This is a Sport Australia podcast production.

Kate Corkery Hello and welcome to Sport Governance podcast series. My name is Kate Corkery and I am the Director of Sport Governance and Strategy at Sport Australia. Over this series we will take a deep dive into the Sport Governance Principles and how they come to life in practice.  Each podcast will focus on an individual Principle with a special guest joining me to share their experiences and practical advice with respect to that Principle.

Kate Corkery In today's episode, we're focusing on principle three - The Game Plan, a clear vision that informs strategy. Principle three highlights that the board is responsible for overseeing the organisation's vision and strategy, as well as determining what success looks like. To discuss the Game Plan, we are privileged to be joined by Rob Scott, Chair of Rowing Australia and Managing Director and Chief Executive of Wesfarmers. Rob holds a master of applied finance degree from Macquarie University and a Bachelor of Commerce degree from the Australian National University. He has a graduate diploma in Applied Finance and Investments and is a qualified Chartered Accountant. He is a dual Olympian in rowing and a silver medallist from the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, as well as Chair of Rowing Australia, he is a member of the University of Western Australia's Business School Advisory Board. Rob is a past President and Director of the Insurance Council of Australia. Rob, thank you for joining me to discuss the Game Plan.

Rob Scott Thanks, Kate.

Kate Corkery This Principle starts with vision and purpose and then sharpens focus on the role of strategy in connecting the object's purpose and vision of an organisation. How important is a national sporting organisations vision in so far as its capacity to unite all sections of a sport beyond the NSO itself?

Rob Scott Well, look, I think it's really important. The reality is that the health and sustainability of a sport is dependent on vibrancy in all areas. And I guess if you think about a lot of NSOs often the focus might have been very much at the high performance level. Certainly a sport like rowing historically has been like that. But the reality is that for us to be successful in the high performance area, we need to have a really strong base. We need to be strong and relevant at a grass roots level. We need to engage all areas of the sport to be successful. And I think that's increasingly important as sports continue to promote their relevance in the Olympic Games, for example. You need to show that your participation rates, your engagement is relevant so for us, this has been really important. One of the lessons for us as a sport, if I go back about five or six years ago, there was this sense that we were a very Canberra centric organisation. The team was based in Canberra, predominantly focused on the high performance aspects of the sport. Some in our sport referred to Rowing Australia as "Fortress Canberra". So we've tried to make a real effort in recent years to engage more deeply across the states, across the country, to really tap into a lot of the fantastic and passionate people that we have in the sport of rowing.

Kate Corkery Indeed and the vision itself has that discussion and has that hard look at "Fortress Canberra", and the perception within the sport that it was very centralised to Canbera, by having a hard look at that reflection and that perception, were you able to harness and sharpen the vision to be more broadly focused on rowing nationally?

Rob Scott Well, it's interesting. We spent a bit of time really reflecting on what is it that binds us all together? What is the common vision or purpose? And if you think about the different participants in our sport, you've got people in the national team, you've got veteran rowers, masters rowers, you've got school rowers, you've got volunteers, you've got people involved in community rowing. So what is it that binds us all together? We were really fortunate that one of our alumni just happens to be the CEO of an international advertising and brand agency. So we tapped into Marty O'Halloran's expertise from DDB Worldwide and he came up with this phenomenal piece of work following really detailed stakeholder interviews. It really kind of came back to this sense of what brings us all together in the sport of rowing is this common theme around excellence, always striving to be better at what we do, no matter whether we are a school rower, a veteran rower or an Olympic rower, and really bringing together some of the imagery and the aspects of our sport that bring us all together and make us all very passionate about it. So that was a really powerful way for us to, I guess, unify the purpose and bring people together in the sport of rowing.

Kate Corkery So spring boarding off that concept of excellence within an environment such as sport, which has really limited resources. How significant is it to ensure that all parts of the sport have aligned strategic plans?

Rob Scott Well, yeah, look very important. I think there's various reasons why it's important, I'd say first of all given that we have limited resources, if we are aligned and leveraging capabilities, then we can reduce costs. So there's a lot of administrative aspects that we're all subject to that through better streamlining and alignment we can just simply save money, save cost and then invest that money into more value adding things. The other reason why it's so important to be aligned is that a lot of sports rely very heavily on volunteers, very heavily on the discretionary effort of many people, including the board of directors, I guess, given that we're not in paid roles. So the more that we can have alignment, then the more we can be working together and mobilising and inspiring that discretionary effort of volunteers. So that's really important. Look, I think another another really important thing to remember is that there's a lot of passion and a lot of emotion in sport. That can be a really powerful part of the success of sport if you can tap into that passion and emotion. But sometimes that passion and emotion can not be constructive, particularly if it is around individuals trying to preserve vested interests or personal perspectives. So that's why it's really important as a sport that we really face into what are we trying to achieve as a sport and then put in place the settings to ensure that we're giving people the tools they need to be successful but we're all ultimately working together for a common goal.

Kate Corkery Indeed. And you've really highlighted there the incredible efforts of volunteers at all levels of sport and the opportunity we've got across national and state levels in sport to bring to life the vision. How can a sport develop a strategic plan that does engage those volunteers, that does engage and leverage the states and the NSO to ensure that they are aligned to the organisation's strategy?

Rob Scott Well, I think you touch on an important point and that's within all sports it's really important that we recognise the very distinct roles and responsibilities of the national body, state bodies and in different sports club, club entities. The reality is that most national sports organisations simply don't have the capacity, nor are they well equipped to really manage a lot of the 'on the ground' issues at a state level. So if I take a sport like rowing, we rely very heavily on our state associations to do things such as manage local rowing regattas. To do that effectively, they need to engage with local councils and authorities. They need to mobilise the volunteer base at a local level. So I think what's really important when you go about setting your strategy, setting your strategic plan as a sport is to acknowledge those differences because although alignment and in some cases centralisation can be positives for sport, they can also be distinct negatives. Sometimes sports try and centralise too much power in the central unit and then lose sight of the fact that the people that bring the sport to life on the ground are actually located out in the regions. So I think being really clear about what roles and responsibilities are and then stepping back and thinking about as a national body, how can we provide the governance, the tools, the support, the facilities to help our states and our clubs be successful? How can we give our states and clubs a sense of empowerment, that they have a sense of accountability to make things happen on the ground? And that is just so critically important, because I think to really engage and mobilise volunteers, you need to make sure that you're doing that in local areas where you can be very connected and hands on with those groups of people.

Kate Corkery And what's the role of the Board in embedding and communicating the organisation's vision and strategy across the sport and down to that grassroots level? And do you have any examples of where you've seen this done really well?

Rob Scott Well, I guess when I think about strategy and vision, I'd say the role of the Board is very much to help set the strategy and then monitor the implementation of strategy. I think you need to be realistic as a board of directors in terms of how much of a role can you have in communicating and embedding strategy? So in many ways, the boards rely on management to to embed strategy and communicate strategy. So that means that boards need to make sure they, number 1  have the right management team in place. So the decisions they make about the leadership of the sport are critically important. But then make sure they have the right monitoring systems in place to monitor how how well things are going. I guess at a board level, there is still a still the role of a board to be connected and visible. And that does go to communicating and embedding strategy. One area that we're focussed on is to try and make sure that our board is representative of the different areas of our sport, the different regions of our sport, so that we have a board that is by definition more connected with the sport. We've also tried to make sure that this was pre covered. We're looking forward to bringing it back, that getting our board out into the regions, out into the states, so that we move around the board meetings and after board meetings, organised sessions where we bring people in from the from the state or the regions to spend time with the board so we can hear directly with them. So those things, I think, are really important ways for the board to communicate and embed strategy. But ultimately, we rely very heavily on management and that means we need to have good processes in place to monitor how management are going so that the question of monitoring is a really interesting one and I guess one that boards to do struggle with it.

Kate Corkery So you go through the post process of consulting and developing the strategy and within it the sort of objectives. How do you set up the performance measures that the board is clear about what it's going to be measuring and who's accountable for that?

Rob Scott Yes, it looks another very good question. And I'd say I think in rowing, we're still on the journey to try and get that set up the right way. You know, we're working through a strategic planning process at the moment. And this year, we've agreed as a board and with the management team that we're going to pay far more attention to once we set the whole sport of plan we want the management team to come back to us with a very clear plan around how the organisational structure, the leadership roles are set up to deliver on that plan and also face into the realities of resourcing. We have limited resourcing. We want to do a lot of things. So being realistic about whether we have a resourcing plan to support the strategy that we want to deliver. So I'd say it's very much a work in progress within our sport. I guess the other observation I've taken from business is sometimes if you let consultants take over your planning process, you end up with about 50 KPIs that you're really focused on in terms of managing the effectiveness of the delivery of your plan. Sometimes I think you can go overboard with the granularity that you measure those outcomes. I think it's really important as a board to step back and ask yourself what are the handful of outcomes? What are the what are the small number of things that we really need to pay close attention to that are really going to drive or determine the success of our plan? And I guess in that regard, I'd say there's the 'what' and the 'how'. The 'what' might be well, what do we want to achieve? We want to win gold medals at the Olympics. We want to increase the participation levels in our sport. We want to increase non-government funding sources. Like those are pretty easy things to measure but the things that we're spending more time thinking about is the 'how'. And that is how we're going about building up a more sustainable future for our sport. So it's all very well to win medals at the Olympic Games but how are we going with developing out the pipeline to future champions? What are we doing to ensure that we're building a high performance system that is long term and sustainable? So are we are we focusing enough effort on the other parts of our athletes lives that are going to be critical if we are going to keep them engaged in the sport for longer? So I think we still have some work to do on measuring the how. And I guess these are, I think, the lead indicators that are all about long term sustainable success in the sport rather than some of the short term measures, such as medals at the Olympics, commercial funding of participation, which are easier to measure.

Kate Corkery So if if you're talking about the 'what' and the board is then looking at its decisions, which really create a lot of the 'how', how can a board ensure that its decisions and the operations of the organisation are aligned to that strategy? And what are the risks if the board starts making decisions that aren't aligned to the strategy?

Rob Scott Yeah, well, look, I think it's important as a board to have really good feedback loops in place. The reality is that as a board, despite your best efforts, you don't have real time visibility of everything happening. So you need to make sure that you have an organisational culture that is very open such that and I know the way that we describe it in our company and it's the same as how we talk about it in rowing, that an open culture is one where bad news travels faster than good news. So we want to if there is a problem, if there's a problem lurking around, then we want to hear about it immediately. Once an issue or a problem has been identified, then we can all work on it together rather than these problems lingering and festering and then becoming bigger and bigger problems. So, look, often when you step back and think about the effectiveness of the organisation, your effectiveness at delivering on the strategy, you need to recognise that not everything's going to work all the time. So it's really having good feedback systems in place that you identify when issues are arising and then it lets you diagnose. The problem is, is there a problem because there's misalignment in objectives? Is there a problem because there's a lack of resources? Are there other problems that are arising? And really, you just need to be very open and transparent about that. So having those feedback mechanisms in place are important, having really and it does come back to monitoring strategic plans, and that is the responsibility of the board, it is having really good reporting and good reporting doesn't mean the loss of reporting. It means really clear and coherent reporting that gets to the heart of the issues. So some of the things that we always look at, which I think once again, are lead indicators on how well the organisation's going is some of the personnel cultural measures within the organisation, what's happening with turnover, what's happening with absenteeism, what's happening with safety, what they're always good measures, the financial discipline within the organisation. How we tracking around following up on action items that have been identified through the board meetings? You just need to make sure you keep on top of these issues and if you've got those good reporting mechanisms in place, it lets you identify when things start to go off the rails.

Kate Corkery So you've really touched on there are a lot of issues around the organisational culture, and that's a key theme that modern good governance is anchoring into more than ever before and it comes up quite repetitively in the Sports Governance Principles. What is the impact that a strong strategy or an aligned strategy across a sport can have on the sports culture?

Rob Scott Well, look I think it's absolutely critical and I think at the end of the day, at the end of the day, as a board, as I said earlier, you need to be realistic about what the board's role is with respect to culture. You know, I do believe that boards have a very important role to play. It is very much, I think about setting the expectations of the organisation. It is monitoring progress to ensure that we are delivering the outcomes in a way that are consistent with the culture we want to live. But we need to also recognise who really embeds and brings the culture to life. Well, it's not the board that meets six to eight times a year. It is the management. It is the athletes. It is the broader participants within the sport. So I think that is really important. So then just comes back to, have we have we set a vision for the sport that aligns everyone that, you know. Is that authentic? Is it meaningful? Have we tackled into the issues where there are roadblocks or tension points within the sport? And look, there are always tension points within all organisations that I think the way you face into those are really important around culture. The way that you act when things don't go go right or you go well, I think is really, really important for organisational culture. So, I think what if I kind of reflect back on my time with the Rowing Australia board I'd say one of the key things that we can do as a board is that when issues aren't when something's going wrong, then face into it really quickly and communicate effectively, bring people together. Don't allow the Chinese whispers to occur really just try and bring people together and have a more open discussion about the issues. I think that's one of my learnings within within sport. And I think it's it's certainly equally relevant in most organisations.

Kate Corkery Excellent advice. Thank you for that. So if there's directors listening to our discussion thinking I don't know where to start with strategy where do I begin? Where do I look? Do you have any advice on that?

Rob Scott Well, look, I think there are lots of different approaches to strategy development, and I won't necessarily go through all of those but I think initially just starting often and trying to be clear about what you're trying to achieve as a sport. Something that we have found really powerful in in our organisation is to just keep reminding ourself that our reason for being, as a sport, is for the participants in our sport. So really focusing in on the rower, the athlete. We are not here as a sporting organisation for the benefit of the administrators. Right. The sport of rowing and success of rowing is not about our success as individuals on the board. It is about the success of all the people out there rowing. So be really clear about who your stakeholders are and who you're there to serve and we are there to serve rowers across all spectrums of the community, across all ages. So there's an accountability for us to our national team that represent our country at world championships and Olympic Games. We also have a role to play for social and community rowers at a junior level, at a senior level, at a masters level. We have rowers rowing into their 90s. And then there are all those volunteers that we talked about as well that also feel a deep connection to the sport. So being really clear about, well, what are the things that we're doing as a sport to help these people? That's what it's all about and I think where you touched on Kate at the start is, making sure you have a strategy that unites all aspects of the sport. Often I think organised companies or sports, they think about strategy in terms of there's a whole lot of trade-offs either in sport either we're going to focus on the high performance area or we're going to focus on the community and participation area. I think part of the problem is strategy development is organisations get themselves all confused. We are either going to be one or the other and that they're competing against each other? In some ways that's analogous to how some companies think. Some companies think I'm either going to try and deliver a profit and return to shareholders or I'm going to focus on all these things that are good for the community and the environment. Well, that's not the way I think about it at all. The more experience I've had in business in sport, the more I think that these things are inextricably linked. So in a company, at my company Wesfarmers, we are very focused on delivering superior returns for our shareholders. And we know that if we do the right thing by our team members, our customers, the communities in which we operate and the environment in which we operate, then we will ultimately, over the long term, deliver better outcomes for our shareholders. I think the analogy with sport would be ok we know in the sport of rowing we want to win a lot of medals at the Olympic Games and I think over the long term, we'll be even more successful at delivering on that if we have a very vibrant rowing community across Australia. If we're deeply engaged and connected, if we're leveraging the phenomenal capability and ingenuity of our alumni and volunteers. So they are the things I think that boards should be reflecting on in the context of strategy development.

Kate Corkery Really interesting observations. And thank you for joining me and your valuable insights into Principle 3. The Game Plan.

Rob Scott Thanks, Kate.

Kate Corkery If you'd like to access a copy of the Sport Governance Principles, you'll find them at the SportAUS website sportaus.gov.au/governance. If you have any feedback or questions, please email us at sportgovernance@ausport.gov.au. My name is Kate Corkery and I look forward to you joining me for the next podcast in the Sport Governance Series