Insights

When is the last time a colleague asked how you were doing? And when is the last time you gave or received an honest answer to this question? Did you really care about the answer you got or do you mainly ask people how they are as a formality?  There is a growing body of research into how psychological safety and trust are fundamental for high-performing teams in the world of business and in sport. But in order to develop this psychological safety, leaders are tasked with showing their team members that they really care about them as an individual. …

Have you ever wondered what is going through an Olympic athlete’s mind when they are competing? Or what exactly is said in those moments between coaches and elite athletes, or amongst teams in the locker room at halftime? How do Olympic teams prepare for the pressure of competing and giving their best performance when it matters most? What is it that drives the level of determination needed to succeed in the Olympics?  We have had the good fortune to work with, and be surrounded by, some of the world’s best athletes and in our experience, confidence has been an essential…

A big discovery Leadership teams in business often make is that they create organisation values but don’t really use them to their true potential. Within sustainably winning sporting teams we see the use of values to create the identity of teams and organisations and ultimately use them as a lens for appropriate behaviours, decision making and communication. In turn, enhancing team trust and confidence. A great example of this is the most successful sporting team in the world, The New Zealand All Blacks. Like many sporting teams the All Blacks don’t just put words up in the gym or use…

British Cycling, over the last ten years, has been one of the world’s most successful sporting teams and many point towards the application of the “Aggregation of Marginal Gains” as being one of our significant performance advantages. Examples that are frequently quoted coming from this approach are; each athlete having their own portable bed and taking it with them to each competition, being taught how to wash our hands by surgeons, each rider having their own bespoke carbon fibre shoes and each athlete and staff member having sessions with psychiatrists to understand their inner chimp…When Sir David Brailsford, Performance Director…

I was three and a half years into my London 2012 Olympic campaign and on track for my best ever performance. It had taken total dedication to the cause and 70,000m of swimming every week. And then… three months before the Olympic Trials I suffered my first ever performance disabling injury. Two bulging disks in my lower back resulting in back spasms and a complete inability to swim. It was a pivotal moment in my swimming career. It could so easily have been a traumatic and emotional ordeal with sleepless nights and endless stress and anxiety of worst case scenarios.…

“And what is a man without energy? Nothing–nothing at all.” – Mark Twain As an Olympic squad of athletes, when it came to our personal performance, keeping on top of our most precious commodity was critical. That commodity was energy. Once I realised that how I created and spent my energy was a choice and my choice alone it was incredibly liberating. It meant that I was accountable for making conscious choices about my energy and those choices ultimately determined my success, or otherwise. We discovered that we were in control, as long as we had the discipline to take…