Last Thursday, behind the grand doors of One Moorgate Place in Central London, JLA Speakers had the pleasure of hosting another brilliant Speakers Breakfast, marking our second of the year.
Each breakfast presents a unique opportunity for our clients to connect face-to-face with our JLA account managers over breakfast, and catch some of our best and brightest conference speakers and presenters in action. This event was no exception.
Nevertheless, it’s not every day a corporate event is populated by attendees in motorsports jackets and F1 merchandise. The reason for this is we had the huge honour of welcoming Guenther Steiner to the stage, former Team Principal of the Haas F1 Team, loved worldwide for his appearances on Drive to Survive. Guenther was joined in the conversation by British sports presenter Jill Douglas, the first female presenter of the Rugby Special.
Delivering a powerful introduction to the Breakfast, Jill reflected on teamwork as a key facilitator of performance across her career, from the context of working in a male-dominated environment, to leading the small but powerful team behind the My Name’5 Doddie foundation.
In conversation with Jill, the audience was then given a tantalising glimpse behind the scenes of Guenther’s career, exploring the challenges he met, crossroads he faced and lessons he now takes forward with him.
From the rich array of topics covered over the course of the session, including leadership, motivation and peak performance, here are our three top takeaways.
1) Grasp opportunities through the lens of your passion
When asked about his choice to pursue a career in motorsport, Guenther’s reply was simple: he loves cars, and in his words, ‘got up and went to do what I wanted to do’.
That being said, it was with surprise that Guenther learned a full-fledged career in motorsport was a possibility. For him, it was passion that allowed him to forge a path towards that goal, even when the way forward wasn’t always obvious; grounding career steps in genuine interest, first and foremost, is absolutely essential.
With an open attitude and his love for motorsport driving him forward, Guenther was able to translate even the challenges he faced into opportunities – instances of failure instead became chances to grow, improve, and take a next step.
Even in times of uncertainty, staying connected to what has sparked our interest in the first place can help us continue down the track towards high performance and success.
2) Instill a shared vision within your team
Whilst individual interest in an area of work is naturally crucial to career success, ‘team spirit’ is what truly seals the deal, in Guenther’s eyes.
Through the conversation with Jill, he revealed one of his key tactics for building finely-tuned teams: in interviews, regardless of the individual calibre each candidate had displayed, he would set aside a short one-to-one session solely focused on reviewing how well that individual might fit into the group they’d be joining.
In his experience, if you have the brightest person you can find but they don’t fit into a team, it only ends up a “waste”- both for the individual, and for the team as a whole.
Once a team has been pulled together, keeping unity front and centre is integral to reaching the peak of success. Ensuring your team members invest in the same principles, and in each other, is central to driving hard work and results.
Further into the session, Guenther considered the obstacles faced by F1 when COVID struck. As a sport so inherently defined by in-person interaction, and loved worldwide for the relationships forged and tested on the track, how was his team able to bounce back?
The answer: strength of shared vision.
In 2020, it was only natural that performance in 2021 would be low, considering the curveball the industry had been thrown. However, by focusing the Haas team on targets for 2022, Guenther encouraged the group to cast their vision beyond a period of necessary recovery and towards a more realistic realm of success.
To Guenther, the same is true for the industry as a whole. No matter how strong F1 team rivalries rage in the arena, it was only through their collaboration and shared vision that the industry pulled itself together and became one of the quickest fields to spring back into action.
3) The worst decision is no decision
How can leaders go about making high-stakes decisions in conditions of uncertainty?
From Guenther and Jill’s perspective, the worst thing to do is nothing at all.
It’s a natural instinct to freeze up in the face of a precarious situation; however, as emphasised by both speakers, opting to steer clear of any choice gives us nothing to build on, even if the outcome ends up being negative.
If you make the right choice, you win. If you make a mistake, you learn from it. Even in the second scenario, there’s no need to be afraid of admitting to making a wrong decision, and moving swiftly on to the next.
All it takes to avoid the worst outcome of all, inertia, is to take that first step into the dark.
If you missed us at this Speaker Breakfast, you can watch more highlights below. To enquire about Guenther or Jill speaking at your own event, please contact us today.
We look forward to welcoming you at our next event!