For four Olympic Games, John Fowlie was a swimming coach at the Australian Institute of Sport / Swimming Australia National Training Centre. During his tenure, his athletes won nine Olympic medals and set seven world records. For the last years, John has been working with high-talent, high-pressure teams in other specialised environments.
On July 26th the Olympic Games will begin in Paris. Incredible athletes from around the world will gather and perform superhuman feats under immense pressure.
John asks: ‘As a business leader, how can you draw inspiration from this event, extract lessons and talk to your teams beyond the obvious and cliché such as dedication, perseverance and excellence?‘ With an obvious Australian swimming bias noted, and intended, he shares his thoughts:
4 Themes for business leaders to watch for during the Olympics
Theme: Radical adaptability
The great philosopher Mike Tyson once said, “everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face”. At the Olympics, all teams are well prepared with clear strategies and common goals. What differentiates individuals and teams, is their ability to adapt to the unexpected. This might be a raucous Olympic Village during the opening ceremony when you must compete the next morning, unexpected aggressive tactics from a competitor, or a bus not turning up to transport you from the village to the competition venue. Winning is all about dealing with the unexpected.
Application: Change and transformation is constant and accelerating, there is no end state. If your teams are suffering from change fatigue, they either aren’t fit enough to keep up and compete, or have the wrong mindset and are thinking of change as a destination rather than an ability. How can you adapt faster than your competitors?
Watch for: Stories of individuals and teams radically adapting to the unexpected in the lead up to or during competition.
Events and people of interest: Thin margin of victory events such as the 100m on the track or 50m freestyle in the pool, or tactical events like soccer, hockey, and road cycling.
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Theme: Breaking through with variety
In sport, there is a well-known physiological phenomenon called the law of diminishing returns where athletes will improve a lot initially to a training stimulus, then gradually less and less over time. For example, if you run 5km every day, initially you will notice a lot of improvements to your fitness, but if you keep doing the same thing, you will stagnate. It’s not as simple as training harder or by doing more kilometres, this is how they coached people in the 80s, it’s about adding variety, something new to shock the body and create an improvement. This phenomenon gets more and more difficult to navigate the longer your career goes in sport, that’s why they say it’s hard to get to the top but harder to stay there.
Application: Learning, motivation and progress will all stagnate if you and your teams keep doing the same thing in the same way. It’s not about doing more, or trying harder, remember that’s what they did in the 80s, think differently, add variety and spark something in your teams.
Watch for: Stories of individuals at their second or third Olympics, with a new coach, or trying something different.
Events and people of interest: Australian swimming fans can’t go past Emma McKeon and Bronte Campbell, both competing at their third and fourth Olympics respectively and both have continuously added new approaches to their training to continue to stay motivated and improve over their careers.
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Theme: Rivals unlocking new heights together
Continuously in sport, the seemingly impossible is achieved. Often, its two rivals pushing each other to new heights, lifting the bar repeatably. When this dynamic occurs it’s electric, and nowhere is this more evident than in the epic arena of the Olympics. While there is only one gold medal per event, the mindset is of one’s success inspiring and elevating others, not of jealousy and scarcity.
Application: In his book “The Infinite Game”, Simon Sinek highlights the mutual benefit of “worthy rivals” in business, think Apple vs. Microsoft, and Nike vs. Adidas. In contrast, Australia is famous for our “tall poppy syndrome” where we tear down and criticize other people’s success, businesses are not exempt from this and it often leads to complacency and falling behind if not kept in check.
Watch for: Respectful heated rivalries where two athletes blast away the competition in a one-on-one battle for glory.
Events and people of interest: Women’s middle-distance freestyle swimming (200m, 400m, 4x200m) with Ariarne Titmus (AUS) Mollie O’Callaghan (AUS), Katie Ledecky (USA), and Summer McIntosh (CAN). All current of former world record holders, a clash of the titans!
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Theme: Improvement by subtraction
If you double your speed through air or water, your drag force increases by a factor of four, resulting in you needing to generate eight times more power. Incredible isn’t it, imagine in your business, to double a result needing to increase the effort by eight, it’s unsustainable. There is however another option, improvement through subtraction. In sport, there is a constant balancing and trade off between deciding to do more of something or less of something to gain an improvement. More strength training, more muscle, more weight to pull through the water, more power needed for more speed. Better techniques, less drag, less power needed for the same speed. Do you do more strength training or work on improving technique, add or subtract?
Application: Leaders’ egos often drive them to start something new. A new initiative, process, meeting, or working group. Teams gradually get overcome with wasted effort on low value work or residual tasks leftover from previous leaders. What if rather than adding something new, you stripped out 20% of the low value work from your team? Imagine the impacts on innovation, creativity, and burnout!
Watch for: Athletes taking drastically different approaches to training with less volume and more intensity, more emphasis on recovery and sleep, or new technologies and techniques.
Events and people of interest: Current world champion, Australian swimmer Cameron McEvoy has completely innovated his approach to training for the 50m freestyle, reported dropping his training volume from 70km as a junior to as little as 3km currently.
- Numeris Média is officially accredited media to the 2024 Paris Olympic Games