Interview: Getting your teams to perform like Olympic athletes

While I was working with Team GB on the London 2012 Olympics, I had the pleasure of working alongside a number of inspirational sportspeople, including some who had won medals at previous games. You learn a lot about what it takes to perform at the highest possible level; individually, as a team and when you’re responsible for the results of multiple teams. The lessons these athletes learned are just as applicable to business.

Will it make the boat go faster?

I had the opportunity to sit down again at the British Olympic headquarters with Ben Hunt-Davis and Sarah Winckless, who now work with businesses on how they can get their people to perform at the optimum level, and doing the work which is actually going to be valuable to the company. Both of them have won Olympic medals in rowing for Great Britain, but neither of them had an easy journey to get there. They needed to consider what they were doing and why they weren’t necessarily getting the results they needed. Eventually they realised they needed to challenge their teams to look at the work they’re doing and asking “Will it make the boat go faster?”

Check out the video above to learn how your own staff can focus their efforts on achieving its ultimate goals.

If you’d like to find out more about what “Will it make the Boat go faster?”, you can find out more at http://www.willitmaketheboatgofaster.com/

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