Don't Be A Snippy Chimp

I had the good fortune of going to a brilliant 'inspiration' talk from Dave Brailsford, the Performance Director of British Cycling. It was anything but the charicature motivational speaker thing event. Brailsford established his credentials by comparing the 1 Gold medal won in the 76 years to 2004 by British cyclists with the haul gained in 2008, that would have put British Cycling, if it were a country, ahead of France in the medals table; 8 golds and 14 medals in total.

He put his success down to three key points (plus a huge increase in lottery funding).

1. Focus. Taking only cyclists with podium potential. Brailsford was offered 46 places by the British Olympic authorities, but they took only 23. The rest weren't good enough. They set goals; not goals of beating others, but of being the best they could be, identifying a time as the goal. The times were audacious but were not unrealistic. They had been carefully worked out.

2. People. Brailsford got in the right people. The one he talked about most is Steve Peters, the only psychiatrist working in the top echleons of sports apparently (mostly, it is sports psychologists). In essence Peters talks about the emotional 'chimp mode' that if left uncontrolled, can take over, just when you don't need it. You can't change your chimp, but you can learn how to manage it so it doesn't impair performance.

Brailsford also doesn't believe in 'fear' coaching. Only positive coaching. It was part of a value system that on the team had to buy into. One very senior coach was fired for not buying into the vlaues, and others didn't last. Podium potential riders needed podium coaching.

3. Aggregated Marginal Gains. When the prepartion for the 2008 games began Brailsford gave everyone on the pursuit team, including all backroom staff, a short film for inspiration. It essentially showed their 2004 Athens defeat by the Australian team with a dramatic voice over from a movie, by Al Pacino I think, about winning one inch at a time. This laid out the philosophy to the team. They were ruthless and ingenious about breaking down every tiny element of performance. For example, McClaren F1 team did modelling on aerodynamics (helmets, body position) and race strategy. One resulting change, that defied conventional wisdom, was the start 0ff man switching from 3/4 lap to 1 and 1/4 first leg. They also got the team to 'feel' the right speed so that riders could change when they wanted to keep the speed up, rather than everything being pre-set (ie one lap per rider). In the final this resulted in one of the riders riding an unheard of 2 and 1/4 laps without a change. But it also took in learning how to wash hands properly, so avoiding the main source of passing bugs. They went to such lengths that team members were employed in Bejing to keep door handles clean. Brailsford even 'joked' about taking an inch out of riders collar bones to lessen the wind resistance. It was a joke, but I bet he had the figures!

One other comment Brailsford made was the importance of removing all stresses from the race itself which meant the performers were then freed up, as far as possible, to perform to their best. In essence it was all about preparation and leaving as little to chance.

There are some good implications for individuals and for organisations alike:

Focus

Audacious but realistic goals carefully worked out

Best people

Best people on side

Don't focus on the competition, focus on your own performance

There are improvements to be made in many many areas.

There are improvements to be made in many areas you don't even know about.

Every area should be looked at from scratch - conventional wisdom needs to be challenged.

Get rid of as much stress before the event so you can focus on performance during the event (not the stress of it).

Understand the chimp inside and work on it.