What if the sporting problem is a symptom?

These days, while we work on SportSync Transform, I've been thinking about how we assess what happens inside sports organisations.

When results are lacking, we often judge what is right and wrong inside a club based on those results. Not always, of course. But I'm interested in pausing on that way of assessing the work.

What if what we're seeing is the symptom, not the cause?

A lack of consistency in good results, or frequent coaching changes, can lead us to ask whether there is something deeper inside the organisation that we need to understand. That doesn't mean there is always a structural problem behind it. It means that the sporting result, on its own, doesn't tell us what is going on.

Results and the quality of processes

There are many variables we can't control. We can influence the sporting result, but we can't control it.

That's why I think we should pay more attention to what we can work on: the quality of the processes that exist within sports organisations.

I mean the club's internal operations. Its structure, responsibilities and roles. The methodologies, the workflows and the decisions that are made.

How is all of that organised? How does it work day to day? And how consistent is it over time?

When I talk about quality, I mean processes that do what we need them to do: clear responsibilities, timely information and the ability to learn and correct.

I'm not suggesting we stop valuing sporting results. The question is whether we are also using them to judge aspects that need their own assessment.

Looking at the result is one thing. Understanding how we are working to try to achieve it is another.

To assess that quality, we also need to be specific about what we observe. That's where indicators (KPIs) can help, not only to track results but to understand how we work: whether information arrives on time, whether agreements are put into practice and whether we can correct what isn't working. It's something we're exploring. It's not about measuring everything, but about choosing what helps us decide.

What interests me most is that relationship: how the quality of internal processes can influence sporting performance and its continuity. And how it can also influence the club's long-term sustainability, socially and economically.

This doesn't mean assuming that a good organisation guarantees good results. But nor should the result be the only criterion for assessing the organisation.

Looking inside isn't easy

There is another part of this reflection that seems important to me: the difficulty of reviewing internal work together with the people who do it.

Talking about structure, responsibilities or decision-making also challenges those who hold responsibility within the club. These processes are not separate from the people. And looking in the mirror can be hard.

Accepting that there are things we hadn't seen isn't always easy. But seeing them is not a reproach: it's the starting point for improvement.

To improve, we need to understand how work really happens. At SportSync, we take great care with this part. We approach it with the utmost respect and through co-creation: we don't arrive with a judgement from the outside; we work with the club and with the people who live these processes every day to identify together what to improve and how to develop it.

What we're trying to understand at SportSync

This is one of the reflections that guide our work at SportSync: how to understand the internal functioning of sports organisations in order to help them improve it.

It's not about attributing all sporting problems to the organisation, or promising that improving processes will solve them. It's about asking ourselves whether, when something isn't working on the sporting side, we are looking inward enough.

What are we assessing about a club's internal functioning, beyond its sporting results?