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By: Glen Ferguson

“Focusing and goal setting are key to winning”
Jon Montgomery, Canadian Skeleton Gold Medal winner, auctioneer and media darling at the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics

Being a self –acknowledged sports enthusiast, I absolutely reveled in the wonderful seventeen day Winter Olympic feast hosted by Vancouver this year. It was riveting to watch the “The Thrill of Victory … the Agony of Defeat … the Human Drama of Athletic Competition” – to steal a catch-phrase and vision from ABC’s Wide World of Sports intro in the 1970’s.

Canada came under much international criticism during the two week event starting when one of the huge mechanical torches failed to rise to the occasion during the opening ceremonies; the unfortunate training run accident that killed the young Georgian luger, Nodar Kumaritashvili; and the spring-like weather conditions creating havoc at Cypress Mountain.

The Own the Podium (OTP) Program was originally launched in 2005. The goals of the program regarding Olympic podium performance are listed on the OTP website (www.ownthepodium2010.com), as follows:

• Place first in the total medal count at the 2010 Olympic Winter Games; and
• Place in the top 12 nations in medal count at the 2012 Olympic Summer Games.

$117 million in funding over the past five years was provided to over 200 elite class athletes – about $80 million came from the federal, provincial and municipal governments and the remainder from private sponsors such as (McDonalds, HBC , Air Canada, Royal Bank ). Medal winners would be awarded $20,000, $15,000 or $10,000 for gold, silver or bronze, respectively, including multiple awards for multiple medal winners.

After the first week at Vancouver, Canada was the butt of jokes when our athletes failed to medal as predicted and Canadians anxiously awaited our first gold medal on our own soil. Own the Podium became a punch line, replaced by “Blown the Podium”, “Loan the Podium”, and “Bemoan the Podium” to name a few. A US gold medal winner said that it was OK for Canada to Own the Podium, as the US just wanted to rent it for awhile. Canadian Olympic Committee CEO Chris Rudge acknowledged “We are going to be short of our goal. We will eviscerate this program to see what happened.”

With a dramatic rally during the final week, Canada ended up with 26 medals, well behind the US (37) and Germany (30) but included fourteen Canadian gold medals, the most ever by any nation in the winter Olympics.

The Own the Podium Program is an interesting case study in several areas applicable to business, including:

• Goal Setting;
• Key Performance Indicators;
• Marketing and Branding; and
• Financial Incentive Programs.

I will concentrate on the first of these, Goal Setting.

Goal Setting

Well-formed Goal Setting is sometimes characterized by the S.M.A.R.T. acronym, which has a few variants, but generally looks like this:

• Specific – a specific goal has a better chance of being accomplished than a general goal; will better align members of the organization; and makes it easier to measure success;
• Measurable – there has to be a definitive yardstick to measure progress with;
• Achievable – the goal needs to be challenging but practical and achievable;
• Relevant – the goal should focus on the greatest impact of the organization; and
• Time-Sensitive – the goal should have a definite deadline.

Goal Setting is a complex exercise requiring clear communication and a balanced approach across all of these factors. In this case, the goal of winning the most medals of any Country was specific, measurable, time-sensitive and relevant, but, ultimately, not attained. It is questionable whether this aggressive goal was practical and achievable to begin with, as the highest results obtained previously was a tie for 4th place at Salt Lake City in 2002, followed by 5th place in 2006 at Torino, Italy. Interestingly, the goal for the Summer Olympics (a top 12 finish) is not nearly as specific or brash. Perhaps the Vancouver stretch goal was driven by political pressure to put on an unprecedented performance in front of a hyped up home crowd.

All in all the Olympics were an impressive performance for Canada. To most Canadians, Vancouver was a huge success and it comes as no surprise that the recent Federal Budget increased funding for the Own the Podium Program. And it doesn’t hurt to say that businesses could also learn a few things from the success of the Own the Podium Program.

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Glen is an original Energy Advantage employee upon inception in 1996. With over 30 years of energy experience, Glen has been involved in all aspects of Energy Advantage’s growth. Currently he heads up our Energy Solutions Group, responsible for Total Energy & Environment Management (TEEM) services.