ARE THINGS HEADING IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION?

 SYNOPSIS

 With the Island Games having been a great success it is good to bask in the sunshine of our summer and the glory of our athletes. However one doesn’t have to dig too deep to recognise the widening standards between Elite, Competitors and Tourists and the ever increasing demands for performance just to keep pace with the competition.

 And it is no different in business. Clive Woodward’s book Winning!  was written after England’s winning the Rugby World Cup, and is a good analysis of what sport can teach business and what business can teach sport. I wonder if Jersey has truly capitalised on the opportunities of the Island Games and Commonwealth Games, or indeed businesses have really embraced the idea of performance development over a 4 year period.

 AMATEUR AND RANDOM

 Competitions like the Island Games and Commonwealth Games were once the domain of the talented club athlete, an enthusiastic amateur with a high work ethic or natural talent. Seldom both. However athletes now increasingly find themselves alongside Olympians and Professionals and the game has changed, and so must the standards and criteria for performance.

 Moreover often selection has often been based on meeting a performance criteria of a specific day, time, or race. Effectively a spot-check with all the pros and cons that go with this. Doing your qualifying race the day after an accident, or a few days after flu is rather like doing Performance Review and Appraisal the day after either good-news of bad-news which may colour your performance or the boss’s perceptions.

 ARE THINGS HEADING IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION?

 I remember Triathlete Tim Don once saying that he does not worry about results, because they depend on lots of things including weather and other people. Instead his focus is on performance because that is something he can control. Coming second, third or 10th may be a poor result but you can be optimistic and full of confidence if you know that you have been hitting the numbers consistently for the last 12 months and today wasn’t so bad considering you’re recovering from injury. This is not about a stock-pile of excuses, but a more objective overall assessment with the benefit of context and performance trajectory: are things heading in the right direction?



 PERFORMANCE DEVELOPMENT

 We need to move away from Performance Review and Appraisal which is based on a snap-shot which may be brilliantly or poorly timed to capture excellent or disappointing performance and instead focus on the commitment to 10,000 hours.

 Malcolm Gladwell in his book Outliers noted that excellence comes from 10,000 hours of practice. Whether that is playing the violin, being Bill Gates, or indeed being an athlete or a compliance officer. The single biggest determinant of success is 10,000 hours. You may ask if talent or passion have a greater value, but Gladwell suggests that these are the things that drive you to 10,000 hours of practice, but at 20 hours the virtuoso, programmer, runner or employee are not statistically better than anyone else with the same level of experience.

 If this is the case the challenge is about how we nature, support, enthuse 10,000 hours of practice, rather than simply tick spot-check performances.

 As an athlete I know 10,000 hours of practice is not just about running, it is about health, strength, nutrition, flexibility. It is an overall programme which is orchestrated toward a performance trajectory. As a project manager I know that success is not about the application of PRINCE2, but about communication, collaboration, consensus, knowledge, understanding, context. These are the underpinning (and often overlooked) components of success which are sometimes overshadowed by methodology.  But to assume methodology is more important than soft-skills is as daft as assuming that doing more running is more important than health, strength, nutrition, flexibility.

 CHANGING THE RECOGNITION AND REWARD MECHANISMS

 I would argue that the success of athletes in future Competitions like the Island Games and Commonwealth Games is going to be increasingly based on a four-year programme of performance development, and a combination of many factors (both training and lifestyle) which set the trajectory for success.

 Similarly I suggest that businesses need to re-think their recognition and reward mechanisms away from spectacular wins, heroic victories toward long term, sustainable and balanced improvement of performance.

 MORE INFORMATION

 In 2013 Tim Rogers was athlete representative for the Jersey Commonwealth Games Team and argued strongly for a revised approach to how we prepare our athletes for world-class performance. This involved moving away from qualifying standards and criteria just 12-18 months ahead of the big event, to a more measured and supported programme starting 4 years out and demanding greater commitment in return for better support. If you would like to know more about this approach and how it may help your performance development please contact timhjrogers@cichange.org

 THE AUTHOR

 Tim Rogers is an experienced Project and Change Leader. He is founder of www.ciChange.org and curator for www.TEDxStHelier.Com . He is Programme Manager for the commercialization of Jersey Harbours and Jersey Airport, and previously Operations Change and Sales Support for RBSI/NatWest, and Project Manager for the Incorporation of Jersey Post. He is also Commonwealth Triathlete and World Championships Rower with a passion for teaching and learning and is a Tutor/Mentor on the Chartered Management Institute courses. He is a Chartered Member of the British Computer Society, has an MBA (Management Consultancy) and is both a PRINCE2 and Change Management Practitioner.

 Email: TimHJRogers@cihange.org
 Mob: 07797762051 | Twitter @timhjrogers | Skype timhjrogers