At the end of the conversation, he taps, almost lovingly, on the one-meter-high map of the Olympic location off the coast of Marseille. “We will receive a slightly larger 3D version in two weeks. The mountains are also included there, because they are very relevant to what the wind does.” Arnoud Hummel (63) has lectured calmly and thoughtfully for almost two hours about coaching, advising, leadership and everything that comes with it, but when he talks about where it should happen for the Dutch sailors this summer, he starts to beam. “Here is our home base,” he points out. “We have sat there endlessly, with this record on a low table, the coaches around it. Then it becomes completely filled with wind directions, currents, waves. Very valuable.”
Hummel has been head coach of the Dutch sailing team for more than a year and a half, which consists of more than thirty athletes, ten coaches and a multidisciplinary team of eight experts. His route to this job largely bypassed the nautical world, but started when he started sailing at the age of twelve. First with his sister in a two-man boat, then in the Laser, an international, non-Olympic class. Thanks to two third places at the European Championship, he came into the picture of the Water Sports Association in 1984. “Henri van der Aat was the national coach at the time,” he says with a grin.
Why should you laugh?
“Because of the beautiful memories. Henri was able to promise me a spot in the C core team, a talent team. Then I had to commit to sailing in an Olympic class within a year. Then I started sailing Finn, which I did for about five years. I had a friend from the Laser, Roy Heiner. We knew we were not good enough to beat Mark Neeleman, who had already been to the Games and had podium finishes at important events. We just came to have a look.
“In those days, apart from the big competitions, you had no team, no coach, no organized training. Roy and I took it up ourselves and put a lot of time into it. With the promise that one of us will go to the next Games [van Seoul in 1988] would go. That worked.”
You didn’t go.
“No, and I’ve never had a problem with that. That trajectory has become a metaphor for me of how I think you can get very far. As a team, as a group of people with a lot of drive, who make each other better. And also that you have to accept that not everyone can be equally successful in such a situation. I then stopped Olympic sailing, finished my studies, bought a suit and tie and ended up in IT. First as a technician, later as a consultant and manager.
“After eighteen years in business, I returned to sports. I had worked very hard and was ready for a period of reflection. Pretty soon I was having a beer with Roy. He was already doing fun things with Team Heiner with organizations and companies, such as programs for team development and leadership. I started working there.”
On the Team Heiner website you say: ‘The parallel between top sport and success in business is powerful and working with that metaphor is enjoyable.’ What is that agreement?
“A director once said: ‘I actually don’t like sailing. It’s usually cold and my muscles ache. I’d rather sit in a skybox at PSV. But I still come here every time, because such cool things happen.’ Sometimes it’s not about doing what you like, it’s about liking what you’re doing. If fun is very important to you, then top sport, but also the top of the business world, is not the place, I think. That parallel became very clear to me. My affinity was mainly with coaching. That’s how I was seen in the business world: as ‘the coach’ and not enough as ‘the manager’.”
How would you define the role of coach?
“I’m not very clear about that, to be honest. At Team Heiner I worked with the board of directors of listed companies and then I thought: why is it interesting to talk to me? I think it lies in saying very honestly what you see, what people do, how their behavior comes across. That’s similar to what I do here.”
In 2017, Team Heiner asked Hummel to organize an inspiration session for the national sailing team. Four days of sailing on the IJsselmeer and the North Sea turned out to be a success. “World champions who had never sailed on a big boat and didn’t know what a winch was. Or what it’s like with five other guests on board, what kind of shit and irritation you encounter. Awesome.”
After a similar session with the coaches, he was asked to be a part-time coach of the national coaches a year later. “The first time I went was at the World Championships for all classes in Aarhus. Before leaving I thought: I will be there for ten days, but I have an empty agenda. Who am I going to speak to? And are they waiting for that? Then I decided to just let it happen. I have rarely been so busy.”
Do you also approach it this way as a head coach?
“Yes. It is a risk when I say to a coach: I want to talk to you later. Then you actually no longer have a coaching conversation. Then I am the man wearing the hat of head coach and you have a different conversation. I also don’t have those conversations in my agenda with the athletes. I meet them here in the gym and then we talk, or we have a cup of coffee later. This is also the case at training camp or during competitions.”
Why do athletes come to you?
“It’s often about interaction with others. Last year I spent a relatively large amount of time on the ‘teams within the team’. We cannot keep things to ourselves that have to do with the team’s performance. We have made the most progress in that area. It may still be exciting to throw something into the group, but it also yields a lot. It’s also good to have constructive conflict every now and then. A top team without conflicts is strange. If, like us, you want to permanently remain among the three best sailing countries in the world, you cannot help but seriously disagree with each other on a regular basis. If that doesn’t happen, you might wonder: is our goal ambitious enough?
Are there enough conflicts?
“In any case, a lot more than in most organizations I have worked with. This environment perhaps inspires me the most. We are working here to have success in sailing, at the highest level. And we are sometimes accused of only talking about medals. But ultimately that’s not what inspires me most. That is the environment we create to make that possible, what it produces in terms of development for people, self-reflection, learning together.”
It sounds like there is a big difference between top sport and business.
“You can’t get away with saying something but not doing it. And in our qualification process for the Games, we have more people dropping out than people continuing. I don’t see that in many organizations either. Not even in organizations that say: we go for the best, we want to be number one.”
Do you pay enough attention to those who drop out?
“I have difficulty with the term ‘dropouts’. Because it suggests that something has gone wrong. It would be great if our people, especially some time after losing weight for Paris, realized how cool and valuable the process has been and what they gain from it. Whether or not they continue with their sport.
For us, the athletes are central, and that idea has been taken very far. At the iQFoil World Cup in Lanzarote we saw the Chinese team at the opening and closing. So much is standardized with them. We have crazy birds who all do their thing in their own way. This also has to do with the character of the sport, with the different disciplines. With every successful or unsuccessful athlete, we discover again and again that coaching must be tailor-made.”
Does that sometimes make your work uncomfortable?
“It is a very complicated way of working. But uncomfortable is not annoying. It’s not about whether it’s pleasant or fun. The customization we have to do also depends on circumstances. Every start, every leg [een stuk tussen twee boeien] when our sailors sail, things happen that were not intended. How you deal with that, including us as a team, as coaches, as staff, determines success. We teach our athletes to enjoy the shit, to accept that in our world not everything can be controlled. That they don’t start pointing fingers or shouting that they were unlucky.”
What is the most difficult thing you have encountered?
“No major dilemmas, but the question is: when is it good enough? I notice this in my contact with our experts, dietitians, physiotherapists and doctors. It is often about things that could be improved or are not going well. Before you know it, that also determines the mood: we are not there yet. We have many reasons to be satisfied, but from that satisfaction we can also look at how we can do even better. Improvement is cool. But we have to be careful that with all our action points we do not create the mood that we are not on the right track at all.”
It is said about Alex Ferguson, the former manager of Manchester United: he was not always on the pitch, but he knew everything. You are not always there either. Do you know exactly what is going on?
“No Fortunately not. I don’t need to know everything either. Everyone in the staff feels responsible for the end result, that is what we believe in. The one who makes a decision is the one who can make the best decision. It means that, no matter how limited we are in size, we have quite a complicated organization. We want to know a lot about each other in order to do it well. This way of working is also new for some. They’re like: dude, just tell me what to do. And when the going gets tough, Hummel, you just make a decision. Of course I will, if we can’t agree or if there isn’t time. But I don’t want to be that manager who says: am I okay with what’s happening there?”