The 2024 Paris Olympics is set to be an incredible sporting spectacle on the world stage. Mel Marshall is an Olympic Coach and is preparing to depart for Paris with GB Aquatics. Mel coaches a tremendous team of athletes including the fastest human on the planet at breaststroke, Adam Peaty OBE. We wish them all the very best as they make their final preparations.
We are very proud that Mel is a Belief Partner at The Leadership High. We took time recently to talk to Mel and ask her how she personally prepares as a leader in her high-performance world.
Q: How do you plan your 4-year Olympic cycle?
Firstly, everything we do is focused around 6 key areas – performance; logistics; technical; physical; psychological; and the athlete experience. The four years of preparation are split into phases. Discovery in the first year – really getting under what’s new, what we know that works what we know didn’t work. We then class our second year as our innovation year – what are we going to chase how are we going to push things forward? Our third year is our work year – we know we’re comfortable with it and now we’re going to really work at it! Year four is all about refinement – focusing on the processes we know, what do we tweak, what we feel familiar with and how we will run at pace with those processes. Importantly, in the “how”, we make sure we’ve got the right people in the room to really get under the challenges and the opportunities – we utilise the experts and all the brains in the room to formulate a plan.
I would call that Inside Out leadership – we start with who we are and what we want to be and we bring it to life through the process of discovery, innovation, implementing and refining.
Q: How do you focus your attention in the right place, especially in high pressure moments?
I run things in a priority order because ultimately the list is never ending and the list never stops, but top of my list is what’s going to make the athletes go faster! It is always about putting the athletes first, so I start my list with where my best energy could be aligned and where the real priorities are. I always start there, so if my inbox is full or things have nothing to do with medals, I don’t even get to that because I always start with what will make the athletes go faster, what’s going to make them win. I don’t really run to the stuff that doesn’t make a difference to the overall goal unless I’ve got the bandwidth to do that. It gets me in a little bit bother every now and again but ultimately the athletes come first 100% and I won’t compromise on that.
Q: Who and what helps you through? Athletes get support from coaches, who supports you?
Like everyone, I have different advisors as I travel through different challenges – we just know who we go to for certain things. Another thing that helps me through is silence – just taking time for rest and recovery and I’m actually pretty good at that, even if I’ve got a lot on. My Saturday and Sunday are mine. I leave the laptop at work because, ultimately if I don’t get that space, then I just haven’t got enough energy to do the job the following week. So much of what we do is unknown, uncertain, unclear and full of emotion so making sure we can navigate through that with full energy and attention is so important. I like to offload and I like to share a lot and I like to feel heard, and when I feel heard, I feel supported. I can sort my own problems but for me to get there, I need to use resources of others. I get a lot of energy and fuel from learning-based experiences and I try to incorporate that into my environment as well.
Mel Marshall MBE is an Olympic Coach and a Belief Partner at The Leadership High.
If you and your team want to tap into Mel’s belief system with The Leadership High, please get in touch to discuss. Mel and TLH work directly with leaders and teams so we would be happy to see how and when we can work with you.
The Leadership High work with leaders and teams to build trust by making confidence a habit.
