THE term marginal gains, which was coined by cycling supremo Dave Brailsford, is now so well-recognised that is it used in everyday life, often by people who don't own a scrap of Lycra. In short, marginal gains means improving many areas by a tiny amount which will, in turn, result in a significant improvement overall.
The marginal gains instigated at Team Sky by general manager Brailsford are well-documented; from taking individual mattresses for each rider at the Tour de France to ensure they sleep in the same bed each night to hiring "mechanic of the mind" Steve Peters, the psychiatrist who helped the riders improve their mental strength.
In fact, it was not Brailsford who introduced the idea of marginal gains to the world, he was merely the person who put a title to it and brought it into the mainstream but much rumination has been done on the theory since he introduced it into common parlance. The latest analysis of the marginal gains theory is by Matthew Syed in his new book, Black Box Thinking. Syed is a former international table tennis player turned journalist and author and in his latest offering, he looks at the concept of marginal gains and whether this can be applied to everyday life, as well as elite sport.
Syed examines situations beyond sport that could benefit from applying the marginal gains theory. For example, one of the biggest killers in the UK is preventable medical error and one of the main reasons for this is that many doctors will not admit to their mistakes for fear of damaging their reputation or possible legal repercussions. But Syed looks at how great the improvements in this field could be were doctors to be up-front and open about their actions and constantly searching for marginal gains.
Such a marginal gains system was adopted in a hospital in Seattle; staff were encouraged to file reports if anything went wrong and rather than blame being apportioned, the hospital would make small changes to reduce the risk of a similar mistake being repeated. Since the new system was implemented, there has been a remarkable 74 per cent reduction in liability insurance premiums and it is now adjudged to be one of the safest hospitals in the world.
Syed argues that by altering the way we deal with failure, we will all be more productive and successful individuals. And this is where sport comes in. There are few vocations in which a person will encounter failure more frequently than elite sport. Take Wimbledon for example; there are 112 players in each of the singles main draws plus another 128 in the qualifying. Only one will come out the winner at the end of the tournament while 239 players will, effectively, fail.
Even for the best athlete in the world, failure is an almost daily occurrence. Ask any elite athlete if they think they can still improve and they will invariably reply in the affirmative. A common characteristic of elite sportspeople is their constant desire to improve and their ability to bounce back from failure. Elite sport leaves no room for coasting because even if that attitude was enough to enable you to be the best in your country, there would be others in Russia or China or America who are doing more.
It is incredibly rare to hear an athlete say that they have produced a perfect performance and this is what engenders the mindset that can be so useful in other walks of life; however good you are, you can always get better. Athletic life also builds a resilience that can be so incredibly useful outside the world of sport; during my athletic career, I heard coaches call athletes lazy, slow, fat, stupid, weak and unskilled (and not all of those insults were directed at me).
There are few other walks of life in which such criticism would be tolerated but the continual drive for improvement by elite athletes means that, more often than not, these critiques are used as driving forces rather than demotivating factors.
It is often said that one learns more from failure than success and nowhere is it more true than in elite sport. If an athlete does not learn from their mistakes then they have no chance of rising to the top. For progress to be made at a world-class level, improvements can only be made in tiny increments, often smaller than one per cent.
Syed is right in his assertion that if other workplaces took on board the marginal gains theory then significant improvement in performance would be likely. The challenge with this is that it is easier said than done; to strive for an almost imperceptible improvement is something that not everyone can and will do. And this fact is perhaps what makes elite athletes different from so many others; they will put hundreds of hours of work into something that will result in a one per cent improvement. It’s something that few people do and it’s what makes elite-level sport so captivating.
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