The hidden gold in South African sport coaching

Walking around the Paris Olympic village, it struck me that there was something familiar about the guy wearing black New Zealand team kit. And the Aussie guy in the green and yellow tracksuit. Or the guy dressed in the Great Britain Olympic gear.

?

What is it? The mind scrambles for answers. Trying to place names to faces, which is not an easy thing to do when you have 10,000 of the world’s best athletes and their coaches all in one place.

?

And then it hits home. I recognise?them, or more accurately, I recognise their accent. They’re South African. All coaches, all representing other countries on the biggest multi-sport stage of all. Other than South Africa, there were 11 men’s hockey teams at the Olympics and six of them had a total of nine South African coaches. At the last ICC Cricket World Cup, there were eight South African coaches in seven teams other than South Africa. No other country at these events had anywhere near as many of their coaches in foreign teams. The trend is also apparent in rugby, at both international and club level.?

?

Why are South African coaches so in demand outside of their own country? And how well are we mining our own ‘gold’ at home?

?

Here’s a summary from several conversations I’ve had with fellow South African coaches in the Olympic Village and abroad over the past two decades - all wearing national colors other than their own.

?

1.???? Saffers understand and are really good at navigating diversity, at a time where diversity, equity and inclusion are prized.?

?

Most coaching and leadership roles today require the coach to first understand their audience before attempting to lead them. Any South African who has been paying attention has had to go through a crash course in understanding and embracing diversity since the dismantling of apartheid some three decades ago. It’s no longer effective to simply impose your culture, way, worldview or coaching philosophy onto the room – like most old school coaches and leaders did, and many still do.

?

The advantage a foreign coach brings to any new country or team is fresh eyes, alongside different perspectives and experiences. This goes for all foreign coaches. However, compared to say an Australian, Indian, Chinese and even European coach, South Africans do really well at translating their experiences to remain relevant and applicable in today’s increasingly diverse and international environments.

?

2.???? We haven’t had it easy

?

Life in South Africa is not easy. We have had to make our business and lives work despite load shedding, corruption, externally imposed employment and selection policies, and widespread leadership incompetence that works against rather than in support of success. To succeed as an entrepreneur in South Africa, a category into which most professional sport coaches fall, requires a can-do, thick-skinned, ‘n boer maak ‘n plan (a farmer makes a plan) attitude to solving problems. Most first-world nations have it far easier. Their environments do not teach the same levels of resilience, determination, problem-solving and grit required to succeeded against the odds.

?

3.???? We don’t realise our value. (Yes, this does have one small advantage)

?

Strangely South Africans, in general, tend to play small and be unnecessarily apologetic. We’ve been taught to value humility, but there seems a widespread misinterpretation of humility to mean standing back, shying away or playing small. We suffer impostor syndrome more than the norm, and despite much evidence to the contrary, too many of us don’t believe we can be major players on the world stage. ?

?

Not knowing our value works against our nation’s athletes. This mindset tends to see them lacking confidence and playing smaller than their talent and hard work warrant. We also tend to give opponents from bigger or more ‘high functioning’ countries too much (unwarranted) respect.

From a coaching perspective, one of the positive spinoffs of not realizing our value, is that it fosters a real hunger to learn and to be even better. ?This ‘learning mindset’ drives coaches to listen, observe, and pay close attention as they seek to understand and learn – before sprouting their wisdom onto their athletes. These are attributes of some of the world’s best coaches. This approach stands in contrast to research that reveals a tendency of many successful people and teams to be overly self-admiring and arrogant, which makes them closed to critical feedback. Not many SA coaches working abroad suffer this arrogance. They are hungry to learn.

So, how can we better value and mine the gold that the rest of the sporting world is so quick to appreciate and poach?

?

The elephant in the room

?

First, let’s call out the elephant in the room. South African sport is rife with politicians and elected officials who lead with a mixture of incompetence and their own selfish agenda. If sport was truly a business, which many of the top sports are, they would have been declared bankrupt. Or more accurately, their CEO’s and boards would have been fired long ago and replaced with competent C-suite executives who have a proven track-record of leading successful organizations.

?

Sure, there are some beacons of light, such as a few small cricket and rugby provinces that are thriving, thanks to being run by a competent business-minded CEO, who has the latitude to employ good people around them. This includes selecting and empowering good coaches to build systems for medium-to long-term success, without restriction, micro-management or threat of being fired after a few losses.

?

We look forward to sporting bodies and the country’s leadership realizing and acting on the wisdom of employing competent leaders who are held accountable to serving their sport ahead of themselves. The current prevalence of incompetent and self-serving administrators is causing a disservice to sport, and to athletes and coaches careers – especially those for whom sport is the only avenue out of poverty.

?

Stop playing so small

?

Stop playing small, stop giving too much respect to Australia, or the UK, or even the USA. Take stock of the extent to which world cricket, hockey and rugby value SA coaches. Not just coaches, but South African-born athletes who represent other nations, all the way to business folk like Elon Musk. We are very good at managing diversity, at making a plan and at problem solving. We are resilient, resourceful and street smart – this and more stuff that makes us so successful globally and across industries.

?

Be humble. But know that real humility is not playing small and being apologetic. It is being fully confident in and proud of your knowledge and your current experience, whilst at the same time being equally hungry to learn more and gain more experience. Focusing only on what you know leads to arrogance. Focusing only on what you don’t know leads to insecurity, lack of confidence and playing small. The ideal is to focus on both, in equal proportion.

?

The wider sporting world continues to acknowledge the value that South African coaches offer. Maybe it’s time to learn how to better mine our own gold.?

?

?

?

?