Increase outcomes with kindness.

Leaders who care for the mental health of their people, whether employees in a business or professional riders in a cycling team, significantly increase the chance of fulfilling their strategic objectives.  

Awareness of mental health issues has risen exponentially in recent years. Successful companies like Brother UK have embraced a holistic view of wellbeing to drive outcomes, and cycling teams like Brother UK-OnForm now place psychologists at their riders’ disposal.   

World-class athletes such as triple Olympic champion Ed Clancy OBE, who last year raced for Vitus Pro Cycling Team p/b Brother UK, place mental preparation on an equal footing with physical. Clancy speaks openly of the performance gains derived from his work with Dr Steve Peters at British Cycling and human performance specialists Pro Noctis. 

It seems appropriate then for the Brother UK Cycling LinkedIn page to reflect on the importance of happiness and congruence to athletes and employees in Mental Health Awareness Week, whose central theme is kindness. This is more than a convenient ‘peg’ on which to hang an article, however. A sophisticated understanding of the benefits to any high-performance culture of altruism, empathy, generosity and selflessness is required to unlock its benefits.  

I consider my ability now to recognise the “rucksack” of potential emotions carried each day to Brother UK by every employee as one of the key components in my development from sales executive to leader. The plethora of circumstances that can affect human performance, from from the physical to psychological, is staggering.  

Typically, the performance of an organisation, sporting or commercial, is driven by execution of an agreed strategy. Leaders rely on people to execute this strategy. In my opinion, happy and congruent people are far more capable of doing so than those who are unhappy.

If happiness and congruence are closely linked to performance, then leaders should encourage supporting acts of kindness. Managers who care about employee or athlete wellbeing will recognise the signs of unhappiness immediately. In this regard, as in so many others, indicators of sporting and commercial performance are closely linked. 

The most successful leaders I know have embraced a simple truth: that the more an organisation gives to an employee or athlete, the more they will receive in return. This holistic concept of wellbeing will be evident to anyone who’s watched the Amazon Prime documentary on Manchester City Football Club and witnessed Pep Guardiola’s interaction with his players. His concern for their wellbeing is as obvious as the silverware in their trophy cabinet. The two are directly linked.

A more recent sports documentary offers a more complex portrayal. The Last Dance, which documents the events of Michael Jordan’s final season with a hugely successful Chicago Bulls team, records Jordan’s unsparing analysis of his team-mates’ performance and brutal feedback. It’s tempting to view Jordan as a ruthless athlete. A more nuanced understanding might identify an athlete unwilling to sacrifice the team’s collective success to the underachievement of any individual, he demanded high standards, nothing less. 

"Yet underneath it all a strong emotional bond to his late father. "

The Image of Jordan crying on a dressing room floor, hugging a ball after collecting another NBA title indicating the strong emotions driving that competitiveness. The final scenes in the last episode, we finally get to see that Jordan has this emotional side and many of his team members witnessed it for the first time. 

What remains beyond debate, however, is that Jordan’s personality is achievement-oriented. Recognition of employee or athlete personality types is critical to maximising their performance in pursuit of strategic goals. It’s a further and more sophisticated interpretation of mental wellbeing. Successful leaders will create an environment in which goal-driven personalities can co-exist with, and compliment, the efforts of team members more motivated by altruistic instincts. 

Often, such distinct personality types operate in separate fields. Achievement-oriented personalities can be typically attracted to roles where that success can be seen and rewarded - such as sales or marketing. Personalities motivated by the opportunity to serve a wider cause, often find fulfilment in the third sector. Cycling offers clear analogies: the goal-oriented sprinter, for example, or the supportive and understanding soigneur.

In a report published to accompany this year’s Mental Health Awareness Week, the Mental Health Foundation describes the value of kindness to public policy. It frames its recommendations within the context of British society’s response to the Covid19 pandemic and the very tangible demonstrations of qualities like altruism, civility, dignity, empathy, generosity and selflessness by key workers on the frontline of a pandemic. Their service to the UK’s broadest community - citizens needing healthcare, sometimes urgently - has been an example to all. 

Brother UK is a business, of course, and our sponsored teams are private entities, but the concept of community and service is applicable to both. At Brother UK, we have an internal community of employees, a local community formed by our neighbours in Tameside, a business community formed of our customers, and a community of users that spans the length and breadth of the UK. Our teams serve communities of riders, sponsors, race organisers, media and fans. By creating cultures that value people, we enable those qualities collectively identified as kindness to drive results. 

An example? Consider the rider in a breakaway who passes a bidon or energy bar to an exhausted companion from a rival team. Sharing resources is altruistic, generous, empathetic and selfless, but also increases the chances of winning for both. The same dynamic exists in business. Brother UK would gladly partner with any competitor in the shared pursuit of our 17 sustainable development goals, knowing that our business could only benefit from a wider embrace of our altruistic and transformative ambitions. 

Encouraging people to engage in small but meaningful gestures is a significant step to building the trust required for commercial or sporting success. A holistic view of wellbeing that identifies personality types and recognises the existential pressures people face outside of work or off the bike is critical to doing so.

In the final analysis, supporting people in your business to become happier and more congruent makes them far more capable of executing strategy, whether it be to scale a business or win a bike race. Kindness is its own reward, but can also drive tangible outcomes. Put simply, kindness works. In Mental Health Awareness Week and beyond, its importance cannot be overstated. 

#MentalHealthAwarenessWeek #KindnessMatters #MentalHealth