Three Lessons for Business Leadership From The Rio Olympics
MultiTaction VP, Jonathan Priestley recently met with Andrew Cave from Forbes to discuss what impact Britain’s Olympic success can have on business leadership.
Recently MultiTaction VP Jonathan Priestley met Forbes and thier contributor Andrew Cave to discuss how he thinks Team Gb’s overwhelming success at the Rio Olympic Games 2016 can give businesses around the world something to think about. One things for sure, collaboration within teams is critical for success.
Britain won 67 medals in the Rio de Janeiro Olympics, putting it second to the US ahead of China and beating a 108-year-old national record for most medals won.
If its achievement of 27 gold, 23 silver and 17 bronze medals is a blip, it is a multi-Olympic one, since Team GB notched up 65 medals when the Games came to London four years ago.
Indeed, the latest performance marks the first time that a home nation has bettered its Olympic medals tally on foreign shores four years later.
Jonathan and Andrew discussed the following points:
- How targeted investment can maximise return
- How human insight can trigger marginal gains
Team Cohesiveness Is No Accident
Over recent years, Britain has focused on ensuring that the athletes it sends to the Games are capable of working together as a motivated team.
It has managed to eliminate unhelpful rivalries and promoted cohesiveness and Priestley believes that organizations could benefit from having a similar focus.
“Britain has proved particularly successful in team sports and events suggesting that a great deal of attention has been paid to the make-up and motivation of each group,” he says.
A good example of this outside of the Olympics is the Toronto Raptors North American basketball team, which is using a tool built upon IBM Watson to improve on team performance.
“Vast amounts of data are provided to sports managers via a touch table and video wall, enabling them to consider multiple factors when picking winning teams.
“Organizations can benefit from a similar approach when considering the long-term implications of major business decisions.”
