Along with the rest of London Fidelio is basking in the afterglow of the 2012 Olympics and eagerly awaiting the Paralympics. After Team GB’s sixty-five medals, including twenty-nine golds, inspiration is running high and the post-Games analysis has begun. As pundits search for lessons to be learned for politics and for business, we focus on two home truths deeply relevant for attracting and selecting world class talent in the world of sport and beyond.
Gillian Karran-Cumberlege
The 2012 Games have multiple narratives, the most obvious being the sheer enjoyment experienced by all involved. Equally for Team GB these Games represented a tremendous success but other storylines also unfurled. The ungainly tussle between G4S and the political classes over the shortfall in security staff touched on the raw nerve of outsourcing public sector services. The wallowing negativity of the media before the Games opened was swiftly followed by a dramatic volte face as gold medals clearly sold papers. And post-Games the debate quickly ignited regarding the on-going funding of Team GB.
This leads to our first home truth. Excellence and commitment go hand in hand. The stability of funding in key sports has not guaranteed medal success but it has dramatically shortened the odds. It is obviously easier to attract talented athletes to a team that has clear goals and a credible business plan in place to achieve those goals.
The same clearly holds true for corporates. Talent attraction and retention is almost universally a key element of corporate outperformance. Given this truism, it is a mystery why businesses with powerful ambitions and strategies espouse ill-disciplined hiring. Poor hiring structures are inconsistent with the commitment and focus required for outperformance. Top talent is wary of the ambiguity created by a confused hiring process. Equally, committed funding – be it of a business, project or team – substantially enhances the prospects of attracting the best.
If people see success then they think, okay, that’s quite interesting, if they see continued success, people are interested in the repeatability – they think maybe it can be applied elsewhere.
– Dave Brailsford, Performance Director, Team GB Cycling, Reuters, 10th August 2012
The second and absolutely related lesson that we take away from Olympic success is attention to detail. Nowhere has this been better exemplified than with the legendary approach of Dave Brailsford, Performance Director of Team GB Cycling. Brailsford’s theory of ‘aggregated marginal gains’ which relies on making an enormous amount of tiny changes to achieve better results has worked wonders for British cycling. This in turn harked back to Sir Clive Woodward’s achievement in the England victory in the 2003 Rugby World Cup.
The meticulous focus on even the smallest contributing factor gave a clear sense of purpose as it was predicated on explicit targets. While encompassing every element of training, it obviously also flowed through to selection of athletes and the support team, including nutritionists, psychologists and even the bus driver. There was undoubtedly also an element of ruthlessness. If the goal is a gold medal, past glories count for nothing unless they can translate into future success.
It is admittedly difficult for companies to emulate this crystal clarity of purpose when building teams. Our point, however, is much less about draconian selection process; rather we suggest complete focus on a clearly articulated goal, corporate or otherwise, is a powerful tool in attracting and selecting the team members who can best deliver.
The Olympic Movement gives the world an ideal which reckons with the reality of life, and includes a possibility to guide this reality toward the great Olympic Idea.
– Pierre de Coubertin, Founder, International Olympic Committee
Fidelio by no means underestimates the enthusiasm, drive and talent that went into making London 2012 such a success, particularly for the home nation. Importantly we also believe that the glorious example of winning combined with the feel good factor may well provide a stimulus for economic activity.
But this to some extent belies the underlying factors that drove success. At the risk of becoming one more clichéd pundit, we do think the rigorous approach to the Games as a whole and sporting success in particular has very practical lessons for Executives looking to build winning teams. The Search for gold is not random.
Coming Up…
Overture explores how talent drives valuation. Future editions of Overture will deal with
• Learning and unlearning CEO Behaviours
• De-risking the Hiring Process
• The Strategist and the Communicator
• The Art of Building Shareholder Buy-in
Please contact us with comments or for more information on Fidelio Partners on info@fideliopartners.com