Well being: To succeed in business, think like an athlete

Why resilience is key for developing high-performing teams and businesses.

The corporate coach Simon Clarkson was in Dubai for a training session with Active PR. He says resilience in business is as important as it is in sport. Jeff Topping / The National

Resilience is as important to high performance in business as it is in sport, says Simon Clarkson, the founder of the UK coaching company Think Works.

Mr Clarkson was in the UAE last month running an open workshop on developing high performance in businesses, as well as a staff training course with the local communications agency Active.

“How you build resilience – ‘stayability’ – is key,” he says. “It’s hugely important for performance, driving persistence and remaining motivated. The more resilient you are in dealing with challenges and failures, the more you can improve how you do something as a result.

“In a sporting environment, resilience is about the ability to concentrate and mental strength. In a business sense it’s all of that, but additionally we spend time building a high-performance team that is dynamic, has trust and develops accountability and honesty.”

Mr Clarkson adds that developing a high-performance culture in an organisation is about driving individual and team performance. “The principles are very similar in elite sport, the corporate world and in education and schools,” he explains.

The Briton, who works with two Formula One racing teams, as well as in English rugby and football teams, started his career in investment banking before deciding to leave.

After a year travelling the world on his honeymoon, he met someone working in sport psychology and elite performance and realised he had found his métier.

"It's almost an advantage coming at it with a scientific approach," says Mr Clarkson, the author of the motivational book Daydreaming. "I don't regret my five years in banking."

He set up Think Works five years ago and today he coaches using neurology and cognitive science and says it is the equivalent of an instruction manual for humans – taking control over our inner voice and setting goals in a way that “takes advantage of how our brain works”.

q&a high performance

Simon Clarkson tells Suzanne Locke how organisations and their staff can realise their true potential:

What is the opposite of high performance?

A lack of awareness as to the potential of an organisation. We find ourselves in a place where we assume that we have reached the limits of our capability. If we’re not driving high performance in behaviours and culture, we’re essentially settling. Human capability is huge.

What is the one thing that limits change?

People – limiting perceptions and beliefs means they do not realise value. You need to shift the mindset, then that shifts the behaviour and then the culture.

What is your biggest success?

Working with Burnley Football Club – which has gained promotion to the English Premier League twice in the past three years. I am just a little spoke in a big wheel and I’m not taking credit for the hard work the players and staff have done, but I’ve helped build mental skills and culture. Theirs is a massive success story. In one of the best corporate-world successes [I have handled], a company that had real issues with production saw their on-delivery numbers rise from about 65 per cent to 98.99 per cent for the next five years.

In short, would you say you fix things?

Most of the time, it isn’t about fixing things that are broken but about being able to move from good to great.

Why should businesses spend money on coaching?

Organisations driving change – and change is everywhere, let’s face it – spend millions on systems and processes in money and time, and developing people and high-performance mindsets is the missing piece of the jigsaw. You don’t realise true value without people.

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