Fresh perspectives in sports, Gen Dohrmann

Sean: A lot of sports will go and look for a CEO go, oh, we need a table tennis person. Oh, we need a basketball person. We need a football person. I need a football person. We'll know our sport. And you answered in your answer there, you've really just immersed yourself into the sport. But also brought your external experience to the role to sort of counteract that. Because normally it is, it's like, but Jen, you don't know table tennis, we've been in table tennis for 50 years. This is how we've always done it. Is that something you've like, is it, has it been a little bit of a barrier and that's sort of why you've gone that listen first and I'm gonna immerse myself in it strategy.

Gen: Oh, definitely. I think there's certainly been a bit of, yeah. Oh, but you don't know the sport of table tennis. You don't play it. So I actually do lessons now once a month because we operate out of MSAC. There are lots of coaches that train out of the center. So I do my first Wednesday of the month lesson with Daisy. I wish I could do more, but when you're a small team, it's a bit hard to find the time to be doing table tennis lessons every week. But I'm glad to let everyone know I've just graduated to serving, my forehand and backhand are now good enough that I can focus on serving. It's only taken about eight months, but I've gotten there.

Gen: So yeah, I think it is important that, like, I say to a lot of people, I wasn't brought in to play the sport. I was brought in to run the sport. So I come in with a very different background and especially gymnastics, high participation, female sport, quite commercially run clubs and businesses. So if I can bring that knowledge into the sport of table tennis, we're all gonna be better for that. I also think it works quite nicely because the CEO of Table Tennis Australia, he is from the sport of table tennis. So he's got that really strong high performance focus and understands all of the events, ins and outs, whereas I can bring in a bit of a different lens so that we can work together to increase the sport and increase the profile.

Sean: Yep. And it is the balance is because especially when you are the outsider, you get to ask the question, why do you do it that way? You've gotta be careful not to do it and not offend people. But it is, you get to say, could we do it another way? Because you don't have the locked in nature of this is how we've always done it. You can just be the person that says why. And try to get those answers out and those answers start forming, you know, what you might do in the future.

Gen: Yeah. It's exactly like that. I'm lucky that in my work with Table Tennis Victoria, we do have one of our staff members who's now actually moved to Table Tennis Australia. She has lived and breathed table tennis her entire life. So together she and I can sort of spitball ideas and think about ways that we might be able to do things and she'll say, oh, we've tried it this way, but we could do it this way. So it is really nice that sort of brainstorming, because you need to understand the legacy of the sport and where it's come from, but coming in with some fresh eyes definitely helps as well.

Gen: So I think, yeah, it's been a really great experience so far. Like obviously it comes with its challenges. You need to make sort of hard decisions every now and then, and not everyone's gonna be happy, but I think if you've developed relationships and if you're open to picking up the phone and having a chat with people, then it's much less daunting and you're able to sort of explain why you've made this decision and that it's for the best of the sport moving forward.

Sean: Yeah. And it's always the why that's important. Like if you say, why do we do this? And they tell you why, and you then you go, cool, now we know. But if they go, oh no, if they don't, they just go, that's all how we've always done it. And they go, we don't, we're not, why are you doing it? Are we doing it to get more participants? Are we doing it to engage our members? Are we doing it to, you know, bring our clubs close together? Like those answers are the reason you are doing it. What I find really fulfilling when I'm working with a team is when you see the team go, oh yeah, we don't really have a reason. And then they come up with a reason and the results are completely different.

Sean: When they've got, oh, that's our goal in mind, that's what we're trying to do. Whether it's, hey, take a photo and send it out on Twitter or Instagram, when you know why you're doing it, it makes a complete world of difference. So it's great when the staff you're working with start that why culture themselves and just always, you know, how can we improve this? What else could we do? Only good results come.

Gen: And I'm trying to foster that. I've had new staff start and that's definitely the approach that I've taken with them.

Sean: Because they're definitely, from a staff point of view, it just gives them more ownership. They want to take on more things and like you did in gymnastics, you know, you want a staff member that wants to bite it off more than they can chew and chew like crazy. But then also, you know, grow in the role. And if they're just being told, here's the 10 things to do, please tick them all off the list. They won't be around for long and you'll just be constantly writing lists.

Gen: Exactly.