Organisation development and its possibilities at sports organisations, through the presentation of an organisation diagnostic study

The operation of professional sports clubs in Hungary often contains incongruent elements. There are some pros and cons whether there were systemic changes in sport, apart from these it is clear that clubs are willing to operate by themselves (independently from the government), and they are emphasizing their autonomy. If they cannot achieve their "privacy", they often expect help from the government – in the absence of capital intensive sponsors who are willing to support sports. Taking Western European and North American examples into consideration, this situation cannot be maintained for long. It becomes necessary for clubs to redefine themselves and use applied sciences, such as organisational commitment research which is based on organisation psychology and management, if they want to improve their results or to survive.

There are the same critical-sensitive periods in organisational life as in human life. However, the necessary changes raise several questions. For example, when they should be started? In order to answer this question, Handy (2008) applies a well-known "geometric shape", the sigmoid (S) curve: he says there are ups and downs in organisational life. However, it is too late if we start thinking about changes when the organisational performance is decreasing; it is a must to negotiate changes when the organisation is operating well. An excellent example to understand it if we think about Formula 1, where a team can only be successful in a year if there are major improvements during the whole season. See Fig. 26.

We can also think of those great and successful clubs (eg. MU, FC Barcelona) which win championships or trophies, but they make a lot of changes by the next year (they even change their strategy). It should be mentioned here that there are two types of organisational changes: circumstances are changing over time (for example political, economic), and these changes almost automatically induce the development of the organisation (1), while in the other case there is intentional intervene in the organisation's life in order to improve its effectiveness. The latter is considered to be the classical sense of organisation development (Kovács, 2005).

Figure 26. The organisational intervention is too late in the downturn phase. It is essential to think about renewal when the organisation is operating well.

In addition to changing, besides time factor the other central problem is resistance towards change. There are those who get into trouble after the changes (or they believe that). First, the organisational members, then certain organisational units can be interested in maintaining the status quo.

Organisation development is practically as old as the history of organisational psychology, as it is based on organisational psychology research. The starting point is marked by Kurt Lewin's work, his group research opened a new direction for management and behavioural researchers (Kovács, 2005).

The following assumptions support the strengthening of organization development (OD):

• In an effective organisation both the individual and the organisation can grow and develop, that is called a healthy organisation
• OD is the key to achieve high quality
• OD needs responsible, careful and reliable man not only as a resource
• The aim of OD is a healthy organisation, supporting, encouraging and open atmosphere, trust, reliability, clear and transparent power structure
• Open and honest communication which helps to reveal and solve problems
• Taking into account the individual needs, creating high level of commitment to the organisation (Kovács, 2005)

Based on Beckhard (1969, see Kovács 2005) organisation development is led and supported by the senior management (1), it is a long-term effort for developing the employees’ capability of goal achievement, adaptation and renewal (2), it is for the development of organisational culture (3), which is an advisory and facilitation activity (4), using behavioral science knowledge (4). According to Bennis (see Kovács, 2005), the organisation development is an educational strategy. According to Harvey and Brown (1996), it is a long-term developmental intervention which aims at increasing the organisation’s problem-solving, adaptation and renewal abilities, by reshaping the organisational culture. The diagnostic activity is primarily – as it can be clearly seen from the above mentioned definitions – focuses on the analysis of the organisational culture.

When we talk about sports organisations and their organisational culture, it should be noted that the more fragmented and more diverse the sports club is, the more complex the organisational culture diagnostics are. Ideally, the club itself has a dominant culture, but each division (other organisational units, e.g. PR, marketing, finance) is characterised by a so-called specific subculture. Furthermore, in an ideal situation, these are the same and everyone shares the values, norms and expectations of the club. In this study, we searched for those sport organisations which practically have only one division, in which a first-class sport team compete.

Previous studies on sport teams and organisations were conducted due to a common goal: to learn how they operate and optimize their operation in order to achieve the best possible performance^[1].

Performance in sport can be described in a sequence:

Performance = ability to perform (the presence of the necessary physical and motor skills, technical and tactical knowledge, and the application of sport-specific knowledge for a certain task) X performing skills (the presence of the necessary psychological skills, especially motivation and willingness for the implementation of a task).

If either is incomplete or missing, the performance is falling, getting worse or it is zero.

Parallel to Hersey and Blanchard’s (1982) theory, which is about the prefered forms of leadership, they define leadership whether the members have the essential skills (performance) and the right motivation and willingness (performing skills) for that task. They defined it by the concept of maturity (and distinguished four types of it), and if both conditions are fulfilled by the employees then they talk about a weak task- and relation-oriented, so-called delegating leadership.

Here we should also mention the previously referred so-called Steiner model (1972), which shows the level of the actual team productivity. It originates from the potential, totally detectable productivity, for which the team would be able to. However, this performance is undermined by those losses which are caused by the incorrect group dynamics, for example the lack of trust or deficit from the loss of confidence.

During our research, we followed the undermentioned methodological methods:

The following methods draw up the organisational culture and organisational trust patterns of sports teams on the basis of published studies by Kovács, Perjés, Sass (2005) and Sass (2005). Since these questionnaires were not primarily designed for the field of sport, there was a preliminary overview first, when we tried to reconstruct the items to be easily interpreted for athletes (supplemented by sport terminology and examples), but of course, obtaining their original meaning at the same time.

The questionnaires, which seemed to be suitable for sports organizations were the following:

1. Quinn's organisation-diagnostic questionnaire,
2. Kovács’s organisational culture questionnaire

The preliminary assumption is based on the fact that sports teams as performance-oriented, professional sports organisations are mainly characterised by:

• Performance-orientation. It is important to achieve the goals, whether it is about championship or expressed differently (e.g. the development of indiviudal skills).
• As it is a joint activity, therefore team spirit is important, also the atmosphere, furthermore, the ability to work in a team (team-working) and willingness to cooperate.
• Good team climate mostly supposes good personal realtionships, even if successes sometimes overwrite these (this feature and the previous one have been actually examined by sociometry from a different perspective – measuring social relationships).
• In order to maintain the right level, it is needed to move on and to apply new training methods and new scientific results. From this point of view, an entrepreneurial and innovative spirit is also needed (I believe there is a "happy medium", a right balance, when good practices should not be changed).
• Since there is one (maybe more, but typically not more than two) leader, the coach, his role is crucial and not only from sport professional point of view, but it is exremely important what kind of support he gets from the senior executives. In the absence of their support he will not be successful.
• Depending on the team, his role can be a father, a mentor, a coordinator, although I believe it is also essential to bear with supportive and helping features (even in hard-core professional sports) which does not exclude strong and performance-oriented features of leadership.
• Not only performance can be a cohesive factor, but also mutual trust or confidence, and the strength of relationships between the players, that is social cohesion.
• Sports teams are bound to clubs, so it is essential to have a sense of group identity, strong ties to the club on one hand, and on the other hand, they should also be loyal to the team (nowadays, loyalty to the club is weakening, because financial considerations overwrite it).

All in all, on the basis of Quinn’s competing values model, sports teams can be described as dominant supportive clans or cultures, which can be ad hoc or hierarchical – partly characterised by performance-orientation and the need to adapt to the external changes, furthermore, they can be described by quality of the coach-player (moreover, the other roles within the team) and the leader-employee relationship.

For the organisational values we expected specific changes in the following dimensions of the 11 values:

• The coach is rather task-oriented (in order to achieve the specified performance, certain tasks need to be done), but his good relationship with the team members is also important.
• I rather expect strong control in the sense of the level of regulation of the players.
• Reward is primarily attached to performance. Then certain behaviour and action done for the team can also be aspects for rewarding.
• If the leader has a good conflict management strategy and he is willing to cooperate with the members in order to achieve higher performance, then sports teams are more likely to tolerate conflicts.
• As the teams are not operating ad hoc, they are rather characterised by long-term time orientation, therefore the basis of their sport performance is the conscious, carefully and methodically structured work.

Quinn and Rohrbaugh (1983) [2] competing values model was also used for the diagnostics of the organisation.

According to Quinn, the values of a community can be arranged in a hierarchy and can be displayed in major value dimensions. Each organisation culture can be described and compared by these lists or value maps. The authors have described a three-dimensional theoretical framework of the effective organisation based on a multidimensional scaling method:

1. The focus of the organisation is internal, person-oriented and / or external, organisation-oriented.
2. The organisational structure can be: stability prefered by control and / or supporting flexibility and change.
3. Regarding the organisational goals: it can focus on the process of reaching the goals or the tools and / or it can be result and goal-oriented.

Based on this classification, four major types of cultures can be distinguished: the supportive, innovation-oriented, rules-oriented, and the goal-oriented. Cameron and Freeman (1991) described the typical organisational characteristics of the certain types, such as: clan, adhocracy, hierarchy, market.

The method of the organisational culture analysis based on the value dimensions was the following:

It was primarily based on the member’s feelings towards the organisation and we also applied Robbins’s (1993) and Bakacsi’s complementary 11 value dimensions. The questionnaire for examining organisational culture of schools was compiled by Kovács (2002). This questionnaire has also been slightly modified after a pilot study, especially the terminology of it, in order to be better understood by the athletes, although we have paid attention to ensure that each dimension has the original interpretation.

1. identification with the position or with the organisation
   Identification with the club, with the division, with the team or with his position in the team.
2. individual or team orientation
   The management supports individual initiatives and independence in the team or focuses on goals of the team.
3. relationship or task orientation
   The coach emphasizes the help and support of the players or the priority of the tasks.
4. internal dependence or independence
   Support for team unity or autonomy.
5. strong-weak control
   Level of regulations and the control of the players.
6. taking or avoiding risks
   How the team tolerates uncertainty, undertake or avoid risks (searcher, innovative, etc.).
7. performance-orientation
   Rewards are tied to performance criteria or not, whether they depend on performance or not, but something else, such as loyalty or the help of teammates.
8. tolerating or avoiding conflicts
   How the coach and the team tolerate conflicts, whether they support or prohibit them (such as professional conflicts: the player interfere the tactics).
9. goal or instrument orientation
   The leadership (coach) is characterized by enhancing the process of reaching the goals or emphasizing the team’s results (such as junior team training).
10. open or closed system
    The team's willingness to react to changes (new training methods, new transfers, trainings, etc.).
11. short-term or long-term time orientation
    Whether the team has a future perspective.

The above mentioned dimensions are closely related to the various operating mechanisms of sports organisations, so they can be easily described by them.

After a brief summary of the results we can conclude that these models of operation can be easily identified and described in the case of sports organisations. This provides reason for further investigations. Furthermore, particularly Kovács’s (2002) model provides the possibility of a detailed analysis, and as a result of it the major directions of organisational changes can be outlined.

It was found during the examination that the analyzed first- and second-class sports teams (six out of ten) can be described by the features of the clan culture according to the Quinn’s model, while one of them is hierarchical and three of them can be described as market culture. In the case of the hierarchical team we cannot draw up an accurate picture due to the small sample size. This definitely requires similar tests in the future.

The clan types:

• In the case of the head of the unit the players can detect typical aspects of cultural leadership (direct, performance-oriented), but the perceived leadership is also supportive and facilitating. It is in line with the characteristics of the Robbins culture, where the leader is rather task-oriented. It can also be difficult for the team leader: he has to be successful, while creating a friendly, supportive atmosphere.
  • About trust: trust in the leader involves high reliability, fair leadership and this leader also focuses on individual goals.
• Hierarchical and adhocratic characteristics often describe the organisational climate, however this does not exclude the overall familiar atmosphere either.
  • It is also indicated by the value of the organisational integrity and task control, and means high level of organisational trust in these teams.
• As a criteria of success specific patterns of hierarchical culture is often observed by the members (reliability for the system itself, or the players trust each other and the coach, and the team as well, also trust to keep their promises, and this can be the basis of their common success).
• The cohesive force in the organisation is described by the loyalty to the team and the traditions, but achieving or not the pursued performance can affect the team atmosphere in positive and negative ways too.
  • The existence of mutual trust (both in relationships and organisational levels), and the monitoring of teammates also appears as "I can be successful with the team, if my teammates also carry out their duties."
• Identification with the organisation or the team is more typical, and it correlates with the cohesion within the organisation.
• Each sports team has long-term plans, which confirms the existence of well-built planning and the continuity of work in sport organisations as well.
  • All in all, there is a high level of organisational integrity, which shows a trustful atmosphere. There is also a high level of predictability (especially in the case of hierarchical sports teams, although we found only one of them), and somehow in contradiction to these, the need of controling teammates also appear (this should not necessarily be interpreted as a low level of trust, but rather as a form of social motivation to achieve the common goals).

The organisational change takes time. It assumes a carefully designed strategy, as opposition towards change should be dissolved primarily. The members of the organisation – as people by nature – prefer the average, normal state. It provides the sense of security and peace, even if it is not so good, but at least it is sure. The new organisational model can bring new roles.

Some will lose their positions, but there are those who get new tasks and become much more motivated and do more effort. Kotter (1995) defined 8 steps as elements of a successful organisational change[3].

1. Develop the need for organisational change, be sensitive for the change and development.
2. Develop strong allies within the organisation who can argue convincingly for the development.
3. After the initial brainstorming and careful organisational diagnostics, define a clear, easily understandable and clear future perspective.
4. This future perspective should be clearly communicated to everyone at each levels of the organisation.
5. Carry out an analysis and remove obstacles standing in the way of development. Examine the organisational structure, the units and human resources.
6. Achieve small successes and victories with the new organisation. These can be very strong motivations to maintain the organisation's development. Everyone can see that the new direction is good.
7. Small successes do not mean reaching the goal. Results and processes need to be consolidated.
8. Finally, changes should be integrated into the organisational culture.

By the end of the organisational development process, a more effective, better functional and more flexible organisational culture can be achieved.

The sport organisation as an example, can only be successful if it is flexible and able to react in time to the internal and external changes.