Most of us have been taught the wrong lessons about performance. We look at elite sports teams, unicorn startups, celebrity CEOs and viral business content, then try to transplant those ideas directly into our organisations. The problem is that we usually copy the mythology, not the mechanics. We copy the speeches, the slogans and the surface-level culture without understanding the systems underneath them. After spending decades inside some of the world’s leading sports organisations, startups and Fortune 100 companies, I’ve come to believe that high performance is far less glamorous and far more practical than most people think.
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One of the biggest myths I see in business is our obsession with change. Every year organisations announce transformation programs, restructures and new strategic directions as though people naturally embrace change. The reality is the complete opposite. Human beings are fundamentally wired to preserve energy and protect routine. We dramatically overestimate both our willingness and our capacity to change. In fact, many people will cling to destructive habits long after they know those habits are hurting them because routine feels safer than uncertainty.
That led me to a question I now ask almost every leader I work with. How much of your life is simply routine masquerading as progress?
If you really want to understand why your organisation feels stuck, go and do an archaeological dig on your calendar. Look at the last three weeks. Look at how many recurring meetings, habitual conversations and repetitive behaviours are filling your days. Most businesses are operating inside fixed swim lanes where nobody is lifting their head up to look at the pool. We become so trapped in the mechanics of operating that we stop questioning whether the routines themselves still make sense.
One of the simplest but most powerful things you can do is deliberately disrupt your routines. I once spoke to a business leader who realised his nightly drinking habit was completely tied to routine. So he inverted the routine. He decided to try drinking wine at six in the morning instead. Turns out it’s very hard to drink a bottle of red at breakfast time. The habit disappeared. Sometimes changing the pattern matters more than forcing motivation.
That same principle sits at the heart of great teams. The single greatest predictor of team success is not talent, coaching or even leadership. It’s cohesion. The best teams succeed because they operate as one unit. They know each other deeply. They trust each other. They have shared behaviours, shared experiences and shared rituals. Yet most businesses still hire almost entirely on individual capability rather than team fit. We hire the rockstar instead of asking whether that person will strengthen the cohesion of the group.
What fascinates me about elite sports organisations is how little time they actually spend performing compared to preparing. The average newly selected All Black will spend years inside the system and only play for roughly a minute and forty seconds on the field during their early career. The rest of the time is preparation, conditioning, routines, training and mindset. In business, we do the opposite. We spend almost all our time working in the business and almost no time working on the business.
That distinction changes everything.
The best organisations I’ve worked with spend enormous energy building future-state thinking. They teach people to behave as the future version of themselves today. If you want to become a high-performing leader, then start acting like one before the title arrives. Build the habits now. Protect your energy now. Structure your days now. Elite teams do not wait for success before they embody the behaviours required for success.
I think this is where a lot of leadership advice goes off the rails. We’ve become obsessed with purpose statements and motivational language while ignoring execution. Purpose matters, but not in the way most organisations think it does. The best teams I’ve seen are not built around corporate mission statements hanging on walls. They are built around a shared understanding of the prize.
The prize is not the outcome.
Winning the America’s Cup was never really about the cup. It was about what that victory represented. National pride. Innovation. Building a new future for New Zealand sailing. Shared belief. The trophy was simply the visible result of something much deeper.
The same applies to business. “Being number one” is not a prize. Revenue targets are not prizes. Those are outcomes. The real question is what difference are you trying to create together? What are people actually moving towards?
Your answer will show up in your calendar long before it shows up in your strategy deck.
One of the first things I do when coaching leaders is ask to see their calendar. Calendars tell the truth. They reveal priorities, energy, alignment and dysfunction almost immediately. If the things you claim matter most never appear on your calendar, then they are not actually priorities. They are aspirations.
I’ve also become deeply sceptical of the modern obsession with hustle culture. The idea that success comes from grinding yourself into exhaustion is complete nonsense. Every elite sports organisation in the world understands the importance of rest and recovery, yet businesses continue to glorify burnout. We celebrate people working ridiculous hours while simultaneously wondering why decision quality, engagement and mental health are deteriorating.
The best teams in the world are specialists in recovery. They understand rhythm. They understand energy. They understand that sustained performance requires space to reset.
That idea connects directly to something else I think most leaders neglect, which is self-management. Great leadership starts with managing yourself first. Most of us move through our days completely reactive, carrying stress from one interaction into the next without any reset in between. I’ve become increasingly interested in practices that help leaders develop what sports psychologists call a neutral mind. Not focusing obsessively on outcomes, but learning how to reset attention and focus on process.
For me, meditation became an important part of that. Not app-based mindfulness while checking emails, but actual meditation. Learning how noisy the mind really is. Learning how much energy gets wasted replaying old conversations, anticipating future disasters or creating stories that are not even true.
Once you start observing yourself properly, you also become far more aware of the people and environments that drain your energy. Every organisation has energy vampires. They are often more damaging than underperformers because they quietly erode momentum, optimism and cohesion. One of the most valuable skills a leader can develop is recognising where energy expands and where it contracts.
The other trap businesses fall into is trying to do too many things at once. Most companies don’t fail because they starve. They fail because of indigestion. Too many priorities. Too many initiatives. Too much noise. The best organisations become obsessively focused on one thing.
When we first worked towards winning the America’s Cup, the goal was not “build the best boat.” The goal was simply to be one or two percent faster on every leg of the race. That was it. Every decision served that outcome. The clarity was extraordinary. Eventually, that focus led to innovations nobody saw coming, including replacing traditional grinders with cyclists because someone inside the broader team realised the human body generates far more sustained power through the legs than the arms.
That breakthrough only happened because everyone was included in the conversation. Sailors, trainers, support staff, engineers. One team. One problem. One focus.
I saw the same principle play out at CommBank. When I joined, the entire organisation aligned around one clear objective, improving customer satisfaction. Every meeting, every discussion and every behavioural norm pointed towards that one thing. Over time, that singular focus transformed the business.
What I’ve learned across all these environments is that high performance rarely comes from motivational speeches or charismatic leadership. It comes from clarity, discipline, rituals, honesty, recovery and cohesion. It comes from builders and makers doing meaningful work together. It comes from people understanding the prize and behaving accordingly long before the results arrive.
If this struck a chord, start simple. Spend the next week observing yourself closely. Look at your routines. Look at your calendar. Look at where your energy goes. Ask yourself whether your current behaviours are actually aligned to the future you say you want. That awareness alone can change more than most leadership programs ever will.