Karen Pearce

Currently the Assistant Director of Physical Education and a Fellow of Wolfson College, Karen Pearce is also committed to fundraising for charity and has been involved in a variety of sports, most recently Ultra distance races.
 

Sport has always been integral to my life and it’s a core part of my identity. I love a challenge, but I’m probably more competitive with myself than with other people.

I want to see how far I can push myself. Winning is obviously an important part of sport, but you can’t always be the best and you won’t always win. If you rely on winning as your only goal then you’re going to fail. Recently I did a twentyfour-hour race. I was never going to win, but that wasn’t why I entered. I pushed myself to the absolute limit and overcame all the inner doubts, as well as a significant amount of pain, to reach my 100 km target.

I think success comes from having the right underlying process. If you look at the new Sports Centre, it’s been a huge team effort. There’s a natural tension between the architects, the users and the builders, so you have to engage everyone to make it work. There’s
also the operational team to consider; if you have a beautiful building but the staff aren’t motivated, you’ve failed.

Success is a collective endeavour and is based on getting the right mix of people in a team. The Sports Centre staff is made up of really different characters with very varied skills and experiences, but that’s what makes it work. To take a sporting analogy, if you have a team full of strikers, you will score lots of goals, but you’ll also let plenty in. And if you have an excess of defenders then no one is ever going to score, so it’s about getting the balance right. I genuinely value everyone’s contribution to the organisation and try to make sure people know how important they are.

“Success is a collective endeavour and is based on getting the right mix of people in a team.”

I would feel a bit embarrassed at being described as successful. I am just one of many contributors to a strong and effective team.  I am certainly not interested in seeking individual glory. I like to work hard, support and motivate others and feel like I have made a contribution. I’ve come across a lot of people who talk a very good game but are so busy talking that they haven’t really done anything. I want to ask, do you know what your team is doing? Do you know who your staff members are? What have you personally done?  I don’t want to be the person who can’t answer those questions.

The sporting world is full of banter, but it is important to identify when the line has been crossed. Over time I have definitely become more confident in challenging sexist remarks. A witty retort, direct confrontation or a quiet word in someone’s ear at a later time are amongst the strategies I’ve employed. I should like to see more emphasis nationally on how positive sport can be for women. There are far too many girls dropping out of sport in their teens and never coming back. Lifestyle and other interests, of course, play their part but so too do attitudes towards sportswomen and the quality of sporting experiences. If we can focus on delivering excellent sporting sessions for children that emphasise fun, teamwork, inclusiveness and a sense of belonging, we can perhaps challenge outdated attitudes in the process.

“If organisations follow a traditional target- and results-driven approach year-on-year, it can lead to a very narrow definition of success.”

When I first arrived at Cambridge I was struck by how much information there was on men’s sport and how little was available in relation to women’s sport. I’m now working towards a PhD on the topic and hope that this will start to address the imbalance.
In 2015, the Women’s Boat Race will move to the Tideway and take place on the same day and the same course and in front of the same worldwide television audience as its male counterpart. I think this reflects a slow-burning cultural shift that has seen women’s achievements within the University gaining the recognition they deserve.

I don’t believe in quotas or positive discrimination. I should like to get a senior post not because I am a woman but because I am the best candidate. It’s more about challenging the notion of how we define success in the workplace. Senior management teams and boards need to reflect the diversity of stakeholders and customers regardless of whether the organisation is a university or a FTSE 100 company. If organisations follow a traditional target- and results-driven approach year-on-year, it can lead to a very narrow definition of success. Instead, we need to go right back to asking what an organisation is trying to achieve and the kind of people it needs to do it. You then ground your ideas about success on something more relevant and meaningful.