Companies that hire athletes, massively increase their chances of staying ahead of the competition.
You may think that athletes working within businesses is a rather odd combination, so what can two 800 metre athletes teach your business?
Professional athletes can provide really unique solutions, bringing fresh ideas and different ways of thinking to a business environment. Few companies really understand the true value that working with former athletes can bring so let me share some ways we can support a business.
The world of work is changing, we know this. New jobs and professions are constantly being created often quicker than workforces can keep up to adapt with the new ways of working and technology. Companies of the future need to look for positive disruptors, lateral thinkers and people from different backgrounds offering fresh ideas and new perspectives on new problems. The "we've always done it like this" approach is no longer acceptable in business if you want to survive.
Performance pressure
In business and sport the pressure to perform is at an all time high, delivering on time and on budget, winning medals to secure funding, keeping a raised profile bring very similar stresses to the humans performing these tasks regardless of whether they are wearing a suit or are lycra clad. Research shows that athletes bring traits that businesses so desperately need, the ability to leave no stone unturned in the planning and preparation of a task is paramount to success.
3 key traits
What 3 key traits an athletes can bring to your business performance?.
1, Athletes are resilient. We lose more races than we win, the key thing is we win the important races on the right day. We bounce back from the losses and work out how to get it right next time, how to improve and keep moving forward. In a fast paced pace environment we can teach your teams to understand and learn from failure and bounce back stronger.
2, Athletes are positive disruptors. To stand apart from our competition we have to 'Learn the difference, that makes the difference' we have to stand out from the crowd in a positive way. We look for new ways of working, take risks to challenge the norm, again leaving no stone unturned in our preparation for success. This is exactly the same for business if they want to grow and develop and stay ahead of the curve.
3, Athletes are the 1%. The difference between winning and losing can come down to a fraction of a second, Danny talks about this very openly during his Sydney 400m race where he says he didn't win a bronze medal, he lost a gold. This fired off a new way of working in order to achieve gold 4 years later in Athens. Creative thinking is key to this success, we have to look for the marginal gains. Continuous improvement, regular feedback is a huge part of our goal planning journey to the top of the podium.
What else can we bring to the party
Above are just three things we can help your teams to understand better in order to grow themselves and the business. There are many other ways we can support a business. We have our 'High Performance' model which will help your teams to communicate better with each other, driving the right attitudes and behaviours. We look at culture and environments to help you understand how this affects motivations and performance. And finally, if you and the business aren't getting the results you should be we can help you to work out where things aren't working so well and give you positive support to fix them, and quickly.
If you are looking for 'High Impact' sessions we have our 'Journey' sessions were we walk your teams through our own personal journeys through mental and physical adversity, looking at key points and decisions we made as high performers. These leave teams feeling highly motivated and uplifted to move their own careers forward in a positive direction.
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