The Peter Principle Is Alive and Well in Youth Sport. It's Part Of A Process Few Know How To Operationalize. Until Now.
Youth sport must prioritize qualified leadership candidates over the next up / my turn candidates. Quality sport experiences for everybody, begins with the right somebody. Matt Young explains how.
The Physical Movement first met with Matt Young in 2020. Our interview has been one of the most read articles in our newsletters, further confirmation the need for what he and his team have to offer.
In July of 2021, Matt contributed a guest column that touched a nerve with our readers. Good!
Matt has dropped in again this week with a focus on the threat of the Peter Principle, its inherent harm and what can be done.
I’ve talked a lot about the opportunities to evolve the business of amateur sport. So much that even I can concede to know why people tune me out. Same topic. Same message. Little change.
A logical question would be ‘then why continue?’ The answer to that question is simple.
Quality sport experiences matter too much to too many to simply go away.
And the fixes?
They aren’t difficult.
But they do require introspection, humility and discipline. We will continue to work at making sport better in spite of the intermittent calls to stand down or unsubstantiated ‘we’ve got this’ assurances.
For myself, and many like me, sport was life saving. I’ll spare the minutia but suffice to say I would not have reached a fraction of my potential had I not been exposed to exceptional coaching, team mates and sport experiences. The impact was so great, I and many others have made it our life’s work to pay it forward. And believe me, there is no diplomatic way to go about it.
The principles of sport, like music and the arts, can serve as a powerful dress rehearsal for real life. If you commit to the process, you'll benefit from the outcomes. The same can not be said in reverse.
From a community benefit, sport has the ability to be the social fibre that connects us. Observe any small town on Friday Night, College Saturday or events like Super Bowl, World Cup or Olympics if you think that's overstating it's impact.
Over 40 million kids in NA register to play a sport each year. 70% of those registered will quit their sport by the age of 13. We keep hearing the statistic, but clearly do not care enough to respond appropriately. If this statistic presented in any other pillar of society, we would convene an emergency meeting and demand an immediate intervention. That has not happened in sport. And there are three main reasons why;
Amateur Sport is a $28B / yr NA Industry operating without a CEO. History shows that any power without constraint usually ends in abuse. We’ve now reached the point where folks are monetizing talking about the problems in sport through seminars, summits & road shows (offering no scalable, sustainable solutions). A lot of people are making a lot of money off the back of sport. Who’s going to campaign to reign that in? Although that’s exactly what needs to happen.
No industry suffers the Peter Principle more than sport. The Peter principle is a concept in management developed by Laurence J. Peter, which observes that people in a hierarchy tend to rise to their "maximum level of incompetence": employees are promoted based on their success in previous jobs until they reach a level at which they are no longer competent, as skills in one job do not necessarily translate to another.[1] It is one thing to be a passionate fan of sport or a great athlete in sport. However coaching, leading & running the business of sport requires a completely different skillset. Your team's/club's annual attract, retain and growth metrics are devoid of tone in reporting how you're doing.
A significant opportunity in amateur sport is prioritizing qualified leadership, evidence & values based candidates over the next up / my turn candidates. Quality sport experiences for everybody, begin with the right somebody.
3. Parents, coaches & administrators have repositioned lead & lag metrics to create an outcome based sport model. While unsustainable, this has been widely accepted as the norm and flows through to our kids. I cite adults because if you walk by a school yard, you’ll see kids forming teams based on fairness. Kid success metrics are fun & friendships (process based). Adult success metrics are largely standings, scores and scholarships (outcome based). We even support & fund the process... based on outcomes. An ideology that carries a finite lifespan.
The truth is a large majority don't know how to support 'the process'.
We all talk about it.
We campaign 'trust the process'. But nobody has taken the time to teach or operationalize the process, until now.
Back to the outset and the question, 'how on earth are you going to eat this elephant?’ The answer is one bite at a time.
We spent the first five years ’seeking to understand’ all that is amateur sport. From physical education through community & high performance sport. From grass roots through professional & Olympic level sport (globally). From athletes, parents, coaches, officials to sport administrators. We bought the books. Read the journals. Paid the summit registration fees. Attended AGM's and joined the boards. Listened more than we talked. We met with ministers of health, education & sport across the country. Volunteered time and intellectual property to advisory councils and the list goes on. Conservatively, we’ve personally invested over $3million dollars (including charitable gifts) to elevating physical activity & amateur sport. We have not asked for, nor received any public sector money for our work. Increasingly, public sector money comes with strings, hoops & caveats that have little to do with sport.
We spent the next five years attempting to do what we didn’t see being done; activating academic construct in the real world. Speeches. Panelists. TED talks. Building technology platforms. Producing documentaries. Coaching sport year round. And consulting sport organizations who demonstrated a willingness break away from 'same old' traditions. We created, refined, perfected the same operating system (process) that enabled us to start, scale and exit a twenty year brick & mortar franchise business - for sport. Reverse engineering ourselves from the Athlete Development tracking app, to the Stakeholder Development Calendar, to the 18wk Sport Operating System course. Pivoting as we continued to discover gaps along the way.
We have yet to reconcile what matters the most in amateur sport is the development of the entire human vs just the physical & technical/tactical competence.
3. At the request of a Provincial Sport Organization, brave enough to admit the knowledge gap between community, provincial and national organizations, we sportified the calendar & course (process) for soccer. Upon sharing that with leadership in golf, hockey & swimming, we began nuancing the course for those sports as well. We started hearing form like minded people & organizations asking if they could collaborate with our new group of amazing servant leaders. Absolutely! No one person or organization is going to solve the quagmire that has become amateur sport. And two weeks ago, we were fortunate enough to connect with one of the largest companies in the world to share our vision for quality sport. They were more than complimentary… They are interested in helping.
Why share these thoughts?
For context. There’s a large body of work under the surface that many might not know existed.
For assurance. I get that some will tire of the soap box rants or be turned off by the tone & bluntness of some messages. But through time, repetition and patience, small efforts will result in bigger gains. Just like we tell our athletes 'trust the process'.
For inspiration. We're often asked ‘how do we’ break into the Peter Principled sport system and affect positive change? Be patient. Find the right people & organizations. And keep trying different things.
And most importantly;
For the consumer. Amateur Sport is one of the only service businesses where we largely ignore the wants of the consumer and prioritize the needs of a controlling few adults while refuting the declining participation data telling us... it's not working.
We can do better. We will do better. We are doing better.
For more information on sport support systems , click here
