Good afternoon. Good evening. I'm Atholl Duncan. I chair a couple of hats in the respect of this webinar. I'm the chair of black isle group. We've organized the webinar, leadership development and coaching business and the pioneers of nudge technology. And we'll talk a little bit about Nudge Technology. I'm also the chair of UK coaching, which is the national body for sports coaches, from Olympic coaches like Sarah through to all the community coaches that get the country active and get all our kids playing football and tennis, and whatever. So our main guests today are Sarah broadhead, who, of course, is best known for her involvement with the story of Jade Jones, the Welsh wonder who won Olympic gold as a teenager in 2012. And then went on to repeat that feat at Rio in 2016. And Sarah spans two worlds. She spans the world of the psychology of sport, and also the world of the psychology of business and how we create change in business. And she's writing a book at the moment that she will tell you about later, which is about mental health, in athletes, and particularly in elite athletes, which sounds all very interesting. Jeremy Campbell is the chief executive of black isle group. And Jeremy has done a lot of different roles. In the past, he was HR director at Ceridian and commercial director at Ceridian, the big HR Payroll Software business. And Jeremy is kind of the brainchild behind the theory of everyday actions that we'll talk about, and behind the development of the nudge technology. And we also have on the call, Hattie Heneghan, who's one of our colleagues from black isle group, who will monitor the chat, please put your questions in the chat as we go through and Hattie will monitor the chat and we'll put your questions to the audience. So thats us we're off Sarah, first of all, can you tell the guys a little bit about what your involvement was with Jade Jones and what you've done with her we're going to take a look in a few minutes at her winning that Olympic gold in London, but just tell us a little bit about how you became involved with her, what it was like building up to it London 2012 which I can't believe is a decade ago
Now. I know. It's scary, isn't it? So I kind of got into working in sport a little bit by accident, really. So I was working in business, but I've always really loved sport and I had a friend that worked at British Cycling. And it was it was just after Beijing and lots of athletes like Chris Hoy and Vicki were talking about this person Steve Peters, who they were working with. And I thought Oh, that'd be amazing. I'd love that job. I'd love to work in sport. So I managed to get a meeting with Steve in it with McDonald's in Sports City. And he was working as well as with cycling who's working with with Taekwondo and Gary Hall. And so he said, Well, actually, you can I can train you and support you if you want to work at taekwondo. So I'm not sure if Gary got much of a say in it. But so I started working at 2009 and then got mentored by Steve which was brilliant and Gary was great giving me the opportunity. And then yeah, I think Jade joined the academy fairly soon after that. So she was quite young when when she joined
When did you first get involved with her then Sarah? Because she was 19 at London 2012, when did you first get involved?
It was probably a couple of years before that, I think. Yeah. So yeah, she just came in as a young athlete and was just part of the pool of athletes that I worked with. Yeah, that she was just part of that, that group of people that were aiming to go to the Olympics,
And what was your what were the techniques that you use round about the psychology of a teenager and getting her to change their behaviors or to adopt particular habits that she built up towards London 2012? How did you approach it?
I think, well, Jade, always been able to train really hard, like, she's just got the ability to go into the gym and really push herself in, a lot of the work we did was just helping her focus on the process. So rather than going to a competition and worrying about the outcome, or worrying about a particular opponent, it was just focusing on what are the things you can do day to day that are going to help you? And how can you focus on your process rather than the outcome? So it was it not hugely, it was like daily, like chipping away at various things and helping her. Yeah, manage the pressure, I think.
And you had a tick list, you've developed a tick list. Tell us a little bit about that.
Yeah so,this was, so if you think about your outcome as you want to win an Olympic gold, then you work backwards and you think well, what are the things that are going to give me the best chance of doing that? What are the things that are in my control? So it will be things like getting to bed early and getting enough sleep, stretching, eating the right things, going to see family, switching off. Those kinds of things. So what kind of things would give you the best platform for your performance?
And with your stuff that you've done in business? Is that the same principles that you've tried to bring across into that there's everyday actions?
Yeah, so yeah, if you if I was coaching someone in business,again you say what, what's the outcome that you want? And then what are the things in your control that give you the best chance of that happening? So trying to focus on things in your control, it's quite easy to focus on the outcome and get stressed about the outcome or overly focused on it and then you're more likely to feel feel stressed.
And that's something you hear a lot of Olympic coaches saying, focus on the process don't focus on the outcome. It was 10 years ago, but well I'll play this video and basically to see what what memories this stirs in you of this young Jade Jones. She wasn't expected to win was she or?
No, I was just thinking back of how she was she did do pretty well in the run up. But now I don't really think she was expect I don't think we necessarily expected her to win I don't think she expected to win. So yeah, it was bit of a surprise.
Okay, hold on a second till I find those that might have a little no here are perfect.
Sometimes we have a little technical issue with these things, but hopefully this is coming through now. So this is a couple of minutes long. This is Jade making the bit. It was quite early on in the Olympics, I think was it when she when she was here.
I think we were I think we were at the end.
It certainly had quite an empire. Here we go.
And as you can see Great Britain represented in these gold medal bows and represented by a 19 year old whose name is Jade Jones for China. It's Hou Yuzhuo and here they come. Referee really getting involved here. The clock ticks on second warning, or another warning now to Jones one more and she loses another point, that looked like great contact but it did not score. five one Hou Yuzhuo from China in the red Jones takes another point six one surely she's home by now. The maximum four point move needed the spinning kick to the head from Yuzhuo. Can she come up with it Jones has to defend seconds away from a gold medal. The clock stops 10 seconds now and a penalty point goes against Jones just two points the margin. The spinning kick to the head would take the gold from her. The two hold asked to clear the clock ticks on. You can hear the crowd get involved six points to fall. Jade Jones is a gold medalist for Great Britain. The tearful teenager has done it. They are tears of happiness, scenes of great emotion at the Excel.
I still don't believe it now I think I need to wake up and realize, but it's just amazing. And the crowd has been amazing. I've trained so hard and I've dreamt about it for ages like not sleeping and just everything's it's actually be real. It's just unbelievable.
And this is a story that happened a long time ago. Can you just explain some of the struggles and everything that you've come through to be here?
Yeah, my granddad used to drive me to Manchester, like four times a week, drive his car to drive me to everywhere. And so yeah, just training six times a week with Paul. Getting up, everything is just so it's just finally paid off. And it's just amazing that it has.
So what do you feel when you're when you're looking back at that Sarah?
Yeah. It's just quite, brings back lots of emotions. And when I was thinking about this seminar, I remember like I wrote, I used to write a diary. So when I was in the lead up to London, I didn't do it for Rio. But I wrote a diary. So it made me look back at that. And yeah, it's just nice remembering, remembering all the kind of emotion around it. And it is, yeah, it's great.
And 19 year olds aren't really supposed to win the Olympic gold medals. Are they? I mean, it was remarkable if somebody to come, you know, from where, presumably Wales is not a country that's that's well known for taekwondo? I mean, it's slightly out of my depth here.
No. And I think, yeah, so I think that was part of like, obviously, it was, it was amazing achievement, but then it's almost in I think you see it in other sports or other athletes, win really young. It's like, the thing you've dreamed of, forever. You've got it at 19. And then it's a bit like, oh, what next, then? It can be, you can have a bit of a dip afterwards. Because you, you've achieved everything you wanted to achieve at some point in your life. And you've got it already.
Next was real. And when we'll talk about that a little bit later on, but what did you, say you had four years she was gonna go for Rio? What was your approach then? How are you going to go from that peak? To Rio?
I think this is this is where Gary was really like, the director of Taekwondo was great, because he recognized that four years is a long time. And when you've put in so much work and been in that situation, you need a bit of a rest and recovery and you need time away and you need to do other things. So I think I can't remember which exactly she went I think she did dancing on ice like she did a few like celebrity things and not sure a coach was was overly happy about the Dancing On Ice. But yeah, I think it's, it's when you do something difficult, or you come to the end of a big project, you need a bit of time to physically and mentally recover. Before you can then refocus back on your next thing.
Okay, well, let's talk about Rio in a minute. But one final question to you just here. Where some of us are very keen to say we can learn from sport into business. It actually strikes me that a lot of sports people want to be business people. And a lot of business people want to be top class sports people. So it's always like the grass is always greener on the other side. But do you think that genuinely, the psychology of that behavioral change and the habit forming in sport can flick across into what we're trying to do in business?
Yeah, I think people are just people, our minds, everyone's the core bits of our minds work the same. Obviously, we've all got individual differences, but the things that make us human are the same, and just depends on what environment we're in. So I think you, you still say in businesses, but you still have pressures of outcomes, you still have to meet people's expectations, you still have to cope with those sorts of things. You have to cope with life pressures and relationship issues. And it's all the same kind of thing from what I've seen anyway.
Ok. So please pull up any questions that you want into the chat as we go along? And Hatti will keep an eye on the chat. I'll keep an eye on the chat as well. And we'll put those questions to the panelists. So Jeremy, Sarah says it does transfer across to some of that principle that we've talked about, is really the basis of what you're doing with everyday actions, and with nudge technology. So tell us a little bit about how that works.
Yeah, Atholl its exactly what Sarah saying, its based on the principle that if you focus on the process, then you will get an outcome. And what tends to happen with all of us in our business environment is that we get, we push towards achieving a goal or an outcome. And particularly when it comes to things like objective setting on an annual basis, what traditionally happens within organizations is, the objectives get cascaded down from the top. And what sets out is a vision of an organization, by the time it gets down two or three layers can either A lose, the essence of really what the vision is, or the outcome goal, or, and or the challenge in business is, what's my role in that? Because if I'm three or four layers down, I'm doing a particular job. And what I want to know is what's my role in that outcome. And what we are, what we've created at Black Isle, is a process where you break down big goals into everyday actions. So rather than going for the gold medal, in Sarahs case, you break it down into into daily actions, for business, but the daily actions are in line with the role that you do. So what you're trying to do is lift your own performance in your role, which collectively, is going to lift the performance of an organization. So it's exactly the same principle. You know, I worked with Sarah, three or four years ago. And it was one of the reasons we put put this process into a previous organization and had tremendous results from but it was very kind of formulaic at the time, we used spreadsheets, we've now got a beautiful piece of technology that does exactly the same thing. But the principles are exactly the same, which is breaking down what was at the time, looked like a ridiculously large goal. And then all we did is we broke it down into activities. And one of the things that I wanted to be able to do was not manage on performance, manage people, in terms of you haven't done something more about actually coaching exactly the same principle within sport, and helping people to achieve what they wanted to achieve, which obviously, the outcome would be that there's going to be beneficial for the organization. So it's exactly the same principle. It's about coaching, supporting people to deliver their best performance in the workplace. But we use a combination of of basically three things, we coach people, we nudge with the technology, so you get notifications. And then we use the data that people input on a weekly basis to be able to have better coaching conversation. So it's like a virtuous circle.
What are the kinds of results that you've been seeing?
So we've seen some amazing results. Already, we've got it into some foundation organizations, one organization we work with, we increase their pipeline by over 4 million quid within a 10 week period. Why? Because we just worked with a specific area of their business, we've got them all to take everyday actions, small, incremental actions, but the collective of the 25 people or working together produces a big result. And without saying, trying to sound arrogant or flippant about it, it kind of can't work, not work, it's got to work on the basis that if you're getting 25 people or to do small, everyday actions, you will get a result. What the question, of course is, and what you can't guarantee is what the result you will get. So it's no different from it's no different from training to do a half marathon or a 10k. If you do the training, you will be able to run the 10k. But what speed you do at the 10k at you can't control, but what you can control is putting your trainers on four times a week and going out for a run. And that's exactly what Sarah's alluding to. And I actually, I must say I learned this from Sarah and working with Sarah which is control the things that you can control and don't get focused on the stuff that you can't because that's the stuff that actually brings the stress into your life. And once the stress comes into your life, it then it really does affect your performance
And your maybe going to show us what the tech looks like?
Yes
Okay, follow that up. While you're doing that. The other thing that occurs to me is you made a comment earlier on about its performance coaching, not performance management?
Yes.
You know, and that I'm just interested in you elaborating on that but it's not big bro. either
No there's a big difference Atholl right. There's a big difference from where we sit as an organization, we want to work with organizations that want to get underneath people support people to be the best they can be, we generally believe that black Isle that people do come to work to do a good job, we work from that premise, rather than people go to work not to do a good job. And what we're about is trying to find organizations that want to support people to be best versions of themselves, because they want to do it not whip people and performance, you know, some of the old traditional style of performance management, this is not performance management at all, is very much, you know, a conversation on a weekly monthly basis is what is your performance? Have you hit these metrics? What we're interested in is what is your performance? But what can we do to help you improve your performance? So it's, it's it's both it's not, it's not shying away that businesses need to deliver an outcome. It's trying to help people to become better versions of themselves to deliver the outcome for themselves and their organization. And I think this is the point it's about their own development is not just about the company output for that is a consequence obviously people increase their performance.
Pop up your visuals of the text so that people can see that and then I want to maybe, Hattie we've got a question, which we might pop to Sarah.
Okay, Can you see that?
Yeah we can see it.
So this is what the front screen looks like. This is what the setup of the of the app does. We've got this also on desktop, and some of the screens. So you can see on the left hand this the nudge tracker. So on a daily basis, you get a notification, you can click off, whether or not you've actually done the nudge these these are two nudges based around checking in with two clients, innovation, and then you have a nudge tracker, which basically gives you your streaks and how well youre doing again your progress. And then this is really important as well. So this is a basically a Reporting Suite, which gives high level information for whoever's the coach to help with people's performance. And this is not about trying to, to performance manage people this is about, I want to improve my performance, I want to become better. And therefore this data is going to help me to do that. And one of the things that we ask people to do is at the end of each week, we asked them to rate how their week was out of 10. So basically a very basic engagement question. Two, we ask them, What are the three things that have gone well, this week, and then we also ask them, what the three things that haven't gone well, and what's the one thing we can do to help you with, and that data is then collated into this dashboard. And then each person has a coach, which is linked up on the app. And the idea is, and the coach could be external with black Isle, it could be internal, you know, we're very much advocates of getting people internally to be able to do the coaching. And we support the coaches in being better coaches. And the idea really, is that you use the data to have better coaching conversations. Because the coaching conversation, the conversations can start with the data that somebody put down. So if I said I've had a terrible week, everything at home has gone wrong, everything at work has gone wrong, haven't done any of my nudges, as a good coach, as a good line manager as a mentor. What I'm going to do is pick up on that information, I'm going to have that conversation with that individual. So rather than saying, Well, look, you know, your performance is not good this week, my conversation is going to be you've not had a great week, I understand that, that's gone. But what can I do to help you to have a better week next week? So the idea is that we're capturing and catching when people are having a hard time in the workplace early, and therefore you can then change it. And the other thing as well Atholl, just to kind of share with some of the beta clients that we're working with at the moment, one of the things that we've learned also is that sometimes the nudges change. So after, you know, over a 10 week sprint, we put these in 10 week sprints. So what we find is, maybe after three, four or five weeks, actually some of the nudges are becoming already ingrained as habits. And actually it's time to change those nudges or the nudges are really not having the impact the individual wants. But if you think about that, that's really agile way of making sure that an objective is going to be hit because you're actually changing tack halfway through a 10 week sprint rather than traditional way of Performance Management, or the way that people have been managed in the past is annual performance review, half year review. And frankly, after half, you know, after six months, after six weeks, most objectives are actually not relevant.
Yeah. That's great. Thanks Jeremy. If you can drop your slides then that's brilliant. So Hatti, there's a question for and i think Sarah is best placed to answer this one.
Yeah.
So I say the quote is from Charles Darby. I think it's from
Hes a top top hockey coach Charles Darby.
There you go. So yeah, he's saying from his experience of elite sport, how, you know, you look back at your previous games to learn from them. But he feels how can we bring more of that into business? When you move on so quickly?
We stop and and review some, some of not just trying to help people do that. That'd be your your experience Sarah?
Yeah, I think what, what sports, what athletes are really good at is, is seeking out and taking on board feedback. It's just you get it every single day, like every, or most sessions, you're coached, or you're just used to it. And you're used to debriefing after a game and then used to planning for the next game. And yeah, I think in my experience, people in business aren't always as comfortable giving and receiving feedback. And I think part of it is trying to create, like, psychologically safe, environments or cultures. So if you feel that you can admit a mistake, or if you get feedback, it's not a disaster, it's, it's just helping you improve. I think that's got to be the foundation is that, that creation of that, that culture, and that comes from the leader, like they've got to be creating that environment. And then planning in those review points. In sport, there's quite obvious review points, like before a competition after a competition, whereas in business, there might not be those obvious points. So you probably have to create them a little bit more.
Well, quite often, certainly in the past, hopefully, it's changing. But that would be a once a year review of your objectives with your line manager who might tell you that, you might be surprised, because it might tell you that you haven't hit your objectives, or they might just tell you that you know, that you have hit them. And I think what we're seeing with a lot of the work that we're doing, is the days of that are over Jeremy?
Yeah, absolutely Atholl, yeah. It's really about for me, it's, it's, it's exactly what Sarah said, right at the beginning is the process. That's actually the most important thing. And if you get obsessed about the process, then everything else takes care of itself. And I think this thing about, you know, there's something about stress involved with getting anxious, so anxious about outcome goals, is so debilitating, I would imagine, Sarah, obviously, ive no specialism in sports coaching whatsoever, but I would imagine that is so debilitating from a sports point of view, that if somebody is so stressed, they literally cannot perform on the day.
Yeah, absolutely. You see it, they call it choking, don't they sometimes wear something that you could normally perform Naturally, you almost lose the ability to do it. You work with some golfers and you see it quite starkly n golf, don't you where someone just can't hit the ball. But yeah, absolutely, if you have all those stress chemicals going around your body, you can't access the automatic part of your mind as easily.
On the feedback thing, I remember doing a team session quite a while back and there was say, there was 100 senior managers in the room, and we say put your hand up, if you give good feedback. 100 of them put their hand up. And then you say put your hand up if you get good feedback, and about 15 of them put their hand up. So that I call the mystery of the missing feedback, where's this 85% of feedback going? And of course, we don't identify it as being feedback or we don't do well or or whatever. It's a huge miss. Hatti I think there's another question? I think Jeremy is the man to try and answer this one.
Jeremy Yeah, from Claire Shaw whose a business consultant asking, you talked about the increase of 4 million over the 10 week period? What percentage was that?
I think from memory, it was a I think it was a 35% increase. Gross increase, week on week, so beginning of the 10 weeks and the end of the 10 weeks.
Okay. So please put more questions in and I did one of the other things that I do is I chair the trade body for Scottish salmon. So sometimes when we're slow at questions I offer a piece of salmon, but I'm not quite there.
I was saying to Hatti beforehand that I did offer people a copy of my book, or a piece of salmon and the salmon was considerably more popular than the book. So Sarah let's get back to Jade Jones then. So they were all that euphoria, you'd won in 2012, you had another four years. And we explained a little bit earlier about what the challenges of that was particularly with a 19 year old sportstar. So tell us, your getting there. I mean, she I think she had some some failures, didn't she? She got beaten, she didn't perform as well. Tell us what it was like when you were when you were coming up to Rio in 2016. And trying to do this double gold?
Yeah, I think it's just then you have the weight of expectation. So often, people think, Oh, well, you've, you've won something. So it should be easier the second time because you know, you can do it, and you've you'll have more confidence. But I think sometimes it quite often works the other way, where you just suddenly then feel this weight of expectation where everyone expects you to do it. So anything less than that is a failure. So we just had to, as a team work on that concept of seeing it as an opportunity rather than a threat. And again, focusing back on the process and drawing on different motivations. So the thing that was driving you, before you hit your goal, you will you're a different person once you've achieved your goal or achieved your outcome, and you then need a different driver or a different motivation. Which yeah,
There's a lot of stuff about some of the other Olympic stars, I'm thinking particularly about Victoria Pendleton and cycling, when they get the gold. When they get their achievement, they're almost bereft. Do you know, where do I go? You know, there's that? Was that it? Yeah,
Yeah, I think that's really common. And if you think about how, like, if you think of, like pleasure, and pain, like kind of as a seesaw within the brain, when something pleasurable happens, or you achieve a goal, you'll get that kind of dopamine increase, and you'll feel great. And then people expect that to last for ages. But the way it works is the brain is designed to tip it back to kind of balance out so you then go into that feeling not so great, or in distress in some cases. And that's just how the brain works. So it's sometimes being ready for that, its saying that great feeling isn't gonna last for that long. And we're gonna have a tip back down, and how do we refocus on the next goal? Or how do we get ready for that feeling? Because it will happen. Winning a gold medal or getting any outcome in life doesn't make you feel happy forever.
Yeah, the dopamine. Yeah. So tell me on the on the tick list, now. So you're, you're getting closer to Rio. What are the kinds of things that are on your tick list and your weekly review then? What are your everyday actions?
Yeah, I think they were still the same things and I think people often think that elite athletes are just super motivated and jump out of bed every morning and can't wait to train and if you think what the athletes are doing, they're going to the same gym every day. With the same people the same mats, it's trying to change things up a little bit or bring in training partners or go on camps or like just create a bit of variety or accepting that you might need a bit more time at home or you might need to do other things. And also, particularly for Jade, she was then managing all the media that came with it so extra managing extra distractions, I think was on the agenda.
She'd become a personality now and she'd done the jungle or the dancing on ice or whatever it was. Okay, so we're gonna watch this now. Where were you when she won the gold medal? Were you?
I was in the stands with all the teams, so yeah we came out of the back room and then we went and stood in the stands.
Well, here is Jade, going for and doing the double goal.
Got a headshot she takes it an absolute picture perfect shot their point match Jones goes for the head again. She scores and she is doing so well here a real battle
I'd fantastic stuff Jade Jones just keeping her composure the Olympic champion here defending her Olympic title and wow is she doing it well look at those points there
She won it in London. Shes won it again here, double gold medalist two times Olympic champion Jade Jones.
Yeah just felt, you know, unbelievable. It still doesn't seem real, to be honest. That's crazy. You know, waking up and seeing it on the side of your bed is best feeling. Yeah, and I just didn't realize how much pressure that I would you know, feel on the day. And so I'm just so proud of myself for you know, dealing with the pressure because it to me that you know, that's a true champion. After 2012 Yeah, I think being only 19 and, you know, Olympic champion come with a lot of pressure and, and yeah, that's what I dreamt of ever since I was a kid, you know, the London Olympics. So yeah, it was quite hard to take it first. But, you know, after like a couple of losses, I thought no this isn't happening for long. Erm, yeah, I think gonna have a mental break now. Because I think people don't like realize, you know, how hard is like mentally and physically? You know, I'm training like six hours a day, and just the pressure and everything like that. So yeah, have a break. And then I'm not World Champion yet. So I definitely want to tick that off my list. And yeah, and then just get back on the next cycle. Obviously, Tokyo will probably be here before I know it.
So she had World Championships went on to the onto the tick list. So she talks about pressure, how much pressure is something like that really under? And how are you coping with it as one of her coaches?
It depends how, yeah, how you want to see pressure. And I think Jade was someone that actually rises generally rises to, to the big occasion, in some way. She found it easier performing when there was a big outcome. Not everyone is like that not all athletes are like that. And sometimes it would become too much. Or you just think Well, yeah, everyone's expecting me to do this. And I think that what you need to let people down, that's what athletes quite often say. I don't want to let my family down. I don't want to let team down. Everyone's invested like and then when sponsors come on board. There's another layer of people you don't want to let down. So yeah, it's going back to, talking about it. So making sure that that person feels safe to share those fears and worries and is then able to talk through them find ways to reassure themselves, we reassure them as well. And to say, well, you're safe to go and try. Let's just go and see what happens and give it your best. And that's all you can do.
And Sarah she talks about sleep there. Was sleep an issue for her?
Yeah, I think for a lot of athletes, sleep can be a challenge. It's something that I remember we did talk about or did some of the sleep habits to try and get it but I think particularly like when you're in a village and athlete village when the Olympic Village, they're really noisy. That they're not. Yeah, you've they're not, they're not great buildings there. You've got people that have already finished having parties. So you don't really get a lot of sleep in the Olympic Village anyway. So you just have to go in saying that won't affect my performance. If I get sleep great. If I don't, I can still perform how I want to perform.
Okay, great. And Jeremy, this then mirrors how you sustain habits, how you sustain and picking up different behaviors and habits as you go along. With a nudge. There's a first 10 week sprint, then there's a regroup and then you go again. What's your view about sustaining this way of working?
Yeah, the real challenge of of habit formation or behavioral changes consistency. It's not the first two or three weeks because that's why we're all come out the blocks and the first of January kind of change our lives and by the 13th, or 14th of January, we're probably pretty much back to where we were. The challenge is, is consistency and consistency is really difficult. So it's easy to say and the process to talk about is actually very easy to talk about, but actually doing it is really difficult. And the reason is because we rely on things like motivation and motivation is finite, it runs out very quickly, or willpower is even worse. So, what the, our process that we tried to put in, in place is to support people and hold people accountable, which is not a particularly, it's not particularly a word that people like to hear. And discipline is not a word that a lot of people like to hear. But of course, discipline is a bit of a bad connotation, but actually, if you are disciplined, and you are held accountable, you actually end up with a lot more freedom. And whilst that sounds quite draconian in terms of the workplace, it's not if you want to do it. So the reason why Jade Jones uses something like a Sarah or other coaching staff, is because she wants to win that gold medal. And this is this is what we work with, with people in the workplace, it's, if I want to change, I'm happy to go to the gym and get a personal trainer to keep me accountable, to come into the gym. It's no different in the workplace at all. I want to improve, I want to do my job to my best of my ability, and I want to be held accountable for that. But in a supportive manner. Atholl that's the bit in a supportive way that I'm actually going to improve not be whipped or you know, or hit over the head if I don't do it, and that that's really what we're trying to, to instill within organizations that coaching culture.
Jeremy, I'll come back to you in a minute im quite interested to know what are good nudges? What are the good or what are the best nudges that you've seen. But Sarah I was gonna ask you. There's a question, actually Hattie, there's a question there from Nadeem.
Yeah, I've read that. And I think the end it's could I share insights on how I adapt and manage myself to help?
It's probably worth mentioning Nadem is a sports coach himself
Okay, great.
Your insights into that
I mentioned the Chimp Paradox, there and Steve Peters. And of course, that was the person who got you into this.
Yeah, yeah. He was my mentor and work with the team as well. And yeah, so yeah, we use a lot of the we use the chimp model. And I think if I understand the question right Nadeem, is how you build a relationship, and then adapt your style to get the best out of them. And I think, hopefully, I've understood that right. As a coach, working with someone, you're, my role is to really understand them as a person and build that connection. And if someone feels that you're not judging them, and you really listen to them, I think that helps build that relationship. And then you can work out what it is they need, particularly or do they need a lot of reassurance, they need to be a bit more tough for them. You just work that out as you get to know them. But yeah, I think good, good coaches. are able to do that and really listen to that person and understand them.
Is a bit of that as well I dont know, I understand the question a bit about as well. How do you look after yourself?
Supervision I think is what how I do it. As a psychologist, you have to have a supervisor. And it's same as having a coach, really, they're, they're there to make sure you're okay and direct you and challenge you.
So in your supervision, you have your own coach, and they are challenging you about how you're dealing with some of your sports stars yeah?
Yes. Because, as with anything, you can bring your own biases, or you can, if you've worked with and I worked with, I don't work with Jade now. But I worked with her for probably 10 years. And sometimes you're you become blind to certain things because you've worked with someone for so long.
So take somebody's medicine.
Yeah.
Exactly. So Jeremy, what about the good nudges, what do you think?
Yeah, and it's very specific to the individual. This is the whole point of it Atholl, that the nudges are specific to an individual in their own performance and what they want to achieve. And the good nudge is something that you put on your list to do every single day but you don't actually end up doing because you don't really want to do it, because it's a difficult thing to do. But you know, If you did do it would have a massive impact. So classically, you know of course we use the whole process of everyday actions and nudge in our own business, one of our own people, Sarah Slack, had a massive aversion to going onto LinkedIn. But in her capacity as commercial director is really important. And she was not the only person who by the way, who has aversion going into LinkedIn, I think you'll find if you look up, Sarah now she's on LinkedIn pretty much every day. And why, because her nudge was to start off actually just liking posts, that was the original. So that was the first sprint. second sprint was then starting to post third sprint was about ingraining that habit. And now she's pretty prolific on LinkedIn.
And if I put my coach's hat on sometimes, because people aren't doing that is because they're not comfortable. Or there's a skills gap. Or there's a knowledge gap.
Correct
It's what the nudges are doing, they are trying to push you encourage you into the, we shy away from areas where we're uncomfortable. Yeah?
It's the 20% of stuff that's gonna get you know, sadly I know Paretos Law is like so worn out, but it's not, it's the 20%, that gives you the 80%. But we, we shy away from the 20%. Because often the 20% is the really hard stuff to do. And often, often, we're not very good at it. And if we're not good at something, then we end up not doing it or putting it off, or that's where, you know, we procrastinate and put it off to the next day, but it gets onto another tick, and then another, then another, and another list. And that's really what you're trying to do is you're trying to face into the things that you know, that you should do. So that's just a really good. Some of the nudges are really quite basic stuff as well, though Atholl, like one of the ones with one of our clients is somebody putting in a 30 minute walk every day, which doesn't seem like that big of a deal. It's literally transformed that individual in terms of their productivity, why? Because they take a 30 minute break in their day, clear their head, and they get back to the desk, and they're just so much more productive because of it.
And then if you've not done these nudges, then in the coaching conversation at the end of the week, the real rationale may come out?
Yeah,
The peer coaching is good. Yeah.
Yeah. And that's there was a I think there's another question I saw from Haley, which is about, about the, the big resignation? And the answer to that question, which that she's asking, which is, have we found that this increased retention of employees and empowered employees, what we found is that engagement is increased with every organization that we've worked with. And one of the reasons why is because we deliver peer coaching sessions. And one of the one of the benefits of peer coaching, is getting people literally together, especially in this virtual world. And it's really powerful to get 5, 6, 7 10 people on a call, and having a conversation. And one of the things that we're all completely void of at the moment is having human conversations, not these conversations, proper human conversations, and whilst it's still virtual, it's better than not having it. And we've seen with three of our clients that their engagement scores have increased by 20, 30 points. And one's actually even more than that. Why? Because, frankly, we just got people together and talking to each other. So it's not just the nudges, it's, again, you can see because we're tracking a very basic engagement score right. Out of 10 how do you feel about life? its not a particularly scientific survey, but it gives you an indication, because if somebody's a two, doesn't matter how scientific it is, that's not good. If somebody's if somebody's averaging three or four, I would argue that's probably a coaching conversation is required for that individual to find out what's going on. And how can you help.
So Sarah, just help us finish the Jade Jones story because she did decide to go on to Tokyo, to try and get her 3rd Olympics. I don't think you followed her all the way all the way on the journey. But tell us about that and tell us what happened.
Yeah, so I have chatted to Jade since then. And she actually I think there was an article that she did with the BBC this week, I think so you can go look that up. It's really interesting. Yeah, I think she she talked about how she struggled with anxiety during lockdown. Because she was really close to her parents and, and her family and she was really worried about going home and passing it on, like all the all the probably anxieties and worries that all of us had during that period. She had and I think for athletes, they didn't know when it was going to be it was it is uncertain time, as it was for everyone. So I think she was she was dealing with that. And then her family couldn't travel out to Tokyo. And I think she gets a real lift and benefit from them being there. And that worrying by expectation, I think that was there as well. So yeah, and I think she's, she's handled it really well, I think she's now I think, said she's gonna go on to Paris and go again. And you know, it's a big feat, isn't it? If you think from being 19 to she probably near 30 now it's a huge amount of time, isn't it to to commit to do
she lost in the first round at Tokyo? Is that right?
Yeah. And I think like, there's the side of someone is how you deal with the losses in it, and how you, you come back from it, and the meaning that you make of it and how you refocus it, because yeah, ultimately, along any journey, you're going to have losses or things won't, won't go your way. And if you bring it back to I think, Nadeem put it there, like if you, you have like, a purpose, what's your purpose, you can, weather those those ups and downs, if you've got your purpose and your reason for doing it, you can then get back on the horse.
So tell us a little bit about your book. It's it's in production. You've got to take the list that may be hopefully progressing, and you've got your your big goal. It's about helping athletes to cope with mental stress?
So I think so mental health is a topic that's rightly being being talked about more. And it's for all levels of athletes. So anyone that that competes anyone that takes part. So it could be grassroots, or it could be elite, or the principles are the same, regardless of the level you're at. So I wanted to write a book that was suitable for all levels. So often, people at grassroots level don't get the same input and support that elite athletes might do. So I wanted to bring some of those messages down and make them more accessible.
And again, that was a question that I asked before about sport across the business. And as you quite rightly say, there's a huge focus on our Mental Welfare in business and a realization that we didn't Well, we didn't do very well with our physical health, our sleep, or our mental health. But COVID brought it all to the fore, Is there stuff that we come across from this book into the into the business world?
They're all the same principles that the examples that I use in this book, are athlete focus, but they're all the same principles around, like knowing your values, understanding yourself, and know your purpose, and getting your balance between drive and action and recovery. They're all the same principles.
Okay, do you have a title for it yet?
No. That's got to be my next goal.
You could give a bit of fish to anyone on the call that comes up with a good title?
Yes, that will be amazing.
So Jeremy, I'm gonna wind things up, because I like to finish these before the hour to let people well probably go for the dinner now. Whats your kind of last thoughts, then you've heard the conversation, we've talked about the similarities, we've explained a bit about nudge. What's your thoughts that you'd like to leave people with?
Just that we, you know at Black Isle we totally believe that. We can make differences to organizations, but we were also looking for organizations who want to make a difference to their people. And that's really important to us. You know, we talk about purpose, our purpose is to to help organizations deliver big goals through everyday actions. And that's our purpose. And we're, we live to our purpose. So we're really interested in talking to any organization who really does care for their people, and they really do want to support their people.
And I'm sure Hatti and colleagues will follow up with you on email, if anybody wants to talk further to Jeremy, or wants a demo. And Sarah for you. We can't buy your book yet. If people want to get in contact with you, what's the best way people get in contact with you?
LinkedIn? LinkedIn is always a good way Im probably most active on on there, but yeah, I probably need to set myself soome of those goals on linkedin as well
Sarah Slacks goals, Im going to wind this up and say Thank you very much to everyone who's attended the webinar. Our next webinar is on the 28th of June. Its going to be about habit stacking, which we touched on it, maybe didn't use the phase, but we've touched on habit stacking, and there'll be more information coming out about that. But from all of us at Black Isle group, thank you very much for coming on the call. Enjoy your dinner. Enjoy your bank holiday weekend and as we say in this post COVID world, everyone stay safe. Thank you very much.
