'I' is for Identity, Improvement, and Inspiration

Welcome to the latest edition of the A - Z of Purpose Led Performance which is inspired by the many sporting dramas of the past week. There have been victories, shock defeats, and transformative moments.

I live in Birmingham and am proud to see the energy and excitement brought by the Commonwealth games to my adopted City. I am also immensely proud and inspired by the performance of the England Women's football team, the Lionesses, in winning England's first major football trophy for 58 years. Sport has many lessons for high performance in business. In this edition I will dig into some of those lessons.

Identity

Dame Laura Kenny is the most successful female cyclist and the most successful British female athlete, in olympic history. She has won 34 gold medals over her stellar career, but on Sunday she finished 13th in the points race at the Commonwealth Games; a race she would normally be expected to win.

She admitted in interviews later on that a culmination of events over the past two years, and witnessing a horrific crash earlier in the day had led to a full-blown "crisis in confidence". Was this the end of her illustrious career?

The following day Laura lined up for the scratch race with a completely different mindset and won a thrilling Gold medal of which she said, "In a way I'm more proud of that Gold than many of the other Olympic medals that I've won." So what changed between Sunday and Monday? Laura revealed:

I told myself in the toilet, 'You need to race as Laura Trott, that old bike rider who didn't think about anything else other than crossing the finish line first'". (Laura Kenny)

There is a strong link between identity and confidence. Confidence is essential for high-performance. Laura Kenny reminded herself of who she was and invoked the fearless attitude she had earlier in her career. This transformed her confidence, her approach and ultimately her performance. Over my career I have worked with many high-performers and have observed that their self-identity as a high-performer is a crucial foundation of their achievements.

Improvement

Adam Peaty was undefeated for eight years in the 100m breaststroke. A double Olympic champion and world record holder - he has swam the 20 fastest times in history. He entered the Commonwealth Games with less than ideal preparation, but he was still expected to win. He was the fastest qualifier in the semi-final and was in the lead with 25 metres to go in the final. Over the last 25 metres Peaty faltered and was over-taken by not one, but three other swimmers and finished the race in 4th. This was one of the biggest upsets ever. So what happened?

Peaty revealed in an interview afterwards that he had "lost his spark" and talked about suffering from "burnout". I was struck by comments made by Rebecca Adlington, herself a double-Olympic gold-medalist, who wondered whether Peaty had run out of goals and areas he could improve. He had been at the top for so long, had won every race he entered and had achieved everything.

This really resonated with a lesson I learned about high-performance early in my career, which became a core part of my philosophy for building high-performing teams and organisations.

In my first management role my team missed our targets for the first six months. It was a brand new team that we built from scratch to deliver a new contract. Every month we improved and we got closer and closer to our target and eventually one-month we hit our targets. The feeling was so incredible and we celebrated as a team. We had moved from being under-performers to being performers. So what happened next?

Our next month was our worst ever - we missed our target by miles. We had all been so focused on achieving that milestone of hitting our target, that when we did we all took off the foot of the gas. It took us a few months to getting back to hitting target, but when we did we continued to hit our targets month after month and became the highest performing team in the company and in the country for the service we were delivering. How did we achieve that?

We moved from focusing on achieving our target, to focusing on improving on our previous best performance. As the manager I worked with every individual each month to support them the to beat their previous best and as a team we continually reset our targets higher. Every time we hit a new milestone celebrated on the last day of the month which embedded our identity as a team that achieved its targets. On the first day on the new month we would reset, and challenge ourselves to beat last month's achievement. It was the focus on improvement, rather than achievement that turned us into a high-performing team.

(Postscript: After I finished writing this piece Peaty raced in the 5o metre Breaststroke Final and won gold - he attributed his victory to the motivation he gained from his shock loss in the 100 metre final)

Inspiration

This is the iconic image of the 2022 Women's European Championships. This image and the first major tournament trophy win in 58 years is set to inspire a new generation of young footballers; female and male. A lot has been written on LinkedIn following the Lionesses victory, but I want to focus specifically on the future impact. What will be the impact on the Women's football game in England and will this team go on to be serial winners?

From 1988 - 2004 the Great Britain Olympic team won an average of 23 medals per games. On 6th July 2005 it was announced that London was going to host the Olympic Games in 2012. In London Team GB achieved 65 medals - this was described at the 'home Olympics boost'. However, in the 2016 Rio Olympics Team GB achieved 67 medals and in the Tokyo 2021 Olympic they achieved 64 medals. The standard wasn't just temporarily improved - the gain were retained. Laura Trott was one of the new generation of athletes that emerged in 2012 to inspire the next generation - Adam Peaty was a young swimmer that was inspired that went on to win in 2016. Seeing people achieve exceptional things has the power to inspire people.

This is as true in business as it is in sport. A core part of my performance philosophy is that improvement is more important than achievement - but inspiration is essential for building a culture of improvement. Making high performance visible and transparent and celebrating it, is key in encouraging individuals and team to strive to achieve. Performance targets can often act as ceilings for targets - so how do you avoid this?

In my experience having trailblazers that push standards is essential. In the companies I have led I have focused on encouraging people to aim ever higher. One very practical way I have done this is by adding an additional category to the traditional Red/Amber/Green (RAG) performance ratings. I have added a 'Gold' standard which encourages people and teams to go beyond their targets, and it is those individual and teams that 'go for gold' that inspire others to improve or believe that more is possible.

I have a favour to ask, if you enjoy reading or gain useful insights 'the A-Z of Purpose Led Performance' newsletter please let me know in the comments, and share it with colleagues and friends that you think might also enjoy it. Thanks, Chris