As businesses continue to adjust to the new normal, intelliHR is looking at how the relationship between coaches and high performing athletes can be applied to business.
IntelliHR is looking to do something which is easier said than done: translate high performance in sport into business.
Based out of Australia and launched in North America last year, intelliHR is a best of breed People Management and HR Analytics Software application with the goal to help companies find the best way to support their team members to perform. Right now, they are looking at how they can incorporate high performance in sport into business by taking methods used by coaches and applying them to business.
Founder and CEO of IntelliHR Rob Bromage, alongside CCO and President of America’s Glenn Donaldson, explained the company is looking to further expand their research into how they can translate high performance in sport into business with their upcoming event, Performance Summit 2021: The Science of High Performing Business on Feb. 24.
“We’ve done a lot of exploration around looking at performance, coaching, leadership, and team synergies in the business context,” explained Donaldson. “I think all of those concepts play right back into how sporting teams come together.”
He noted having Toronto Raptors vice-president of operations and player development Teresa Resch as the keynote speaker for the event has them excited, as she will bring her years of expertise in creating high performing teams to the Summit.
“For us, we’ve seen what a team needs, and I think COVID has really been the biggest disrupter for businesses in our lifetime, and so the meaning of teams and the meaning of being able to coach and lead a team from that aspect – I think everyone has to kind of fall back onto that pattern,” he said, adding the science of that is something he is really excited to learn about at the event.
Bromage noted with the event they are trying to give businesses exposure to different ways they can get the best out of their employees.
“Sports teams, they’re high performing teams… it’s always about their personal best, it’s always about doing better, it’s about competing, and business today is like that as well,” explained Bromage.
By looking at what it takes to be a high performing sports team, and exposing businesses and leaders to that journey, might just give them the inspiration to do something different, said Bromage.
He added leadership always changes, and, particularly now, the way people need to be managed is entirely different.
“It’s not leadership by sight, and leadership by being around people and being able to see things and respond to things, and help people in the moment. You don’t have that luxury now,” he explained. “It’s about how you actually set people up for success, and how you actually start to see them as ‘elite athletes’ so to speak.”
This means the employees are the ones who control their own performance, as well as what they need around them to be successful.
“That’s where the whole coach and athlete concept really comes in quite nicely, because it’s the athlete on the court there to respond, and the coach isn’t, it’s all about results through people” he said.
Ultimately, the goal is to find ways to help employers set their workers up for success as individuals, despite not being able to be in the same room as them, by emulating the relationship of an elite athlete and a coach of a high performing sports team in business.Where it gets complex, according to Bromage, is on a sports team they’re training hard for a whole week to show up for a small window of high performance each game, but in a regular business it’s different with performance required for eight-hour work days across an entire week and lots less time focused on skills development.
“It’s kind of the reverse of everything. There’s all of that training … there is also a great amount of support and processes around an athlete to really remove every kind of obstacle and to look at all those things that will actually help them be their best, is really actually interesting to me,” he said.
The journey it takes to become a high performing sports team is where he thinks there will be an interesting transfer of knowledge and will help businesses and leaders change their mindset towards their approach with their team members.
“The thing that we’ve been talking about in our business for a long time now, it’s actually all about the personal best. Everyone’s an individual, and everyone has strengths and weaknesses in different shapes and forms,” he explained.
Bromage added one of the key things as a leader is to get “the right people on the bus” and have them in the right role.
“So, it’s really understanding people, what they’re good at, where their strengths are, how they actually contribute and participate within the actual team … but then, how do you actually support them to do their best?” he explained. “The thing I always say is that everybody always comes to work to do a good job everyday, and it’s what you do with them when they get there is what actually makes the difference.”
As they continue to explore the benefits of applying methods to achieve high performance in sport in business, intelliHR’s Performance Summit will be held on Feb. 24 in Toronto, Ont., beginning at 9 a.m. PST. Secure your free ticket here.
