Getting ready for pre-season training for next year's big S/4HANA push...

If you've every listened to the High Performance Podcast, you'll know exactly who Damian Hughes is.

I first came across Damian Hughes when he was the team psychologist at Warrington Wolves in around 2010. The elite players I knew (from some work I randomly did with them) raved about him and the difference he'd made to their performance.

In the seasons that followed, they won the prestigious Challenge Cup 3 times in 5 years.

No co-incidence.

Damian is an expert in human performance, working with individuals and teams. His podcast, co-hosted with Jake Humphrey, is an excellent source of personal development material, and I've gorged on it for a couple of years now.

So, when we decided to run our annual company meeting in July alongside our 20th birthday celebrations, I decided to enlist Damian's help rather than do what we've done in previous years and run something ourselves with a little external input.

I pretty much handed the show over to Damian based on a loose brief, and then entrusted him to deliver.

As a self-confessed control freak, this freaked me out slightly, especially as I'd also delegated 99% of the birthday party celebrations to our social committee, meaning I turned up as a passenger and left my train driver hat at home.

Damian was outstanding.

His 45 minute keynote ran for 2 hours.

Every minute of it was lean-forward-out-of-your-seat interesting and actionable. The team loved it and loved him - they're still talking about it close to 3 months on.

The business of sport

In the prep chats with Damien ahead of the session, we'd talked a lot about the outcome we wanted on the day, and we delved into some related topics from the world of sport.

We talked about form.

Specifically how sports teams and players have form, but we never talk about form in terms of business teams and players. Nobody ever says "He's not in form at the moment" at work.

"Our boss isn't on form at the moment is he?"

But we're still human and we do still have form. We're still affected be external factors outside of our control, the equivalent of injuries (e.g. life events, stress, distractions) or playing out of position when the team needs us to.

Sports KPIs are visceral - measured by baying supporters (or fans*), a scoreboard and a league table.

There's nowhere to hide.

*supporters support and fans are fanatical - hence their name. Fanatics are not always rational when making decisions.

Writing from New York at the moment, the US appetite for stats is voracious, with the whole Michael Lewis / Moneyball phenomenon fuelling the need for ever more metrics to monitor.

In business, KPIs aren't so visceral or visible. Sure, they're there but not in-your-face there.

Damian and I also talked about training vs. playing.

In sport, you train for 95% of the week and play for 5% - in front of those baying fans.

In business, we play for 99% of the week and occasionally train. When we play, generally nobody is really watching that closely. There are no TV replays or commentators.

"In sport, you train for 95% of the week and play for 5%, in business, we play for 99% of the week and occasionally train."

• Imagine if we did acknowledge form in business.
• Imagine if we trained and prepared more than we performed.
• Imagine if people watched us and commentated more.

How would things be different?

The sport of business

I learned a lot from Damian's day with the Resulting team. And, I've reflected a few times on our sports analogy conversation. We've just entered the final quarter of our financial year so we're now starting to plan and budget for next FY. On my flight over to New York I found myself mentally stumbling on another business / sports difference:

Sports teams have pre-season where they stop playing and go into full on recovery, preparation, strength and conditioning, planning mode - this lasts for a good 4-5 months in most sports.

And, while teams sign new players during the season, the pre-season is the time to bring in the talent you need for next season - to tweak the team and address critical skills gaps that are going to fundamental to next season's performance.

So, if you're looking at the league table and thinking..

"I'd like to be part of a better team"

or you've spent too many seasons in your current team and are thinking...

"I need a fresh challenge"

Then maybe you should use the close-season between September and November to consider your next move ahead of next year.

I'm looking for some exceptional new players to be part of our next 3 seasons as we push for promotion into the SAP big league.

With Private Equity backing and share options available, I have a key positions to fill for exceptional SAP professionals across architecture, functional expertise, programme management and client engagement management.

Start your transfer request by filling in this Expression of Interest form and we can organise a confidential chat over a coffee.