Netball and business: How the two connect - Women's Agenda

Netball and business: How the two connect

Image: www.nswswifts.com.au
Image: www.nswswifts.com.au
The NSW Swifts in action

The NSW Swifts are a diverse team, which is a good reason why they work so well together on court.

As Coach Rob Wright told a luncheon in Sydney on Wednesday, it’s the differences between each of the 12 players in the team that really counts.

“Every one of the players brings something different to our team that is critical to our success.”

Such success is as necessary for a netball team, as it is for a team or board in an organisation.

Indeed, there are many similarities that can be made between sport and business, particularly for women, as Bettina Pidcock, Executive General Manager, Marketing at QBE told the crowd yesterday.

“Women in business and women in sport have quite a bit in common,” she said.

“Getting to the top in either field takes a lot of hard work, dedication and confidence and it also relies on developing really good skills to take you forward in your career. This is still very challenging for many women in both business and in sport.”

QBE has been sponsoring the NSW Swifts for eight years and strongly believes in the importance of supporting women in sport, an area where men and women aren’t treated equally.

“I was really shocked and surprised to find out that elite sportswomen often fly economy to international sporting events while their male counterparts fly business,” said Pidcock.

Pidcock believes women in sport play a big part in inspiring the next generation and wants to reflect this in business.

When Pidcock joined QBE in January 2016, she took the number of women on the senior executive team to three, joining Chief HR Officer Sally Kincaid and Chief Risk Officer Anna Gould.

Together with Sally and Anna, Pidcock emphasised their focus on gender equality at QBE.

“We want to make sure that women are given equal opportunities and I believe our leadership team are on the way to making some very concrete and ground-breaking changes to the way remuneration works to support women and make sure that this equality really exists in our workplace,” she said.

MC’ing the event, former world champion and netball legend Anne Sargeant kicked off the panel discussion with the importance of managing life outside work and sport and how a healthy work-life balance directly impacts performance.

Panel member and Swifts head coach Rob Wright agreed, saying he spends more time managing the girls as people rather than coaching them as players.

“We truly believe in the theory – great people, great players,” said Wright. “I always believe that if somebody is really happy off court, what happens on court just gets better and better.”

Wright was joined on the panel by three of the Swifts players – Sharni Layton, Maddy Turner and Laura Langman.

Each of the girls spoke about the different ways in which they unwind off court including mindfulness, meditation, spending time with their partner, seeing the sites of Sydney, campaigning for animal rights or watching Game of Thrones.

The varied interests of each of the players and their methods of balancing life and work highlighted the differences between each of the players.

“The beauty of the differences between each of the players is what I love about working with 12 incredible athletes,” said Wright.

Sargeant echoed that this is true in both sport and in business and that to have a successful team, diversity and points of difference are critical.

“In any organisation or sport, as much as we love them, we don’t need a team of Sharnis [Layton] or a team of Susans [Petitt]. We want the points of difference,” she said.

And hopefully the girls are happy off court as The Swifts will be looking to reverse their heartbreaking one-goal 2015 Grand Final defeat, when they host the defending Champions the Queensland Firebirds on May 29th. 

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