Sport learns from business and business learns from sport. The time is now for corporates to adopt from sport, wholeheartedly, the concept of High Performance Units. I say wholeheartedly because I hear “high performance” used in corporates often. However, I rarely see anything new and exciting.

A High Performance Unit (HPU) in sport is the body responsible for coordinating the various support mechanisms around an athlete to ensure that they are at their peak every time their peak is required. HPUs coordinate experts in a vast array of disciplines from fitness trainers, injury prevention specialists, physios and medicos treating new and long-term injuries to sports psychologists taking care of an athlete’s mindset.

Who would you put into your High Performance Unit in your organisation? Who might be best placed?
I think the risk function is best placed.

DON’T freak out. Hear me out.

The risk function has sight of every part of the business. It has tools that help managers understand their business more intimately than ever before. It is able to aggregate information and share it to enhance decision making across the business. It knows.

That’s the sort of people I would want in my HPU.

Maybe it is time the risk function changed its name?