Learning from excellence in sport

This year’s Sports Personality of the Year award saw Dave Brailsford take the award for best coach and one of his athletes, Bradley Wiggins, win the overall award (to go with his Tour de France yellow Jersey and Olympic gold medal).  It is worth asking what lessons can be learnt from the team (British Cycling) which won 8 Olympic gold medals, 2 silvers and 2 bronzes as well as the Tour de France and numerous Paralympic medals.  One quote in particular, from Dave Brailsford, caught my eye. 

Following the announcement of the 2013 tour route Bradley Wiggins initially stated that he thought it would be more than likely that he would support his teammate, Chris Froom in his 2013 bid to win the yellow Jersey as the route would be more favourable to Chris.  However, more recently Bradley has changed his mind and decided that he would like to challenge Chris for the position of team leader (the rider which other riders of the team sacrifice their own chances of winning to support).  So Dave Brailsford was faced with a challenge: select last year’s winner and the nation’s favourite athlete as team leader or select the athlete who played a large part in Bradley’s success and who is thought to benefit from the change in the tour route?

I think that the following quote, from Dave Brailsford regarding how he will select the team leader is extremely telling ‘We've certainly got some plans now, and as we move through the season, we'll use evidence and results as we move along’ (bold used for own emphasis).  Brailsford will not base his decision on who he would like to have the best chance of winning, he will not base his decision on who he currently thinks would have the best chance of winning the tour, he will not let the possibility of offending the ego of the nation’s favourite sportsperson affect his decision.  He will keep an open mind and make the decision he believes to be best for the team based on evidence and results.  If you are sceptical then you only have to look at his decision to drop the nation’s most successful Olympian, Chris Hoy, for Jason Kenny in the individual sprint, an event which Jason Kenny won gold in.

Likewise conservation should be underpinned by evidence and results.  Decisions should not be taken on the basis of what one person thinks will work (according to their ‘common sense’).  Decisions should not be taken so as to minimise offense to anyone’s ego.  Considering the size of the challenge conservation faces, there is no room for egos among scientists, only for finding out what works and making it happen.

To call each thing by its right name

Do you have a friend who, when you mention a film, will rattle of the name of the director, their style and all the other films they have directed before doing likewise for a few actors and actresses?  I find this show of knowledge annoying as the film boffin shows off.  But I expect that another film boff would appreciate this show of knowledge and could strike up a conversation about the merits of the director etc.  Conservation organisations are knowledgeable about the sights they conserve but, just as most go to the cinema for a few hours of enjoyment, so most people go to their local woods or nature reserve to enjoy the outdoors not to analyse it.  I think that conservation organisations face a tricky challenge in finding the balance between letting individuals come and enjoy a place on their own, giving them a little information which might make their visit more interesting and enjoyable or giving a full introductory course to evolution or behavioural ecology which can fundamentally affect the way we see the world.

There is no substitute for a good guide.  A good guide has no ego, they have no need to show you just how much they know.  All they are concerned about is you, how can they make your experience more enjoyable or fulfilling (which may be by doing nothing at all).  This person does not simply act as a guide delivering a pre-written speech, this person reacts.  They react to what you find interesting with no notion of what you should find interesting.  Importantly, this guide would not point out and name every species they saw.  For many it is intimidating be overloaded with information when visiting a nature reserve.  A visitor may interpret too much information as a show of knowledge, a message that the reserve exists for those within in the club who ‘know how to appreciate nature’ who can put a name to the varieties of life they see.  I obviously don’t believe that this is the intention of the nature reserve.  But, the visitor would not be wrong.  Visitors cannot be wrong in their emotional reactions; if they feel intimidated then they are intimidated. 

Obviously conservation organisations don’t have enough money to offer every visitor a personal guide and so they have to rely on written leaflets etc to make the experience of the visitor more enjoyable/interesting/enriching.  The result is that visitors who want some form of guide are normally directed in a particular direction.  I think that with the abundance of cameras a better alternative might be to send people of into the woods/around the lake etc suggest that they find somewhere they like, stop, take some time to enjoy it and if they have any questions then take a photo or make a mental note, visitors could return to the visitor centre (assuming there is one) and talk to a member of staff, their own guide who they would have questions for.  I am not suggesting that the staff member would be able to answer every question.  I am suggesting that visitors should be able to discuss their experiences of nature on their own terms with members of staff who are interested not in what the visitor should see or enjoy but in what they have seen and found enjoyable.

I know that this blog is written by someone on the defensive who might seem to have a chip on their shoulder.  I enjoy being outdoors.  I enjoy stopping somewhere and watching life.  Yet I am awful at naming species and when the names of species are banded about with the assumption that everyone present knows these species by name it can be intimidating.  I recognise the value of naming species, having to describe each species every time you wanted to talk about it would turn discussing nature into a huge game of charades (though perhaps we should try that sometimes).  I also recognise that in learning the name of a species one is making an effort and in this way learning to call each thing by its right and proper name can be humbling.  At the end of the day I think it is worth remembering that, though it is very useful to name a species, the name really is the dullest feature of most species, much duller than their feathers, fur, eyes, claws, wings or behaviour.