The challenges of longevity

Like many of our members, the Sport and Recreation Alliance is an organisation with a proud history. It was founded back in 1935 as the Central Council for Recreative Physical Training, evolved over time into the Central Council of Physical Recreation and since 2010 has been the Sport and Recreation Alliance.

But, as with any organisation, our history, as well as providing a context for what we do, can also potentially be an obstacle to making sure we stay relevant to our members in a society which we know is changing literally all of the time.

As I referred to recently at the Alliance Leadership Convention in Leeds I was recently reading an article about corporate longevity and was struck by how many of the points made in relation to the corporate world were relevant both to the Alliance and to many of our members as well.

Whilst the starting assertion was a bit hard to swallow - that free market economists tend to dismiss the value of longevity on the basis that it isn’t rational to frustrate new innovations that render existing products or organisations companies obsolete - it did acknowledge that it is equally irrational to prevent organisations from using their existing assets more productively.

So I took from this the challenge to think about how, as the still relatively recently arrived Chief Executive of the Alliance, we can think about how the sector can use its heritage productively to enhance what we do in the future.

The article went on to highlight the characteristics that organisations that successfully adapt over time demonstrate and again I was struck how relevant these were to my initial reflections on the Alliance.

Firstly these companies show a relentless focus on their customers. Not just on their performance with customers but also on understanding what their best and most innovative customers are doing. For the Alliance this is about having strong and effective relations with our members and with policy makers so that we can make sure that the voice of the sector is heard and has impact and that we can highlight and champion the very best work that our members do.

Secondly these companies avoid introversion and actively seek to understand broader trends outside their own organisations and industries. From an Alliance perspective this is about sharing and really understanding good practice, so that it can become common practice across the sector. It's also about considering how others we engage with can inform our own approach. An example of this is the Future Trends report we recently published with the Future Foundation as part of our drive to show thought leadership to the sector.

Our sector has many strengths but embracing and shaping the future hasn’t always been one of them. In these challenging times there is a pressing need for us to look further forward and to do what we can to prepare for and influence future decisions. We need to raise our collective heads above the day-to-day challenges and pressures and to create the space and time to consider how we become part of the new landscape, not something on the outside looking in.

These companies also challenge legacy thinking and legacy mind-sets, encouraging - and tolerating the cost of - internal competition and cannibalisation.

Well I am sure my team can testify I have been providing a fair bit of challenge - asking lots of questions like “why do we do that” and “what impact do we get”?

And as a relative newcomer to the sector one cannot fail to be struck by the complexity of the landscape; and in some cases, similar actions by different organisations trying to achieve the same thing.

Whilst I wont commit to a radical re-simplification of the landscape, the Alliance will be taking and advocating a collaborative approach so that we are less focused on who is doing what and more focused on what impact is being felt as a result of it.

Enduring companies focus relentlessly on values and constantly demonstrate why they matter. As we know a company’s values are judged by actions and behaviour, not words and mission statements. This is why you will see that our work is driven by our organisational values of:

•tExcellence
•tPositivity
•tPassion
•tImagination
•tIntegrity and
•tCollaboration.

We will be ruthless about whether the actions we take enable us to deliver our mission as an organisation.

Finally these companies encourage their boards to play an active - but supportive - role in challenging priorities and the status quo, particularly in times of success. For me there are two aspects to this. First, ensuring that the Alliance board acts in this way for us - but secondly  and also as importantly through our work on governance, helping our members understand what this active, supportive role looks like and what they need to do to achieve it.

So my conclusion to this exercise was that we can take action to ensure that we learn from our history and maximise our heritage while at the same time making sure we respond to the new challenges and learn from the way others are responding around us. In that way we can ensure our organisations stay current and relevant in a world where, if they don't do this, they will get left behind.

The Alliance is already in a period of change. Over the last year over a third of our staff have changed, and we have used the opportunity this has created to bring in new skills particularly in business development, project management and digital engagement. We now will focus on harnessing these new skills to make sure that the work we are doing on behalf of our members is helping them develop as organisations and helping the sector as a whole to thrive - which is what our mission is all about.

Read more from Emma.
 

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