A strategic plan is implemented in the hope that it will lead to success in the future. When the Good Spirit School Division unveiled its strategic plan, it chose someone who knows a bit about planning for success to help bring it in. Olympic gold medalist Mark Tewksbury, fresh off of the experience of acting as the chef du mission at the London games, spoke about how he was able to succeed in sport and in life.
In speaking at the event, Tewksbury related his experiences in training for the Olympic games and in working with today's athletes, and how they relate to succeeding in other areas, such as planning for a school division.
"You've got to keep raising the bar, which is part of the point of a strategic plan. If you keep doing what you're doing, you're going to get the same result, so it's important to come together and stretch and aim high. We did that with the Olympic team this summer, we just missed our goal, but we wouldn't have been that high if we didn't aim that high," he says.
The message of the day was to raise the bar and the standards, have a powerful vision, to be responsive and not just be married to a plan, adapting as situations change, moving boundaries and get people to generate enthusiasm about what they do and share it. Tewksbury says that he has twenty-four traits for success, chronicled in his book Great Traits of Champions, but he chooses the five most relevant for a given audience.
"It's really fun for me because I see exactly where the Good Spirit School Division is, and what might be relevant from my experience," Tewksbury says.
He says his message is a universal one, since the solutions and even the mistakes an athlete might make in training are the same as doing something which at first appears to be completely different.
"I love the universality of human beings, that there are certain things we can all relate to. Achievement and leadership, the idea of making a difference, and what it takes to make that happen, it's a universal experience."
It was an appropriate touch that Tewksbury was introduced by young swimmers from the school division, and he says that he appreciates how difficult it must have been for the young athletes to get on stage.
"It was so amazing to have two young swimmers from the school district introduce me, and I really feel for them. You know how nerve-wracking it can be to speak in front of your peers, let alone teachers and twelve hundred of them," he concludes.
