John Roughan: What a futile exercise in unfocused verbiage

COMMENT


The human mind has a fascinating tendency to turn to mush whenever it tries to function collectively. Just about every week of the year the news carries conclusions of a report on some subject of public interest, issued by an organisation that must be confident nobody will read it.

This week it was the turn of the Sport and Recreation New Zealand, Sparc by acronym if not by nature.

Sparc allocates sport's share of taxation. It was the creation of a Government in two minds about whether it would be better to invest more of our money in potential Olympic champions or in mass participation. We used to have the Sports Foundation for the "elite" and the Hillary Commission for the hoi polloi. But since this Government didn't want to make that distinction it set up Sparc with a dual brief.

That is usually a recipe for confusion.

We are probably going to care a bit more about this in a few weeks. Possibly it was in anticipation of a meagre Olympics that Sparc this week produced a report entitled From Promise to the Podium, purporting to be the beginning of a national strategy for "talent identification and development".

That is a subject, you would think, to concentrate minds such as those of Sir Ronald Scott (chairman), Catherine Carter, Dale Eagar, Daniel Gerrard, Leigh Gibbs, Barbara Hollard, Dr Selwyn Maister, Professor Mike Marfell Jones, Doug McClymont, Susie Simcock, Simon Wickham and project manager Tim Mahon.

They got together in March last year to review the "TID" programmes used in New Zealand, study international methods, develop possible models and produce a report that might point the way to a national talent scouting strategy. Mr Mahon visited Europe in the quest to discover what works.

And they have discovered? These in quotations are what they call their key conclusions:

"There is no simple way to predict performance based on talent or identify at an early age all the attributes required to succeed." That's a pity.

"The key challenge is defining those attributes that indicate an individual has the potential for success." Well yes, that was the assignment.

"Identification is a continual rather than one-off process; it can span the entire career of an athlete's development." Uh huh.

"Talent with all its complex elements can emerge or be developed at any time, depending on the sport and the individual." Yes, we understood the first statement.

"Talent displayed at one age doesn't automatically [their italics] equate to the realisation of that talent in later life." Look, we get the point.

"Conversely the absence of specific talent indicators at a particular point in time doesn't necessarily [theirs] equate to an athlete's lack of potential in that area later in life." Oh, for heaven's sake.

"The role of junior competition results as a predictor of success has been over-estimated." Really? How else do you spot talent?

"Success at this level may be more a reflection of an early natural talent which becomes less advantageous over time." So, is early talent identification pointless?

Maybe but ... "Over time," they conclude, "indicators of potential can be identified and monitored. The more indicators of potential the individual has, or gains, the higher the probability of success." Great, so what are these indicators? That was the last of their findings.

Moving right on to their recommendations, they propose "a broad approach to the identification of talent rather than focusing on anthropometrical, physiological or psychological indicators".

I'm glad anthropometrical isn't important because it's not in any of my dictionaries, but I'd have thought physical and mental qualities were worth a focus.

I find this sort of unfocused verbiage fascinating because I honestly cannot fathom how intelligent people can produce it.

It seems to me much easier for a normally functioning mind to follow a problem to its source and work out a logical and practical solution. It must be much harder to assemble a mess of statements so self-evident or vacuous that to state them is not worth time, trouble and ink.

How, for example, can anyone bring himself to write this:

"Identification of potential is an ongoing rather than one-off process tailored for each sport. As such, the long-term prediction of an individual's performance must cater for each sport's specific demands and the changing interests of today's athletes."

Or this: "Since sport performance is multi-faceted, talent identification [must] take a multi-disciplinary approach, assigning a significant role to the acquisition of performance determinants. This includes taking the dynamic aspects of sport performance into account ... "

This is not thought. Somebody has had to disengage their brain from the challenge the subject presents to them and cast about for a formula of words that might be agreeable to a committee.

It can only be the work of a committee. Any one of the individuals named above could, I suspect, come up with a sound practical talent-spotting strategy. Some of them will have done so, operating individually as coaches and selectors in their sports. But a committee operates differently.

Unless it is dominated by a single, clear mind, a committee is unlikely to produce a solid, coherent plan. Those depend on a definite idea of what is important, what works and what must be discarded. Definite ideas are bound to be contentious.

If Sparc follows this report it will avoid identifying early talent or developing those who appear merely to have promising physical and mental qualities. But I doubt Sir Ron Scott and the rest really believe that is the way to nurture champions.

How noble it would be if those who receive empty reports ceased to present them as a revelation and admitted instead that they have wasted our money.