Bri­an Lewis

Ten or more Olympic gold medals by the year 2024. Es­tab­lish­ing T&T as a sport tourism haven. How do we achieve those two ob­jec­tives for T&T sport?Ask. How to get what you want: Ask. It doesn't mean whine or beg or com­plain or plead or grov­el. It doesn't mean ex­pect­ing a hand­out or a free lunch or char­i­ty.It doesn't mean avoid­ing re­spon­si­bil­i­ty or do­ing the hard work.

Don't just ask and ex­pect some­one to give you some­thing. It's about cre­at­ing val­ue–val­ue isn't al­ways tan­gi­ble. But tan­gi­ble or in­tan­gi­ble it's about cre­at­ing val­ue. If you aren't con­vinced about what you are ask­ing for, how can any­one else be?Ask with ab­solute con­vic­tion.Be able to show that you are sure of what you want, you are sure you will suc­ceed.

And you are sure you will cre­ate val­ue.You have to keep ask­ing. Keep try­ing and keep chang­ing.What would hap­pen if we ask ef­fec­tive­ly? We will achieve our ob­jec­tives.Sport in T&T, no mat­ter all the per­ceived neg­a­tiv­i­ty, con­tin­ues to de­liv­er at var­i­ous lev­els.In the Caribbean, T&T has claimed ti­tles in var­i­ous sports.

While the ar­gu­ment is that all the suc­cess is hap­pen­ing in spite of rather than be­cause of the sport sys­tem, those who know the truth will ar­gue that to state that it's hap­pen­ing in spite of, is a lazy over sim­pli­fi­ca­tion.The ques­tions con­tin­ue to come fast and fu­ri­ous. How can we move lo­cal sport to the high­er lev­el? What specif­i­cal­ly do we mean when we say we want to take sport to the high­er lev­el?

Is it more gold medals? Is it growth in par­tic­i­pa­tion? Is it an in­crease in the num­ber of women and girls par­tic­i­pat­ing in sport? What do we mean?To ar­rive at an­swers what we need to do is ask. It may seem ob­vi­ous but it's not.Most of the con­ver­sa­tions tak­ing place are dri­ven by as­sump­tions. There is a lot of talk­ing at sport tak­ing place and not much lis­ten­ing.

As sim­ple as it may seem we need more ask­ing to take place.One of the dan­gers we all face is that we be­come so en­grossed in what's hap­pen­ing that we run the risk of miss­ing sub­tle changes that are oc­cur­ring dai­ly.Ef­fec­tive lead­ers make it a habit to look at their busi­ness­es or or­gan­i­sa­tions with a clean sheet of pa­per-seek­ing ad­vice and oth­er per­spec­tives from peo­ple who are less emo­tion­al­ly in­vest­ed in their busi­ness or or­gan­i­sa­tion.

Pres­sure is part of lead­er­ship. Change cre­ates ur­gent sit­u­a­tions and prob­lems. Most things seem to hap­pen at an in­op­por­tune time. We all make mis­takes.Lead­ers are watched close­ly. Every move. Every word. Every ac­tion by a leader is un­der the mi­cro­scope. When the pres­sure is on, the mi­cro­scope is in­ten­si­fied.

Peo­ple learn more about their lead­ers when the pres­sure is on.When the pres­sure is on, the ques­tion is do you stand up for what you be­lieve?Pres­sure re­veals the true met­tle of a leader.Ask­ing ques­tions and seek­ing an­swers will pro­vide lead­ers with the op­por­tu­ni­ty to an­tic­i­pate the is­sues and prob­lems.

No mat­ter what the ob­jec­tive may be–in­creas­ing rev­enue, ath­lete and coach de­vel­op­ment, fundrais­ing, prob­lem solv­ing, plan­ning. What­ev­er it is, ask­ing ques­tions is a fool proof strat­e­gy.Sport or­gan­i­sa­tions need its lead­ers to ask ques­tions and to be un­afraid of the an­swers no mat­ter how un­flat­ter­ing those an­swers may be.

Trans­for­ma­tion is the ob­jec­tive. We must all work and col­lab­o­rate to dri­ve the trans­for­ma­tion of lo­cal sport. Trans­for­ma­tion and in­no­va­tion.

�2Bri­an Lewis is the pres­i­dent of the Olympic Com­mit­tee (TTOC). The views ex­pressed are not nec­es­sar­i­ly those of the TTOC.

Sup­port 10 or more Olympic Gold medals ath­lete wel­fare and prepa­ra­tion fund. Make your do­na­tions to any Sco­tia Bank Branch Ac­count # 171188.