{"id":674,"date":"2019-01-31T16:53:29","date_gmt":"2019-01-31T16:53:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/business-school\/?p=674"},"modified":"2019-01-31T17:04:21","modified_gmt":"2019-01-31T17:04:21","slug":"why-sport-matters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/business-school\/why-sport-matters\/","title":{"rendered":"Why sport matters"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"
A former Wales football international and national team captain, Professor McAllister was Chair of Sport Wales between 2010-16.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In our latest post, Professor Laura McAllister explains why sport matters in the context of governance and what lessons can be learned from the challenges the sector presents across the areas of leadership, diversity and education.<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

First of all, let\nme say sport is important because it isn\u2019t <\/em>important. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Watching your team (in my case Cardiff City, and I\u2019m still\noptimistic about 17th place in the Premier League!), having fun playing, or\nwatching can be an arena for extremes. Extreme joy and celebration, distraught\nand devastation about something that matters little in truth. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But that\u2019s the odd contradiction, sport does<\/em> matter because it has\na unique place in our national psyche, our consciousness, especially in a small\nnation like Wales. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It also has a considerable reach. A different and untapped power. It\u2019s often said that Wales lacks a seductive global USP. Well sport could fill that gap. And after Brexit, if it happens, then we\u2019ll certainly need it! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSport is so important to Wales, it\u2019s a unifying force at a time when we are an increasingly divided nation – on the EU and Brexit, in economic prospects, in educational opportunities and life chances.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

A staggering 12.4% of Welsh four- and five-year-olds are obese. Type 2\ndiabetes is proliferating. We should be horrified that half of our young people\nare not doing regular physical activity. That\u2019s why I was\nso disappointed to see such limited progress on the Baroness Tanni\nGrey-Thompson taskforce on PE and school sport. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was a decisive piece of work with a report that made one recommendation: \u201cPE should be made a core, compulsory subject in the school curriculum and all that comes with it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Soft power<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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Sport is Wales\u2019s hardest<\/em> \u201csoft power\u201d. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I have also long argued that sport is Wales\u2019s hardest<\/em> \u201csoft power\u201d. As I suggested in my Hay lecture in 2015<\/a>, it was more important that Wales qualified for the Euros in France than Wales to win the Rugby World Cup. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Controversial? Perhaps. But after all, football is played by over\u00a0200 countries globally. The European football market\u2019s\u00a0worth \u20ac25bn. Rugby, at a generous estimate, is played by around 20 nations.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\nhave genuinely learnt most of my life lessons from sport. When people\ntalk about such lessons, they always mention goal-setting, discipline etc.,\nbut I mean a few other things:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First, passion. It\ncan be something of a poisoned chalice. I\u2019ve learned that we mustn\u2019t be blinded\nor blinkered by our enthusiasm for the thing we love. This is never truer than\nin sports governance, a prospect which requires cold analysis and steely\nchallenge from the people at board level. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another important lesson is knowing when to finish. We all have a shelf-life, every athlete knows that and, for them, it\u2019s usually very young – in one\u2019s mid-30s. Of course, in leadership roles, we can go on longer than that. But it\u2019s very easy to become too comfortable, to enjoy the pleasurable bits of working in sport. And so, our leaders should take their roles as seriously as athletes take their sports.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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It\u2019s very easy to become too comfortable, to enjoy the pleasurable bits of working in sport.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf you\u2019re always looking at your medals and your trophy cabinet, then the chances are you will stagnate. One should always be preparing for one’s next function as leader, in the same way as an athlete prepares for their next game or tournament.\u201d <\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

I feel very\nstrongly that there\u2019s a need for sport to march in step with society – and\nclearly to lead where appropriate – but never, ever should it lag behind. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are plenty\nof futurology studies out there underlining that the way we currently run sport\n– in clubs, leisure centres, NGBs, even Sport Wales and Government – can at\ntimes be hopelessly out of step with societal change. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\u2019re failing to heed trend information like lifestyle shifts, family emphasis, culture of casual play (rather than registered, in clubs), technological advances, fitness apps and monitors, not to mention artificial intelligence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe need to raise the bar in terms of challenge.\u201d <\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Edgy spaces<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s the role of\nleaders to invite alternatives standpoints, to be personally strong and\namenable enough to accept alternatives. It\u2019s all about effective\nscrutiny, moving into a different cultural space where challenge is welcomed\nand not taken personally. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A CEO of a board once told me, in an exasperated tone, \u201cLaura, you always\nwant more. You forget how far we have come\u201d. This is ironic and completely\nirrelevant. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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An effective Board is not a cosy club.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s about where we are going as an organisation. An effective Board is\nnot a cosy club, closed to new people and different ideas. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Neither should Board meetings be comfortable places. They should be\nenjoyable instead, in the sense of active contribution and work accomplished. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

They should not be friction-free. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

They should be edgy spaces where challenge and critical thinking drive\nevery discussion, and board members are encouraged to offer\nalternatives to what is on the table. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is not to say that we should forget respect. Discomfort should stem from effective questioning and robust debate, not by demeaning or undermining our colleagues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wilful blindness<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Diversity is critical for underpinning a successful board in sport and other sectors. The US academic, Margaret Heffernan talks about \u201cWilful blindness\u201d (her theory emerged from the Enron scandal) where board members could and should know what\u2019s happening. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe point is that boards lacking diversity and have members with similar blind spots.\u201d <\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

I recently read another interesting book, The Diversity Bonus<\/a><\/em>\nby Scott E. Page from Michigan University. He talks about cognitive diversity\nand the knowledge economy. Different algorithms and perspectives lead to\ncreativity and successful businesses. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s not just about representational diversity (although that remains important),\nit\u2019s about diversity of thinking and challenge. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
The initiative builds on work we did whilst I was chair to change the profile of our own board.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m convinced that this applies to sport governance as much as any\nother sector. That\u2019s why I\u2019m pleased that as principal funder, Sport\nWales has a new, firm policy position for gender diversity on Boards<\/a>.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The initiative builds on work we did whilst I was chair to change the profile of our own board. We\u00a0transferred\u00a0the Board from over 80% male to nearly 60% female and had 16% BAME members at the end of the transformation. We also reduced the age range to a much younger profile.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sport Wales aspire for \u2018high impact\u2019 NGBs and National Sports\nOrganisations to achieve 50:50 gender diversity on Boards by 2020, while\napplying the EU Commission\u2019s definition of gender parity (at least 40% women or\nmen on a Board). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s interesting that Sport England<\/a> and UK Sport<\/a>\nstarted with 30%. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For me, that\u2019s too low and tremendously unambitious.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This post is based on an Executive Education Breakfast Briefing delivered by Professor McAllister<\/a>. Find out more about our series of events, here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Laura\nMcAllister<\/a><\/strong> is Professor of Public Policy at Cardiff University\u2019s School of\nLaw and Politics<\/a> and the Wales Governance Centre<\/a>.<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A former Wales football international and national team captain, Professor McAllister was Chair of Sport Wales between 2010-16. In our latest post, Professor Laura McAllister explains why sport matters in […]","protected":false},"author":1653,"featured_media":681,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[344],"tags":[364,360,167,349,100,354,358,153,115,112,166,355,356,359,255,222,346,352,195,350,96,357,347,353,245,345,363,362,48,47,348,44],"class_list":["post-674","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-governance","tag-bame","tag-board","tag-brexit","tag-cardiff-city-football-club","tag-cardiff-university","tag-curriculum","tag-discipline","tag-diversity","tag-economy","tag-education","tag-eu","tag-euros","tag-france","tag-goal-setting","tag-governance","tag-government","tag-leadership","tag-pe","tag-power","tag-premier-league","tag-public-policy","tag-rugby-world-cup","tag-school-of-law-and-politics","tag-schools","tag-society","tag-sport","tag-sport-wales","tag-tournament","tag-uk-government","tag-wales","tag-wales-governance-centre","tag-welsh-government"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paOfaS-aS","meta_box":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/business-school\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/620\/2019\/01\/Footballer-.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/business-school\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/674","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/business-school\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/business-school\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/business-school\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1653"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/business-school\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=674"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/business-school\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/674\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":696,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/business-school\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/674\/revisions\/696"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/business-school\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/681"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/business-school\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=674"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/business-school\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=674"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/business-school\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=674"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}