27 Feb 2007

In the second part of our look at AUSTSWIM, the Australian Council for the Teaching of Swimming and Water Safety, and the organisation’s recent restructure from having a traditional federation structure to a streamlined corporate model, Glen Canty, CEO of AUSTSWIM, has provided an insight into their recent history leading up to the change.

He explained that, back in the late 1990’s, their board first recognised that the existing federation governance structure was no longer tenable and would eventually lead to a crisis. He said the main problem was that the organisation’s resources were being used across a number of separate legal entities, resulting in significant inconsistencies in operations from state to state.

Canty continued that at that time they appointed the principle consultant from Australian Strategic Services, Michael Goldsworthy, to facilitate a series of workshops for the leadership group, board, CEO, managers and key stakeholders of AUSTSWIM. He said their objective was to not only develop a strategic plan for the organisation, but also to put in place a practical strategic planning system with all the necessary tools to plan, implement, monitor and review the strategic model.

The result of this process was AUSTSWIM’s first strategic plan, Canty said, adding that this and the workshops were a particular milestone in AUSTSWIM’s development due to the unanimity and cohesion of spirit that was established between all stakeholders, even though it created the need for fundamental changes to the way they did business. In short, Canty said the Council, the Executive and staff all ventured out of their comfort zones with the aim of improving all levels of AUSTSWIM’s operations and providing a bold vision for the future. He asserted that key outcomes of this first strategic plan included the creation of efficient delivery structures, a change to a greater emphasis on AUSTSWIM’s certification role, and the forging and strengthening of strategic alliances.

Canty continued that in 2004 a second round of national workshops were undertaken to review AUSTSWIM’s performance and build on their existing strategies in order to develop the organisation’s national Strategic Plan 2005 – 2008. This second Strategic Plan would have the overall theme ‘One AUSTSWIM’ and would see the various state governing bodies consolidated under the single national AUSTSWIM body.

Canty said the ‘One AUSTSWIM’ concept included the development of a national peak body for the accreditation of swimming teachers, the implementation of a streamlined structure across the organisation, the focus on ‘One Brand, One Product, One Position’ and the desire to develop an organisation that would be viable, financially secure and profitable.

Moving to the present, Canty said progress towards the ‘One AUSTSWIM’ outcomes had been more rapid than expected, with the efficiencies gained in the administration are freeing up valuable resources to enable greater concentration on branding, marketing, industry relationships, quality assurance and resource development. Canty explained finally that his appointment as CEO at the start of this year was the last stage of the "One AUSTSWIM" implementation, with the next step to be the preparation of AUSTSWIM’s third strategic plan in 2007.