YouSaid · the spoken record

Sarah Hirshland

lines on the record: 32
first: 2021-10-14
most recent: 2021-10-14
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

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“Well, you know, I will say, I think for us, maybe even more than every sort of typical organization, communication is so critical. And when we stumble, it is almost always because we didn't communicate enough. And so when you have so many new folks all the time, you have to remember that even though something might be old hat to you, it's new to them. And so you have to go back and start over and start with some of the foundational stuff and communicate over and over and over and over again. And, you know, there really is no such thing in this world as over communication. And it's always the challenge for all of us. And unfortunately, that's our Achilles heel. And so we just have to keep going back and saying, let's do it better. And I'm as guilty as everybody, but it's really important”
2021-10-14 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Overcoming institutional hurdles, w/ U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee CEO Sarah Hirshland · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You do, you do. And it's exhausting. There's a four year cycle to the organization that you have to manage that cadence. There's a huge lead up and a lot of work and then a huge payoff, but that naturally comes with a little bit of a cliff on the backside that you have to figure out how to navigate.”
2021-10-14 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Overcoming institutional hurdles, w/ U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee CEO Sarah Hirshland · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Be scrappy, and we're a nonprofit. And so we don't have some of the incentive advantages of for-profit companies in attracting and retaining talent, but we have a very powerful brand and an incredibly important mission and purpose. And so we have to make sure that we're using that purpose and that mission in our talent strategies as much as anything.”
2021-10-14 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Overcoming institutional hurdles, w/ U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee CEO Sarah Hirshland · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“A great question in an environment in which talent and the workplace is probably one of the more difficult things all of us as leaders are dealing with right now. The sort of return to work post-COVID, is it home? Is it hybrid? Is it hub? Is it remote? How are we going to create an environment that works to attract and retain talent and a lifestyle that people want and like add that to the vaccine mandate and the COVID environment that we're all trying to build, add that to the employment nature of the country? And I'm spending more time on workplace that I have in my three years right now and trying to ensure that we can attract talent, retain talent, but also create a work culture that's one that everybody is proud of, that is a modern evolution as it can be, but also a highly functioning, highly productive organization. We're small and we have to be.”
2021-10-14 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Overcoming institutional hurdles, w/ U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee CEO Sarah Hirshland · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Can't take anything for granted, right? I mean, in business, you never want to take a customer for granted, even if they've been a customer for 20 years. We think of it exactly the same. Every constituency that we serve, you have to foster and recognize that they have a choice to make. And every minute and every dollar that they choose to spend with us is one we have to treasure and we have to value.”
2021-10-14 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Overcoming institutional hurdles, w/ U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee CEO Sarah Hirshland · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Fundamentally, first and foremost, getting Team USA winter athletes to Beijing safely, keeping them healthy, allowing them to shine. And over the next few months, it will require the resources of this organization to make that happen. So that's what we're focused on. But we're also playing the long game as all organizations do and looking at long-term pipeline, continuing to evolve culture, inclusive, safe, and fair culture in sport is critical. And then we're an organization of bringing everybody along. And so how do we garner the support of the American public, sponsors, donors, supporters, and get everybody excited about this movement so that we're all swimming in the forward lane on behalf of the U.S.”
2021-10-14 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Overcoming institutional hurdles, w/ U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee CEO Sarah Hirshland · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Today, thinking about what ESG means to their organization. This is our ESG moment, right? This is our moment to set a new standard for environmental sustainability, to set a new standard for social impact, transparency, and to set a new standard for the governance of sport. How do we think about making sure that we are displaying and setting a standard around transparency, around ethics, in ways that if we're doing all the work now and we're building the foundation for the next several years, we are in a position around the LA Games to then have a microphone to say this is”
2021-10-14 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Overcoming institutional hurdles, w/ U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee CEO Sarah Hirshland · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I don't know that I would say the metrics for our organization or team USA will be different except that we'll have a broader, you know, as I said, we'll have a bigger team and a broader base. But certainly the success metrics for what those games do from an impact perspective in the United States is absolutely unique. It really brings all the eyes of sport and the country to bear. And so you have to decide what do we want the message and the legacy of these games to be and how is it going to drive the future of sport culture in the United States. It will be about, you know, how do we continue to grow and elevate Paralympics and more importantly, change the game for the perception of people with disabilities as a part of that. So that will be a legacy piece of it. But I liken it to as every corporate board and corporate leadership team is sitting out there.”
2021-10-14 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Overcoming institutional hurdles, w/ U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee CEO Sarah Hirshland · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Showcase to the world their sport, to showcase the success of that sport, and thereby really spur growth in the sport overall.”
2021-10-14 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Overcoming institutional hurdles, w/ U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee CEO Sarah Hirshland · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Absolutely 100% yes. An extra measure of attention, huge opportunity, and also an incredible amount of added work and collaboration because there is now an organizing body who will actually operate those games, who become our sister organization, if you will, and will work in tandem. Our job is to field Team USA. Their job is to actually put on the games. But those two things, when you're in the same country, become pretty intertwined and very important. When you're the host country for a games, you are automatically allowed to compete in all of the events. So we will qualify more athletes across more sports for the LA games than we have probably since Atlanta. So it really is an opportunity for individual sports to”
2021-10-14 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Overcoming institutional hurdles, w/ U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee CEO Sarah Hirshland · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Absolutely. It was a first step and a signal to say this is the direction we're going. This is the path that we're going to go build as an organization. And that path is going to be one of setting a standard of what inclusiveness looks like, not diversity, inclusiveness. Those two things are certainly complementary, but they are not the same thing. And to be clear, this is a lifelong journey. I will be here for some period of time to advance and move that journey forward, but there's no destination here. This is not a road that ever ends.”
2021-10-14 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Overcoming institutional hurdles, w/ U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee CEO Sarah Hirshland · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Number one, it was so inherent to the values and culture that I wanted and needed to create in this movement around being an organization that was truly inclusive and really fostered a sense of belonging for everybody. It was an enormous barrier to doing that. And you have to walk the walk. One of the very first very clear issues that I saw in the organization was we were operating an Olympic committee and a Paralympic committee and those two things were not integrated and were not equal in the way this organization thought about them. And so for me to go out and say we're going to be inclusive. We're going to represent everybody in this country and we're going to mean that. I couldn't do it without starting to take some very clear steps toward walking that walk.”
2021-10-14 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Overcoming institutional hurdles, w/ U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee CEO Sarah Hirshland · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Absolutely performed incredibly on that day. And so she said to me, I saw her before she went out on the track and she looked at me and said, oh my God, you're here. Now I really have to do well. And I said to her, Aksana, no, you have to go out there and have a really good time. Go have fun. Of course, she then, you know, proceeds to annihilate the field, win the gold medal, and was just, I think as surprised in her own ability as anything. And so that was a moment of her saying, thank you for seeing me. Thank you for hearing me. Thank you for giving me the resources to do what I just did.”
2021-10-14 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Overcoming institutional hurdles, w/ U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee CEO Sarah Hirshland · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I can, and I'll tell you my first interaction with Aksana was we asked her to be there with us the day I took the proposal to change the name of the organization to our board of directors, which was pretty early in my tenure. And the board of directors was going to vote on whether or not to agree to change the name of the organization. And of course, we were hoping that they would vote yes. And we asked Axana to be there for the announcement of that. That was my first interaction with her. And at that moment, she was very, very powerfully moved by that recognition and had said to me, this is the first time in my life I've felt seen. And that was a pretty powerful moment. So fast forward, me getting to watch her compete and win in a sport that was fairly new to her and having worked really, really hard to train and compete and she just”
2021-10-14 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Overcoming institutional hurdles, w/ U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee CEO Sarah Hirshland · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It's both. My job is to listen, but to be effective in listening and learning things that are valuable to me and my role, I also have to ask really good questions. And so I try to go into those conversations and ask thoughtful questions that will allow them to share things with me that I can act on, right? That I can actually use in planning the organization in our strategic work. So at times I talk with athletes.”
2021-10-14 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Overcoming institutional hurdles, w/ U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee CEO Sarah Hirshland · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Incredible, incredible results that is in part a credit to the foundation team that we have who are just tremendous fundraisers, but it's really the generosity and the support of the American people who understand that we are entirely privately financed. We're the only Olympic and Paralympic committee in the world that is completely financed privately and not from the government.”
2021-10-14 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Overcoming institutional hurdles, w/ U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee CEO Sarah Hirshland · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You can imagine going into this COVID environment, it was initially some sheer panic thinking, oh no, the donor community is an incredibly important resource for us as an organization and not being able to take them with us to Tokyo and now not being able to take them with us to Beijing is really difficult. So what we did was we pivoted and said, well, let's have the best viewing parties we can think of and create as much of a stateside experience as we can. So over the course of the Tokyo games, we had 17 different U.S.-based, I'll call them viewing parties for the donor community, some bigger than others. We were at the LA Coliseum and actually lit the cauldron at the LA Coliseum as part of one of those parties. And others were very intimate gatherings in the homes of some of our donors for really fun, but smaller scale celebrations. And we have been so fortunate to continue to see.”
2021-10-14 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Overcoming institutional hurdles, w/ U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee CEO Sarah Hirshland · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We will have what we described in Tokyo essential personnel that will be consistent. So Beijing delegation will be essential personnel only. And that essentially is those who are interacting and directly supporting athlete performance. You take out any support of sponsors, donors, the community more broadly. This is a smaller group of sports in terms of national governing bodies, a smaller number of athletes. So the scale is a little bit smaller and therefore a little more manageable in that regard. But as I said, the geography is a little more complicated. So it's a trade-off.”
2021-10-14 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Overcoming institutional hurdles, w/ U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee CEO Sarah Hirshland · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And Beijing will be a very, very different game from what we saw in Tokyo for a number of reasons. In this case, COVID will be the common denominator ironically. And so we have actually a lot of experience now with what we did in Japan. That'll be a common denominator that I think we're ready for. Safety and security is a very different picture for a U.S. delegation going into China than it probably was in Japan. So we have to take those things into consideration and that'll be a heavier focus for us for sure.”
2021-10-14 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Overcoming institutional hurdles, w/ U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee CEO Sarah Hirshland · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Sure, absolutely. Some of it functionally is the Winter Games and the summer games are fundamentally different in scale, different in the footprint of what we're navigating. And so you have to start with the sort of operational foundation and framework. We'll have three distinct, I'll call them clusters where competitions are occurring that are 60 to 120 kilometers apart. So we will physically be operating in quite a different structure. We're operating in a very different country, and that does absolutely have impact. Where you are, the time zones, the nature of the country that you're in, all of those things, the climate are things that have to be taken into consideration when you're talking about sport and competition, we're often talking about the difference in fractions of a second. And so we think of it as absolutely every little detail matters.”
2021-10-14 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Overcoming institutional hurdles, w/ U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee CEO Sarah Hirshland · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, well, 75% of our team tend to be first-timers and one-timers. And the ones that we tend to know the most are the ones who come to the games more than once. But the vast majority”
2021-10-14 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Overcoming institutional hurdles, w/ U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee CEO Sarah Hirshland · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, I think that's exactly right. And many of the things we see and work on in sport apply to the business world, apply to life for others. Having a little bit of space and a little bit of grace to allow each other to be the imperfect human beings that we are. And I mean, the roller coaster goes both ways, right? We ride down, but we also ride up and we want to be there for each other when we're in really great places and be able to share that with other people as well.”
2021-10-14 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Overcoming institutional hurdles, w/ U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee CEO Sarah Hirshland · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We put over the last three years more emphasis on mental health, perhaps than any other single factor around really changing the culture and massively reducing the stigma. And we started to see that play itself out on a very visible and public stage in Tokyo. I would say a rude awakening for all of us to see this be so visible and to say, wow, you know, this is real. I'm incredibly proud of the work that we did and had in place to support those athletes, but there is also a long runway ahead of us in continuing to ensure that people understand and recognize that their mental health and their physical health should be thought of in tandem.”
2021-10-14 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Overcoming institutional hurdles, w/ U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee CEO Sarah Hirshland · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, for sure. It's a combination of metrics. But number one, our mission is to empower these athletes to shine, right? To have sustained both competitive excellence, but also well-being and to make sure that this experience for them is all it should be. There are not a lot of individuals in the world who have this opportunity and you want that opportunity to be an amazing experience that really not only inspires others, but also sets the stage for the future of their individual lives and journeys. That may or may not mean a medal, but their goal going in there is to be the best they can be. And have we done everything we can as an organization and as a community? Did we do everything we could do for them to reach their fullest potential and was the experience for them everything it should have been? And if that happens, generally speaking, the support from the community,”
2021-10-14 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Overcoming institutional hurdles, w/ U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee CEO Sarah Hirshland · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You are naturally creating a culture that allows and or can enable dangerous individuals or malintent to thrive. And so we've got to be conscious of those dynamics and we've got to be thoughtful about how you put structures in place to ensure that individuals can't thrive in that kind of environment. We don't want to say nobody should trust anybody in this world, right? That's not the right answer. But you do want to say let's make sure that we have checks and balances in place and that we have empowerment in place where when individuals speak up, number one, we believe them and that there's a zero tolerance. There is no acceptance of any kind of behavior of that sort.”
2021-10-14 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Overcoming institutional hurdles, w/ U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee CEO Sarah Hirshland · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Let me start by saying it is really, really powerful that so many survivors in the sport community have had the bravery to speak up. That speaks to the power of sport in empowering individuals, in this case largely empowering women and young women to use their voice. And that's something we should all really not take for granted because it's changed the game, if you will, for all of us and the way we operate. What's important to understand, number one, as you said, this is a societal issue, right? This is not unique to sport. But it's also important for those of us in sport to understand that there is a dynamic in sport that puts coaches in a very powerful position of authority, puts medical providers in a position of authority and a very trusted environment. And so anytime you have an environment where there is a power dynamic,”
2021-10-14 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Overcoming institutional hurdles, w/ U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee CEO Sarah Hirshland · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, perhaps the most difficult decision I've had to make in this chair, recognizing that those two athletes were speaking about things that were very, very deeply personal and deeply important to them. And at that time, whether I believed personally or not, that what they did felt right, I had a duty to uphold the rules that we set out. We subsequently, as you know, went on to say to both of those athletes and to others, we owe it to all of us to look at the rules and to gather input and to make a determination so that we have rules in place that feel right to us. And we did that. And I'm incredibly proud of not only the athlete population, but the community that we operate in for how that process came about.”
2021-10-14 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Overcoming institutional hurdles, w/ U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee CEO Sarah Hirshland · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“But we're in the very early stages. We do expect we'll have some exemptions and have put in place processes for those ideally small number of folks to ensure that there's a pretty deliberate testing protocols in place and that we're continuing to maintain that very sort of low risk environment. We also know now that the Beijing Organizing Committee has also put in place very stringent vaccine requirements that those who are not vaccinated will have a very onerous 21 day quarantine process, which frankly is pretty untenable in an athlete's life to spend 21 days in an isolation environment before a competition is really untenable is the best word I can use. So we think we're in a really good place, but we still have a couple of months before we really understand the magnitude of the exemption requests and or those who make a decision to say.”
2021-10-14 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Overcoming institutional hurdles, w/ U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee CEO Sarah Hirshland · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The motivation for us is to be able to balance health and safety, which is number one priority with the ability to drive competitive excellence and opportunity for these athletes. And so as we think about creating safe environments in our training centers, in our offices around the competitions as well, the best way to balance those two things is to have everyone vaccinated and to minimize the risk. And that's exactly why we did what we did.”
2021-10-14 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Overcoming institutional hurdles, w/ U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee CEO Sarah Hirshland · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It's a terrific question. It is an incredibly challenging role to be clear, but what an amazing honor. To stand with the team and to be able to do that on the biggest global stage in sport and feel like you contribute in some part to that success is pretty humbling. Certainly more humbling than anything I've done in my life.”
2021-10-14 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Overcoming institutional hurdles, w/ U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee CEO Sarah Hirshland · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We're small and we have to be scrappy, but we have a very powerful brand and an incredibly important mission and purpose. And so we have to make sure that we're using that purpose and that mission.”
2021-10-14 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Overcoming institutional hurdles, w/ U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee CEO Sarah Hirshland · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I saw her before she went out on the track, Aksana, go have fun. Of course she then proceeds to annihilate the field, win the gold medal. Beijing will be a very, very different games from what we saw in Tokyo. So as we think about creating safe environments, the best way is to have everyone vaccinated and to minimize the risk. In a CEO role, you have to go in understanding that you're never going to keep everybody happy. What do we want the message and the legacy of these games to be, and how is it going to drive the future of sport culture in the United States? This is our moment to set a new standard for environmental sustainability, to set a new standard for social impact, transparency, and to set a new standard for the governance of sport.”
2021-10-14 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Overcoming institutional hurdles, w/ U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee CEO Sarah Hirshland · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT