Leaving a sport that means so much

I CARED PERSONALLY....

MY ROLE at Badminton England was more than a job for me, I cared personally.

Prior to joining I suspected 'change management' was going to be a big challenge, for two reasons.

Firstly, joining a sector that isn't known for its innovation, agility or a mindset for thinking every day: 'Where's the next sale?' was going to form part of the challenge. Questions such as: 'Does the whole organisation want to change, or just the CEO?', 'Is there really a desire for a commercial edge?' and 'How would I be received?' were also at the forefront of my thinking.

Secondly, how would I adapt to this organisation having worked in fast paced sales environments for all of my career. 'How do I need to behave?', 'How do I become more self aware of my actions?' and How do I win minds?' were other questions I posed to myself.

MY FIRST DAY set the tone, where a peer said in my induction to their area of the business

"Previous Commercial Directors came in like a bull in a china shop, caused disruption, conflict and never achieved anything. I won't let this happen again."

Over three years down the line and I hear from a colleague that what has been used to describe me by another colleague in the organisation is Marmite.

This description confused me somewhat at first as I genuinely thought anyone who had spent time with me would be surprised by that comparison. I checked this out with friends and colleagues.... ... It transpired that my self awareness was accurate this time around, marmite isn't an adjective they would use to describe me!

Digging a little deeper with peers and reflecting myself on my journey over the last 3 years has helped me come to a conclusion. It wasn't the previous Commercial Directors, nor me actually being marmite, but in fact some colleagues (in the words of Brené Brown) who were not Daring Greatly, being too comfortable, not wanting to put themselves out there, or to jump into the arena where innovation and creativity happens, but also the same place where RISK, UNCERTAINTY and CRITICISM thrives.

Big, scary words aren't they! So, I can't blame them, it takes vulnerability to do this, it's an uncomfortable place. This feeling is amplified when a large proportion of the revenue comes from Governmental and public funding and on a daily basis you're not thinking about where is the next sale is coming from, but how to best use money you are being given. It's a very different mindset.

It took time, but in the commercial team under my leadership we did start making an impact, the results came in.... We had a Do Less & Obsess (Morten Hansen, 2018) mentality, focusing on the revenue streams we wanted to become our foundation where historical data allowed us to spot trends and use insight to create better consumer value.

For those that embraced the change, thank you. Sometimes we got it right and sometimes we got it wrong, but we weren't scared of failure as this led to progression.

Badminton had been a big part of my life before I started this job. My family played badminton, albeit at different levels, with my brother Grant and I playing for England as juniors. I wouldn't admit it normally but as he never uses LinkedIn..... he was much better than me, trained harder, understood the game better, he was always someone I looked up to. Leukaemia took the sport away from him as a junior and stopped him moving into the seniors where I am convinced he would have medalled at the Olympics. But, he will have to make do with winning the World Transplant Games on numerous occasions instead!

I first played for England when I was 10 and I travelled to Holland - I remember the coach trip well as an introverted young boy. My mother drove me to training 3 evenings a week, to tournaments at weekends (which I've never properly thanked her for yet, but I must, it made me the person I am today) and I stopped playing when I was 23. I disconnected with the sport completely and had nothing to do with it until I returned for this role in 2017.

SO, I'M MOVING ON..... and unsure what my role will continue to be in badminton, a sport that mean't so much to me. I'm sure whatever it is it won't be another 14 year gap as this role has rekindled my love for the speed, skill and camaraderie of the sport.

And what did I learn while at Badminton England? I learnt a lot about people management, the importance of creating coalitions to influence horizontally, whilst managing vertically and I leave knowing the organisation is in a better place than when I started. This has really come down to the TEAM, the team I built around myself as I knew I didn't have all of the answers - I created a vision and they believed enough to join me on the journey, and I thank them all wholeheartedly for that.

We achieved some great results from aggregating our data to create our SCV, developing a value exchange with our communication that resulted in increased revenue, using data better than some Premier League, European football clubs and most NGB's, transforming the live experience at our Championships which attracted thousands more ticket buyers, to creating new digital assets like Never Mind the Shuttlecocks to commercialise.

There is still a long way to go, but it's a start.

Particular thanks go to:

• Goodform - for your continued support and getting us through some tricky times!
• Designroom Sport - for quickly getting our vision, buying into it and becoming part of it! You felt part of the team, not an external agency.
• Sport Hit Factory - for co-creating the vision, pushing us as an organisation to think differently, trying to create a modern day sporting NGB.

• Get Your Media - for making my last All England the best All England, 'Never Mind the Shuttlecocks', the daily wrap up show will be a career highlight.
• Rob and Vicky, BE - for taking a vision and making it a reality, for always being colleagues (friends) I can count on.... to deliver results, be honest and listen to my 'I've been reading a book' stories.
• Mark B, BE - for listening.... I will miss our chats which were always driven by the aim of finding a better way of doing something.
• Owen, Badminton World Federation - for listening, sharing and compromising so we can all make the sport better.

As I said, this is a sport I care personally about. On leaving as the CCO at Badminton England, I move into a different stakeholder role, as a fan. I will be critical of the future direction, but it will come from a good place and as a consequence I will also celebrate the successes.

IF THERE'S ONE THING I HOPE they will take forwards at Badminton England it's the rhetoric I've shared internally many times before. The sport needs everyone involved to defy the 'this is how we do it' mindset, to get in the arena, put themselves out there and deal with any criticism that comes with creativity and innovation.

I strongly believe the sport needs more commercial entities involved for example, set ups like we are seeing in table tennis where the ITTF have created World Table Tennis to manage its commercial assets with an injection of cash from external investors. I started this process at Badminton England over 18 months ago and it was the right course of action to release the commercial opportunity that exists with our All England Championships.

If there is one thing 2020 has confirmed, it's that this world is a scary place, full of uncertainty and risk. It's not a failure if you don't take the jump first time around, it takes real courage to say 'we can't take this any further' and allow someone to help (and potentially lose some control) to take it to the next level. Unfortunately some organisations aren't equipped with the resource, expertise and budget to compete in this competitive world. If you are lucky enough to have assets like the All England Championships you should consider various business models before it's too late and they start to depreciate. We are seeing this approach more and more in sport, but it's common practice in the wider business world.

If other business models aren't considered, it won't be long before the sport of badminton and key Championships will start to lose their USP's, namely:

• high participation numbers
• scale of fans / interest levels
• broadcast numbers that outperform F1, basketball, golf, cycling, rugby and in some cases even football

Other sports (new sports) have developed and continue to develop with the digital world in mind. We have seen this year how these have become more relevant in peoples lives and this will continue to do so, protect yourself.

The dangers are real, but the sport still has a good platform to launch from. Seeing some of the digital engagement stats coming out of the Badminton World Federation is seriously impressive. But with the rest of the ecosystem being mainly NGB driven how do you get them to step up and support you? Do they have the right expertise, resource and budget to do this? BWF, you can't do it alone!

Be brave, do less and obsess on the things that really matter. And I mean REALLY matter.

I want to see badminton succeed and wish the whole team the very best of luck for the future.

My next move you say......

Announcement coming shortly!

But I can say that I'm excited to be joining a company with a great vision built on innovation and positive disruption. It feels scary but that's good because jumping into the arena is scary, but that's where innovation and creativity happen and that's what I'm all about.

Making waves, not getting washed up!