SPEAKER_00 0:06

It feels like we've been on this 50-year kind of obsession in Western culture with, you know, who's the biggest, toughest, meanest, richest. And so we were on this sort of testosterone-fueled loop about what matters. But if we put the same efforts into honing cooperative behaviours and experiences, I'd love to know then where we might be and how we might be working in organizations together and tackling some of the big issues that face us in quite a different way.

SPEAKER_02 0:37

That little soundbite was from this week's guest, Kath Bishop, talking about some of the insights from her new book, The Long Win. A book whose themes and ideas very much chime with the purpose of this podcast, which is to try and understand what a psychologically informed environment looks like. In fact, the ideas probably go further in some cases in trying to understand what a psychologically informed society is. I'll talk a bit more about Kath's background in a second, but first an apology for me for the three and four week gaps in between the episodes in season two. In the spirit of making my own personal environment psychologically informed, I'm trying to balance out my responsibilities and workloads, given I've started an exciting new job and enjoying putting lots of time into that at the moment. However, rest assured as we enter into the festive season, I'll be using much of my downtime to catch up on all the brilliant episodes already recorded this year, conversations with practitioners in esports and in the performing arts, discussions about acceptance commitment therapy, the organisational culture of Olympic sports, and of course the second parts of my conversations with Matt Turner and Chris Hartley, Jamie Barker and Elliot Newell as well. So lots to look forward to. Right, so back to this week's guest. Kath Bishop is a speaker, consultant, executive coach, and author on developing success in leadership with a focus on purpose, performance, motivation, inclusion, and resilience. Kath is also a former diplomat and former elite rower for Great Britain, representing at three Olympic Games, achieving world champion status twice, as well as an Olympic silver medal, in partnership with Dame Catherine Granger in the Coxlas pair in Athens. A cursory glance at Kath's Wikipedia or LinkedIn might give you the impression of one word, success. Yet it's the notion of what is defined as success which sits at the heart of her new book, The Long Wind. Is success the outcome or the journey towards it? Is it the medals and the quarterly targets or the skills and growth that we've gained along the way? I thoroughly enjoyed interviewing Kath and getting deeper into some of the topics within the book. If you are interested, I've left a link to the book in the podcast description along with a host of other books I've read or have been recommended in the world of psychology, organization, culture, well-being and performance. In our conversation, we jump straight into the themes from the book and the implications for building psychologically informed environments. We only touch lightly upon Kath's own Olympic and athletic journey, but if you'd like to find out more, I'd invite you to listen to Kath's interviews with Simon Mundy on Don't Tell Me the Score and Steve Ingham on the Supporting Champions podcast to hear more from Kath. Again, I'll leave these links in the description. As always, we'll pause for thought at the end of discussion, so look out for the full-time reflection around 45 minutes into the podcast. In the meantime, let's get into the conversation with Kath Bishop. Kath, how are we?

SPEAKER_00 3:52

Yeah, really well. Glad to be here, Pete.

SPEAKER_02 3:55

Good stuff. How's your Sunday morning going?

SPEAKER_00 3:59

Well, it's not raining, which for October it's actually quite sunny, so that's quite good because this is that time of year where it's starting to get darker and clocks went back.

SPEAKER_02 4:06

So um Yeah, it's been chucking it down, hasn't it?

SPEAKER_00 4:10

Yeah, I do find that a little difficult uh on the mood. So yeah, we've got some sun. A sunny Sunday is a welcome thing.

SPEAKER_02 4:17

Yeah, my birthday's in October, so I always tend to like this month. But you look around and everyone else is going, oh, summer's finished. Um it's really it's dark at 4 p.m.

SPEAKER_00 4:28

Yeah, I know. Well, I'm November birthday, so it's even darker the time you get to mine.

SPEAKER_02 4:35

So, what about kind of lockdown and and COVID and this weird year that is 2020? How has how has that gone for you? How have you experienced it?

SPEAKER_00 4:44

Well, I think like everyone, it's definitely been sort of up and down. And one of the things I always kind of think about resilience is that there are some things you can take from one context into another, but then you always need to build new things. So, you know, when I went from an athlete to being a diplomat, there were some things that transferred across, but then there were new things that were required. And then when I became a parent, again, you know, there were lots of skills from the pressure and just the sort of stresses of being an athlete and a diplomat that were useful, but there were actually a whole load of new things I needed again. And and I feel that this time, you know, with lockdown, there are certain things I can draw on that I know that work to kind of help me on track. But actually, I've also had to build some new things because of the context I'm in, because of you know, being at home more, you know, those are just different um kind of new experiences. So I feel like I'm, you know, as with others, experimenting and trying to work out how I can get that kind of balance in a new context.

SPEAKER_02 5:39

That's interesting. I mean, I'm certain that people listening to this can definitely relate to these stages in life where you just you you feel like you're you're moving into a different echelon, you're picking up new responsibilities. Um, whenever this has happened to me, I've always worried, you know, going into that new stage in life that there's going to be this new set of responsibilities, this new set of pressures of time. Like, what am I going to have to lose from my current balance in order to make the space for those things? Or sometimes you just realize that you can make space and you didn't even realize you had it. I mean, does do you do you have to kind of proactively drop things, or do you just find this kind of capacity from from nowhere? Do you surprise yourself? How does that work for you?

SPEAKER_00 6:25

I suppose it's less a quantity thing and more a quality thing. Um, it's less just sort of how much more can I do, but more um, how can I do things in a way that you know feel meaningful or that kind of make sense, other things I'm doing that I should drop because they don't fit in anymore, or that I'm not enjoying them anymore, you know, and also just in terms of how do I recover and recuperate, how do I make sure that I'm I'm sort of really making sure it's it's proper recovery, if you like, that I'm actually really switching off. And so I guess it's because it's more that um, yeah, the deep deepening of what I'm doing to make sure the quality is there, the experience is there. So even if it's stressful, it's something that's worthwhile doing. So then that's okay, and I feel better about it. So it's always kind of understanding that slightly deeper purpose, I suppose, to to the things that that you take on, and you know, even just the coping now, you know, the the challenges we've got, you know, and I've got a young family. Again, what's going to be most important for us to help us get through this period? Um, and how can we make those things, you know, the positive things as positive as they can be, bearing in mind there's a lot of other stuff that's less positive that we probably can't control.

SPEAKER_02 7:33

Yeah, there's so much in there around prioritization, the quality of quantity of tasks. The fact that being busy in a bandwidth for a time perspective doesn't necessarily mean you're productive, but you can focus on things that make you productive, things that are meaningful actually feel like you're not working as hard. Um, so there's there's loads in there that I think resonates. And on that note, actually, in terms of putting your head down and getting lots and lots of stuff done and having to find time out of nowhere, you've just launched your book. Writing a book is a huge undertaking. Um, the long win. Now that that is it's done, it's published, it's out there. Has have you felt like a big wave of time has just surged back into your life, or do you almost kind of miss the process of writing?

SPEAKER_00 8:23

Um, so I I definitely don't feel I've that I've got more time because, in a way, I've got lots of things connected with the book that are opening up, new conversations, people interested in finding out more about it. You know, I'm writing about the book in articles, and actually from the conversations I'm having, I'm thinking about okay, there were there's more where I could take these themes, or actually I want to write perhaps in more detail about certain aspects of it. So, in itself, the momentum is still there, and there's plenty around the book that's if anything, it's sort of sped up now. It's now it's out there, and other people can start doing things with it and thinking about it and using it and questioning it and challenging it. Um, definitely the process up to now of writing it was chat, was a challenge. It's taken many years, and there are periods where I've put it on the back burner for a couple of months because I haven't had time, or I just have got to a point where I was a little bit stuck with it. So it's been with me for quite a few years, and so there is definitely a sense of a release that okay, we've got to a point now where you know I'm happy to share it. And and that's hard. I'm somebody who always wants to improve things, always wants to kind of tweak and refine. So that was quite hard, but there's a relief as well to going, okay, we're onto the stage now, exploring it, using it, sharing it and growing and developing it in another way.

SPEAKER_02 9:42

Yeah, I love that. I also love the the openness there and the honesty around having to put it on the back burner sometimes and and come back to it. I think for for those aspiring to write a book, sometimes there's the perception that you know, authors are these machines that can just kind of lock themselves to their desk and and write for hours and hours and hours and just get it done. And it's lovely to hear people like yourself and Ross Harris, who who wrote The Happiness Trap, who literally consults for people on things like procrastination, who admitted in his book that he procrastinated for years writing it. So it's it's lovely to lovely to hear that. My copy of the book came through the other week, and I've been furiously scribbling down my little reflections from it. Uh, one thing that I would love to get your perspective on was in one of your chapters, you talk about um, I think the the sub-component of the chapter is even headed kind of Monopoly, and you know, that that childhood experience of playing Monopoly with your family, and it instantly reminded me of playing Scrabble with my New Zealand family. So I've got family in New Zealand, we used to go over there every kind of four years, and we would play Scrabble three times a day with the cousins, with the grandparents, etc. And it was very much between the cousins at our level, it was very much about the win, and it did feel awful to lose to your your cousin. But then when you played with the grandparents, I remember my my granddad who was a um a minister, he would he always used to have this phrase when we were bragging too much about the win. So if we won and we were bragging, he would kind of sidle into the room and he'd go, self-praise is no recommendation. And it was it was my first ever experience of this idea that kind of winning is not everything, it's like the the way that you do something, the manner in which you kind of hold yourself. And he was very much like that. He was kind of that classic generation where it was very much kind of you know, values and the way that you you manage yourself is kind of everything. Um, and it was, yeah, when I read when I read this chapter, it just it just kind of gave me this flashback to um my younger self playing playing ball games with my my cousins.

SPEAKER_00 11:52

That's lovely, yeah. That's so funny. And I mean, for a while I was talking to lots of people and I was asking them, so in all walks of life, what's your first memory of winning? And there was an astonishing high hit rate of people reflecting for a moment, then their face sort of contorting and going, Oh my god, monopoly. And it lit, I wish I'd had sort of a video camera because I'd have had all these little snippets of people reflecting, then screwing up their forehead and saying, Oh my god, monopoly, literally that phrase as well. So I had to really look a lot deeper into this whole experience that we have at home because I was starting to think a lot about what happens at school and how we encounter winning and competition in the classroom. But I realized actually there was so much happening. I was always, of course, already aware of the sibling rivalry piece, but actually, this piece about the games we play is so important. We learn through games, and they have such a big impact on us. And I had my own monopoly experience with my brother, with friends. Um, so I know I totally related to this as well. And it's interesting that you mentioned the Scrabble piece. Part of my research, I came across a brilliant psychologist, Terry Orlick, who's done a lot of research into helping children to learn in positive ways and the importance of cooperative learning rather than competitive learning against each other, being turning a lot of our games into much more of so we learn to cooperate. We have a very different experience. And this is very lacking in a lot of our Western games that we play. And I thought, okay, I'm gonna try this. I was thinking, yeah, yeah, I like this, I like the logic of it, but you know, how different can it be? My son, who's nine now, he was sort of seven and eight when when I was sort of looking at this stuff for a lot of the time, he was getting really into Scrabble and really into the sort of losing. And if I was gonna put a good word down, he'd go, Don't, don't put it down, mommy, don't put it down. I thought, God, this can't be good. And um, you know, likewise, you know, obsessed by the score. And I read the Terry Orlick book and he was saying about how you could turn games around like Scrabble to make them much more cooperative. And so I applied the rules whereby we we go for a joint score. So we're always looking to get the best joint score. We look at the the best word that comes up on the board, and so we're looking to see, and again, that means we can sort of help each other because we might spot something, you know, we're not playing in a sort of fiercely anti way. So we might actually, I've got a really good place you could put that word, mummy, that I can see you're building.

SPEAKER_01 14:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:19

Um, and so we want to create the highest score together of a single word. And I cannot tell you how much it has transformed the experience, what he's looking for now in the game, how we're helping each other to find better words, and how, you know, as we go, rather than tot up his score against mine, he'll tot it up together and go, oh, look, we've got to 200 together now, or look, we've got to 400 together. This is our joint biggest score before. Can we beat it? It really transforms the experience for both of us, and that really kind of made me think, wow, um, just some little tweaks, and we get really different things from it.

SPEAKER_02 14:55

Yeah, that's great. And so is he then able to kind of go back into the kind of the classic binary win-lose um format of of gaming and move between the two? When you when you kind of reframe a game like that, that is, as you say, teaching people so much more than just the the win-loss, it's the experience, it's the kind of the collaboration. But then obviously we live in a society that doesn't necessarily play by those rules. Um, so how do you how do you strike that balance?

SPEAKER_00 15:28

Yeah, well, that's the shame because I think we are not necessarily consciously choosing not to do games of cooperation. So I think if we talked about this more, educated ourselves more, parents and school teachers, I think we could make more shifts because at the moment it's really dominantly only competitive games that are putting us against each other, if you like. Um, I mean, interestingly, Monopoly actually was set up initially and invented by a woman who then wasn't who hasn't been given the credit for it, and uh a man who sort of took over the idea. And her idea was to make it a much more cooperative game that was about, you know, how we could share land for the common good, if you like. It was sort of based on on the concept of you know land ownership. And and he took it and made it much more this sort of cutthroat, you know, you win by destroying everyone else. So there's a sort of interesting piece of sociology, if you like, in terms of how Monopoly was actually invented. Um, and I just think we don't question these things enough, which in itself is a worrying sign, if you like, at how much we're just buying into this because it's present, it's around us, we assume it's it's our only choice, if you like. And that those are the games that ever that we played, so therefore they're the games that the next generation played. Whereas I think we do have a much bigger choice, and we should be really stopping and thinking about what are we getting out of this and how many tantrums are we causing that really aren't that helpful to anybody and aren't that enjoyable? And you know, most people's memories of Monopoly were really quite negative and sort of quite scarring. And you think, well, what's the point of that? Um, wouldn't it have been nice to have done something slightly different? Sure, part of the world operates like that, but do we have to play and overdevelop that part of the world? I found often again the argument against thinking differently, against long-wind thinking is oh, you know, it's the way of the world, it's dog eat dog, and you have to get used to that. But that becomes very self-fulfilling and self-perpetuating. And it doesn't have to be like that. It it feels like we've been on this 50-year kind of obsession in Western culture with you know who's the biggest, toughest, meanest, richest. And so we were on this sort of testosterone-fueled loop about what matters. But if we put the same efforts into honing cooperative behaviours and experiences, I'd love to know then where we might be and how we might be working in organizations together and tackling some of the big issues that face us in quite a different way.

SPEAKER_02 17:54

Yeah, that's I mean, that's fascinating. It's interesting that so much of you what you've said there, and I think you mentioned the word social socialization and these assumptions embedded into society about what is valued, what isn't, how you go about things. Um, you mentioned some of the catchphrases that people latch onto and almost kind of make a part of their life. I mean, I remember there was, I'm sure there was a quote, I think it was Bill Shankly who said, first is first and second is nothing. Um and there's there's lots of variations of those, but those become part of culture and and also start to define how people strive for stuff. And I thought there's a chapter in your book you talk about language, and I note that you know the the word compete um from the Latin actually means come together or to strive together. So actually, you know, this where we've come from, you know, that language actually doesn't mean what it means now, it's a world away from Shankly, but actually that that language in a very subtle way helps to define how we strive for stuff or how we work with or against each other.

SPEAKER_00 18:59

Yeah, and just little prepositions like are we yeah, are we working with each other, are we working against each other, makes a huge difference then in the way that we think and the way that we behave and the way that we connect with others around us. So it's the impact of this language, which again, I think we're not always conscious of. We absorb it from it's all around us in from the minute we're in the playground to those games at home, to the films that we see and this sort of macho culture about heroes that's very prevalent around us that we then absorb. And my danger is I don't think we're consciously aware of how it impacts us, our experience and the experiences we go on to create for ourselves and others around us. It's really, you know, some of these phrases are quite kind of empty, aren't they? And you think, well, you know, really what is is that life that simple? Is that what it's about? Is this going to create an inclusive environment where we are, on the one hand, seeing how important it is to bring more people into the workplace and create much more cognitive diversity and much more tolerant society? And and on the other hand, we've got all these silly phrases that are actually holding us back from thinking in a more collaborative, expansive way. So I did spend some time on the language piece because I think we have to become aware of that in order to spot it and then start to change it and make some conscious decisions there. Um, I was actually looking at a sports advert about the Venus Williams and Serena Williams, the Williams sisters this morning.

SPEAKER_02 20:29

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:30

A really nice one that's been done where they say how the media pits them against each other and how they compared how many titles they'd won, and they compared how many grand slams and they compared who was first to do it. And she said, We never saw it like that. We were a family and we wanted to change the game. We wanted to change society, we wanted to change women's sport. And that for me is that long-wind thinking where you are actually really engaged in something a much deeper level, a purpose, social change, you know, really affecting communities and shifting the way people see uh, you know, sport. That's much bigger than, you know, or who's got more grandson titles than the next. Um, we do have that very narrow lens that comes in from the media on who are the heroes, who are the losers, and actually there's a much bigger game out there to play.

SPEAKER_02 21:22

Yeah, well, that's interesting. And it it doesn't just apply to to sport, right? I was watching the the Oasis documentary recently, and they were saying that this whole Oasis versus Blur thing in the 90s, like who would get to number one, that was completely created by the media. Those those bands didn't really have much of a strong opinion of each other at all until the media created this kind of uh war between them. And I think even Dave and Damon Alban and and uh and Noel have gone on to collaborate with each other since. Um so this you know, this idea that we have to, you know, kind of compete against each other and you know that only one person can prosper, etc., is

SPEAKER_00 22:00

kind of a it's a creation it's a um a myth that's created by by others to to drum up interest in in the media and stuff like that it is it's driven it's driven by a very short term desire for attention it distracts us actually from the bigger deeper stuff that might not change quite as quickly and so because the the media are driven by short termism if you like who's going to buy the paper tomorrow they're not interested necessarily in the bigger longer term stuff and I think again we have to be careful not to be sucked into that lot of the greatest businessmen and women now and entrepreneurs are all you know realize that they have to collaborate in order to evolve and innovate quickly enough with the rapid changes going on in the economy and the technology that that's available. So again you see that power of collaboration rather than competition. It tends to hold us back the competition because we're not sharing we're not learning freely we're not um combining ideas we stop that process which is the natural process of evolution and progress so if it isn't the short term wins that are the answer and it's the the long the long win that's the answer what is a what is a long win so that's for all of us to start working out and creating and I guess the important thing is that it isn't one thing it isn't an easy formula and we shouldn't fall prey to easy formulas where success winning is just about one metric. It's a medal one or it's your quarterly targets achieved I want us to get away from these very transient definitions of success that are short term that don't last and don't have a deeper meaning for me I'm interested in what's the meaning of that medal?

SPEAKER_02 23:49

What impact is that going to have on you and and others around you what's the impact of you hitting your quarterly results what's the change that you're able to make to a community to the environment to society it's all about that bigger piece if you like so clarifying success on that bigger level clarity a constant learning approach whereby we are really focusing on how we develop and learn and progress and innovate more than these short-term outcomes and the connection between us the human connections that we prioritize relationships so the three C's the clarity constant learning and connection give us a way of developing the lot what the long win means for each of us and it's interesting that that in order to to do this what I've noted is there are there is a a values aspect which is is down to all of us as um educators as members of a society as parents to be aware from a values perspective what you can be supporting or challenging. But also you know you mentioned things like quarterly targets. There are also concrete things that businesses can potentially do in the way that they organize their companies that then trickles down so this short terminism doesn't happen. So one of the things I you know I I noted was benefit corporations. So Patagonia for example they have a a a board of directors that sit above the board of directors that can veto things that might make the company more profitable but goes against their values of being an environmentally friendly company. So they still they can still have shareholders they can still have people invest in the company but the way that that company is structured means that the the values the benefit that they want to add to society and being an environmentally friendly business supersedes everything else. Therefore your quarterly you know reports or whatever then come underneath that context like you said the the blunt metric of just going for that you know the profit margin of the next quarter is is superseded by the the higher the higher level purpose.

SPEAKER_00 26:03

Yeah so the B Corp movement is doing a lot to to to shift that Patagonia a great example of that for sure. And I think the the increasing research around how purpose-led businesses outperform their peers the shift in language from the um US business round table companies saying it's not just about shareholder profit anymore. Again it matters the that social environmental impact that we have there is a shift there it surprises me how slow some companies are to move towards that but certainly that sense of longevity for companies comes from that ability to connect to a purpose that also it's not just about that impact either the people working in that company gain a different level of motivation from knowing their efforts, the challenges they have to overcome are important because of something bigger than themselves. So we tap much more into intrinsic motivation than extrinsic motivation. There's a really interesting study that was done in the Harvard Business Review a few years ago about the centennials organizations that have been around for over a hundred years and they looked at NASA and they looked at Eton College and they looked at the Royal Shakespeare Company and all of them had this sense that they were really interested in getting better not bigger they're trying to shape society they're trying to share expertise they're trying to progress things if you like invest in progress and there's this much less of a focus on short term you know I'm just serving a customer or I want to own a certain amount of resources or I've got to be efficient.

SPEAKER_02 27:46

There's this this really powerful sense of getting better not bigger yeah that is that is fascinating and do you know interestingly I worked with uh a company called Nordstrom um in America one of the kind of founding retail companies um in the US they're kind of I suppose a John Lewis um if you were to make a kind of UK comparison founded in 1901 the people that run the company now are still directly related to John W. Nordstrom who founded the company and just walking around the halls of that company you get such a sense of their purpose which is to make the customer happy no matter what and it in almost in the kind of the founding pillars of that company you can kind of you can see the the purpose and the meaning. So it's interesting you you mentioned the centennials that are companies that have been around for for so long I definitely had a personal experience of of that working for them. Interesting so let's pivot because we're talking about there we're talking about tapping into kind of a deeper level of of meaning let's look back to kind of sport because you you have personal experience of of striving for the for the medals as a an Olympic athlete obviously there's with the kind of the national lottery funding the way that we have prioritized uh winning medals in the last two cycles has has meant that we've become a very very successful nation in the Olympics compared to when I was growing up remember watching 96 I think there was one gold medal I think it was uh Steve Redgrave and Matthew Pinson. So you know I've I've I've gone personally from my first couple of Olympics watching you know thinking that GB are kind of the also rounds to being an absolute powerhouse but that also comes with costs, right? And we've seen that in the media um reports of different different athletes and different um sports within the Olympic movement over the last few years.

SPEAKER_00 29:45

So how do we get to that deeper meaning within the kind of the machinations of a four-year Olympic cycle so I think it's a really current question for our sporting environments and a great opportunity to think back on this incredible experiment we've had over the last 20 years since the lottery came in and transformed medal success uh from Atlanta won gold medal 29 gold medals in London second in the medal table in Rio so when you look at those measures they're lovely and easy and and really quick to to remember where we were in the middle medal table and how many medals we won. But I think we've lost track of the bigger meaning of what those medals could enable. Why do we need to win lots of medals? How many is enough? Do we need to be working still to be top of the table uh so I think we it's time to ask some of those questions which you are starting to hear happening in in the public sphere and and my book is definitely trying to to um provoke and support the debate around these we've also had a lot of an increase in mental health issues we've had all sorts of reviews of toxic cultures and reviews of the way high performance training environments have been set up, cycling, any number of sports Olympic and paralympic and obviously at the moment the gymnastic situation is deeply distressing I think for any of us to to hear the stories coming out of that. So that for me is a really interesting learning point for us to think okay so the medal in itself is only a part of the picture of what we created of what we have all been investing in and developing and we need to see the full picture of what comes with the medal and then we need to have a conversation about what success looks like in that full picture. What is acceptable success what is unacceptable success is it okay to win a medal but have doped? No, we all agree on that. Is it okay to win a medal but leave someone with a long-term mental health issue? I don't think it is um we heard Amy Tinkler the bronze medalist gymnast in Rio incredible flaw performance she did there um say very recently that she would hand her medal back if she could change the awful experiences that she'd gone through along the way the abusive experiences I think for me that's a case of that's not really an acceptable cost. That's not something that we want to see that's not something that aligns with the values of our society. That's also not something frankly even from a purely medal chasing perspective that's helpful because you're going to put off the next generation you know she herself has retired early. So we are also starting to see impacts on athlete retention, longevity of careers and attracting the next generation I think gymnastics is going to have a sort of 20-year period to re-establish a new culture and trust that parents will allow their children to go into this high performance sport. So I think you know we see that actually it's hurting us even from a medal winning point of view over the longer term. But more importantly what what are we using sport for? If it's to inspire the next generation then those athletes need to have a story that's inspiring. And we've heard a lot of stories that are less than inspiring. So for me it's about also understanding what happens after the medal so what does that does that athlete stay in sport, give back to sport, inspire the next generation, want to be part of sport and have a great story to tell the story after the medal for me is almost more important than the medal itself. That's where the power of the medal you know really comes into its own and where or or where it doesn't if you've really cut corners and not had a values based environment in which that medal was pursued. I I likened the um the the situation to the analogy of sort of climbing Everest that far more people spend time planning how they get to Everest and we have a lot more accidents on the way down. And you sort of think what's going on there that doesn't make sense people are dying on the way down from Everest great you climbed Everest and then you die on the way down well that's not really success is it that's not really you know a great outcome and I think we've sort of got trapped in the same in the same sort of situation of scaling the heights of the middle table and then oh it all sort of unravels a bit when we look at what happens thereafter. We haven't planned for the what after but the what after is the bigger prize it's the meaning that sport brings to society. It's that inspirational experience and stories not on a purely oh it's been really easy but actually the stories of the highs and the lows that aren't purely defined by oh it's okay because you won a medal I think this is something that that I always feel really uncomfortable about. You know once I got a medal then I'm invited into schools. But actually the stories I had to tell when I didn't win a medal were probably more useful because we don't all go around coming top in everything that we do all through our lives. And yet we just listen we bring the medalists into schools we bring the medalists into organizations and conferences and we listen to that story of oh it's a little bit tricky but it's okay because in the end we you know we won a medal that's just not how life works we have quite a false narrative there. So I think we've got to really shift the stories we tell about sport and I think the gains that we could make are really exciting.

SPEAKER_02 35:20

Yeah what what are we using sport for if it's not for inspiring the next generation I think is a wonderful soundbite. And if you if you have people coming out of that system that have a medal in their hand but then also publicly going on record and and saying how awful that experience was and how it might scar them long term and um yeah it's interesting as you were talking there it reminded me of and I'm sure you've probably seen it the series on Netflix called Losers very provocative title. Yes and one of the episodes um follows Jean van der Veld who was the the French golfer who who threw away um the open he he hit his ball repeatedly into the Barry Burn I think at Casting and um and but what actually came from that because that that whole experience was so was so notorious for him he was able to then use that platform to build a kind of a a network of golf schools in France and he has an organisation that gets you know young kids and and many underprivileged kids as well into golf in France. So he's used that experience of losing to then go on and create something kind of bigger than him bigger than the sport and I think that's really I think that's really fascinating. I think the next stage and this is something that Leon Lloyd's at switch the play talks uh talks about um a lot that kind of that next stage there's so much more to life after after sport and you can go on to do bigger and better things and and almost you know eclipse what you did in in sport but sometimes athletes feel that you know their athletic career is it and afterwards is you know is is nothing afterwards.

SPEAKER_00 37:05

Certainly certainly that's a that transition period is is difficult because of the sense of identity and and particularly um identity linked to a result and actually it doesn't matter whether you won or lost and this is the thing that astonished me in my research was noticing that this isn't just people who lose who are feeling empty and unfulfilled or even depressed. It's actually the winners too because it's it's a short term outcome and and then what happens next? This is the uh post post Olympic uh post-Olympic blues there's a couple of papers on it isn't there yeah yes that's right yeah absolutely Holly Bradshaw's doing some research on it in her masters at the moment the poor vaulter it's very interesting and we could definitely shift that it I mean that's the classic post-Everest feeling really it's the collapse afterwards if you like the the fall on the way down the other side I do think it's so interesting how we demonize the losers or ignore the losers or sort of discard them, devalue them, treat them differently both in the media but often inside sport as well and yet life is we we're we're all having experiences where we do better or or less well but actually we gain things through all of those and often some of those that don't work out are greater learning experiences and help us to make different decisions or help us to learn about ourselves. So why do we have this binary good bad winner loser I just can't understand that. When you when you watch an Olympic final plays a role and that's the beauty of it it's not about one person.

SPEAKER_02 38:37

We compete we compete we compete together right that that win is only amazing because they've been able to achieve it in the context of seven other incredible uh performers.

SPEAKER_00 38:47

Yes absolutely and why can't we enjoy that and and and actually look into it more and examine it and appreciate it and think about the decision making that's going on there and the tactics and the way that it is yes exactly if you ran it each person individually it would be boring and you wouldn't get actually the same level of performance. So this isn't about luring performance it's about understanding how we need to work collaboratively in order to pursue performance and to and to portray that picture of what performance is really about.

SPEAKER_02 39:19

It's interesting you just reminded me of my my mini rugby days I remember we we weren't a very particularly good team um from the age of like six to six to twelve and uh but I remember the wins that we did get were so meaningful because uh because we'd you know it was it was this idea that we'd you know kind of we put in everything in order to to get a win and we kept coming back every week even though we lost most games and then we actually got really good around the ages of like 12 or 13. I remember a couple of games where we won by you know probably a dozen tries or something like that and it just didn't feel as fun. Uh even though we're winning it it actually felt it was much more meaningful those close losses or those you know those close wins that we got when we were you know pretty average team. So I mean I think anyone can reflect on this from personal experience how you know it is not this binary win-lose thing there's the kind of the effort that goes into something the pride of of doing your your best or or competing against a worthy adversary or someone on your level and and the meaning that comes from that.

SPEAKER_00 40:26

I want to just end by asking you the the question I ask everyone that comes on the podcast which is around the psychologically informed environment which is um a piece of language that's getting used more and more in relation to support and to to business I don't know whether you have any you know perspectives from the the long wind or just in general on what a psychologically informed environment could mean absolutely for for me I do talk in the long wind about the the importance of developing our mindset our behaviors and our relationships and for me a psychologically informed environment is when we are having conversations and actively developing discussing sharing collaborating about the way we think the way we behave the way we connect with each other often these things under the surface but actually these things are driving everything that's happening above the surface you know the the the stuff we can see the results we get the kind of elements that we put in the spreadsheets the things we measure and track they're all driven by the way we think the way we behave and the way we connect but we actually don't purposefully develop those and for me a psychologically informed environment is active around that level that's where leadership happens when we're understanding mindsets and working together to shape them in order to get more out of ourselves in order to connect to that sense of purpose and then the behaviors that come to those come from those again we're aware of those we're we're interested in those we're curious about those and how we might develop those and of course the way we connect with each other and build relationships yeah that's really interesting how you're you're honing so much on on that element of connection and relationship I think Google did a study of all of their teams or on a number of different teams across you know their entire organization which is enormous and I think they found that the crucial kind of secret source to the best performing teams within Google was this idea of uh psychological safety.

SPEAKER_02 42:24

So the the idea that you can have a not an argument but you can have a dispute with a a coworker or you can have a difference of opinion but the way that you do that the the safety of that connection and that relationship allows that team to flourish opposed to having to kind of hide behind closed doors or you know in in the the work culture the the last thing you want is the you know the kind of the gossip culture where things aren't in the open it's kind of kept away but when you have like this um this environment of kind of connection where and I think the the again the word of the language around relationships doesn't mean that in every team and in every business we have to be like family or or kind of happy super best friends. I think the the idea is the the relationship is there is a kind of an openness there um within and the organization supports an openness to be able to discuss things in a way that every that everyone feels safe if that makes sense.

SPEAKER_00 43:21

Absolutely so I think you're right Project Aristotle is that that Google study that that really highlighted um the importance of psychological safety and Amy Edmondson has written a brilliant book um last year Fearless Organizations this is a huge challenge in organizations because it stifles creativity it stifles whistleblowing it stifles actually people bringing their own ideas to work and contributing to a much greater performance and of course in sport as well it's about athletes being able to speak up which we've seen you know and such a challenging situation within gymnastics at the extreme of the the examples. And you're right it It's not about creating harmony. It's not about being nice to each other. It's quite the opposite. It's creating a safe environment in which we can challenge each other because we understand that we are here to learn, to raise the levels of performance, to add value to what we do, to grow. And we're committed to that. And it's so for me, it's interesting how much that learning mindset plays a big role in the way we connect. I'm responsible for supporting and challenging you to keep growing and developing, and you're responsible to help me as well. And those are the sorts of conversations we're having that enable us then to give good feedback, to give that really helpful sense of reviewing things we've done and how we can learn to go forward. So it is having much more effective conversations around those elements where we feel safe to really challenge things we've done. It's not easy, it's not harmonious, but it really fuels performance.

SPEAKER_02 44:53

Yeah, great. Well, look, in relation to the learning mindset, Kath, thanks so much. I've learned a lot just in the last uh 45 minutes chatting. And if people want to learn more about you, the book, uh, and and all the other stuff, great work that you're doing in this space, uh, where can people find out a little more?

SPEAKER_00 45:13

Sure. So I have a website, www.cathbishop.com. I'm on Twitter at the Cath Bishop, I'm on LinkedIn. Please do connect if you've read the book or interested in any of the ideas in it. And yes, I work as a speaker and a coach and run workshops around how we can really redefine what success means to get the best out of ourselves in a much more effective long-term way.

SPEAKER_02 45:39

Great. Okay, well, I'm gonna post as always, I'll post the link to those in the description of the podcast so it's easy for people to find those. But again, Kath, thank you so much for coming on and sharing your experience and your perspectives on the book. It's it's much appreciated. And I'm sure people listening would have taken loads away from that conversation.

SPEAKER_00 45:58

Great, thanks very much for inviting me, Pete.

Full time reflection

SPEAKER_02 46:03

If you're still here, thanks again for sharing another slice of pie with me. As always, if you're enjoying these conversations, please leave a rating and review on Apple or iTunes, as this is super helpful in allowing others to find the podcast. So, what did we take from the conversation with Kath? First of all, I loved her answer to my provocation. If you create this world of cooperation but society doesn't always play by those rules, how can you create the ability to move between those two ways of looking at the world? And Kath's point of view was that, sure, part of the world operates like that, but do we have to play into and overdevelop that part of the world? Often the argument against thinking differently is, well, that's just the way of the world. It's a dog-eat dog world up there, and you just have to get used to that. But that becomes very self-fulfilling and self-perpetuating, and it doesn't actually have to be like that. I thought this was a powerful reminder that whilst the forces of the wider environment and socialization are so strong, each of us still has a choice about what values and rhetoric we choose to support. I especially enjoy digging into language with Kath, exploring how some of the cliches and sound bites in culture can be a subtle reinforcer of unhelpful dichotomies between winning and losing. For example, Bill Shankly's First is First and Second Is Nowhere. You can hear so many of these sound bites and cliches across the world of sport, both now and through historical figures like Shankly. Kath maintains that these phrases actually hold us back from working together in a more collaborative way. And interestingly, in the advanced CBT course I went on recently, the instructor urged us to look out for this type of language in family mottos or strongly held catchphrases that are close to people's values. And how these internalized values from a young age can hold us back in how we think about ourselves, the world, and how we behave. Finally, I loved Kath's distinction between acceptable success versus unacceptable success. It's a clear distinction between the costs we are willing to bear for pursuing mastery or medals versus the costs that are deemed unacceptable. Kath summarized beautifully with what are we using sport for? If it's to inspire the next generation, then our current athletes need to have a story that's inspiring.