Lessons for business from double Olympic gold medal winner Alex Gregory

Recruiters drew important lessons from the inspirational story of double Olympic gold medal winning rower Alex Gregory about how to build and sustain a high performance business culture.
Mon, 19 Sep 2016

Recruiters drew important lessons from the inspirational story of double Olympic gold medal winning rower Alex Gregory about how to build and sustain a high performance business culture.

At an event organised by mid to senior-level white collar recruiter Stanton House held in Reading, Gregory told the audience of his journey to sporting glory, about the setbacks he had overcome and the lessons he had learned along the way. Gregory won a gold medal at both the London 2012 Olympics and just recently as part of the Team GB's Coxless-four boat in Rio. 

Lee Costello, a director in Stanton House's Reading office, said the key lesson he took from Gregory's story was the importance of having an open honest dialogue - be that with colleagues or clients.

During his presentation Gregory explained that one of the 'light-bulb moments' in his rowing career was after a defeat by the Australian crew seven weeks before the 2012 London Olympics. 

“We sat down together for the first time to speak honestly with one another. We realised that we all wanted the same thing, but that we had been going about it in different ways.” For the next six weeks, Gregory said at the start of each of their three daily training sessions, “we would talk about what we were going to do”.

“We realised what honesty really was, but it didn't matter [saying uncomfortable things to each other] because we were all after the same thing [Olympic gold].”

Costello drew a direct parallel between this and Stanton House's daily early morning meetings, which he said were vital for driving the business's performance. These were characterised by “open dialogue and talking to each other honestly”, said Costello. “We are fully transparent about what everybody is trying to achieve,” he added.

Alex Gregory and fellow speaker Charlie Wagstaff

Gregory said another 'light-bulb moment' had been realising that he needed to step outside his comfort zone. He explained that he had always worked on improving his rowing technique. “This was easy because it was something I was already good at,” he said. However, he said the big improvement only came after he decided to work on his weaknesses by focusing on building up his physical strength and size in the gym.

Charlie Wagstaff, managing director of Criticaleye, a global community for boardroom executives, who also spoke at the Stanton House event, said that for people to step outside their comfort and to work on their weaknesses, this had to be “in the DNA of a business”, as well as in the individual, and in many businesses this was not the case. 

Wagstaff said one of the other key lessons from Gregory's story that could be translated to the business world was the importance of staying focused on your goal. Gregory told the audience how despite injury, illness and being overcome with nerves in the earlier part of his career, he had never lost hope of realising his Olympic dream. 

“His [Gregory's] story is about persistence and commitment to what you believe. Success is built sequentially. You achieve something and then you move on to the next thing,” said Wagstaff. 

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