Deciding What’s Important – and Doing Something About It

Social media algorithms are a strange business sometimes. Because I’ll write, comment and engage with a broad variety of topics, I see an equal amount of unexpected overlap and jolting juxtaposition.

This month’s theme (at least it seems a clear connection to me) emerged between the ongoing narratives on challenges in public services (especially policing); and Great Britain’s fortunes at the 2025 Eurobasket tournament (essentially a European Championships).

Both have a personal perspective and emotional connection for me. Last year, I started consistently playing organised competitive basketball for the first time in 20 years. It’s 10 years since I resigned as a police officer, though I’ve probably learned more about the real drivers behind policing in my work trying to improve it from the outside since.

If you haven’t been following Eurobasket (and, to prove my some of my upcoming points early on, you probably haven’t because we are the only competing nation without a mainstream TV deal), GB suffered several heavy losses before coming up with a win over Montenegro in the final group game. Plenty of unwarranted criticism of the players along the way.

My former employer, the Met Police, is also not exactly riding a wave of success or public adulation. About which I’ve been feeling some complex emotions, to be honest – and which social media doesn’t have the space or nuance to really explore without being labelled one extreme or the other.

The first overlap is this: both teams (yes, in my view a healthy police service is a team not a family, just like an elite sports programme) are built and powered by the effort, skill and goodwill of dedicated people doing work they deeply believe in.

Often to their own personal cost and detriment.

Does anyone really think a group of basketball players who’ve sought opportunity all over the world, without funding, without support systems even comparable to their opponents, would just turn up to a major tournament and not try?

Does anyone think the police officers finding every weekend off cancelled all Summer for major events or protests wouldn’t rather be in their usual day-to-day roles protecting people and contributing to society? To quote widespread morons, that they “haven’t got anything better to do”? Or that they just stay at work for 20-hour shifts because the risible “overtime” is worth missing time with their own families for?

Of course not.

So, the second overlap is: both are surviving (and still achieving great things) despite the systems in which they operate, not thriving because of them.

When I say “systems”, I would say that’s a tangled web including but not limited to: leadership (or lack of), funding (or lack of), management (or mismanagement) and some good old-fashioned self-interest and closed mindset.

On the sporting front, let’s look at an example of what happens if “we” do decide something is worth pursuing, and do something about it.

As a kid in the 90s, the Tour de France was a pretty niche thing to be into. I loved it, but following meant deft VCR-setting or late-night snippets. Seeing British riders win (or even be widely present in the peloton) felt exceptional. Olympic Games back then were pretty similar: you could probably name most of the Team GB medal hopes in a few breaths, and there were whole swathes of the Games we just weren’t part of.

Fast forward to 2025 and 11 Brits started the Tour – following a period of dominance where Wiggins, Froome, Thomas, Cavendish et al made wins feel like an expectation. Olympic medal tables with GB among the main players are common, and that metallic abundance comes from sailing to swimming to judo to BMX.

What changed was a combination of money, effort, mindset and understanding of both immediate benefits and wider positive ripples.

How many people took up cycling because of the investment in performance road and track programmes and the medals they saw? What’s the net benefit to Britain of that increase in active lifestyles and public health? How many jobs, businesses and community connections were created by accessible facilities in the heart of communities for boxing, swimming, and so many others?

Basketball is one of the highest participation sports in the country. Even more so if you look at under-25s. So where’s the backing we saw for swimming and cycling? In short, until those with the power to do so decide it’s important, we’ll still be behind the global powerhouses, just like we were in other sports.

Meanwhile, we lose those young people who may become the stars of tomorrow – but more broadly than that, we lose the chance to equip them with all the learning and experience that comes with growth as an individual within a connected team with shared values.

What about policing?

My previous paragraph was about that too.

When we are willing to be curious about what matters, why that is, and where proper investment in it might lead us as a collective, I genuinely believe there is enough societal winning to go round.

What’s been glaringly obvious in the past 15 years or so is that a conscious decision was made: the quality, consistency and sustainability of public services (and the wellbeing of those within them) is not important.

Instead, we see a decision made that the important things are ego, self-interest, money, gatekeeping of opportunity.

That’s a setup in which 0.5% of people win big, and 99.5% lose big too. In small waves at first, almost imperceptible to the majority.

Until the drawbridge is finally pulled up and we’re left listing things we don’t have any more and saying: “but that was important to me”.

How do we avoid that future dystopia? On both individual and collective levels: decide what's important, and be prepared to boldly do something about it.

I'm Tom Wheelhouse and this newsletter is part of my work at Mightify and Wheelhouse Performance where I help people find fulfilling careers and become better leaders. Follow along for tailored coaching, courses and events for career changers, first responders and leaders at all levels.