Here’s an inspirational story for business leaders, as well as sports team owners. Perhaps you’re already familiar with it.
In 2002 Sir David (“Dave”) Brailsford, a former professional cyclist who also holds an MBA, was named to lead British Cycling. Up to that time, the team had won only one gold medal in its long history. To achieve significant improvement in overall performance and results, Sir Dave’s strategy was to make marginal 1% advances in each of a wide range of factors. He examined areas as diverse as aerodynamics, cyclists’ power output, nutrition, sleeping conditions, even the cleanliness of the maintenance truck where tools and replacement parts were stored. He made small improvements in these and many other areas you and I probably wouldn’t think of.
Sir Dave’s incremental approach was hugely successful. According to Wikipedia, the British team won eight cycling gold medals in the 2008 Beijing Olympics, and repeated the record four years later in the London games. In addition, Sir Dave led Britain’s first professional cycling team to four victories in the Tour de France, which a British cyclist had never before won.
What lessons does this story hold for making Business Intelligence an important part of your management process? It’s an apt comparison: The goal of BI is to optimize business performance by continuously improving measurement, planning and actions – not so different from coaching a competitive cycling team. You don’t have to implement BI with a big-bang, all-or-nothing approach to achieve impressive gains.
To use Sir Dave’s words of advice, as quoted in a 2015 Harvard Business Review article:
“You have to identify the critical success factors and ensure they are in place, and then focus your improvements around them.” Focus on the factors that most impact performance.
“Forget about perfection; focus on progression, and compound the improvements.” Implement incrementally, and build on successes.
“Perhaps the most powerful benefit is that it creates a contagious enthusiasm. Everyone starts looking for ways to improve.” Encourage adoption by proving the concept; success builds participation, which creates more success.
How are you incrementally leveraging Business Intelligence to improve performance and lead your team to victory?