I vaguely recall a great Dilbert cartoon about PPPPPPP (a.k.a. prior planning and preparation preventing piss poor performance). Although this management nugget is as old as the hills, tonight I found that there’s nothing like a targeted refresher to awaken me out of my complacency.
The NSW Office of Sport staged their second High Performing Officials workshop. Former international cricket umpire Simon Taufel was the expert presenter to an audience of officials from AFL, Athletics, Archery, Baseball, Basketball, Lacrosse, Netball, Rowing and Swimming.
Practice and prepare until you can’t get it wrong
The only thing surprising about the content was my lack of putting it into deep practice already. To be honest, I’ve developed a habit of ‘winging it’. Although I regularly re-read the rules, set meet objectives, and familiarise myself with key details; Simon challenged me to go far deeper.
Key takeouts for me were:
- Outcome is the beginning.
- Specificity of details – go deep, produce checklists.
- Plan Bs and what ifs e.g. if you make a mistake in the first minute, how to handle that (mentally / emotionally)?
- What can I do to help my colleagues have a great meet? Create better equality between people of different levels.
- Make better use of my coach.
- ‘Pavestone’ reports to leave clear and valuable pathway for future people doing the same or similar.
- Focus on consistency.
An extremely valuable 2 hours at Sydney Olympic Park with massive thanks to Simon Woinarsk from the Office of Sport and Simon Taufel.