Stop Celebrating The Hero And Start Hiring The Team

You can hear it in the way people talk about work right now: everything is urgent, everyone is stretched, and “high performance” has quietly become shorthand for constant output. We take a different angle by starting with a running truth that’s hard to argue with. 

Nobody signs up for a half marathon and expects to wing it on the day, so why do we promote people into leadership and then act surprised when they struggle without training, coaching, or recovery?

TL;DR / At A Glance:

• running as a clear model for planning, consistency and recovery
• leaders as business athletes supported by a real performance team
• why constant pressure creates exhaustion and weaker decisions
• routines, habits and flexibility when curveballs hit the diary
• building a high-impact calendar with big rocks and peak flow
• deliberate practice, feedback and the limits of “experience”
• recovery as a performance lever and the risks of always-on culture

Kieran Gilmurray and Laura Lawless explore the idea of leaders as business athletes, and what that metaphor reveals about modern organisations. We talk about the unseen teams behind elite performance and why workplaces often do the opposite: deliver at 120%, transform in 90 days, hit the numbers, repeat. 

They dig into routines that actually hold up in the real world, including high-impact calendars, time blocking the “big rocks”, and working with peak flow rather than fighting it. We also get blunt about the signals leaders send when coaching and development are always the first things dropped.

From there, they challenge the always-on culture that normalises burnout, and we discuss how AI can unintentionally accelerate the “more tech, more work” loop, with a real psychosocial impact on agency and wellbeing. We push on the tension between personal responsibility and organisational responsibility, and we unpack what HR can enable versus what leaders and individuals must own. The thread that ties it all together is simple: performance is an outcome, but practice, support systems, and recovery are the foundations.

If you want practical, grounded ideas for leadership development, executive coaching habits, sustainable performance, and building a culture where people can do their best work, press play. 

Subscribe, share this with a colleague, and leave us a review with the one habit you want to build next.

Transcript

Leadership Through A Running Lens

SPEAKER_00 0:04

A big part of my work now is helping organizations build capability. Not just in theory, I'm super focused on practical, but in how people actually lead day to day. And with that in mind, I'm going to start somewhere a little unexpected potentially, and that's my passion for running. Now, I'm not a professional athlete, not even close. I am someone who signed up for things that felt like a great idea at the time and then had to follow through. So I've run multiple half marathons, three-quarter full, and I have another one coming up, which also seemed like a great idea at the time. And if I'm honest, every single time I start trying, I have the same thought, right? Why did I sign up for this again? But some of the things that I've learned is that you can't just turn up on the day and wing it. So you need a plan, we need consistency, we need people around us, and we need recovery, whether you like it or not. And I was thinking about this yesterday, um, in advance of chatting with Kieran today. We don't expect people to run marathons without training. So why do we expect leaders to perform at that high level in business without any of that? So just to get the context set, Kieran, I'd love to hear your initial

The Business Athlete And Their Team

SPEAKER_00 1:12

thoughts.

Kieran Gilmurray 1:12

I was wondering where we were going there. I thought, am I listening into the right podcast about future work? Or was that a cry for help, or was it a mixture of both? Yeah, look, I I love this topic, and why I love this topic is that uh I look at Rory McElroy and I watch him win the Masters again. Well done, Rory. Northern Ireland Tourism, thanks you immensely.

SPEAKER_00 1:35

Absolutely. I'm only sorry that I did an each way bet.

Kieran Gilmurray 1:38

Oh my gosh. And we're not advocating gambling on this podcast, although I've got crypto coming out. No, I don't. Um what I'm saying here is yeah, he he's a business athlete. Everybody stares at him, but for him to be successful, he has an absolute machine and team behind him. Physiotherapists, dietitians, PR, broadcast, media, you know, chief of staff or whatever else he has.

SPEAKER_00 2:06

So when you think about high performance in business, Kieran, do you see people who are actually training to get better or people who are just constantly performing under pressure?

Exhaustion Culture And Constant Pressure

Kieran Gilmurray 2:16

I see both. Do you know what I mean? But the question comes, not what they're doing is what they should be doing. So I watch all the do you know. I've only come across in all my 30 years, you know, one chap who went out recently, started to do a management leadership course course. Uh, he ended up with me on uh the business side of the coaching. He ended up with an executive coach on the executive coaching side, and he ended up with a fitness coach as well, and started to really look after his physical, mental uh health and his business health as well. And what he was doing was something that I've been advocating for years is to surround yourself with the right team because ultimately you are a product of your environment, you're a product of the building bricks that you put in. Uh, but again, as I said, I'm sometimes guilty of that myself. You know, physical health tends to drop when my my uh work goes through the roof. I have to force myself to go to the gym and get it done. My diet, thank goodness, uh uh is is is isn't bad at all. Do you know what I mean? As an I I really drink, I I I do eat really good uh food, very little processed stuff. Uh the only bit I I don't have in my diet a lot of is water because I much prefer uh coffee. But again, I think I've more to do, you know, and you know, it's finding brilliant people who are really good at what they're doing. So my mind food, for want of a better phrase, the bit that nourishes my thinking and brain, I actually struggle to meet really great people who are true experts, who've got an opinion that diverges from mine, not that that's right or wrong, but we can have really good debate and help each other, do you know? And and that that isn't the norm. Now, is that me who I'm surrounding myself with? Is that that you know, with people struggling to perform in general because they're exhausted? And I was teaching one global group today, and they're exhausted, they're all working at 120%, trying to transform business. No coaches, no mental health, no nothing. It's performed now in the next 90 days, hit PL, or you're out. And that's something I'm seeing a lot of. So we need to recast, recalibrate, restart. But I don't know if we're in the market that's going to give us that permission to do so.

SPEAKER_00 4:24

I would incline to agree with you because when you know we and we often defer, especially in in the space of leadership development, we defer to uh these elite athletes for you know what are they doing that's making the difference? And you know, there's a piece of research that suggests a significant percentage of the Forbes 500 or whatever it is, that the majority of those CEOs are uh ex-elite professional athletes, um, which is it, which is interesting. And you know, in looking at this space and looking at the the likes of Rory McElroy, or even if you you know you'll be familiar with the the rugby world I know, Kieran. If you look at the likes of Dan Parks,

Routines That Survive Curveballs

SPEAKER_00 5:04

who you know, of his era when he left rugby, there wasn't that idea of career pathways, there wasn't that idea of here's a plan to support you post-rugby. Um, he left the professional world of rugby and said, Oh my god, so what? And he had to go through quite a number of iterations of himself, of where he wanted to be, of what he wanted to do before he landed. I think he's in insurance or something at the minute, but he speaks quite interestingly about the idea of routines and rituals and consistency that he took from his professional athlete days and still applies to his business day-to-days. And he breaks it down into the very basics of culture, even and the types of culture that he needs to engage with in order to meet really great people, to build really great relationships. And he talks about simple things like saying hello to everybody in the morning. Um, he talks about being really consistent with your 1%, which I think is very interesting. But then also on the flip side, he talked about this idea of um if a curveball is thrown at you and that routine is impacted in some way, how that then impacted him mentally. But it it's it's you've got to take whatever you can take to succeed in a professional sport. Can or does the same apply in the business world? I'm not so sure.

Kieran Gilmurray 6:37

Why not?

SPEAKER_00 6:38

Because ultimately is it realistic to apply a routine? You know, I mean, he he talked about having training days down to the minute, and how he translated that into the workplace was whether it was your one-to-ones or block booking your meeting or your diaries for certain pieces of work, and that they would not move, they became a habit. Um, but if that curveball happened, which it does in our typical day-to-day engagements, it threw him for a loop. And he acknowledged that he was vulnerable. He he found that that some of those professional athlete practices didn't always translate.

Kieran Gilmurray 7:17

But then it goes down to rugby. Like one of the things they were saying in the Irish rugby team, why the coach is so successful and the difference between Schmidt and current. And I don't know. The current coach is going, You're intelligent. We'll give you plays, we'll give you routines, we'll give you discipline, but I want you to play what's in front of you. In other words, you know, not everything is a logical, you know, step one, quick step two, step three, step four step, and off you go. And if you play rugby, rugby can break down in a thousand ways, different opposition every single week. So I think it maybe comes down to the person themselves.

High-Impact Calendars And Peak Flow

Kieran Gilmurray 7:47

Now, I do uh a course, I deliver it uh for high performance teams, and I'm the same. I build out what's known as a high impact calendar. And what we're looking at there is we're looking at uh, you know, the business goals that need to be achieved, the growth, the cost, the whatever else. And we're going, okay, let's put, I call them big rocks, you know, big chunks of time into the diary. So we're actually our time doing the things we should be doing. You know, you do a bit of burrito analysis, you look at what are the 20% of tasks, 80% of the value, done. Right. Now we go into team coaching because I want the team communicated with coached. We got our agile ceremonies, we got our one-to-ones, we've got everything else. I'm also looking at the time when individuals are at peak flow. In other words, you know, I'm highly creative in the morning, not before nine and eight coffees, but you know, highly creative then. Friday afternoons, you know, that's that's just sales meetings, half dead in the head because I've I've spent so much time talking, working, or whatever else during the week. I've got my recovery time built into that as well. You know, I've got my breaks over my lunch so that myself and my team are available to support each other to be as peak performant as we can be. And there's innovation time, there's reflection time, and there's built in. Now, here's the thing: uh, in the real world, can things change? Well, yes and no. Yes, they can. And therefore, sometimes you've got to roll with the punches. But I see people who've got a great diary, everything's organized, and whatever else. And then, you know, I can't coach you today. Well, why? Because I had a book in a client meeting. Okay, big deal. That's okay, that's real. Can't coach you next week. Well, why not? I have a client meeting. The signal that you're sending to your team then is actually, we're not here for peak performance. I'm here for me. Whatever we've said and done, that ritual, for want of a better phrase, is broken apart. So there's being, you know, a zealot, you know, which is moment by time, and if something comes in, we're not coping. That that that's called an immovable rock. That isn't going to work. And then there's reacting in the moment to a real opportunity, and then there's just, you know, not practicing a bit like you and your running, uh, which is, you know, you know you need to do the hard yards, you know what works for you, but you decide not to do it or rock up in the day, you know. So I'm in the planet, uh uh, but real world. But it isn't the case of being an elastic thing that you you just don't stop trying. And myself, I I can be guilty of that as well. So this isn't me down going peak athlete. I go, I block things into my calendar to reflect on my work and my behaviors and my habits because I have to, and I'm trying to form what I call not rituals, I call them habits, uh, to me to to do the things that I should do. And I enjoy them. Same with exercise, you know. Do I want to do it every day? No, I don't, but it's harder if I don't do it in three days and then five days. You put in your reps, you get your results.

SPEAKER_00 10:33

Yeah. And it's in uh I I again that that idea of the deliberate practice, building those habits. We we need to be looking at where we're deliberately practicing, you know, whether it's feedback, coaching, working beyond our comfort zone. And you know, you mentioned there, like I suppose experience as well. And experience doesn't always equate to expertise. You know, there's lots of us uh leaders out there that will say, well, we've 10 or 20 plus years of experience, or do you have that one year repeated 10 times? And I think you know, again, linking back to the racing, you know, you don't I don't take minutes off my my personal PB time, my personal best time, without someone challenging my pace, my form, my recovery. It's it's so much more than that, that habit of just running, you know, it's it's again surrounding yourself with expertise. You know, at least athletes don't go it alone, okay? But why do leaders, which we've mentioned, you know, no elite runner operates solo. We there's coaches, physio, strength, conditioning, nutrition, but leaders often still operate like solar performance but expect that team-level outcome. And I think it's interesting when we we do advocate for leadership not being say an individual sport, we we talk, you know, I was only speaking with a group last week about delivering through others, you're moving from that individual contributor to delivering through other people, and it's closer to maybe a relay race opposed to that sprint or the high performance marathon runners. So if leadership was your sport, let's say what's missing, yeah.

Kieran Gilmurray 12:14

But here's the thing you go back to our athletes that tend to be competitive. I'm massively competitive, you know. No, I don't compete with you, and I don't mean that you personally, I mean I compete with me.

SPEAKER_00 12:24

Yeah.

Kieran Gilmurray 12:25

Hard race, and and those athletes are at the front, you know. I want to be number one, you know. But as a society where we hero

Deliberate Practice Beyond Experience

Kieran Gilmurray 12:33

worship our leaders, you know, when we talk about Rory McAron, oh well done, everybody in his team. Now let me congratulate Elon Musk. Oh, congratulations. He does 80 hours a week. He he wins it sat near the Dow Microsoft. So what he he is every one of the 30, 50,000 employees. Why do we do that? Because I think we're a society, are we allowing it to be uh us it to set us up for failure? Uh are we not willing to acknowledge the rest of the team? Are we too competitive? Is it so many or all that?

SPEAKER_00 13:02

I think many and all, you know, if talking about performance, even that always-on culture, the idea of burnout being normalized in business, you know, performance is effort, but it's also recovery. And you've touched on it briefly. But you know, if you look at running, we have rest days that are programmed, tapering. You know, I I've got a race coming up next week, and you know, the next seven days are taper for me. And I I'm I'm struggling with that. So I think I only have like two runs in the next seven days, and I'm I'm already peppering, I'm already having issues with that. I'm thinking, will I get a sneaky run in? And you know, if I don't tell my coach, they won't know any different. But tapering is intentional, and we know that say overtraining leads to injury, but what would happen if your organization treated recovery as seriously as output? You know, you don't get stronger during the run, you get stronger in the recovery.

Recovery Versus Always-On And AI Pressure

SPEAKER_00 13:54

And like then conversely, I was looking at an article that garnered a lot of interest um online about a leader in Marks and Spencer's who was advocating for the always-on culture and that people need to be checking their emails when they're on holidays and they need to be always available, and that's how to effectively lead. And interestingly, there was uh quite a significant amount of comments on that.

Kieran Gilmurray 14:19

Agreeing or disagreeing?

SPEAKER_00 14:21

What do you think?

Kieran Gilmurray 14:22

It depends on the animal. Do you know what I mean? If you're in a consultancy business, you're hitting quarter to quarter to quarter to quarter, and you're not being eulogized for taking time off. I I deal with a lot of companies who are putting AI in, and and uh there's increasingly, uh, thanks to health authorities and my good self, you know, uh a focus on uh psychosocial impact of AI. In other words, if you think about Uber and you know, good company, all sorts of no criticism, no nothing here. You know, algorithms optimized for output, the algorithms optimize for for impact, the algorithms optimised for revenue. But there's a human being who is uh to a degree losing their agency. Yes, you can turn off, accept or not, don't accept the algorithm's not going to pick you next time, you know. And therefore, the the consultancies are under pressure to perform. You know, their money businesses, shareholders are demanding that. So if they take 10 hours out using AI to do, you know, redesign a workflow, redesign work altogether, then 10 hours is being put back into revenue generating work. So it's the culture of more, more tech, more work. And the clients are demanding, by the way, that the consultancies drop the price by 50%, use AI to do it. So the entire environment, and I'm just using those as an example, but it doesn't matter the company I come across. I've yet to go in where someone is going, Kieran, I want to hire you to come in to train my team to reclaim 10 hours. Not difficult, folks, whether you think it or not, bring me in. Uh and what I want to do is I want to give them five hours recovery. I want to give them three hours investment training, and now they're able to do the work to much higher quality, the better outcome, you know, win-win-win, folks. It's not free the time, fiddle the time. Yeah, and that, and that's the the the work I'm in. And you're sort of going, well, hold on, that's consulting. That's every business I come across, FMCG, to consulting, to whatever. It doesn't matter. I work every sector, every country globally, as you know, and I see it everywhere. And I, you know, to a degree, will there be a psychosocial impact? Uh, a bit like our social media piece, because of AI. Well, I think AI is a tool and part of this culture, and I want to make sure I'm not connecting AI with you know the actual environment where we're not practicing recovery. We we have hero leaders that we're worshiping. And I just wonder whether we ourselves have got ourselves into that habit. But do we have a choice? Because if I'm working one of these globals and I walk in and say, folks, I've put an AI, I've got 10 hours back. By the way, for me to achieve peak business athlete performance, I'm actually going to take Friday afternoons off. But my work is going to be so good the rest of the week that uh you will love me even more. I just don't think we can do that.

SPEAKER_00 17:02

No, and I and like organizations have done mini versions of that where they might do like no meeting blocks, you know, half days, full days, but the expectation is still there in the background that it's all right, you can catch up later. And and and the the I think the organizations that do this effectively, you know, they put they might protect that time culturally. Because I know uh Shopify, we know, famously cut thousands of meetings, and it wasn't just a case of it was in the calendar, it's it was culturally the norm. But most companies that introduce that, they just introduce it and then quietly override it.

Kieran Gilmurray 17:36

So, how do we do this? Because in all the play now, I and I want to lean on two lenses. Uh, my the companies I work for are not my mommy or daddy. Do you know what I mean? I I want them to create an environment where I perform, and I'm, you know me by now, I'm responsible for my own performance, but I can ruin it by my corporate culture and and the market, and I can play in the market, but there is no such thing as a market, there's just people and expectations and whatever. But it's up to me to stop, it's up to me to invest in myself, it's up to me. But that feels like an awful lot of me as well, you know. And I've invested hundreds of thousands in my education, hour after hour after hour, and I've got the rewards back. So, how much is me and how much is business

Shared Ownership Of Performance And Growth

Kieran Gilmurray 18:20

that should be preparing me for peak performance?

SPEAKER_00 18:25

Okay, it's an interesting question. And I'm thinking, you know, I I always as I've always kind of said to you, is your appetite to own your development and own your career. You know, that that is something I always admire, but it is something that isn't wildly innate in people. Um, there is still that expectation to a degree of parenting when it comes to the workplace and providing that career path and providing that hand holding and providing that skill set irrelevant of what I hired you for. But in terms of, I suppose, what I do and what the organization can provide, it's a it shifts from the conversation kind of of blaming an organization, right? To sharing ownership of performance. And that's where kind of I suppose we have that mature conversation. So I mean, if I'm thinking out loud, I'm thinking, you know, as a runner, I don't just race, okay? I build endurance, I work on technique, I review performance and I adjust. Okay. So what I would say to listeners is think about what I am actively training right now and not just delivering. So we we own more of our performance than we think. Sometimes we have an association or assumption that that we don't own all of it, that that HR, dreaded HR, that HR owns some of it as well. But only if we treat it like something we need to build, opposed to something that we need to prove and build your own support team. Don't wait for one. Okay. In sport, no one gets better on our own. Okay. I know that when I joined a running group and I I always swore blind that I couldn't run with people, it was one of the best things I ever did. But in business, we wait for that organization to provide coaching, to provide mentoring, to provide feedback. And often it doesn't come. Surprise. So flip it around. Ask who's challenging you, who's giving you honest feedback, and who's stretching your own thinking. And your performance ecosystem is your responsibility, not just your organizations. There's nothing to stop you asking those questions and seeking out those more informal relationships rather than waiting to be assigned a mentor, to be assigned a coach. If you're waiting for your organization to develop you, you're already behind. Listen to your body. I'm not very good at it. I'm currently deep in physio for a number of niggles that are in kettle.

HR, Leadership And The Performance Environment

Kieran Gilmurray 20:54

But what's the purpose of HR then? And what's the purpose of an org? Because you and I have been there, done that, you know, recognize these things. But when I'm a junior in work, you know, and forget this, you know, longevity equal excellence. You know, if that was the case, then your business for 30 years, you'd be paid billions. You know what I mean? That doesn't work like that. But what's what's the purpose of work then? What's the purpose of HR? What's the purpose of leadership? Because if we're telling people to come in and perform, you know, and work out your own coaching network and work out your own goals and work out your own mental state and work out your own whatever, like there's a dichotomy here between, you know, adult to child. Like, where does that begin and end? Because how many orgs have you gone into or teams where people have got, well, the company hasn't. Well, HR hasn't. Well, HR I I can't count on the number of teams where I've walked in to change mentality.

SPEAKER_00 21:47

And like the company has even last week, Kieran, I'm speaking with a uh group and we're talking about funnily enough, and I'm not joking, we're talking about performance management, and we're talking how you know it it has been trying. And failed and it hasn't stuck for whatever reason. And from two brief conversations, it's very apparent that HOR is there to own performance.

Kieran Gilmurray 22:11

No, they're not.

SPEAKER_00 22:12

No, they're not. Okay. They're there to enable, they're there to design, they're there to challenge. But performance is owned by the individual, right? But the environment shapes that performance, right?

Kieran Gilmurray 22:23

So who owns the environment? What's the leader's job then in this world?

SPEAKER_00 22:27

I think in this world we should be looking at leaders promoting people without training them. We always come back to this. Uh are we rewarding output over sustainability? I think yo, HR isn't going to run the race. Okay, but HR might design the course.

Kieran Gilmurray 22:52

So then why have a HR function? Why not just contract in?

SPEAKER_00 22:56

While I'm always an advocate of HR, I do believe that in certain organizations there is a space for outsourcing HR.

Kieran Gilmurray 23:07

Um allowing HR means because you go to someone said to me recently, if it wasn't for procurement, if it wasn't for HR, if it wasn't for risk, if it wasn't for compliance, all that friction would disappear and we'd just get on with the job. I think that's a little bit optimistic because you actually need to understand the job and get trained and risking compliance is something. But are we challenging enough how work works? Because we're talking here about individual peak performance, but I need a coach. You know, Rory needs a coach, a swing coach, a coach. So do HR become coaches? You know, and then we've got individual performance because for all the coaching in the world, if he doesn't walk out there and perform on the day, and you'll see days when he doesn't perform, he gets whatever.

SPEAKER_00 23:49

Yeah, yeah, he has his moments. And I think you know, when in the workplace scenario, you know, you're if people aren't performing, we tend to go straight to what's wrong? What's wrong with them?

SPEAKER_02 24:00

And instead of just scenery, so that's different. Oh, yeah, it's crazy.

SPEAKER_00 24:04

Introduce the pip. Yeah, otherwise, no, we don't manage performance, we move the problem.

Kieran Gilmurray 24:09

Oh, well, well, let's mix your both. So we we pip them. By the way, we want a coaching trusted relationship. I want you to come and tell me anything you're not performing. Okay, pip.

SPEAKER_00 24:17

Uh absolutely what's wrong with the system that we've put them into, right?

Kieran Gilmurray 24:24

Okay, so how do we build an athlete's village here?

Mission First Then Build The System

SPEAKER_00 24:27

So get people I think we have to look at culture first and the culture of the organization for the fit of people that we are recruiting for.

Kieran Gilmurray 24:43

But that has to start with mission. So we have to start with mission and hire the athlete. So I'm not gonna hire runners to play rugby, you know, unless they're sprinters and build like brick houses these days. But I'm gonna go with what's the mission and then I'm going to go, what's the athlete that I want to put in place? And then I want to go with what's the surround that's going to help that athlete perform.

SPEAKER_00 25:10

Why would you start with your mission first?

Kieran Gilmurray 25:14

Because it's a bit like starting with AI and then going, oh, what's the business problem? I've got a hammer and everything gets whacked with it. Whereas I want to know there's the destination. And therefore, okay, now I know what we're doing and where we're going. What are the capabilities, the skills, the structures, the technology, the people in business strategy and tech strategy? How do I knit those three legs of a stool together to get me to deliver that and deliver it really well?

SPEAKER_00 25:43

Well, I think you come back again to the I suppose the line between the individual ownership, the organizational responsibility. We know that the balance isn't right, it's leaning too heavily one way or the other. What's the the I don't know the answer? No, and I and I and I'm thinking because I'm there there's a number of different angles that you could take to this in terms of what the mission is. And I and I quite like that the language of the other mission is it's a little bit old school when we used to look at vision, mission, and values first, and then we move to other theoretical purposes and strategies and pillars.

Kieran Gilmurray 26:22

Um and friction, uh, introduced it all. Now, mine is I go back to the rugby analogy, is what's the mission? Win the game. How do I know if I win the game? I score more points than the opposition. Okay, what are the rules? Here's the rules. Okay, what are the plays? Uh well, I'm gonna trade, I'm gonna think about the strategy. You know, how am I gonna execute on those? Well, I'm gonna roll the forwards and roll the backs.

SPEAKER_00 26:44

And and that was one of the points that Dan Parks referenced actually as well. Was it I suppose on top of layering on all that was the people that surrounded him. And he was very clearly able to identify who supported him, who protected him, who enabled him, and uh and was very clear on the end go.

Kieran Gilmurray 27:06

So maybe there's the sporting analogy where you know your enablers uh or HR, you know, your protectors are your risk and compliance, not to an over-engineered degree.

SPEAKER_00 27:18

Yeah.

Kieran Gilmurray 27:20

Your managers and leaders, team managers and sports set strategy and direction, but ultimately they set you up for success, and now you have to go out and perform on the pitch. And when things get difficult, you know, that's where for me in a rugby pitch you could tell the individuals who are going to go into their own shell and start to complain about everyone else and moan about how the weather, the referee, or anything else, or you picked your team, and sometimes they weren't necessarily the best athletes. In other words, could I run 60 metres in 4.25 seconds, or do I have someone who can do it in five? But I know the moment the ball gets wellied up the field, they're gonna run and they're gonna run the next time and run the next time. So they're not leaving it, you know, to anyone else. And the best athletes I came across, the best rugby players, own the performance and recognize they were part of a team and put their head very often where it shouldn't be. I'm not advocating for that eight staples later, that was a mistake. Uh, you know what I mean? But it's one of these things where you're gonna think that that's not the worst thing. And notice I wasn't blaming the referee. And when my captain said something to me, I didn't go to HR. So I wonder how we get you know the recognition that we own our own performance, we are business athletes, athletes have an environment around them that that solves for that. And you and I mentioned we need to create our own, but yes, we do, but I also want the business to be there for it. If I'm talking about Ulster Legend Rugby, there's a system set up to allow the team to operate at peak performance, and everything is analyzed, and nobody sits and feels hard done by. Do you know what I mean? You're you're there to perform, you know, the mission, you know, the goals and whatever else, create the environment, not go play the game. At the end of the game, you know, the video analysis and whatever else, we look at that.

SPEAKER_00 29:04

Data, data, data, yeah.

Kieran Gilmurray 29:06

Guess what happens in business? We make the mistake, we make the decision, we make the mistake, we move on, we fire the person next. You know, so I think business has a heck of a lot to learn from high-performance sporting environments, but at the same time, if I look at the number of rugby players who are, you know, suffering from concussion injuries. If I talk to some of the rugby players around the place who are carrying, you know, really severe injuries and praying to get to the end of the season where they can allow their body to recover. And then when they finish, they're absolutely in bits and not prepared for the future. I think there's a hell of a lot of lessons that uh we need to learn to bring that forward. So that is nurturing, it is supportive, it is adult to adult. There is an end game, but when people are putting in their peak performance, that's where companies have a responsibility to make sure, and this comes back to HR, mental health, and everything else, environmental sleep, recognizing when someone needs to turn off, if they can't themselves, that uh actually that performance environment accounts for all angles of performance. And I think we've a hell of a lot to do to work that out, which is what we're gonna get to that. I'd love to see, and this is why I do like uh, you know, ex-athletes coming in, but I'd also like some ex-coaches coming in. I'd like some chairs

Designing A Real Athlete Village At Work

Kieran Gilmurray 30:24

of some great rugby teams or sporting teams, whatever else, is in there to come in and explain what they've done and for us to literally take the lessons because quarterly targets are the outcome of performance. We can't use those as an excuse. You know, Ron uh Johnny Wilkinson uh once said, everybody watched me kick the winning goal. What much was the thousands of hours that I put in behind the scenes to get the winning goal? But uh companies that argue, you know, peak quarter, don't have time, don't have time. No, that's an outcome. Everything else sets the foundations for peak performance. And at the end of a quarter, if your team are at peak performance, you will be hitting every single number and smashing that and smashing your competition. So, therefore, how do we focus from a leadership, a HR, an environment, uh, whatever perspective to allow people to perform? And therefore, from that perspective, okay, what are the roles in business? So, you know, the Johnny Wilkinson mental health coach, the the Rory McAucky swing coach, the dietitian, the physician, and whatever else. I think we need to re-look at the structure. And in the absence of a company doing that, I think we need to look at that in ourselves. And if folks call find themselves in an environment which isn't conducive to their performance, well, it reminds me of that story, and I'll butcher it yet again, where you go into a supermarket and a bottle of water is is is 90 cents or or a pound or a dollar wherever you are. If you go to the airport, it's two pounds. If you go to a boutique restaurant, it's seven pound. The bit isn't that the bottle is it worth any more or less. It's worth more when it's in the right environment. And that's where people need to get themselves. We need to understand what peak performance looks like. That for me, Laura, is what's the game we're playing? How did we win? What's the success rate? I think we need all the constituent parts. I'm not so much worried about, you know, shining HR or reducing risk. I'd just like us to stop and reflect for a moment and create an environment where everybody can be their best. Because imagine actually going to work in a place where you yourself were focused on peak performance. You had a team around you that cared deeply about you and your performance and cared about the customer and the company performance and the supportive environment. And we do need to recognize that it's you know mental health, physical health, diet, and whatever else. We want that, but not in an infantile way. And please, folks, if you're sitting there complaining about your manager and the process and the data and the whatever else, and you haven't got this tool or that tool, you really have to look at the tool in the mirror and ask yourself questions. Uh and I think this team sport needs played. And if we do peak perform, you know, that's a combination of everyone and everything. Stop worshipping hero leaders, stop concentrating and focusing on yourself. I'm not asking anyone to do the lifting for everyone else. We're asking people to take the share and do all these things right. Business becomes easy, or or whatever it is, you're in the public sector, because the outcomes will reflect the inputs. And that's, I think, where we need to be. What's your thoughts, Laura, to close this

Practical Takeaways To Close

Kieran Gilmurray 33:28

out?

SPEAKER_00 33:28

Yeah, I'd have to agree with all of the above. And I think one thing that I organizations certainly that that I've worked with, we often miss a trick there in trying to attempting to drive accountability. Um we consistently see the defer to HR and or other supports in within an organization, opposed to building that capability and that that accountability, whether it's for one's performance outputs and and everything in between, you know, but looking at for me, it's looking at again, and we we keep hammering home this point, but it's building training plans for leaders, you know, looking at those skill sets, looking at monthly focused skills around you know, feedback, delegation, and building in that recovery piece around reflection and feedback and building, you know, you mentioned habits at the start of today, building feedback habits and treating leadership like a capability opposed to a role. We need to, I suppose the second thing for me would be focusing again on not just rewarding outcomes, but creating opportunities to have peer coaching to say, what are we actually practicing? You know, as cringe-worthy as it is, role-playing difficult conversations, finding that mentor that you can rehearse safely with, where it's about practicing and not just delivery. And you know, we spoke a lot about teams opposed to individual contributions today. So I think mapping your support system around leaders and that doesn't need to be formal, it doesn't need to be driven by HR, but mapping your support system around your mentors, your peer groups, your coaches, and asking, you know, who makes our leaders better? Running, you know, has taught me a lot of this. And you know, you you don't accidentally become a marathon runner, but in business, you know, we promote people into leadership and we expect them to perform at that level instantly. So I think sometimes the problem isn't the people, it's that we're treating that leadership like a sprint when it's actually that long distance game where we need to build in those opportunities for learning, for recovering. And we talk about learning agility, the ability to learn, unlearn, and relearn. Taking a slightly different approach to how we view leadership, I think will go a long way to understanding and enabling more effective leadership.

Kieran Gilmurray 36:02

Captain, my captain, we better end there. Folks, until next time. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_00 36:08

Thank you.