When the International Olympic Committee added the word “Together” to Baron Pierre De Coubertin’s founding motto in 2021, they acknowledged the reality of elite sports performance. We are captivated by the talent of athletes like Leon Marchand or Simone Biles, but their success is a result of more than just natural ability. It comes from combining this with scientific knowledge, technological innovation, psychological insights, and incremental improvements in training. And this success is built upon a growing body of shared expertise and understanding within the global coaching and sports science community.
It’s instructive to look at the evolution of high-performance philosophy in elite sports over the years, and consider the parallels with how associations’ own methodologies have (or have not!) changed.
From growing pains to best practice
From early to mid-20th century, the emphasis was on quantity of training: endurance and pain! Coaching practices were largely based on anecdotal evidence and limited physiological knowledge. The second half of the century saw the emergence of Sports Science as a discipline, with pioneering coaches introducing scientific principles and professional standards into training, often in the teeth of opposition from advocates of accepted practices and amateurism.
In parallel, dozens of sports-related associations arose to disseminate and discuss this new body of knowledge, amongst them the International Society of Sports Psychology in 1965, International Society for Biomechanics in Sports in 1982, International Society for Performance Analysis of Sport in 1991 and International Council for Coaching Excellence in 1997.
This mirrors the evolution of performance methodologies and metrics in associations more generally over the same period. In the first half of the century the norm was well-meaning amateur leaders managing quasi-monopolistic clubs for professions and industries, content to invent their own isolated operational and philosophical models. In the second half we saw the emergence of professional standards and certifications for both organisations and individuals, with more systematic processes and new platforms for sharing experiences and ideas.
Hyper-competition and -complexity
But in sports over the last twenty to thirty years the level of professionalism and complexity of inputs have increased exponentially, accelerated by competitive pressures and commercial rewards. Training now involves collaboration between coaches, sports scientists and technicians, nutritionists, physiotherapists and psychologists, equipment and clothing manufacturers, with far more proactive input from the athletes themselves. Soccer steals ideas from cycling, swimming coaches share data with track and field colleagues, and psychologists swap insights between fields ranging from triathlon to table tennis and taekwondo. Every avenue is explored to find an extra centimetre, microsecond or joule of energy.
So how do associations measure up against this hyper-competitive focus on constant improvement? Well, we definitely aren’t standing on the Olympic podium! For example, there currently exist no systematically-organised repositories of knowledge about association elite performance. Our conferences abound with ad-hoc case-study storytelling and panels reliant on personal perspectives, rather than providing delegates with access to rigorously objective evidence and annually improved methodologies for every facet of association management.
And many association Boards address major challenges using anecdotal evidence and personal experience, regularly “reinventing the wheel” instead of selecting the most aerodynamically appropriate solution from a (currently non-available) menu of well-proven, cutting-edge vehicles. Inevitably, our default thinking is to pick up ideas from similar associations’ experiences rather than to cast our intellectual net more widely into other fields which can offer us high-performance lessons and insights.
Whilst there are some pioneering associations that have implemented key principles of evidence-led high-performance, it will take a long time for the association world in general to adopt this mentality and methodology.
Associations can learn enormous amounts from the usually invisible processes and principles that underpin outstanding sports performance, the Olympic inspiration we feel comes from individual moments of success or give-everything failure.
Going for gold
Meanwhile, on a practical note, what “easy wins” can we borrow from the world of elite sports coaching?
*Efficiency & intensity
Short, intensive sessions have become the norm in most sports training. Associations need to similarly laser-focus their financial, intellectual and communication resources on the most critical interactions with members and other stakeholders, recognising that their attention can only be association-centric for a small proportion of work and leisure time. It isn’t quantity of contact that wins medals, but quality combined with perfect timing.
*Specificity & individualisation
New ways are constantly being found to identify, isolate and perfect each tiny element that makes up a particular skill, and to customise programmes for each athlete. Associations need to combine granular analysis of our own processes to see why and how they work (or fall short), and design delivery to meet the very different objectives and needs of each association’s complex mix of stakeholders
*Constant experimentation
Whilst physiological and psychological theory are essential high-performance foundations, the best coaches are also constantly tinkering to identify marginal competitive advantages. Critically, once identified these are added systematically to performance data records and integrated into theoretical models. This is a key lesson for associations: experiment as much as possible, but catalogue and share the insights, and update each “routine” process so that performance continuously, incrementally improves. All too often, association experiments are treated as one-offs.
*Athlete/member input
Athletes were once viewed as raw material to be shaped by coaches’ ideas, expected to follow orders uncomplainingly. Today, these relationships are far more power-balanced, intensively interactive, transparent about purpose, and address the “whole athlete” including the necessity of good mental health. This is the perfect model for an association’s ideal relationship with its members!
This article is written under a partnership between Boardroom and Global Association Hubs – Brussels, Dubai, Singapore and Washington DC – which are committed to building innovative partnerships with international associations, and to creating opportunities for the discussion of key strategic association issues such as this.
Global & diverse inspiration
Whilst I’ve argued that associations can learn enormous amounts from the usually invisible processes and principles that underpin outstanding sports performance, the Olympic inspiration we feel comes from individual moments of success or give-everything failure, and how these touch us emotionally.
But this also requires that we recognise ourselves in our heroes. The Paris games were the first to be 50-50 gender balanced, and Refugee Team athletes won medals for the first time, as did numerous small or under-resourced countries. Every body size and shape had its day in the sun; newly added sports brought in younger generations whilst leaving space in the spotlight for events that hark back to the original Olympics in Ancient Greece, like wrestling and discus.
There are lessons for associations from this as well. We can only benefit when we think and act globally and inclusively, telling inspiring stories about and learning from all our members (and potential members) worldwide, those who are under-resourced as well as big-budget, whatever their native language, whether they are established veterans or newcomers to the community. The Olympics teaches us that new insights and knowledge cannot be constrained by national borders or narrow disciplines, and that inspiration takes an infinite variety of forms.