How Judo and Events Management Skills May Lead to Olympic Achievement

Two Paris 2024 Olympics Judo Champions

Professor Joe Goldblatt

Emma Reid is ranked fifteenth in the world in the sport of Judo and is competing in the Paris 2024 Summer Olympic Games. In addition to her extensive athletic training, Emma, has a first class honours degree in the field of study that I helped establish in the early nineteen nineties. Emma Reid is a qualified Event Manager.

When I was trying to convince the established academic disciplines that events management was indeed a legitimate and essential field of study, I recall one skeptical business management professor accusing me of trying to dilute the field of business studies by creating what he called a “speculative and nebulous” area of study.

I asked the experienced business professor to tell me a little bit about development and growth of business studies in higher education. He seemed shocked that I would question that his field of study might have faced during its embryonic period the same objections and resistance that the field of Event Management would experience. When he could not answer my question, I began to conduct my own research.

In the late 1700’s, individuals had recently formed the Edinburgh, Scotland Chamber of Commerce and during a meeting at St Giles Cathedral one of them asked how their business could grow without better educated workers who would manage their enterprises in the future? This question was answered by including in their historic charter the objective of providing education for students in the field of business. They were one of the first chambers of commerce in the world to do this. Whilst there are much older business schools (Lisbon and Paris), the University of Edinburgh was one of the first whose programme of study was greatly influenced by the local business community.

Later in 1916, the University of Edinburgh was encouraged by the Edinburgh Chamber of Commerce to consider instituting a business course suitable for study by its members. In October 1919, the first students started a Bachelor of Commerce (BCom) degree. In the same year, the Chair of Accounting and Business Method was also founded and was the first in Scotland. Originally part of the Faculty of Arts, these initiatives led to the creation of the Department of Business Studies and the Department of Accounting and Business Method. As of 2024, nearly 1400 students now study business related courses at the University of Edinburgh.

Similarly, when I along with many others, worked to establish the discipline of events management as a university certificate, certification, concentration, minor, major, diploma, and later, a degree, I examined related fields to see if there was a road map for this development. The closest field I could identify was public relations and I learned that a professor from Boston University had worked with the Public Relations Society of America to link a university qualification to better chances for employment of graduates in their field. And it worked. Today there are over 138,000 persons working in public relations in the USA with an average annual salary of $90,000 (£70,000) and with an annual growth rate over ten years of six percent.

In 1947 – 48 Boston University was the first University in the world to offer a public relations degree and I interviewed Professor Carol Lechthaler Hills (1924 – 2012) in 1994 to help with my development of an Events Management degree programme. She told me “My students are extremely interested in events. They recognize that public relations and special events are inseparable. Events management is certainly a growth area in public relations practice.”

In 2024, Boston University celebrated is 76th year of continuously awarding degrees in the field of public relations.

With this empirical evidence and the encouragement of the Professor Hills and others, I proceeded to conduct research among those engaged in the field of events management and through a study of several hundred people employed in the field all over the world we learned that the majority had undergraduate degrees with a large percentage of those degrees in the field of education and teaching. Therefore, I began to examine the similarities in terms of skills between teaching and managing events.

One key to the development of this field was my discovery of the Greek root word for event which is e – venire that ,means outcome. Teachers and event managers both seek to produce outcomes. With this definition and the evidence that there was a potential market for future students in the field of events management, I developed a professional certificate and later other credentials in this field at The George Washington University in Washington, DC.

When I learned that the person ranked fifteenth in the world in Judo has a degree in events management, I began to examine how the skills of both disciplines are also similar and may improve individual performance.

Both Judo athletes and event managers must conduct research to identify their competition and learn how to develop the best skills to excel over others.

Judo athletes and event managers must also constantly design their programme of study and practice to promote continuous creative improvement.

Both disciplines also require detailed planning in order to improve the strategy for their final outcomes.

In order to compete efficiently they both must seamlessly coordinate their research and planning to positively engage with their opponent in a confident manner.

And finally, champions at the Olympic Games or in the field of event planning must continuously evaluate their performance to promote constant improvement.

These five phases of practice in the field of events management were conceived by myself in the 1990’s and validated through the development a a world wide recognised professional certification programme entitled the Certified Special Events Professional (CSEP) qualification. https://www.ileahub.com/csep

In my view, both Event Managers and world champion athletes, share many similar qualities and of course, one of the most important, is constant, disciplined practice within their field.

It appears that Emma Reid also recognises these common elements and the need for practice and this may indeed help promote her success in Paris as well as later in life.

One of my many thousands of students once told me following her graduation, “My study of event management was not just about learning to design, organise, and evaluate events. It is also about learning how to create a successful life! All these skills may be used every day to create success in many different fields.”

Emma Reid is about to find out and perhaps prove why this may indeed be correct as she competes in the Paris 2024 Summer Olympic Games. I am rooting for her and for all those in the field of Events Management. To me, they are all champions!

Professor Joe Goldblatt is Emeritus Professor of Planned Events at Queen Margaret University in Edinburgh. Scotland. His views are his own. To learn more about his views visit www.joegoldblatt.scot

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