Onto the podium

Drawing from his experiences of working with Olympic athletes, Jonathan Males explains even a tiny change in right area has the potential to make a big difference.

For Olympic athletes, reaching the podium is a tangible outcome for their many years of hard work. For the serious athletes, fourth place may as well be last.

This difference – between fourth place and a medal – can be minuet. In most events, a 1% improvement can take you onto the podium. These results from the 2008 Beijing Olympics show the difference across a range of sports – including events in which British athletes won gold:

Clearly it's not as simple as just trying 1% harder. Successful performance in sport pulls together a whole raft of physical, technical, psychological and logistical factors at exactly the right time. It's the culmination of years of preparation, and a bit of luck helps too! As part of this preparation, small improvements can make a big difference – and the closer you are to the podium, the more important these marginal gains become.

How does this apply to the world of work? Many managers would argue that they're not aiming for a gold medal. But when I'm working with organisations it's because they want to make the most of their people's potential. To do that, you can use the same principle: small improvements in the right areas will lead to big differences. The question is, where do you start?