Everything Matthieu Péché and Gauthier Klauss have learnt about project management and teamwork will be put to the test at the Lee Valley White Water Centre in August. The masters in innovation and entrepreneurship students will try to win gold for France in the two-man canoe slalom event at the London Olympics.

马蒂欧•佩谢(Matthieu Péché)和高蒂尔•克劳斯(Gauthier Klauss)从项目管理和团队合作中学到的一切，都将在8月在李谷白水中心(Lee Valley White Water Centre)得到检验。这两位创新和创业专业的硕士生，将试图在伦敦奥运会(London Olympics)男子双人皮划艇激流回旋赛中为法国夺金。

The teamwork has not only been between the two men in the boat, however. Professors at a small but ambitious French management school, ESC Pau, have worked hard to help the canoeists prepare, shifting class times, moving deadlines and providing special coaching to help them fit their studies around a gruelling routine of sports training.

然而，团队合作并不仅仅表现在船上的这两名运动员之间。规模小、但雄心勃勃的法国管理学院——波城高等商学院(ESC Pau)的教授们，努力帮助这两位皮划艇选手做赛前准备，更改上课时间，改变截止时间并提供特殊辅导，以帮助让他们的学业安排适应高强度的赛前训练日程。

In the run-up to the Olympics Mr Péché and Mr Klauss, who came second in the Canoe Slalom World Cup in 2011, have taken a gap year. Besides spending hours on the water and in the gym every day, the athletes have toiled for weeks in east London getting to know the artificial white-water course.

在奥运会前夕，佩谢和克劳斯度过了一年的“空档”期。二人曾在2011年皮划艇激流赛世界杯(Canoe Slalom World Cup)中获得亚军。除了每天在水上和体育馆里花费数小时训练之外，两位运动员还在伦敦东部花费数周时间了解人造皮划艇激流水道。

“We aren’t going to the Olympics just to take part,” says Mr Péché. “We are going for gold.”

“我们参加奥运会不仅仅是为了参与，”佩谢表示，“我们要夺取金牌。”

The two 24-year-olds believe that they have a good chance. They grew up in Epinal-Golbey, a renowned canoeing centre in France’s Vosges mountains, and have been canoeing since the age of seven. They have been competing together since they were 15-year-olds and even signed up for the same masters degree to maximise their sporting preparation.

这两位24岁的运动员认为，他们的夺金几率很高。他们在法国孚日山知名的皮划艇中心Epinal-Golbey长大，两人从7岁起就开始玩皮划艇，15岁开始合作，甚至还申请了同一个硕士学位，以最大限度地利用赛前准备时间。

“Our sporting career has taken precedence this past year,” says Mr Péché. “But our parents always insisted that studies had priority over sport and they were right. Canoeing is an amateur sport. Even if we win at the Olympics, we will still have to earn a living.”

“过去一年，我们的体育事业列在优先位置，”佩谢表示，“但我们的父母总是坚持表示，学业优先于体育，他们是正确的。皮划艇是一项业余运动。即便我们在奥运会上夺冠，我们还是要挣钱谋生的。”

Thanks to a very flexible approach taken by ESC Pau, they will be well placed to do so. The athletes chose the school partly because of its proximity to a white-water centre with world-class training facilities, and explained their sporting ambitions to the school at the outset.

由于波城高等商学院采取了非常灵活的授课方式，他们有很好条件做到学业比赛两不误。他们选择这所学校的一个原因是，这里靠近一个拥有世界级训练设施的皮划艇激流赛中心，他们一开始就向学校解释了自己的体育梦想。

Mr Péché says there has been a valuable interplay of lessons from the school and the sports training. “We are two men in the boat,” says Mr Péché. “That teaches you about teamwork and teamwork is central to what happens in companies. An Olympic campaign is about fixing objectives and ensuring you reach them. That applies in business too.”

佩谢表示，学院课程与体育训练之间发生着宝贵的相互作用。“在船上我们是两个人，”佩谢表示，“这教会了你团队合作，而团队合作对于企业的活动也很重要。说到底，参加奥运会比赛就是确定目标，然后确保自己达到这些目标。这也适用于商界。”

These synergies are increasingly recognised. International athletes and businesses alike are obsessed with improving performance. And business schools are playing a growing role in cross-fertilising ideas from the two domains. John Neal, who heads the Sport Business Initiative at Ashridge Business School, says “sport has a great deal to learn from business”.

这些协同效应正越来越得到人们的认可。国际运动员和国际企业都专注于改善表现。在让两个领域的创意交叉强化方面，商学院发挥着越来越重要的作用。英国阿什里奇商学院(Ashridge Business School)体育商业计划主管约翰•尼尔(John Neal)表示，“体育有很多地方需要向企业学习。”

Ashridge works in partnership with UK Sport, the funding body for Olympic sports, and runs the elite coach mentor programme that supports the agency’s coaches for many UK Olympic teams, as well as working with some individual athletes.

阿什里奇商学院与为奥运会比赛项目提供资金的英国体育局(UK Sport)合作，运营一个精英教练指导计划，为英国很多奥运参赛队的教练提供指导，并与一些运动员个人合作。

Mr Neal, one of Britain’s foremost sports psychology specialists, has developed the school’s relationship with sport over more than a decade. The application of business principles by UK Sport’s former performance director, Peter Keen, played a big role in Britain’s Olympic resurgence, Mr Neal believes.

尼尔是英国最优秀的运动心理学专家之一，10多年来，他一直在发展该学院与体育界的关系。尼尔认为，就英国奥运奖牌数复兴而言，英国体育局前表现主任彼得•克恩(Peter Keen)对商业原则的应用发挥了重要作用。

The distinctive feature of the Olympics, says Mr Neal, is the additional pressure to win imposed on athletes driven by passion. Ashridge has developed an eight-point framework spanning vision, strategy, cultural philosophy, performance management and so on, which is designed to help them achieve victory.

尼尔表示，奥运会的独特之处在于，激情驱动下的运动员受到额外的获胜压力。阿什里奇商学院建立了一个8点框架，涵盖愿景、战略、文化哲学、表现管理等等，旨在帮助运动员获胜。

Business, Mr Neal says, can “learn about the human side” from sport. With colleagues, he sought to transfer lessons about athletes’ energy and passion to sales teams at some big companies. The result: big increases in sales or sales activity.

尼尔表示，企业可以从体育中“学到人的那一面”。他与同事一起，试图将有关运动员活力和激情的收获，转移到一些大企业的销售团队。结果是：销售额或销售活动大幅上升。

Other business schools are also exploring the crossover of leadership ideas. Duke University in North Carolina has a renowned basketball team whose coach, Mike Krzyzewski. also coaches the US Olympic basketball team. Mr Krzyzewski, widely known as Coach K, works with the Fuqua School of Business at Duke as executive in residence in its Coach K Center for Leadership and Ethics, which is headed by Sim Sitkin.

其他商学院也在探索领导理念的交叉。北卡罗来纳州的杜克大学(Duke University)有一个知名的篮球队，教练是迈克•沙舍夫斯基(Mike Krzyzewski)，他还执教美国国家奥运篮球队。他被外界普遍称为K教头，他与杜克大学富卡商学院(Fuqua School of Business)合作，担任K教练领导能力及道德中心(Coach K Center for Leadership and Ethics)住校执行官，该中心由西姆•西特金(Sim Sitkin)领导。

One of their conclusions is that many leadership lessons from sport, business or other fields are indeed transferable: managing big egos is a challenge whether you are trying to win a basketball game, trade shares or lead a technology company.

他们得出的一个结论是，体育、企业或其他领域有关领导能力的很多收获确实是可以转移的：管理强烈的自我意识是一项挑战，不管你是要赢得一场篮球比赛、交易股票还是领导一家科技公司。

But Prof Sitkin also notes the significance of the globalisation of sport in recent years, its massive revenues from diverse sources and its important non-commercial, social role.

但西特金教授还指出其它几件事的重大意义，包括近年体育的全球化、体育从不同来源得到的巨额收入，及其非商业的重要社会角色。

“Sport has become a very big industry,” he says. “Business schools are only starting to recognise how large, important and complex the sports industry is.”

“体育已成为一个非常巨大的产业，”他表示，“商学院刚刚开始意识到体育产业有多大、多重要和多复杂。”

Some schools have responded by launching sports management courses. But gaming, media rights, technology and many more topics also merit closer study, Prof Sitkin says. “I believe we will be moving further into this area because we think that we are well placed to be helpful.”

对此，一些学校开设了体育管理课程。然而，西特金教授表示，游戏、媒体权利、技术、以及其它很多主题也值得进一步研究。“在我看来，我们将继续深入这一领域，因为我们认为我们肯定能够有所帮助。”

Others are on the same track. Moïse Louisy-Louis, an athlete and former financial analyst, heads two specialised sports management masters programmes at the International University of Monaco, a business school. This year he took participants on a study tour to London to explore ethics, as well as the business aspects of running Olympic events and venues.

其他人也持同样的观点。曾当过金融分析师的运动员莫伊兹•路易西•路易(Moïse Louisy-Louis)，执掌着商学院摩纳哥国际大学(International University of Monaco)的两个专业化运动管理硕士课程。今年他带领课程参与者前往伦敦，进行一场实地考察，以探索举办奥运赛事和管理场馆的伦理和商业课题。

Peter Grant, lecturer in voluntary sector management at Cass Business School at City University London, who has worked in sports funding, says the need for more professional management in many sports is self-evident. Like Mr Louisy-Louis, he believes that business schools should study the sports industry more closely and also offer more specialised courses.

伦敦城市大学(City University London)卡斯商学院(Cass Business School)志愿者部门管理课程的讲师皮特•格兰特(Peter Grant)从事体育经费研究，他认为，很多体育项目显然需要更多的专业管理。与路易西-路易一样，他认为，商学院应该更加深入地研究体育行业，并提供更多的专业课程。

But what fascinates two academics at the innovation and entrepreneurship group at Imperial College Business School in London is the challenge of the Olympic Games as a project.

但真正吸引伦敦帝国理工商学院(Imperial College Business School)创新和创业团队两位学者的，还是奥运会作为一个项目的挑战。

Ian Mackenzie and Andrew Davies, experts in project management innovation, have published a widely admired paper on lessons learnt from the 2012 games construction project.

项目管理创新专家伊恩•麦肯兹(Ian Mackenzie)和安德鲁•戴维斯(Andrew Davies)发表了一篇关于2012年奥运建设项目经验的广受好评的论文。

The Olympics study has become part of a long-term research project that is helping turn Imperial College Business School into a global centre of expertise in the management of megaprojects.

这项奥运研究已成为一个长期研究项目的一部分，该项目将使帝国理工商学院成为巨型项目管理方面的全球专业知识中心。

The Imperial team is working with executives running Crossrail, a £14.5bn rail link between the east and west of London scheduled for completion in 2017, both to ensure lessons learnt from the Olympics are applied and to capture management innovation developed during construction.

帝国理工商学院团队正与执掌伦敦横贯铁路(Crossrail)项目的高管们合作，一是为了确保源自奥运会的经验得到应用，二是为了捕捉建设过程中涌现的管理创新。Crossrail是连接伦敦东西区的铁路项目，耗资145亿英镑，定于2017年竣工。

But the games do not only provide material to teach. In their wake they leave many people seeking a new job or a new career. Olympic construction workers went to Crossrail. Mr Péché and Mr Klauss will go back to school in Pau. Older athletes have found business education a good route to building a new life.

但奥运会不仅提供授课材料。奥运之后，很多人将寻找新的工作或者新的职业。奥运建设工人将转战Crossrail项目，佩谢和克劳斯将回到波城高等商学院。老一辈的运动员发现，商学院教育是创建新生活的一条好途径。

Jonno Devlin is a good example. He has a degree in computer systems and spent eight years as a full-time athlete, rowing for Great Britain at the Athens Olympics and for Ireland in Beijing.

约诺•德夫林(Jonno Devlin)就是一个很好的例子。他拥有计算机系统专业的学位，当了八年的全职运动员，在雅典奥运会上代表英国参加划船比赛，在北京奥运会上代表爱尔兰参加划船比赛。

But after Beijing in 2008, at the age of 33, he had to start life anew. For many athletes, he says, the transition is traumatic. The sudden loss of a clear ambition, structure, social life and “being very good at something” is abrupt. After a spell as a financial adviser, Mr Devlin undertook a full-time MBA at Cass. He is now a strategy project manager at Aggregate Industries, a leading supplier of building materials.

但在2008年北京奥运之后，33岁的他必须开始新的生活。他说，对于很多运动员来说，这个过渡会带来创伤。失去一个清晰的目标、结构、社会生活、以及不再“非常擅长一件事”，一切都太突然。在当过一段时间的金融顾问后，德夫林参加卡斯商学院的全日制MBA课程。现在他是建材供应商Aggregate Industries的一名战略项目经理。

“Cass was very supportive and helped me find the funds without which it would have been impossible,” Mr Devlin says. Studying for an MBA “gives you a fresh look at the business world, the skills that are needed and some time to gather your thoughts”.

德夫林说：“卡斯商学院非常支持我，并帮助我筹集资金，如果没有这些资金我不可能实现目标。”学习MBA课程“让你对商界、对需要的技能有一个全新的视角，并给你时间整理思路。”

There are many ways in which business schools and sport are becoming more symbiotic. Helping athletes who will retire after the London Olympics to build new lives and ambitions may be some of the most important.

商学院与体育正以很多方式趋向共生。帮助那些在伦敦奥运之后即将退役的运动员创建新生活和新目标，或许是其中一些最重要的方式。