Rob Prescott, CEO Rowing Tasmania

Alex Mednis, Nicholas Watkins & Ryan Agar, Australian Sports Professional Association
Rob Prescott, Rowing Tasmania

Bonus content

Each CEO has bonus content available to ASPA members that is not found in the book. The philosophies below are sourced directly from the interview, however each interview contained so much great content we had to put together an excerpt. Note that the content of the interview differs than the philosophies.

Interview

After playing a variety of sports at school, including swimming, hockey and rowing, Rob graduated with no intention of working in sport for his career.

Alright - so you're at the CEO of Rowing Tasmania - but never saw that on the cards. How did that come about?

I left school in 1974, and then in 1990 I received a phone call on a Wednesday afternoon from three of my drunken school teammates from many years earlier. It was pretty late in the afternoon, and they said, "Hey man, we're putting the band back together again."

And I said, "Guys, there's no such thing as the band." But, as these things go, one thing led to another and we put four of us back on the water and competed in the Australian Master's Championship, and I really enjoyed that journey.

Incidentally my daughters were both in school around that time, and wanted to try a rowing session, and so they went to the tryouts. I walked out of that particular event as the coach of the under 13s group, which my youngest daughter was in.

Rowing has been very much a part of our family through three generations and could even make a fourth generation.

The school had you hook, line and sinker!

(Laughs) Very much so. That started my reintroduction back into the sport. I spent three years coaching the girls which was a lot of fun, especially spending time with my daughter. I was approached near the end of that by the development officer for Rowing Tasmania who brought me in for some coaching, and I just became more and more involved in the sport. I was getting a little bit over the politics of school sport as many parents do, so it was a welcome change.

What led to the position you're in now?

Leading up to the 2012 Olympics in London, I took a part time role as Development Officer, which evolved into full time, which evolved into the Chief Executive Officer. 

I find it really interesting that you touched on the politics of school sport and having to deal with parents, but as a CEO of a smaller state sporting organisation, isn't that still part of the deal?

Out of the frying pan into the fire, I guess. There's still that level of involvement by parents, but in a different way. The thing with any parent group, in any sport, is that their primary focus is their child. They have blinders on as to what impact any decision that they would like a sport to make would have on the sport in general. But there's a filter now between us, to the school, to the parents - so there is a bit of a reprieve!

What's the strategy to handle the "passion" in those parents, as a lot of people will justify it?

(Reflective pause) You know, what I've learned is patience. Diplomacy first, and then getting to work second, in the ratio of having two ears and one mouth and using them in that particular ratio.

I had 30 years in sales before this, working for a variety of national companies, and international companies. You learn to deal with people, and if it's a very passionate argument or you suspect that they want to make it one, let them get it out of their system, then respond to them. It's no use getting into an argument.

Have you got any tips on really utilising those passionate volunteers to their best potential?

We're very fortunate with the volunteers that we have here, or at least the great majority of the long term volunteers have been involved in the sport since the 1990s. A lot of that comes out of the world championships that were held at Lake Barrington in 1990, which to this day is still Australia’s largest regatta.

Due to that, one of the probable difficulties we'll have in the next few years is getting the older crew to transfer their knowledge and even to accept some of the new people coming in. We expect at the end of our season next year in 2021, once we host the national championships, we will start to see a real generational change.

As an organisation with limited resources, you are looking after a facility, clubs, and several thousand members. You've got schools, you've got a lot of stakeholders. How do you prioritise your resources in the day?

I'm very task orientated, such that if I've got a job to do, I'd rather just get out and do it, and then when it's done, I'll move on to the next thing. I have a list of things to do and I write them down and just tick them off.

What a machine!

(laughs) You have to be. There’s really no other way to do the job. 

Looking forward, what does business continuity look like to you?

One of the issues that we have will be attracting a younger person to the organisation, and ideally not have them using us as a stepping stone to quickly go on to something bigger. Ideally, it’d be for them to learn what's happening within Tasmania and step into this role because I'm not going to be doing it forever.

There are just so many facets to this particular role. And there always will be in a sport with only 1 or 2 employees.

Have you ever felt that you've lost that passion or just getting sick of the sport? It sounds like it can become all-consuming in a small team.

I'm effectively on call 24 hours a day, 7 days a week because we have this facility here. The hours are long. The short answer is yes. 

The question is how we support our coaches and officials in not burning out as well. We can’t afford for them to get sick of it.

They put so much into the sport and their hours are harsh. This time of the year (editor’s note: July) in Tasmania they are on the water at 6:00am. It's dark, foggy, cold - to say the least. And we're always saying to the coaches, "look after yourself, go and get some rest, have some time off, let someone else do that particular session." 

This has been one of the interesting things about COVID-19 as an unexpected impact to the sport. Ultimately our coaches and administrators have all been forced to take a break. We're getting quite regular now with having normal sleep patterns. People have had a chance to go and take a break, reconnect with their families.

What a strange side effect of all of this.

From my perspective and coming back to your question, there are times when I could walk away from the sport because of the pressure that is put on us by the people that we deal with. We see the keyboard warriors these days, which is something else entirely. That didn't happen twenty years ago.

As a CEO you speak to other CEOs from time to time, and you have conversations. A particular conversation with some colleagues across different sports in the past always sits in my mind. The question was asked that...

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