Will It Make The Boat Go Faster?: Olympic-winning Strategies for Everyday Success - Second Edition

Our attention is an incredibly powerful tool. When we focus our attention on a key variable (and remember this doesn’t mean beating ourselves up!) then our performance automatically improves and we identify what further support we need.

We tend to judge our own commitment levels by our intentions and feelings, but we judge other people’s commitment levels by their behaviours. So, make it a level playing field by formulating team rules which clearly explain what people need to do or say to prove they have commitment.

Time and again research shows that what interests people to perform above and beyond average performance is not money, but what the psychologist Herzberg called motivators – things like recognition, interesting work, feeling part of the ‘in’ crowd…

If you look back over the last month, what put you under too much pressure? Or what events are you worried about over the next month? When we get to know our stressors we can proactively manage them.

at Will It Make The Boat Go Faster? we use special heart rate monitors that measure something called HRV – how the heart is resting between each beat – which is a key indicator of pressure.

What specific events do you face that would benefit from specific rules?

high-performing team can achieve astonishing results. In order to do that it needs two things: 1.A ‘MMM’ goal (mutual desire, mutual reliance, measurability) to work towards 2.Agreed team rules which describe what everyone needs to do and say to make the goal a reality.

Ben: “As a crew we would listen, say thank you (sometimes!), digest it, then decide what to do with it. Perhaps a huge change, perhaps a tiny one, perhaps nothing at all – but the point was that by asking for feedback we had better information than we would if we hadn’t bothered.”

Ben is an evangelist about what the crew called building momentum.