Which benchmark to use?

So what should we measure ourselves against to know if we are making progress?

A competitor?

The best in the world?

Perfection?

The flaw in all three is obvious. Your competitor may be getting worse not better (car makers benchmarking themselves against GM in the 1980s). The 'best' may be about to become irrelevant (film makers benchmarking themselves against Kodak in the 1990s). And perfection is unobtainable so we will always fail against that standard.

How about benchmarking against ourselves. Ourselves from a week ago or a month ago or a year ago - choose a timeframe that is appropriate for what is being measured (e.g. fitness is good to measure over months rather than compared to last week).

Are we better than our former self? It is the only comparison that really matters. Best of all, we own the progress completely.

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Use it or lose it

This week I went to Yoga for the first time in a month. Summer holidays, mine and the teacher’s, had meant a break. The class was a horror show for me. My strength had declined, co-ordination was all over the place and as for my balance…

In contrast I also did running drills for the first time in month. They were smooth and with no discernible quality difference from a month ago. So what was going on?

Yoga is a newish skill for me in the last couple of years. I practice once or twice a week with gaps here and there when I’m away on business. The result is that the movement patterns aren’t yet burned into my deep memory. Any let up in practice and I quickly start to go backwards in my skill level.

Running is a different game. I’ve been doing it since I was 18 months old. I’ve practiced specific technical drills countless times. The nerve cells in the relevant pathways are coated deeply in myelin and the complex skills of those drills are now as good as unforgettable.

Sport shines a bright spotlight on this learning regression when we miss practice but what about less visible skills. The kind of stuff we ‘learn’ on training courses at work and then practice only periodically while kidding ourselves and our boss that we really have improved.

Great training may start with an inspiring experience to show us new skills and get us going but it requires sustained, focused practice over an extended period of time to really shift our skill level to the point where it becomes automatic. It is one of the big challenges of the time for businesses - how to create that learning environment for employees (and suppliers, customers and freelancers?). There is much that can be learned from elite performers in sport and the arts when it comes to designing learning programs.

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Who is it for?

Your product, the thing you make or do. Who is it really for?

Watching the World Athletics Championships last week left me feeling that much of the time the product is made for the people who organise the event rather than the people who are paying to watch it or even the athletes who provide the entertainment.

Some examples:

1.     The final night had 5 track races and 2 field events spread over more than 2 hours. Plenty of time for everything to have undivided attention. And yet, the climax of the men’s high jump takes place during the women’s 5000m final. Where do you look as a spectator during the closing laps of the 5000m? What does live TV show? Why not pause the High Jump or jump during the early laps.

2.     Monday night had an utterly compelling women’s triple jump. Ibarguen (photo) and Rojas trading the lead several times and the competition going to the final round. But it was lost amongst all the other events. Why not shine a spotlight on the athletes – literally. Their choice of colour (and music even). Imagine Ibarguen blasting down the runway, hair trailing, in a blaze of bright light which follows her into the sky as she leaps for Gold.

3.     The call room. For non-athletes this is where the competitors assemble before their competition. At Championships this can be up to 40 minutes before the event starts. So it means you have to warm up, report to the call room, then sit around getting cold. Its part of athletics and as a developing athlete you learn to deal with this at English Schools, Regional and the National Championships so by the time you get to World/Olympic competition it is second nature. But it still has a negative impact on athlete performance – witness Bolt in the 4x100m tweaking his hamstring. Why do we do it? In the old days it was to give out numbers and lane assignments and generally to make sure that the athletes were there on time. But this is 2017 with professional athletes and electronic timing. There must be a better way that maximises athlete performance and hence customer enjoyment.

Athletics needs to take a long hard look at its product and ask who is it really made for – spectators, athletes or the organisers?

What about your product?

Call room insight - check out this excellent piece from former World Champion Dai Greene

Something small

You know the kind of thing. Its small, we know it will make a difference and yet we keep avoiding it.

When I was an athlete, one of mine was replacing a couple of my four daily cups a coffee with water. Better hydration, better sleep, prizes worth having as an athlete. For years I managed to avoid changing my situation, it was bonkers really. Then one day I just did it. And the next day. And in no time it became permanent.

What is your small thing to change this week in pursuit of better performance?

Re-write the rules

The conventional wisdom says that a guy of 1.96m (6’ 5”) can’t run the 100m well. His limbs are going to be just too long and that means that by the time he has got out of the start position, through the acceleration phase and into his stride then he will be too far behind to catch up. There is a reason that many of the top 100m sprinters are between 1.78m and 1.88m (5’ 10” and 6’2” tall).

But what if you find a way to re-write the rules?

Usain Bolt started life as a 200m runner – he was tall even as a kid, hitting his peak height by the age of 16. But when he turned his mind to the 100m he worked on his start technique to reduce that handicap of being tall. He adjusted his race tactics to get upright in less time than the conventional wisdom says is ideal for the 100m and ultimately that enables him to unleash his top speed sooner and for longer.

The effect of re-writing the rules of 100m sprinting we witnessed for a decade, with his c.41 strides taking him clear of the competition time and time again.

The question is, what conventional wisdom (rules) do we adhere to that could be ripe for re-writing?

When 'No compromise' becomes 'Win at all costs'

For several years now the mantra of UK Sport, the body which largely funds the British Olympic Sports, has been ‘No Comprise’. It is an approach which has brought massive success as measured by medals in the last 3 Summer Olympics.

Similar mantras have been adopted in business in pursuit of outstanding results and there is much business literature which focuses on these success stories. But what happens at the edge, when ‘No compromise’ morphs into ‘Win at all costs’ and what can organisations do to ensure that they stay true to their original intentions?

In recent years we have seen many examples of where ‘No Compromise’ strays into grey areas or even worse. In sport we have the bullying allegations at British Cycling, the McLaren 'spygate', Half Marathon winners cutting the course and the notorious Jiffy bag/shoddy medical record keeping at Team Sky. Businesses have equally been caught short. Tesco was so focused on sales targets that it lost sight of the accounting rules and importance of its relationships with suppliers while Volkswagen simply falsified emissions data because ‘everybody else does it’.

How do professional organisations run by smart people get themselves into these situations?

In pursuit of results ‘No compromise’ can lead people to stray into grey areas, especially when it comes to behaviour. The message is clear, results come first everything else second. What follows is not necessarily illegal but it is often unethical and certainly not what the original ‘No compromise’ approach envisaged. From there it is a very short step to breaking the rules when the pressure is really on to deliver results.

What can leaders do to ensure that their organisation avoid this trap?

When setting difficult targets with potentially big negative consequences there is a huge responsibility to ensure that the targets are realistic and that the resources to achieve them are available. If you are an Olympic sport with a large percentage of your future funding (and no alternative sources) determined by the number of medals that you win then straying into the grey zone becomes an option to preserve your funding. If you are a Retail or Auto Executive with impossible sales targets and your job on the line, then stepping over the line can become tempting – especially if you witness others doing it. If your people don’t believe that they can achieve the goal fairly then you are exposing your organisation to the risk that will achieve it unfairly with all the consequences that entails.

Leaders also need to be absolutely clear about where the boundaries lie. If the line is drawn at illegal/against the rules then you are inviting people to step into the grey areas, especially as every individual will have their own interpretation of what is ethical based on their own values and experiences. Leaders need to set the standard of behaviour expected and role model it visibly, calling out situations where the standard drops. The obvious consequence of this is if that standards come first then sometimes the results will not be achieved.

If you want to avoid the reputational damage that comes with straying into the grey areas of ‘No compromise’ then standards of behaviour have to come before results.

Choose your environment

I recently pulled out a stack of old DVD's and chose to watch the Shawshank Redemption for the first time in years. Its a great film and one of the many lines that jumped out at me comes towards the end when the wrongly convicted Andy is finalising his escape plans and he says to Red "I had to come to prison to become a crook".

The culture in which we live has a huge impact on us. It may be difficult to choose the country that we are born in or the family that we grow up in but we certainly have lots of choice about the  organisation we choose to work in or the sports team we train with.

How good for you are your current environments? Do they serve bring out the best in you or lead you to play below your best?

Making it look easy

Watch any master at work and they make it look easy. Lang Lang playing piano, Eliud Kipchoge racing a marathon, Sir Ian McKellen acting in the West End. You know that they have worked for years honing their craft to a level most people can’t even imagine.

Even folks who are just pretty good; like the local road running matador and those guys who make cool youtube videos that you wish you could replicate were once ordinary until they started to learn and improve.

What marks out all these people from the ordinary Joe is that they are prepared to stretch themselves. They seek out new knowledge from teachers, people who inspire them and have been there before. They work on their craft relentlessly, trying out new things, getting feedback on what works and what doesn’t. Over time their reward is increasing mastery.

Not of all of us can become a Lang Lang, Eliud or Sir Ian. But many of us aren’t even pushing to explore the limits of our potential. What could happen if we sought out a teacher and worked on improving our craft?

Ego is the enemy of team

If you want to get better and perform at a higher level the chances are that you will need to work with other people who are just as skilled and high-performing as you, if not more so. 

We need to shift our mindset from comparing ourselves with the others, to embracing what they bring. When we stop needing to be better than potential collaborators then great things can happen.

We all know of teams in work or sport that ended up being less than the sum of their parts because ego got in the way.

Hoping or preparing...

Fingers crossed is a common strategy for race day.

Hoping for a performance that your training indicates is unlikely, that the weather is 'normal', that the energy drinks don't upset your stomach, that your new running shoes give you a couple of seconds a mile rather than blisters...

On the other hand, preparing appropriately is far more likely to be a winning strategy.

Doing the right training at the right time, practicing in different weather conditions (especially extremes), testing out the energy drinks and wearing in your new shoes before the race.

A little preparing beats a lot of hoping.

Win or lose?

Do you have to beat others to be a success? Or can you succeed by defeating yourself?

Look up and enjoy the view

We have got our heads down. Hard at work or pounding out the training or playing with the kids.

But what if we looked up for a moment to enjoy the view? Perhaps we would see a different world from the one we think we inhabit.

Throw away the watch

When the RunNudge launched in the autumn one of the most fun parts for me was seeing which nudges got people engaged and really thinking about their running.

This was the first in the series and the title says it all. Its also a great metaphor for other parts of our life. How often do we find ourselves measuring things out of habit that really don't need to be measured - i'm particularly thinking about work here !!

If you haven't yet signed up for the RunNudge here is that first nudge on our Facebook page to get you on your way. 

Saying no to be able to say yes

What’s your priority? What are you saying yes to right now?

A question I often ask business leaders and athletes alike. All too often the reply is a long laundry list of things that need doing. As much as saying yes, prioritisation means saying no to things, potentially lots of things, in order to focus time and attention on what really matters.

When you are planning your running training, what is your priority at any given time? Is it developing your sprinting speed, your all round body strength, your marathon endurance, something else?

A priority doesn’t need to be for ever. Its just what you are focusing on right now, for a period of time to achieve a specific goal.

What’s your priority?

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Make it memorable

This weekend’s race, next week’s presentation, the appraisal you needed to write yesterday. Will it be just another so so performance?

Or will it stick in the mind forever?

Re-charging the batteries

April was marathon season.

London and Boston took centre stage while for those who weren’t lucky enough or fast enough to get entries for London or Boston many smaller marathons all round the world provided a stage on which to perform.

Training for a marathon is a big commitment. It’s a commitment of time and energy to prepare. It’s a commitment to push yourself on race day knowing that your body will be bashed up at the end of the race and your psychological reserves drained.

That’s why the best in the world take a proper break after a marathon to recover and recharge – both physically and mentally.

The same principal applies in all walks of life. Making a sustained effort is draining. It may be rewarding but we also need to respect what it has taken out of us. Whether it is running your first marathon, moving house or delivering that big project at work, downtime to recharge is essential if we want to be able to perform again at the top of our game.

How often do you finding yourself charging headlong from one project to the next without taking time to re-charge your batteries like a champion?

Set the standard

Our time is precious. When its gone, its gone. No pause and rewind. Respecting our time and that of others is a mark of a high performing individual and indeed organisation.

How often do you find yourself in a situation where people turn up late, leave early or aren't fully engaged in what we are saying and doing when we have taken time to prepare and show up? Be honest and challenge yourself as well, how good are you at respecting the time of your training partners, supporters and colleagues at work?

The best training group I ever ran with were brilliant with time. The warm up started on time, training started on time and there was no messing about. Fun yes, space to be flexible yes, but running late no. It didn't require the coach to be cracking the whip and on the occasions when he was held up the athletes got on with training. It was our culture. We were there to improve and using our time wisely was important to us.

The standard we operate to is in our gift. We can be clear when we expect to start and we can follow through on that commitment. The late comers will soon get the message when they find their training group has left without them or the meeting has begun.

Set some standards where it matters and raise the performance of yourself and those around you.

Windback weekend - learn from the best

Venus v Serena and Roger v Rafa, it must be 2007 right? Sports fans love an inspiring comeback story and seeing these 4 true greats playing the 2017 Australian Open finals this weekend will be a delight for many.

I want to take a look at two lessons in particular that we can take away from Roger Federer's performance in Melbourne.

Go back to 2013 and Federer had a disastrous season. Knocked out of Wimbledon early, out of form in other tournaments and the wrong side of 30, people were ready to retire him. Instead Roger took a long, hard, objective look at his circumstances. He understood that the context in which he was playing was changing. His old baseline rival Nadal was fading and the new kids Djokovic and Murray were fitter than any players had been before, meaning they could play at a higher intensity and for longer. Add to that the inevitable physical decline in a player who had been on tour for more than 10 years and Federer realised that to remain competitive he needed to change his game. He need to play shorter points and that required changing some tennis habits of a lifetime. Turning to serve and volley maestro Stefan Edberg, Federer re-modelled his game and played the most aggressive tennis of his career during 2014 and 2015 during which time he made another 3 grand slam finals.

The first lesson: honestly evaluate your situation - both the context you find yourself operating in and your capabilities for that situation. If they don't match you need to adapt and change something. Whether its sport or business, as Australian rugby coach Eddie Jones and many others have testified 'the only sustainable competitive advantage is to learn faster than your competitors'.

Parting ways with Edberg at the start of 2016 Federer spent much of season injured before returning to competition with a bang in 2017. What has surprised many is how both Roger and Rafa have been able to play so many hard matches and sustain the intensity over 2 weeks. This just goes to show that after years of hard training and competing the body (and mind) often benefit from an extended rest to allow full regeneration and super-compensation to take place. When many Olympic sports were less professional athletes often took a down year between Olympic games to let themselves recharge. On a smaller scale I witness this all the time in sport when athlete have taken a proper end of season break and after a short training build up they can perform at the same level or higher than the season before.

The second lesson: learn to love recovery. Plan an occasional longer break in both sport and work to fully regenerate mind and body.

Roll on the finals and hopefully that classic that all fans want to see.

How to get lucky

This weekend was the Lauberhorn round of the Ski World Cup in Wengen, Switzerland and while the main event was snowed off on Saturday the big news was made by little known Niels Hintermann who won the Combined event on Friday.

Its a story worth telling because it illustrates beautifully the power of focusing on the things that you can control and not wasting energy on the rest.

The Alpine Combined is a two race event. A downhill followed by a slalom with the second race having the top 30 starting in reverse order i.e. the slow downhillers (who tend to be the faster slalomers) going first and setting a time for the faster downhillers to chase. It's fun as the pressure mounts and the fast downhill guys who are not great through the slalom gates progressively crack under pressure.

Its Friday morning, the snow is falling and the organisers decide to run the slalom first and hope for better Downhill conditions later. Niels Hintermann has start number 51. This is like being told 'you are here to make up the numbers - be grateful'. With 50 skiers already down the course the corners are a bit of a mess and the snow is still falling with a nasty wind to boot. Oh yes, and Hintermann is a 21 year old downhill guy - from the flat part of Switzerland. Not an auspicious start. He does a final mental run through of the course, takes in the atmosphere and launches himself down the slalom course. 50 seconds later and he has navigated all the gates as well as he can and his reward is 23rd place in the slalom. Nothing earth shattering but he is still in the race.

Afternoon and the conditions have improved and the downhill is on. Its not the full 2min 30 of Lauberhorn hell that makes up the full downhill but it is enough to sort the men from the boys in the combined. The first seven skiers make their way down the course. A mix of slalom guys, who had a bad first run and their day gets even worse on the jumps and turns, and downhillers who qualified through the slalom and start posting some decent target times. Hintermann stands in the start gate. This is what he has dreamed of since being a kid. He is Swiss and this is the Lauberhorn. He knows what it takes. He launches himself out of the gate and striking the perfect balance between control and attack he aces the course. As soon as he crosses the line he knows that he has skied as well as he can. He doesn't need any scoreboard to tell him that. He punches the air in delight, his face paints a picture of deep satisfaction. Looking up at the scoreboard it tells him that for now he is the fastest, top dog, No1. The Swiss fans go mad. His 5 mins of fame before some of the remaining 22 skiers beat his time and push him off the podium.

Hintermann takes his place at the finish line in the spot reserved for the current leader, the TV cameras on his face after every competitor completes his run. The next skiers come down and can't beat his time. Light snow starts to fall and he is guaranteed a top 20 finish, his best ever.

Then more snow falls, this is terrible for racers as it slows the skis. Some of the skiers are beaten before they start, their negative body language in the start house betraying that they have thrown in the towel. More racers fail to beat Hintermann's time and before he knows it he is guaranteed a top 10 and then a podium. Hintermann is in the moment, just enjoying the drama of every attempt to beat his leading time. As the last racer starts the penny start to drop. And the impossible happens. The guy with start number 51, who is there to make up the numbers and 'gain experience', wins on the Lauberhorn.

What's the take out?

Hintermann focused on two things. His slalom run and his downhill run. He didn't worry about what the organisers thought about him (his start number), his competitors, the weather, doing enough to score a point/secure some sponsorship. He just did his stuff - skied as best he could, twice. Meanwhile some of his competitors were complaining about the weather, making stupid mistakes and taking their foot off the gas. Yes he got lucky with when the snow fell but he put himself in a perfect position to take advantage of the situation.

Whether it is in sport or business the take out is clear. Focus on the things that are in your control and execute your skills to your absolute best. Everything else is out of your control so for sure one day you will get lucky - make sure that you do you are in position to make the most of it.

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Strength or weakness focus?

When you are planning your training or doing a performance review for a colleague or deciding which meal to cook for visitors at the weekend what do you focus on?

Do you start with weaknesses, focusing on putting in place actions to make those weaknesses less weak?

Or do you start with strengths, finding ways to stretch and challenge and make those strengths even stronger?

Its easy to fall in to some lazy patterns of behaviour. Focusing on the strengths that we enjoy because, hey they are strengths and as a result not really stretching ourselves to make them out of this world strengths. Or picking on a whole list of weaknesses, beating ourselves/colleagues up about them and spending huge amounts of time to make them less of a problem but without ever being able to really use them as an asset.

Many of us have witnessed work environments where the whole people development ethos was to get everybody up to an acceptable level of mediocrity but with no glaring weaknesses. How much more inspiring when the focus is on developing knockout excellence in a few areas and taking care of any potential de-railers.

How about committing to a different approach this year in your sport and workplace?

Be as creative as possible to take your strengths to an out of this world level - that's a challenging process in its own right and at the same time highly rewarding.

Then with weaknesses, be really clear about which which weaknesses are going to be limiting if not fixed and put some effort into those.

Finally spend time on both on a regular basis. Remember that returning to a strength tends to give confidence, especially when you know that it is getting even better.