USA Gold Medal Performance in the Challenge Consulting Olympics

In the spirit of the Olympics we recently held our own elite sporting competition last Thursday evening at the Republic Hotel.

Our clients came with their game faces on, ready to indulge in some canapés, wine, social networking, as well as adrenalin pumping 100m sprint relay (on the Wii Console). We had teams representing 20 countries, and everyone worked hard in the race towards gold!

We were delighted when our colleague Jenny Madden, representing Team USA, won the Challenge Olympics Gold Medal, along with her teammates, Daniella from AWI and Jo from CMBF, making it a great night shared by all who attended.

Our competitive drive is now enlightened, what else can we take away from the 2012 Olympics?

According to a recent article in Forbes, Executives can learn a thing or two from Olympic Athletes:

At the elite level, every top athlete spends a significant amount of time each day working on keeping their mind as fit as their body.

Because experience has taught them that only when their mind is in great shape can they ever expect to achieve the highest level of performance.

The article goes on to describe that with simple mental training techniques, any executive can lead others with power and confidence:

1. Mental rehearsal: seeing a movie of yourself in your mind performing confidently, efficiently and superbly. (Ideally this is accompanied by inspiring music to enhance the effect).
2. Focusing statements: repeating to yourself positive statements to keep you focused on success rather than contemplating failure. (typical examples are “I am confident.” “I am highly effective.” I am a dynamic leader. ” I am always calm and happy.”)
3. Reading and thinking about your Vision, a short written summary of what you want to achieve and the type of person you are seeking to become.

Not only can management gain great learning insight from the Olympics, but employees can also gain some great lessons from watching the games according to Business Insider:

1. Employees will learn that winning isn’t everything, but wanting to win is. Olympians have a ‘whatever it takes’ attitude.
2. Employees will learn that Olympic athletes embrace conflict for growth. Olympic athletes have a plan to push forward when coming across an obstacle and learn all they can from the challenges they face.
3. Employees will learn that Olympic athletes are held accountable on so many levels.
4. Employees will learn that Olympic athletes are learning machines. If your employees adopted just a fraction of an Olympian’s work ethic, the results they could achieve would be endless
5. Employees will learn Olympic champions know very good is bad. For the average employee, to be classified as very good is something to be proud of. For the great ones, it’s an insult
6. Employees will learn Olympic athletes make “Do or die” commitments. When most people are burned out from the battle, Olympians are just getting warmed up.
7. Employees will learn Olympic athletes are consistently great. They have a very clear mental picture of what they want, why they want it and how to move closer to their target objective.
8. Employees will learn Olympians are coachable. The bigger the champion, the more open-minded they are
9. Employees will learn Olympians compartmentalise their emotions. In other words, they have the ability to put aside anything else going on at that very moment, and focus only on the task in front of them.”
10. Employees will learn Olympians think big. Olympians are fearless and focused on manifesting their ultimate dream of bringing home the gold. Olympians are fearless and focused on manifesting their ultimate dream of bringing home the gold.