What Olympians can teach corporate leaders about resilience, motivation and reinventing themselves after a high-stakes event

Olympic lessons: Sportspeople have to recoup and start training and competing again soon after a sports event is over. Corporate workers and leaders can learn a lot from following their example, say HR managers. (Image: pexels)

With some key Paris Paralympics events already over (the Paralypmics began on August 28) and Olympics 2024 in the rearview, it is time for returning athletes and support staff to regroup for the next big thing. The sports calendar and the grind in-between events can be relentless: National and World championships, Commonwealth Games, Asian Games and, to come full circle, the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles await sportspeople who must begin training again, irrespective of whether they won or lost in the Summer Games and what other experiences, elations or setbacks they faced in Paris.

Corporates can take a leaf out of the book of Olympians, on how to reinvent themselves for their next moonshot soon after they've given their best shot in one pitch, presentation or interview. It's undoubtedly a rigorous process for athletes to adjust to their routine life after an electrifying performance at the global event, only to restart the whole journey. Parallelly, there are various once-in-a-year corporate events or projects in which corporate leaders prepare themselves and their teams to deliver the best. However, results may or may not meet expectations. Nevertheless, the leaders must guide the team to adjust to their routines, stay motivated and prepare for future challenges. Below are a few tips on how leaders can do this:

Say no to culture of fear

Remember how Japan’s gold medallist and four-time world champion Yui Susaki was undefeated until India’s Vinesh Phogat beat her in Paris 2024? If Phogat feared never beating a world champion, history would have been different. Similarly, industry experts say if an organisation has a prevalent culture of fear, then the teams will be dysfunctional, and they will look to fix blames rather than issues.

“They will be interested in saving their backs. This is more so when the stakes are high. On the other hand, when the culture of the organization promotes psychological safety, then the teams will be able to retain their cool, and approach high-stakes situations and discussions to solve them together without necessarily worrying about who is right and who gets the credit,” says Madana Kumar, global head of leadership development at UST, an IT company headquartered in California, US.

UST claims to have cultivated this culture through its “Servant Leadership Philosophy” where leaders are encouraged to build a culture of trust and psychological safety through the ‘DEEP BHC’ behaviours such as emotional healing, empowerment, putting others first, etc.

In a nutshell, managers are trained to understand and deal with human emotions in team dynamics, and that helps them coach the teams to stay calm and remain focused on the task at hand even in high-stakes situations.

Never lose your cool

Freestyle wrestler Aman Sehrawat had an impressive run until the semifinals, However, he had to cut more than 4.5 kilos to qualify in the men’s 57kg. Still, the Paris Olympics bronze medallist maintained his composure throughout the event.

Drawing a parallel, experts say maintaining their cool in high-stakes situations is essential for any leader to build a strong team culture and course-correct in the event that things don't go to plan.

Richa Dubey, chief people officer of Nayara Energy, recalls a stressful event in one of her previous roles as an HR leader. She had received a storm prediction in an area where her then employer had some key manufacturing units. This storm posed a risk to human life as well as to company assets and materials. “We called for a contingency plan meeting to strategize our response to this situation. We mobilized our human resources and their families to a safer location. We also moved the raw materials to safer warehouses. Essential services resources manned the location adhering to the defined contingency SOPs,” says Dubey, who has over 25 years of experience in HR leadership.

“By strategizing and staying calm in this situation we ensured nil accidents as well as zero productivity loss,” she adds.

Celebrate individual achievement 

Though India did not secure any gold medals in Paris 2024, the nation celebrated the individual successes of all the athletes who got silver and bronze medals, motivating athletes to perform even better in future.

Similarly, Anesh Korla, COO of Encora, says leaders can boost team morale and excitement for future projects by recognizing and celebrating individual and team achievements.

“It is important for leaders to manage the situation with empathy and resilience when something doesn't go as planned. The leader can organize a debriefing session to discuss what can be learned from the experience and improvements to be made in the future,” Korla says.

Since team members frequently model their behaviour after their leader, a leader's composed manner can benefit the entire group, he adds.

Answer ‘why’

Back in 2009, Sajju Jain, an adviser and coach to startups, had a major product launch coming up. As Regional Business Manager for South-West India, he had prepared a presentation for the team as experience had taught Jain that a team is much more motivated when they know “why they are asked” to do something as compared to those who are just commanded to follow orders.

However, the presentation did not have the necessary positive impact. Soon after, H1N1 Swine Flu was raging across Maharashtra, and the company needed fieldwork, however, the team was concerned.

“As the launch date neared, several new issues came up. While the H1N1 situation had significantly improved, the supply chain issues it had created along with challenges of bringing together our distributors and retailers from across the state added a lot of stress to the team,” Jain says.

Everyone was working long hours, but Jain could see tempers rising.

“We brought the whole launch team together for an open session where everyone voiced their major challenges. What we could solve right there and then, we did. For what we couldn't resolve, we created a central rapid-action or SWAT team that would provide additional resources and support to the ground teams,” Jain says.

Most importantly, Jain created a “focus only on the immediate next step” approach. Typically, he tells the teams to keep the big picture in mind, but during high-stress, tight schedule situations, he found it best to get everyone to focus on just the immediate task at hand.

“As we got closer to our launch date, using 'super focus', everyone saw significant progress, stress levels came down, and the launch went well, leaving the team with a significant sense of achievement,” Jain adds.

Come back strong

Industry experts say it's crucial for leaders to motivate themselves and their team to come back to a tough routine after they exhausted from a significant event or challenge.

Suresh Mansharmani, Founder and CEO of Tajurba Business Network, was once in manufacturing and exporting garments in early 2000 and his resilience was tested when a fire broke out in one of his factories, destroying 100 percent of the export goods.

"Though we were devastated, we remained composed in front of our staff the next morning. We set a goal to get the factory operational within three days, and while we didn’t meet that exact deadline, we managed to do it in five days. The outcome was remarkable: all our foreign buyers granted extensions, and we received a full insurance claim," he says.

"Whether it's a large-scale event or an unforeseen crisis, maintaining composure and a positive mindset can turn any situation into a success," he adds.