Athlete Development

Organization’s culture plays major part in athletes development

May 12, 2020 | 11:30 AM

An organization’s culture is crucial in the development of athletes, but when it comes to culture, it is extremely difficult to change an existing one rather than start a new one.

“Change and transition is something which human beings have some adjustment time that they need,” stated Director of Club Operations at PGYSA.

“Sometimes we look at it and say can we build a new culture? When you build a new culture you layout steps in order to implement and build a new culture within an environment.”

When asked why it is so difficult to change an old culture compared to just starting a new one altogether, Russel shared it’s due to the environment in which one learned their sport.

“It’s a very important question. One of the pieces is we are very much in a situation where a lot of the coaches or a lot of the volunteers grew up in an environment where it was 20 years ago. 20 years ago what we worked on with athletes, the environment which we surrounded them with, the approach to development is different than it is now. Whatever models you have to develop athletes, the culture has to change with it.”

And if an Association or Organization does plan on changing their culture, change doesn’t happen overnight.

“Change is something we do every day. We change our clothes every day. We have a transition where that is difficult. Transition is an emotional attachment. Yes, change is hard, but the transition is what is harder. In order to have the transition within your environment where you have this emotional attachment where you’ve been doing things a certain way, but does it work? Is it giving us the results we want? Does it meet our vision? Does it meet the principles we want to meet? If the answer is no, then we all have to come together to be comfortable in regards to the transition to meet the best practices. The transition is the part that takes time. It can be lengthy and it can be difficult,” concluded Russel.

Tomorrow we will look at the best practices of helping athletes get to the next level.