4 Things Businesses Can Learn From The British Olympic Team- Valutrics
20 years ago, Atlanta 96 was the low point of Britain’s Olympic history, where they won just one gold medal and ranked 36th in Medal table.
Since then they have dramatically transformed their performance, culminating in their best year ever in Rio 2016, where they won 67 medals, including 27 golds and finished 2nd in the medal table.
What’s even more impressive is that Britain won Gold medals in 15 different sports, something that no other country was close to achieving.
So how did they do it?
Funding is worth it’s weight in Gold.
Money talks it’s as simple as that. Prior to the Atlanta games, Britain was investing just £5m per year. But with the set up of the UK lottery, the funding increased to £50m per year by the 2000 Olympics which saw the GB win 11 gold medals.
As Investment has increased so has the medal haul, and around £350m will have been invested between 2013-2017 in both the Olympic and Para Olympics.
This funding allowed many participants to go from self-funded part-timers to funded
You Have To Invest Wisely
This investment has not been distributed evenly; not all sports have benefited. There has been a ruthless review, and the money has been invested in those sports where there has been the best chance of winning. Just like any business you need to know which products have the best chance of success and then invest heavily in those.
Provide the talent with the best possible support.
It’s not just about having talented athletes, every country has talent, it’s about providing the best support, to maximize that talent. Britain has invested in recruiting the best coaches, the best sports scientist, and the sports medics.
Focus On Marginal Improvements In Everything
When the difference between Gold and Silver can be a 1000th of a second or the thickness of a vest, it can pay big dividends to focus on marginal improvements in everything. In the cycling, where Britain dominated, winning twice as many medals as any other nation including 6 Gold medals.
This approach was best embraced by Sir Dave Brailsford who was British Cycling Performance Director from 2004 to 2012. “The whole principle came from the idea that if you broke down everything you could think of that goes into riding a bike, and then improved it by 1%, you will get a significant increase when you put them all together.”
This approach extended to areas outside of technique and equipment to areas such as sleep where people took their own pillows with them to ensure they had maximum rest so could fully prepare. It looked at using hand sanitizers to reduce contracting infections which would impact training schedules.
Success breeds success, and now many of the approaches are being shared to achieve success in other sports, where Britain had previously little to no success.
Sir Dave has since left the British Cycle team to take over the Team Sky cycling team who have won 3 of the last 4 Tours de France.
The same approach which has seen Britain go from an also-ran to Olympic powerhouse can be applied to any business to achieve amazing results.
You need to invest, but invest wisely, you have to provide your most talented employees with the best support possible and focus on marginal improvements in everything.
If you do that your business might just achieve Gold!