Bri­an Lewis

In all ar­eas of na­tion­al life peo­ple are look­ing for so­lu­tions that ef­fect re­al and last­ing change.

Sport is no ex­cep­tion. For many peo­ple, sport mat­ters but their frus­tra­tion is the feel­ing that out­side of sport and with the ex­cep­tion of very few com­pa­nies there is a lack of ap­pre­ci­a­tion and un­der­stand­ing for the role that sport can play and in very many note­wor­thy in­stances–is play­ing in the life of young peo­ple. Sport is mak­ing a pos­i­tive dif­fer­ence.

But yet, no one of sig­nif­i­cance out­side of sport, seems to be lis­ten­ing. The sport fra­ter­ni­ty feels unloved, un­der­ap­pre­ci­at­ed and as if it is the black sheep of the fam­i­ly. To be hon­est it's the same way those in the arts and cul­ture feel but the fo­cus here is on sport.

Talk to peo­ple in sport and the cry is mon­ey, the lack of it. My view has been well ven­ti­lat­ed in this col­umn. It's not mon­ey that's the prob­lem. The lack of mon­ey is a symp­tom of a far deep­er is­sue. In my view the deep­er is­sue sur­rounds mar­ket­ing, pro­mo­tion, com­mu­ni­ca­tion, cre­ativ­i­ty, in­no­va­tion and adapt­ing to the knowl­edge econ­o­my.

With­in sport there needs to be a clear un­der­stand­ing of how do we cre­ate val­ue? What val­ue do the na­tion­al sport or­gan­i­sa­tions (NSOs) bring to the na­tion? How do we ar­tic­u­late that val­ue? How do we com­mu­ni­cate that val­ue? How do we quan­ti­fy, mea­sure and eval­u­ate that val­ue?

Re­source ac­qui­si­tion, in this case mon­ey, is dri­ven by com­mu­ni­ca­tion strate­gies that an­swer the core ques­tion: Why should I fund and sup­port your or­gan­i­sa­tion? The an­swer should be based on ev­i­dence but most NSOs fail to ef­fec­tive­ly com­mu­ni­cate their suc­cess sto­ries.

The chal­lenge is to po­si­tion the sport sec­tor, in­clu­sive of the NSOs as a trust­ed, brand leader with proven ways of cre­at­ing val­ue.

Col­in Pow­ell, for­mer US Sec­re­tary of State, vis­it­ed Africa in June 2001. Dur­ing his vis­it he told African lead­ers who ap­pealed to him for Amer­i­can in­vest­ment dol­lars, that they need­ed to change their ways. Why?

Pow­ell told them, "Mon­ey does not go where it will not be safe, where it will not draw a re­turn, and where peo­ple are not con­fi­dent."

Pow­ell fur­ther ad­vised that it was the re­spon­si­bil­i­ties of the lead­ers to cre­ate the en­vi­ron­ment that will build con­fi­dence and trust. The sug­ges­tion Pow­ell of­fered was clear, it had to be proac­tive and from with­in. Mov­ing for­ward meant ac­knowl­edg­ing that the so­lu­tion is with­in the lead­ers them­selves.

It is im­por­tant that when ad­dress­ing prob­lems and con­cerns that we go be­neath the sur­face and ad­dress the un­der­ly­ing re­al­i­ties. It is a key suc­cess fac­tor. What needs to be done? What can and should we be do­ing to make a dif­fer­ence?

We have to look be­low the sur­face.

NSOs are non prof­it, non gov­ern­men­tal, vol­un­teer based mem­ber­ship or­gan­i­sa­tions. In re­al­i­ty, NSOs com­pete with oth­er NGOs and non­prof­it or­gan­i­sa­tions for re­sources–fi­nan­cial and hu­man.

It is a for­mi­da­ble chal­lenge but one that can be over­come with hard lis­ten­ing and clar­i­ty of thought. The con­ver­sa­tions and di­a­logue that the sport sec­tor should en­gage in must em­brace a dif­fer­ent par­a­digm one that is based on self be­lief and self con­fi­dence that the prob­lem and so­lu­tion is not ex­trin­sic.

NSOs must guard against mud­dling their key mes­sages and mis­sion.

Con­crete steps must be made to keep mes­sage and mis­sion fore­most in the minds of stake­hold­ers.

The pri­ma­ry dif­fer­ence be­tween for-prof­it and non-prof­it or­gan­i­sa­tions is that prof­it or­gan­i­sa­tions look to max­imise wealth, where­as non-prof­it or­gan­i­sa­tions look to pro­vide a greater good to so­ci­ety.

To my mind, spend­ing time and it will not nec­es­sar­i­ly be easy, be­cause there will be dif­fer­ent views and per­spec­tives, dis­cussing, de­bat­ing and com­ing up with an an­swer to the ques­tion "what is the val­ue propo­si­tion of NSOs" will be time well spent.

Bri­an Lewis is the Ho­n­ourable Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al of the T&T Olympic Com­mit­tee http// www.ttoc.org. The views ex­pressed are not nec­es­sar­i­ly those of the TTOC.