Corporate Gobblegook

And Communication Gaffs

    Readers of The Times sports section and followers of its chief Cricket Correspondent, Michael Atherton, will be aware of one of his columns last week in which he highlighted a press release from Cricket South Africa announcing a new partnership with ‘Brand South Africa.’

    For some time Atherton had been highlighting “egregious examples of corporate jargon…as a consequence of decisions being made by those with a business background rather than cricket.” But the game in England was so beset by them after a while that he gave up: “It was like shooting fish in a barrel. It was harder to find mission statements that were not written in jargon.”

    But he couldn’t resist returning to the theme when a CSA statement landed in his inbox, and he quoted it in full using valuable column inches. In case you missed it:

    ‘Cricket South Africa has entered a long-term vision and endorsement lead strategic partnership with Brand SA as the parties move to collaboratively leverage and unlock synergist strategic relevance of the cricket brand while positively positioning the country domestically and internationally.’

    “More intelligent readers may be better able to understand this guff than I am,” Atherton concluded.

    In the time since it landed in my own inbox, reading Atherton’s observations and now, I have been surprised by my inability to ‘let it go.’ At first there was confusion and bewilderment, then amusement followed by frustration and anger. The five stages of press release monstrosity. Given everything else going on in the world, never mind the cricket world, I shouldn’t even be thinking about it let alone writing about it. But I am.

    There are many thousands of people trying hard to believe, and hoping, that CSA is now in more caring and trustworthy hands, administrators with the time to pay attention to the small details because they affect the big details. The new CSA board is now well-embedded but several executive positions have only just been made and some still need filling. A lot more time is needed for people to find their offices, learn the job and get to know each other. Mistakes will be made.

    While they are made, and while people build relationships, it would have been reassuring to believe that somebody with a care and love for the game, an understanding of what matters to its supporters, might have overseen the way it was being presented. Maybe even acknowledge the occasional blunder, not publicly but with discreet communiques to the cricket writers. There aren’t many of us. It’s not like the UK where there are hundreds. More like a dozen, at most.

    Back to the press release. As much as it may seem harmless twaddle, it was issued on behalf of the administrators of the game in South Africa. The administrators who purport to act in the best interests of those who support, and pay money to support, the game. What message are they sending? “We are so infinitely more intelligent than you that we speak a separate language.” Or the simplified version: “Thanks for the cash, idiots.”

    Communication is my business so obviously I’m biased about its importance. But it doesn’t take a genius to work out the importance of the messages CSA is sending out in the aftermath of three of the worst years of sports administration history. Naturally nobody accepts responsibility or takes accountability, that’s the way in South African sport and politics, but perhaps drawing a line in the sands of opportunism might be a good option?

    During the last three weeks, four international and franchise coaches have contacted me personally to share my concerns about the ravenous spread of T20 leagues around the world and the effect it will have on the growth and progression of young cricketers.  (And I thought nobody important read this.)

    “You get paid $250k for a month of T20 at the age of 21, before you’ve got a single international cap, and people are expecting you to do the hard yards in first-class cricket in order to play a Test match? Who’s deluding who?” Another said: “Young cricketers may say they want to play for their countries, and play Test cricket, but that’s only because they don’t yet realise that their destiny, very soon if not already, is out of their hands.”

    All of these men fear for the future of the game. Not necessarily because it is heading towards an overloaded market of instant cricket, but because the market is unsustainable. But none of them will speak publicly, understandably, because they are all over the age of 50 and stand to lose far more than they would gain by speaking up about the realities of the future.

    So, survival of the fittest it shall be. Or the richest. Or those with the best skills to communicate their wares.