Leadership and Organizational Development – don't learn from top level Sports

First of all: there are of course one or two things you can learn from top-level sport, such as taking responsibility for your own performance and its results, or even better: recovery management. And between you and me: if all managers learnt this, then I wouldn't be saying anything at all and this article would be completely superfluous. For the time being, however, I do see justification for reading on. So then:

They are still a popular part of management folklore: events where managers listen to presentations by famous top athletes in order to gain inspiration for their job. Usually choosing from the categories "top performance under pressure", "if you only want to, you can do the impossible" or "top sport as a school of life".

First of all, top-class sport is a selection system and therefore just as unromantic as evolution, which does not "design anything wisely", but simply sifts out what is not suitable. Such a selection system can allow certain qualities to flourish, but if none of them are there beforehand, you are already weeded out by the time you need to develop them. Either you bring what it takes or you stay at home.

Not to mention the fact that certain other qualities that you also possess can wither away completely, at a high price. Many top athletes can tell you a thing or two about this and are increasingly doing so publicly - Lara Gut-Behrami, Selina Gasparin, Mikhaela Shiffrin, André Agassi, Naomi Osaka and Simone Biles have all done it.

Let's continue with the setting: top athletes are control freaks. Everything is geared towards leaving nothing to chance, daily routines are one hundred per cent predictable and planned, movement sequences are practised thousands of times in order to be able to call them up at a time known well in advance and under completely defined conditions. How close is this to the VUCA agility refrain that dominates the current management canon? Not close. Not at all.

And finally, these "athlete-inspired manager" events cater to the superhero myth without restraint. It may have its raison d'être in this niche; I was also an ardent Federer fan and looked up to this shining light with admiration, but in the organisational world, this myth is a considerable business risk with many bad consequences: overestimation of one's own abilities, blind spots, shortened thought processes, untapped potential, etc. I advise against it.

If you do, why not invite an enthusiastic, ambitious amateur athlete? I bet you would hear more things that you could profitably relate to your job.

Incidentally, the problem with top athletes is the same as with Nobel Prize winners, who also like to be interviewed on all world and life issues. But let's be honest: why exactly should someone who knows more about subatomic particles than anyone else be able to say anything well-founded about the Middle East conflict?

As a kind suggestion: if you are looking for inspiration, it is of course okay and always necessary to look for it outside your organisation so that you are not constantly stewing in your own juices. But why don't you also look internally? You'll find a bunch of people with qualities that you would never have suspected and with ideas that, in the worst case, won't come to light while you're listening to Michael Jordan, but which would take your company a lot further.

So: choose well where you can simply be entertained without any business reference (yes, you are allowed to do that!) and where you can really take something away with you. 

All the best in your treasure hunt!