10 Reasons Why Change Is Difficult To Introduce In Sport

14 Mei, 2015

FIGHT FOR CHANGE

Why is it so difficult to introduce change to an organisation? For over three decades, academics, managers and consultants, realizing that transforming organisations is difficult, have analysed the subject.

The following remarks reflect the studies of some of the relevant literature on the topic and list a number of key challenges and potential traps, waiting for anyone who strives for change, be it in a business organisation or in the world of sports.

In life, survival involves adaption.
Survival is change.

In sport, as in most other human endeavours, adaption and change are critical.

Think of successful people. In life, in science, in art, in literature, in sport – why do we admire and respect them? Because they are different and difference means change.

Their uniqueness is their advantage: being a leader in the introduction of change is a prerequisite for greatness. Athletes, coaches and teams who are first at introducing new ideas and innovations are usually the success stories.

Successful people in the sport and corporate world know that change is the driving force behind success and without it, sporting organisations and players and coaches would never realise their full potential.

But change is also one of the hardest things to introduce successfully. Sport is an incredibly conservative environment and more resistant to change than any other area of society. Coaches and managers tend to stick to tradition: “We have always done it this way.”

People who introduce change are seen as disturbers or troublemakers, who have to get over a lot of resistance to make a difference. They meet opposition from people who are benefitting from the current thinking and who will fight hard to resist new ideas and any challenge to their position.

Lateral thinkers are often ridiculed by conservative thinkers who will qualify any drive for change as trivial. And it takes weeks, months and years of fighting, political manoeuvring, grumbling and other obstacles you have to overcome, before you can introduce real change and ensure progress.

So how can people who plead professionalism possibly defend their conservative positions? Why is it so difficult to introduce change in sport? Here is a list of a few challenges expecting anyone, who is driven to introduce change in sport.

1 - Lack of urgency

By far the biggest challenge for people trying to change organisations is to create a high enough sense of urgency. Transformations always fail to achieve their objectives when complacency levels are high.

Whoever wants to bring change may neither overestimate how much they can force big changes, nor underestimate how hard it is to drive people out of their comfort zones.

Otherwise they must recognize how their actions might reinforce status quo and they become paralysed by the downside possibilities associated with reducing complacency.

Worse, they push people deeper into their foxholes and create even more resistance to change: employees becoming defensive, dismissive and subversive. If complacency were low in most organisations today, this problem would have limited importance.

2 - Too much complacency

Without a sense of urgency, people won’t give that extra effort that is often essential. They won’t make the needed sacrifices. Especially if they have been at the top for a while and they tend to feel entitled to stay there.

They are the people most likely to pretend that they “know what they are doing”. They have their “secret formula to success” and will resist change harder than any other group. What they forget: the people most in need of change are those who have been successful!

In a high performance environment as sport, it is harder to sustain success and repeat winning than to do it a single time. There is no entitlement for constant success. Winning comes from adaption and constant change. Which means work. Nobody else will do it for you. You cannot change what you refuse to confront.

And to make it clear, once and for all: there is no magic potion to achieve success. Spoon-feeding is not an option. Change begins when people step out of their comfort zones.

3 - Lack of a Powerful Coalition

Major change is often said to be impossible unless the key drivers of an organisation are active supporters. In successful transformations, presidents, CEOs, directors plus another core group of key players with a commitment to improved performance pull together as a team.

In sport this includes managers and head coaches, but rarely all of the most senior people because some of them just won’t buy in, at least at first. “That’s not the way we do it here”, goes the plea, coming from a destructive mindset which often permeates when protagonists from the glorious past sit in influential positions and believe the solutions to current problems lie in going back to the past.

Efforts that lack a powerful guiding coalition can make progress for a while. The organisational structure might be changed, or a re-engineering effort might be launched.

But sooner or later, opposite forces undermine the initiatives.

4 - Absence of Trust

Individuals alone, no matter how competent or passionate, never have all the assets to overcome tradition and inertial forces. In the behind-the-scenes struggle between a single driver and tradition, short- term self-interests and the like, the latter almost always win. They prevent structural change from bringing out behaviour change. They hinder the re-engineering process in the form of passive resistance.

No matter how dedicated the head coach, guiding coalitions without strong leadership never seem to achieve the power that is required to overcome what are often massive sources of indolence.

Teamwork on a guiding coalition can be created in many different ways. But regardless of the process, one component is necessary: trust. When trust is present, you will be able to create teamwork. When it is missing, you won’t. Trust is absent in many organisations.

5 - Underestimating the Power of Vision

Vision plays a key role in producing useful change. They help to direct, align and inspire actions. Without a sound vision, efforts will fizzle out into a list of confusing, time-consuming projects that go nowhere at all. Initiatives will not release the kind of energy needed for successful implementation.

Major change is usually impossible unless most employees are willing to help, often to the point of making sacrifices. But people will not make sacrifices, unless they think the potential benefits of change are attractive and unless they believe that transformation really is possible.

Without a vision to guide decision-making, each and every choice employees face can lead into an interminable debate. If there is no clear statement of where all this was leading, they will never find directions.

6 - Lack of Communication

When people cannot describe a vision in five minutes or less and get a reaction of both understanding and interest, you are in trouble. That’s why communicating your vision is critical. A lot of people can explain what they do, but not many can explain why they do what they do.

Without credible communication, employees’ hearts and minds are never captured, especially if some highly visible individuals still behave in ways that are in contrast to the vision. The end result is that cynicism among the team goes up while belief in the new message goes down.

Communication comes in both words and deeds. The latter is generally the most powerful form. Nothing undermines change more than behaviour by important individuals that is inconsistent with the verbal communication.

7 - Permitting Obstacles to Block the Vision

The implementation of major change requires action from a large number of people.

Sometimes the obstacle is the organisational structure. Narrow job categories can undermine efforts to increase productivity. Compensation or performance-appraisal systems can force people to choose between vision and self-interests.

Perhaps worst of all are supervisors who refuse to adapt to new circumstances and who make demands that are inconsistent with the transformation. Whenever smart people avoid confronting obstacles, they disempower employees and undermine change.

Their excuses are known long time: “We need to change slowly, we don’t have the money!”

Experience is that money is rarely the real issue. Take a look at the sports world. How many rich teams miss their pretentious targets and are taken by surprise by opponents with far less financial power, year after year?

8 - You don’t understand the culture!

The most common challenge to effective change in the sports world is personalities standing in the way of change and politics. “It’s different here”, they claim, “you don’t understand the culture!” Meaning this team or club or sport environment is different to the rest of the world and doesn’t need to change, evolve or improve.

While it is actually true that all sports and any team have a unique culture, is also true that the key principles of success apply to every sport and team regardless of their culture.

There is no doubt that current and former key players add essential value to the quality of leading any organisation. But rejecting ideas, suggestions and expertise of someone who hasn’t played the game is a guarantee of failure. Sometimes it takes a newcomer from outside, someone with fresh eyes, to see the truth.

9 - Lack of Leadership

Change requires sacrifice, dedication, and creativity, none of which usually emerges under pressure. Managing change is important. Without competent management, the transformation process can get out of control. But for most organisations, the much bigger challenge is leading change.

Management is a set of processes that keep complex systems of people and technology running smoothly. The most important aspects of management include planning, budgeting, organising, staffing, controlling and problem solving.

Leadership is a set of processes that creates organisations in the first place or adapts them to significantly changing circumstances. Leadership defines how the future should look like, inspires people with that vision, and motivates them to make it happen.

10 – Change is uncomfortable

A fundamental skill of great leaders is to convince people that change is necessary and to get them to support the new direction. Without true leadership, authoritarianism is unlikely to break the forces of resistance. People will ignore you or pretend to cooperate while doing everything possible to undermine your efforts.

Yes, change is uncomfortable for all of us. But in the high performance environment of sports, it is as essential as having a training field, a quality training program and the right equipment - if you want to be successful, you have to change.

Albert Einstein said: “The measure of intelligence lies in the ability to change”. Things change everyday. Technology. The way we eat. The way we travel. The way we communicate. Everything is constantly changing and evolving. If you can’t change, don’t expect to keep pace with the rest of the universe.

If you want things to change, be prepared to fight a hard and a long fight. Fight fair. Let the critics and conservative thinkers do the dirty stuff, the name-calling, the pointing fingers and the blame game. Just keep fighting a good, clean fight and in the long run, you will win.

Literature reference & further reading:

• John P. Kotter, “ Leading Change”, Harvard Business Review Press, Boston, 2012

• Gary Hamel, “What matters now – How to Win in a World of Relentless Change”, Wiley Imprint, San Francisco, 2012

• Popi Sotiriadou et al, “Managing High Performance Sport”, Routledge, New York, 2013

• Simon Sinek, “Start with Why – How great leaders inspire everyone to take action”, Penguin Books, New York, 2009

• Ferran Soriano, “Goal: The ball doesn’t go in by chance – Management ideas from the world of football”, Palgrave MacMillan, New York, 2012

• Wayne Goldsmith, “Performance = Potential X Commitment”, http://www.wgcoaching.com/

Sumber - Fritz Schmid (inspired by “Leading Change”, by John P. Kotter, 2012), Pure Coaching Fritz Schmid schmid.ms