Ten Reasons Why Change is so Hard to Introduce in Sport

By Wayne Goldsmith | In Hot Topics

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:

  1. 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.
  2. 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.
  3. 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:

  1. 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
  2. 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?

 

  1. “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!
  2. “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.
  3. “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.
  4. “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.
  5. “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.
  6. “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.
  7. “We need to introduce change slowly” - a great idea……..if you want to improve slowly and let your competition get away from you.
  8. “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.
  9. “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.
  10. “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:

  1. 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.
  2. 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.
  3. 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

 

 

June 10, 2008

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Comments

One Response to “Ten Reasons Why Change is so Hard to Introduce in Sport”

  1. Steve Handwerker on July 30th, 2008 12:51 am

    Wayne,
    How very, very, very true your article is. As a case study, I was for a short time the director of branding and marketing for a small national governing body which was more or less run like a small park district, for an old sport targeting mainly teenage females. They brought me onboard to turn the organization more into a real business, build and manage the brand, increase revenue via sponsorship and new streams, etc. — completely opposite of what the “maintain status quo” predecessor had been doing. What a shame it was that the executive director didn’t tell the minions about the new direction she wanted to take. They resisted in every way and ridiculed and stabbed me from behind. An old tree in the forest, the executive director also had been so deeply entrenched inside sport governance that she was not really in touch with today’s sports marketing — fast-paced, hungry, innovating or keeping up with innovation, and constantly networking, etc. — and was going to do anything to cling to her power (as you discuss above). I was working carefully to stay the course, perservere through politics and resistance, but she wasn’t, and I received my parachute. Despite positive changes and growth in terms of business, this small yet cumbersome NGB will continue with poor money, programatic and staff management, and won’t turn the corner into true Gen-X- and -Y modernity.

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