practices (i.e what people do), Places (i.e. culture, environment) and People.

I look at lots of things: coaching, player talent and abilities, sports science, sports medicine, facilities, equipment, management, strength and conditioning and of course I look at the resources (money) available for the organisation to spend enhancing the performance of their high performance program.

Want to know how I know when money is not the real problem in the organisation?

When they tell me that it is.Money is rarely the real problem in sporting organisations – but it is the easiest target to blame for a lack of performance.

If you have a sporting organisation which lacks innovation, is driven by tired, unimaginative people, which continues to deliver the same programs over and over and over again, no amount of money will enhance its performance.

There are five critical things to consider when planning to enhance the performance of your sporting organisation through an effective change process:

  1. Acceptance that you have a problem and it is necessary to change;
  2. Having the desire, commitment and determination to change – including fighting through all the political and personality conflicts that impede the introduction of any change;
  3. Having creative, innovative ideas and solutions to your performance problems;
  4. Having outstanding people capable of introducing the change with drive, passion and energy;
  5. Having the money to implement the changes and performance enhancement strategies.

I am not saying money is unimportant in high performance sport.

What I am saying is that money does not make a significant difference to performance if the organisation is tired, devoid of creative ideas and is driven by people who live the “that’s the way we do it here” philosophical approach to high performance sport.

Imagine you had a winning Formula One Car and a great driver.

You win the F1 in the year 2010.

The next year, you use the same car, same engineering team, same driver, same fuel, same tyres.

You got close to winning again – second this time.

So the next year, you again put the same car, same driver, same fuel, same tyres etc. on the starting line.

You finish fourth on the championship.

The following year again – same car, same driver, same, same, same.

You finish tenth.

Now someone in the team says, “if we had more money, we could rebuild the same car, we could re-hire the same driver, we could buy more of our old fuel and more of our favourite brand of tyres and we will win again”. Sounds reasonable.

The problem is that in the years following your peak performance your competition have developed new engines, revolutionary fuel, partnered with NASA to build more aerodynamic chassis designs, partnered with Microsoft to develop cutting edge car electronics and identified, trained and developed a team of highly intelligent, highly athletic drivers and engineers.

More money only enhances performance if it funds new ideas, innovation and creative ways of doing things.  In high performance sport, more than any other field of endeavour - success is a moving target and the name of the game is accelerating your performance faster than that of your opposition – and this means being more creative, more innovative and learning faster than your opposition – the best ideas win!

De Bono once said, “you can’t dig a new hole by digging the same hole deeper” – and for many sporting organisations, all they do with more money is dig a deeper and deeper hole – one that ultimately they can’t get out of. In the meantime their opposition is building skyscrapers, bridges and even rockets.

And the saddest thing of all is that while many sporting organisations are wallowing in a pit of their own mediocrity and drowning in a sea of limited imagination, talented young athletes and coaches never have the opportunity or environment to realise their full potential. How many generations of gifted, talented and amazing athletes never have the opportunity to achieve their dreams because of the bumbling of bureaucrats and apathy of administrators more concerned about their own egos and job security than they are about embracing a real high performance philosophy?

Where politics comes before potential - failure follows.

What are the biggest impediments to performance in sporting organisations?:

  • lack of vision;
  • lack of strategy;
  • lack of creativity;
  • lack of leadership;
  • lack of capacity to change;
  • lack of alignment and cohesion across the organisation;
  • and…….lack of money.

The things that can make the biggest impact on performance in high performance sport are free - they are just not easy.

The hardest – but cheapest way of enhancing the performance of sporting organisations is to develop a creative, thinking, learning environment where everyone embraces a commitment to intelligent change, creativity and continuous improvement regardless of the political and personality obstacles.

Which would you prefer? An organisation built on passion, driven by creativity, fueled by innovation and fired by great leadership – but with limited money or an organisation with limited ideas, old thinking, outdated programs and closed minded people but with plenty of resources????? You can not buy greatness – you have to live it.

Be enthusiastic about ideas, embrace passion, recruit great people, value quality leadership, prize vision and be excited by creativity then……….chase the cash!

The only place cash should come before creativity is in the dictionary.

Wayne Goldsmith

© 2010, Sports Coaching Brain. All rights reserved. This post can not be reproduced in full or in part without the expressed consent of the author Wayne Goldsmith.

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May 14, 2010

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