With all the gloom of the situation in the UK and the wider world earlier this summer, I found myself lifted beyond measure by the Olympic Games; the inspiring stories they brought of the extraordinary achievements of otherwise ordinary people; the tales of triumph over adversity; of miraculous come backs; of the ultimate ‘high performance’.
And yet there was something about some of these stories that after a while made me start to question the whole topic of ‘high performance’:- how we define, reward and revere it. High performance is what most of us strive for – in work and in life. We want to be the best. But is there a ‘dark side’ to high performance that we ignore at our peril as human beings? In other words is high performance ‘beauty’ or ‘beast’?
The Beauty and Beast of High Performance
There were so many athletes that caught my attention during the Olympics because of their awe-inspiring prowess: – Simone Biles and her jaw-dropping tumbling across the floor; Leon Marchand smashing his way to four golds in the swimming (including two in one session!); Duplantis, the Swede who pole vaulted his way to a new world record in jaw-dropping style, and so, so many more.
And in parallel, there were themes of deep humanity, vulnerability and mental health that kept recurring: – Tebogo from Botswana who had lost his Mum just three months before the Games at the age of just 44, and who won gold in the 200m the day after dreaming that she was sitting watching him in the stadium; the young British diver Spendolini-Sirieix who had been close to ending her own life just three years previously, who won bronze in the 10m diving; Simone Biles herself, now a mental health icon after her own struggle with mental ill-health that led her to walk out of the Tokyo Games, who returned to Paris in astonishing form to win three more gold medals and one silver; and Adam Peaty the British swimmer, who had won gold in both Tokyo and Rio, but then lived through a brutally hard intervening period in which he suffered from depression and alcoholism, who came back to win silver in the breaststroke (also with Covid, as it turned out).
But I think of all of them, the story that struck me most was of Rose Harvey, the British marathon runner. She had only started running in 2020 during the pandemic after she was made redundant. By summer 2024, she was an Olympian competing in what was described as a particularly tough marathon course in Paris. What an achievement! To become an Olympian just four years after starting running!!! I heard her then fiancé (they have since married) interviewed on the radio the week of the race. I should have been alerted to something when he was asked what kind of person she was. He described her as very driven and determined, and described how in one race she had competed in, she had literally crawled to the finishing line. I found this a little worrying. But then in Paris, a similar story unfolded.
Not long into the race, she found herself in acute pain. She said the downhills in particular were absolute agony but she persisted and eventually succeeded in finishing the race. It turned out that her pain was the result of a stress fracture in her femur. She had run the entire race with a broken leg! When interviewed afterwards Rose said; “I couldn’t face the possibility of not finishing the race’.
I couldn’t work out if I found this heroic or downright stupid; whether beauty or beast. At best, I fear it is a mix of both.
The Competitive Achiever
I use a tool called The Enneagram in my coaching work. It is an in-depth profiling tool that looks at core motivation. I trained in the tool because I was impressed by its complexity and its commitment to signposting routes to development for people, rather than just putting them in boxes.
One of the nine types on the Enneagram is the Type 3 – The Competitive Achiever. Like all types, it has its wonderful gifts as well as its ‘watchouts’. Needless to say, people of this type are fundamentally motivated by their desire to win, and both to be and to be seen to be successful. I have worked with a lot of ‘3’s over the years but one always stays in my mind. This person held a senior leadership position. Her work meant everything to her. She told me a story (with pride) of how she had once had a terrible skiing accident as a result of which she was hospitalised. During the entire period of hospitalisation, she continued to work. It just wasn’t possible for her not to. As it happened, this was someone who was so attached to the image of themselves as a successful person, that they were unable to hear the feedback they were getting from some of their team (the reason for the coaching referral to me). And as a result of this, combined with their reading of their confronting Enneagram report, they terminated the coaching.
Obviously, I’m not suggesting that all Olympians are Enneagram 3 types! Nor that the Enneagram 3 type is an unhealthy work obsessive (though it can be). I am however, pointing to certain patterns of thinking and behaving that have some people caught in a need to achieve and be seen to be achieving, that causes them to risk and even compromise their health, wellbeing and wider happiness. The costs can be extreme. It may be healthy to work hard, but how hard is too hard?
How Do We Define Success?
Not long after his period of struggle, Adam Peaty spoke quite openly about his experience. A significant theme in what he spoke about was his questioning of the definition of success he had bought into and in the resulting consequences for him. In an interview at the time he said:
“I had spent most of my life kind of validating, getting my gratification or life’s fulfilment from my results and that led me to some dark moments.
And it’s really living your life on a quantifiable measure of results, results, results, instead of; How are the people around me? How am I? How is my son? How is my family?”
It reminded me of another client I worked with a few years ago, who limped their way into a coaching programme with me. This was someone who had worked incredibly hard since their mid-teens, had achieved a lot in the corporate world and earned a lot of money in so doing. However, they had also lost their marriage, their physical health was in pieces and they were on the brink of a nervous breakdown. They talked to me about ’not knowing who I am outside of work”. It was utterly heart breaking.
On the surface of things, we would describe this person as successful. We would certainly describe Adam Peaty and all those other athletes as successful. But what exactly does ‘successful’ mean here? What definition are we using and what are we endorsing in so doing?
Deeply Human® Performance Planning in Organisations
At a recent gathering of the Deeply Human® Culture Club that I lead (a global community of people who share an ethos of leadership and a purpose about creating more human-centred organisational cultures), someone brought the topic of how to create a ‘Deeply Human®’ performance planning practice (note the absence of the word ‘process’). This person had an opportunity to create something from scratch and was interested in the experiences and thoughts of the community. Her desire was to create something that was experienced as enriching and developmental for the individual, as well as useful for the organisation (surely the aspiration for all performance planners). The conversation was interesting and wide-ranging.
We talked about the importance of the way that the ‘performance’ agenda is positioned and the definitions that we use. We also talked about the need for it to take place in the context of both a generative relationship between individual and manager (with both actively engaged), and a culture that values the human being first, as well as the contribution they make to the success of the organisation.
So often, performance planning and management become a process that is more about a tick in the box, than it is about value. Insufficient time is given to it, and there is often a lack of real relationship or ‘skin in the game’ between the people involved. The results are usually a bit of a waste of time.
So the art of engaging people in a practice of performance planning and management is one that requires thought and skill. I would argue that it is one of the most important practices that an organisation can get right, as it is a cornerstone to enabling a workforce to thrive, and therefore an organisation to succeed. The critical success factors are:
- A Deeply Human® culture that values people as human beings first and who care about their wellbeing and development at work;
- Deeply Human® leaders and managers who know how to build relationships with their people, are committed to doing so, know how to coach and are engaged in enabling their team to be at their best;
- Deeply Human® infrastructure ie processes and systems that are human-centred and support people-centred practices.
These are the parts for which an organisation must take responsibility. There is also the individual themselves of course, that needs to take responsibility for their own wellbeing and success. No-one forced Rose Harvey to run with a broken leg. No-one forced my client to make work their sole focus to the detriment of their health, relationships and wellbeing.
Balancing Humanity, Wellbeing and Performance
Everything has its value. And everything, when overdone, can have its cost. Whether ‘high performance’ is to be ‘beauty’ or ‘beast’ depends on the mindset, motivation and sense of self-worth of the individual, as well as on the culture of the organisation and the mindset of those leaders who may or may not choose to exploit that. The key is surely to balance our desire for impact with the imperative to take care of our deep humanity and wellbeing.
So I ask you: How ‘Deeply Human®’ are you? What kind of culture are you promoting for others and/or imposing on yourself? And in so doing, are you being more ‘Beauty’ or ‘Beast’?
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If you want to find out how your leadership measures up against the Deeply Human® barometer, why not take my scorecard which you can access here. It will take less than 10 mins to complete, is completely free and you will get a personalised report with strengths and areas for development (in exchange for your email details, which you can delete straight afterwards).