In a recent podcast by SportWorks, N3XT Sports COO Hisham Shehabi joined World Sailing ex-CEO Andy Hunt to talk about entrepreneurship, intrapreneurship and innovation in the Olympic Movement (OM). By understanding these mindsets and cultural changes, leaders and managers across the OM can lead sustained transformation & modernization agendas.
You can listen to the podcast directly here (57 minutes), and we have also summarized some of the most relevant insights from this conversation for your benefit.
Make entrepreneurship & innovation strategic topics
Similar to the topics of gender equity, sustainability or governance in the OM, entrepreneurship & innovation should be made strategic. To do this, constituents or members of OM organizations must mandate their leaders to focus on these topics. The development of strategy documents, working groups, dedicated commissions, and specific targets & KPIs can tip the momentum into these topics over an Olympic quad period. By doing this, the OM will organically attract experts in these domains, create alliances and develop reporting mechanisms that prioritize innovation & entrepreneurship.
Act as an ecosystem manager
Olympic organizations need to think of themselves as orchestrators of an ecosystem. For example, think about an International Federation being a global corporation. The national federations are country offices with local understanding and reach, athletes can experiment with new products & services, and carry a new portfolio of development. Broadcasters, cities and sponsors can add value in different ways to the future portfolio of an IF. By acting as an entity at the center of an ecosystem rather than the top of it, a greater value creating capacity is unlocked. New skills, tools & processes will be needed for these sorts of functions to grow in the OM.
Upskill OM decision-makers on innovation & entrepreneurship is important
The topics of innovation & entrepreneurship are deeply researched in the academic literature as well as in the business world. Many learnings from outside of sports can be brought in to accelerate the understanding of leaders and decision-makers on these topics. This understanding, knowledge & [eventually] expertise yield tangible results. For example, research from MIT has shown that company boards of directors with greater digital business model understanding help their companies outgrow their competition when it comes to business model innovation and digital transformation (with direct top line & bottom line impact).
Open up to new non-OM stakeholders
Sports continues to be an attractive asset class for investors, community & society-building mechanism for cities, and health catalyst for governments. The speed at which change and innovation can happen in sports makes it a fertile ground for non-endemic sports stakeholders to be involved. By opening up your organization to groups such as investors, incubators, accelerators, universities and others, you can accelerate your acquisition of key capacities and capabilities in innovation & entrepreneurship.
Communicate about it internally and to your partners
Innovation agendas & strategies need constant support through communication. By making colleagues, contractors, partners and other stakeholders aware of the work you are doing in innovation & entrepreneurship you will attract a wider audience. This goes from the organizational level all the way down to the individual employee level. As our tendency as people to consume information and content has shifted, our method of communicating and sharing updates needs to also be aligned. Think about snackable content over time.
Create information highways & learning pathways
Innovation & entrepreneurship thrive in environments where information is shared freely and openly between colleagues, decision makers and partners. Finding ways to link existing topics & projects with macro trends, reports, initiatives can inspire groups of people to push certain innovation & entrepreneurship agendas internally. The responsibility of learning these topics should not only fall on the shoulders of decision-makers of organizations, but also to middle management and employees.
E/Intrepreneurship is a mindset
With the rise of the rate of startup generation in the early 2000s, and with their continued success in displacing some of the very well-established enterprises, it is clear that startups are entities that can outperform other more established entities. The entrepreneurial mindset is an often coveted one and organizations are finding ways to teach their employees how to think and act like an entrepreneur: this is intrapreneurship. By allowing space for experimentation and quick, fast ways to fail, a culture of intrapreneurship can be sustained.
Would you like to learn more about how to prioritize entrepreneurship & innovation in your sports organization? Get in touch with our team, who are doing this with organizations across the Olympic, football and basketball industries.