In busi­ness, the chang­ing mar­ket re­al­i­ties and the dis­rup­tion of tra­di­tion­al in­dus­tries are com­pelling busi­ness lead­ers and stake­hold­ers to re­view every as­pect of their op­er­a­tions.

Hard ques­tions must be asked and un­pleas­ant an­swers may be the out­come. What are the in­dus­tries vul­ner­a­ble to dis­rup­tion? Which are the com­pa­nies that are well po­si­tioned to turn changes and chal­lenges to op­por­tu­ni­ties?

The fu­ture is com­plex. In­no­va­tion is cru­cial for long-term suc­cess.

How can tech­nol­o­gy help find in­no­v­a­tive so­lu­tions to prob­lems? How can we pool our tal­ent and re­sources to im­prove peo­ples' lives and in­vest po­lit­i­cal cap­i­tal in forg­ing the way for­ward in sport, busi­ness etc?

Here in Tokyo, Japan, the As­so­ci­a­tion of Na­tion­al Olympic Com­mit­tees (ANOC) Gen­er­al As­sem­bly is tak­ing place against a back­drop of tur­moil in the cor­ri­dors of pow­er. Yet again the fo­cus on forg­ing the way for­ward for sport is dis­tract­ed by the tra­vails of sports pol­i­tics.

There are Olympic venues to vis­it, meet­ings with po­ten­tial train­ing camp venues in ad­di­tion to the se­ri­ous busi­ness of prepar­ing the Olympic move­ment for a sus­tain­able fu­ture.

That "the seas are rough" is not an un­der­state­ment or cliche but tur­moil is be­cloud­ing the wa­ters mak­ing the vi­sion a dif­fi­cult task. Out­ing fires that nev­er seem to go out.

Mem­bers of the Olympic sports move­ment are pulled in dif­fer­ent di­rec­tions.

One can ar­gue with a fair de­gree of cor­rect­ness that there is a need for a com­pre­hen­sive and durable so­lu­tion to ad­dress the root caus­es of the prob­lems that are ex­is­ten­tial threats to the Olympic move­ment. De­spite our in­di­vid­ual na­tion­al in­ter­ests - and in a num­ber of cas­es - per­son­al in­ter­ests, we must con­tin­ue to stay on the course of in­te­gra­tion and col­lab­o­ra­tion.

We must lis­ten to the cho­rus of com­plaints and do so with a sense of ur­gency. If this isn't done then it may well be that when or if change comes, it will be too late for some. The lives and ca­reers lost can't be re­placed.

I have of­ten said to the amuse­ment of those who thrive on the po­lit­i­cal machi­na­tions, in­trigue and gos­sip that the world of in­ter­na­tion­al sports pol­i­tics is a bru­tal con­tact sport.

Peo­ple act in bad faith as a means of op­pres­sion or for oth­er im­prop­er pur­pos­es. Rep­re­hen­si­ble con­duct and abuse of process are clev­er­ly masked as a de­sire for trans­paren­cy and ac­count­abil­i­ty.

In the game of sports pol­i­tics those who be­lieve they con­trol the levers of pow­er and con­trol will shut down any re­al or per­ceived threat with bru­tal ef­fi­cien­cy.

It's a lone­ly place and a lone­ly world swim­ming or try­ing to swim against the tide that main­tains the sta­tus quo. Et,tu Brute? It's such a cha­rade.

Ed­i­tor's Note

Bri­an Lewis is the pres­i­dent of the T&T Olympic Com­mit­tee (TTOC) and the views ex­pressed are not those of the or­gan­i­sa­tion.

Source

Association of National Olympic Committees (ANOC) 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games