Everyone has heard about the revolution in British cycling which
led to the biggest ever haul of Olympic medals. Every one in sport and
any one interested in improving performance wanted to know how they
had done it and could it be repeated in other areas, including local
government. When asked the secret to their success team GB said a
thousand minute improvements non of which on their own would have made
much of a difference but taken together made a big step up in
performance. It turns out the real reasons for success were less to do
with a culture of innovation and obsession with the minutiae and more
to do with cheating, bullying, an unfair advantage and money.
Not long after the triumph at the Olympics we started to hear
complaints from British riders about a culture of bullying operated by
trainers in pursuit of success, recently there has been accusations
about drug abuse and it transpires that the reasons for success were
more likely the technologically advanced aerodynamic suits that gave
riders an advantage over other competitors and the huge increase in
funding the sport received.
The significance of these disclosures will not be lost on those
who working in Local Authorities, where we have been told for years
that there is not direct relationship between funding and performance,
where the obsessive focus on performance has led to accusations of
bullying, where technology has tended to over promise and under
deliver and where the constant pressure to meet hundreds of targets
has tempted some to fiddled the figures.
Blair Mcpherson former Director ,author and blogger
www.blairmcpherson.co.uk