During the Learning At Work week, Olympic gold medallist rower Ben Hunt-Davis (MBE) came to the OU campus in Milton Keynes to deliver a talk entitled ‘Will it make the boat go faster?’. Here we offer you the thrust of his talk...
The question was always ‘Will it make the boat go faster?’ if the answer was no then it didn’t happen. The strategy was simple and used by the mens-8 rowing team as part of their two-year training plan in the run up to the Sydney 2000 Olympics. It meant personal sacrifice and missing spectacular events, including taking part in the Opening Ceremony.
Ben Hunt-Davis spent seven years rowing and competing for team GB without achieving a win. But in 1998 something clicked for the team and instead of just going back and working harder, they decided they would "learn faster than anyone else". Ben suggests businesses can employ the same strategy to help motivate staff and work towards a shared goal.
The preparation for a task is different for everyone. Just before the final of the Olympics the men’s 8 team had a 90-minute wait. One paced up and down, one listened to a song over and over again, and some just lay on the floor.
Every time the men trained or raced their strategy was to change one thing. The aim was to improve and develop every day. After each race the team discussed if it worked and what they learned: good or bad. If it was a bad, for example they hadn’t won a race, then they would look at what could be changed next ‘to make the boat go faster’.
In the two-year build up to the Olympic Games there were 16 rowers competing for the final eight places. The final team was only chosen 12 weeks in advance of the games. This meant not only were the team competing against each other for their place on the boat but they also had to support each other during all the training. In a squad this size there will always be someone you don’t get on with so well, but the key is to always keep the overall objective in mind.
The team were important to Ben. He said “there were good days and bad days.” On the good days you would bring your ‘colleagues’ up and on bad days your colleagues would improve your performance by pushing you.
Ben says he now lives by a phrase to make success happen: “today is going to be a good day because I’m going to make it a good day.” With a gold medal from the Olympics as proof, it is definitely a motto to adopt.
Listen to Ben talk about the importance of continuous development...
