Exploring the High Performance Environment in Sports

“It was really demoralising. People knew you were a student of the Sports School and that you’re the son of a silat champion. Of course, there was pressure to do well, but I also had pride, and wanted to win not only for my family but myself too.”

(Sheik Farhan, as cited in “Paying it forward”, para. 5)

Curating the optimal high performance environment (HPE) for athletes to thrive in is crucial especially with the amount of internal and external stress that these elite athletes face on a regular basis (Woodman & Hardy, 2001). As echoed by a three-time silat world champion through his quote above, elite athletes have to manage the stress while at the same time be able to stay at the top of their game and ensure peak performance – a highly optimised mental and physical state – when the opportune moment arises. (Harmison, 2006; Krane & Williams, 2006). Hence, the environment that the athletes are in must be able to provide the conditions for them to thrive even in the face of adversity.

Why is there a need for high performance environment?

In their review of HPE in sports, Fletcher and Wagstaff (2009) indicated that there is strong evidence pointing towards improved sporting performances when organisational and environmental components are purposefully deliberated, integrated and enhanced. Jones, Gittins and Hardy (2009) define HPE as the ideal set of conditions in which the athletes are operating. These conditions consist of organisational and environmental factors that include the organisational cultures, the types of leadership involved, the interaction among performance enablers and the differing motivation of people within the environment (Fletcher & Streeter, 2016; McCalla & Fitzpatrick, 2016).

Many studies on HPE in the sporting context analysed the various organisational and environmental components in isolation (Allen & Hodge, 2006; Cruickshank & Collins, 2012; Santos et al. 2017; Verma et al., 2012). For instance, Allen and Hodge (2006) only considered the New Zealand All Blacks national rugby coaches’ fostering of a motivational climate that incentivised their athletes to perform better; during the year of intervention, the All Blacks rugby team recorded a high winning percentage of 87%. A study by Cruickshank and Collins (2012) only focused on the organisational change taking place at the management level, postulating the need for team managers to create and maintain a high-performing culture throughout the sports organisation. In reality, there is multitude of interplaying organisational and environmental factors that mould the HPE suitable for the athlete to perform at his/her optimal level (Jones et al., 2009).

In 2016, Fletcher and Streeter’s (2016) study on an elite swimming team’s HPE in the United Kingdom paved the way for future studies to examine the various interacting environmental and organisational forces surrounding the athlete, and how these interdependent forces can contribute to the development of the HPE. Applying the HPE model developed by Jones, Gittins and Hardy (2009), the study found out that there were interrelationships between the four core components: leadership, people, performance enablers and organisational culture. Fletcher and Streeter (2016) discovered that the elite swimming team had a model of shared ownership and leadership, which then translated to different members of the team (players, coaches, support staff) going the extra mile and demonstrating high competence in their day-to-day roles. These integrated core components of leadership and people shaped the organisational culture, where the emphasis on goal achievement was at the heart of the team’s culture.

Singapore as a case study

As part of the Vision 2030, Singapore is increasing her priority in the nation’s sporting front; sports have become a vehicle to promote physically healthy lifestyles and all-round excellence to reflect her first-world country status. Large monetary investment has been channelled to elevate the local sporting scene and gain international recognition (Lim, 2017) – the Singapore Sport Institute was launched in 2009 to provide high performance support for Team Singapore athletes, the Singapore Sports School was opened in 2004 to deliver an integrated academic and sports programme for Singapore’s youth and the National Youth Sports Institute was set up in 2015 to develop high-performing student-athletes. Recently, the CoachSG organisation was conceived in 2017 to support the professional development of sports coaches.

These initiatives reflect the strong commitment that Singapore has towards supporting her athletes to achieve sporting excellence. Although Singapore has displayed relatively strong sporting performances at the regional (South East Asia) and Asian level, sporting success at the international level has been elusive. Notable international level successes include Yip Pin Xiu’s 50m backstroke S2 event gold medal at 2019 World Para Swimming Championships, Joseph Schooling’s 100m butterfly swimming gold medal at the 2016 Rio Olympics, Martina Lindsay Veloso’s 10m air rifle gold medal in the International Shooting Sport Federation World Cup 2014, the Singapore women team’s table tennis silver medal at the 2008 Beijing Olympics and the Singapore silat team’s continued dominance at the annual world pencak silat championships (Aziz, 2015, 2019; Chia, 2019; de Menezes, 2016).

The high performance environment framework

A sport organisation’s sporting successes can be examined through the lens of the four primary components of the model: leadership, performance enablers, people and organisational culture. Figure 1 shows the interrelationships between the components and sub-components, and how they can contribute to the sport performance outcome.

The HPE model provides a theoretical framework that illustrates how various components interact within a complex environment, thus exerting substantial organisational influences on the athletes’ wellbeing and performance.

Leadership

Leadership is viewed as an ongoing process in which an individual has an influence over a group of individuals to fulfil a common objective (Jones et al., 2009). Leadership has three underpinning factors (Figure 2).

Performance enablers

Performance enablers are the environmental support system that people need in order for them to operate effectively in their performance environment (Fletcher & Wagstaff, 2009). The performance enablers have three higher-order themes (I³; Figure 3).

People

People are the individuals that operate for the organisation and within the performance environment (Fletcher & Streeter, 2016). People can be viewed via three higher-order themes (ABC; Figure 4).

Organisational culture

Organisational culture can be rated through individuals’ perception of their organisation (Jones et al., 2009). Organisational culture consists of four higher-order themes: achievement, well-being, innovation, and internal processes (Figure 5).

Conclusion

On their own, elite athletes can only do so much to realise their sporting potential. The need for a holistic support system within their respective organisations is imperative for the athletes to thrive and push sporting boundaries. With the increasing appearances of varying HPEs to bring the best out of athletes across the world, a deep and critical understanding of organisational influences on athletes is required. Case studies of the HPEs of successful world-class athletes can be used as a starting point to examine in greater detail the constructs and dynamic of HPEs. For a start, the construction of an appropriate assessment instrument will be needed for the analysis of the various HPEs.

References