Conversation with Martin McElroy MBA – Olympic Gold Medal Winning Coach – Faster Podcast
Martin has always been fascinated by the ability of people and teams to come together in the pursuit of extraordinary outcomes. He’s led sport and business teams on a daily basis, and supported other business leaders, teams and organisations as they’ve worked towards their goals. He was coach of the British Olympic Team’s men’s rowing eight that won gold at the Sydney Olympic games in 2000, and is credited with creating a simple yet insightful phrase that has become ubiquitous in sport and business “Will it Make the Boat Go Faster”, a simple question that focuses on what makes a difference.
Martin works with sports and business organisations supporting their efforts to improve personal, professional and organisational purpose, still finding time to coach young athletes in his home town of Victoria in British Columbia. His lifelong interest in the topic of people and performance, experience of failures and successes, and a continuous desire to reflect on what he’s learned over the years leads to a fascinating conversation in this podcast.
In this episode, Martin and I chat about the approach to winning. How systems thinking is critical for success. How he built the team of experts to support the crew, and how simple rules like, ‘Will it make the boat go faster?’ helped the whole team to stay focused on the objective of winning in Sydney.
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