LIVE at LogiPharma: Jamil Qureshi's Tips for Instilling an Enterprise Psychology of High Performance

What is your one condition for success? That is the question that Jamil Qureshi, High Performance Psychologist asked the audience of hundreds live at LogiPharma to write down at the start of his inspirational keynote. Here is the catch – we cannot use these conditions for success if we don’t first know what success is.

What, then, is success? It’s about making the connection between things previously unconnected. It’s about two ideas coming together that are bigger and better than what they would create on their own. The more we were asked to stay apart the more we wanted to stay together. That’s the beauty of collective talent.

From the minute Jamil stepped onto stage, our audience were hanging on his every word, taking notes like we were in a university lecture and his answers would guarantee an A. This was no surprise based on his extensive experience working with the very best in the sporting world.

Jamil has taken 6 individuals and multiple teams to World No1; from golfers such as Darren Clarke, Henrik Stenson, Sergio Garcia, to F1 stars such as David Coulthard, football clubs including Manchester United FC, Manchester City FC, Liverpool FC and Chelsea FC NASA astronauts.

Imagine what we could do if we took all the experience of one of our colleagues and put it all on the table, out in the open for everyone to see. Every idea, every innovation, all the time. Now imagine how successful we could become. The only sustainable advantage is to learn faster and better than your competitors. That cannot be done without sharing your knowledge.

“Networks compete against networks. It’s about being connected. Psychology. Let’s do psychology. You think. You feel. Then you act.” That was the insight Jamil shared.

What does this mean?

Well, driving change cannot work by telling people to be different. However, helping people to think and feel is the difference between commitment and compliance. We tell our children to keep their room tidy. Do they do it? No. We tell our colleagues to be innovative. Can they do it on the spot? No.

The best way to get people to commit to an idea is to make them believe it is their own.

People are more motivated by what they aim to succeed not what they want to avoid. Jamil shared an example from his career “I work with 3 of the top ten golfers in the world. If you ask them to not miss a shot, not get it in the water. That is exactly what they will do.

Jamil had the chance to work with the late, great, Gary Speed, THE world-class footballer. If you ask him about a penalty, he would say he asks himself one question on a loop, but he doesn’t answer it off the bat. In the two steps up to the ball, he answers it. The question is “What way will I run to celebrate scoring this goal?” Manifesting celebration avoids those thoughts in his head and guarantees success.

That brings us into innovation. When you have a marketing problem? Do you go to marketing? A HR problem, you go to HR. “Don’t define yourself by your job title. What defines you, confines you. Move away from the job title and towards description and your contribution.”

This sparks the question: Where does change come from?

Who created Paypal? No one from the banking industry

What about Spotify? No one from the music industry.

What about Skype? Created by someone outside the communications industry.

The industry champions the past and avoids the future. The pace of change needs someone outside the industry to foster change that creates value consistently. As everyone has been sharing at LogiPharma today, collaboration is the tool for success.

Jamil addressed the challenge. People's belief systems. We delete, we distort and we filter. We then believe we are right even when we are not. To guarantee success, we need to question what we know. And there has never been a better time to question what you believe to be true. Those who challenge their belief will have the most success and the pace of trend internally must match that externally.

So how can we change as fast as the world around us is?

We must embrace failure. As Jamil concludes “It is those who experiment most who will have the most success. The price of success is high and will be paid in advance. People make mistakes, but it doesn’t make them mistakes."

Embrace failure and we will understand what works in context.” Everyone in the audience was on their feet at the end of the session, prepped and ready to handle their next year. Through collaboration.