Leadership lessons from the Rio Olympics

In the article I wrote about striving for perfection to achieve excellence, I talked about some of the lessons learned from the Rio Olympics.

Specifically, I wrote that people looking to better themselves in all aspects of life can learn some valuable things about striving for perfection, and how this can lead to improvements. Relevant to this notion is an article I found in Forbes, which provides three lessons for business leadership from the Rio Olympics.

In the article, Forbes author Andrew Cave talks about an interview he held with Jonathan Priestly, Senior Vice President of Collaboration and Engagement Software Firm MultiTaction, who provided three key insights that can be drawn from Britain’s recent Olympic success, and how that applies to leadership in the business world.

The first tip says “Targeted investment maximizes return.” Priestly believes, according to the interview, that many businesses could benefit from a level of focus similar to that employed by Britain after 2012. After London 2012, Britain’s sporting chiefs were reportedly ruthless in rewarding the nation’s most successful sports and cutting investment, and the funding of athletes, among those considered to have underperformed.

This strategy worked with rowing and cycling, as they contributed almost half of the country’s gold medals.

“From our own experience, I suspect that where Team GB has the edge is in creating the right environment for coaches to view and interact with multiple sources of structured data to identify the most promising opportunities,” he says.

Read the Forbes article to learn more.