Your Olympic Lodge

Well. A couple of biological males punching hell out of female boxers, triathletes expected to swim the sewage-ravaged Seine, and the Village being abandoned in droves as some smart alecs thought elite performers ought swelter starved of protein and settle for meagre vegan diets instead.

Maybe every Olympiad gets engulfed in avoidable scandal. But at least there's been treasures to witness in the sporting drama across multiple arenas.

Being a staunch Team GB fan, I couldn't help but marvel at how, for the fourth Games in a row, the medal haul defies gravity. The highest modern-day total at half-way proves that despite resources significantly shallower than many other nations, a winning machine currently continues churning out the goods.

Take that third issue from the opening paragraph. It's well publicised that this year's Olympic Village for competitors is a shambles. The American's being first to loudly leave for sanctuary of actual hotels. Even now seeing an Italian gold medal swimmer bemoaning conditions, pictured sleeping outside next to parkbench, on towel atop lawn.

The British, it seems, are well versed in what they see as inevitable accommodation issues occurring.

Without knowing what these may end up being, they know their elite performers may well need to take respite elsewhere.

To which end, they set up The Lodge.

A central team HQ.

They regard this as a key performance advantage.

This time 'round, there's many reports about food poisoning from the Village with general inadequacy of eating options, coupled with cramped, noisy and unbearably hot aircon-less conditions.

So The Lodge is deliberately close. Only 15mins from the Village.

It boasts extensive facilities to train, relax and eat courtesy of on-site chefs overseen by their own sports nutritionist.

There's plenty sales endeavours can take from this.

It is world class thinking. That also does not require moon landing budgets.

And can be done both office-bound or virtually.

These past four years, I've seldom encountered a salesteam with a genuine Sales Ops presence where running crm reports was not their chief concern.

And those among us of a certain vintage will know how, in the days before office automation rendered the 'team assistant' redundant, any resource offered was vulnerable to sole requisition of a particularly avaricious individual.

It is not necessarily a centre of excellence. More a place where you can get what you need when you need it, or can get stuff done with the help of someone who knows something about that which may elude you at that time.

For instance, I still get caught mouth agape when a senior seller tells me how they spent a morning creating a presentation slide. Or how they've not had time to rehearse a particular meeting or pitch. Or that the last time they tested a process marker was ... well, they can't remember as it was so long ago.

All this incidentally ought be simpler to arrange now that video meetings are mainstream. When was the last time you convened one for such purpose?