The How of High Performance

James Williams spent 16 years at Coca Cola, the last ten leading their Olympic and Paralympic sponsorship from London to Rio to Tokyo.In this episode of The How of High Performance, he shares what happened when spectators were pulled just 11 days before the postponed Tokyo games and the photo he put in front of his team the next morning that said more than any strategy deck could.James talks about why he walked away from one of the most enviable roles in global marketing to come home and start again on his own terms, and the two things he learned across three very different cultures that he says every senior leader needs to get right.About the ShowThe How of High Performance is a podcast hosted by Sally Henderson, High Stakes Leadership Mentor, Author, TEDx and Keynote Speaker with 26 years of experience mentoring senior leaders.Why you lead gets all the attention, but it's HOW you lead that makes the real difference, especially when the stakes are high and the pressure is permanent.Every episode, Sally talks with a leader who has been tested in leadership and in life, with guests spanning C-suite business, Olympic sport, academia and the military, and asks them to share what they learned about their HOW under pressure.Please follow or subscribe and leave a review on Apple Podcasts - it helps other senior leaders find the show.Sally's book The How of High Performance is available at amazon.co.uk and from all good bookshops.Visit sallyhenderson.co.uk or connect with Sally on LinkedIn.

Jon Dutton OBE has spent 30 years in senior leadership across sport, from the European Golf Tour at 22 to the Rugby League World Cup and CEO of British Cycling. Since this conversation was recorded he will be moving into the role of CEO at Team GB in July this year.In this episode of The HOW of High Performance, he shares what happened when key partners pulled out of a major global event just two months before it was due to go live, the board decision that followed, and why he offered his resignation that same evening.Jon talks about the three words that got him through the most pressurised day of his career, why he says he's at his best when he metaphorically gets punched in the face, and his one piece of advice that he wishes more leaders in boardrooms would remember.About the ShowThe How of High Performance is a podcast hosted by Sally Henderson, High Stakes Leadership Mentor, Author, TEDx and Keynote Speaker with 26 years of experience mentoring senior leaders.Why you lead gets all the attention, but it's HOW you lead that makes the real difference, especially when the stakes are high and the pressure is permanent.Every episode, Sally talks with a leader who has been tested in leadership and in life, with guests spanning C-suite business, Olympic sport, academia and the military, and asks them to share what they learned about their HOW under pressure.Please follow or subscribe and leave a review on Apple Podcasts - it helps other senior leaders find the show.Sally's book The How of High Performance is available at amazon.co.uk and from all good bookshops.Visit sallyhenderson.co.uk or connect with Sally on LinkedIn.

Colin Burgess is Executive Director of Operations at BAFTA, but his career started at Sandhurst at 17, took him through infantry tours in Northern Ireland, helicopter flying in Central America, two years as equerry to the Queen Mother, and senior roles at Sky Studios before landing in the world of film and television.In this episode of The How of High Performance, he shares what happened when a soldier was bitten by a spider deep in the Belizean jungle and the numbness started spreading, and why the way he communicated in that moment changed how every person around him responded.Colin talks about security at the BAFTAs with A listers and royals in the room, being made redundant four times including once when he lost everything, and the difference between how civilian and military pilots are taught to deal with the worst case scenario — a distinction that has shaped every leadership decision he's made since.About the ShowThe How of High Performance is a podcast hosted by Sally Henderson, High Stakes Leadership Mentor, Author, TEDx and Keynote Speaker with 26 years of experience mentoring senior leaders.Why you lead gets all the attention, but it's HOW you lead that makes the real difference, especially when the stakes are high and the pressure is permanent.Every episode, Sally talks with a leader who has been tested in leadership and in life, with guests spanning C-suite business, Olympic sport, academia and the military, and asks them to share what they learned about their HOW under pressure.Please follow or subscribe and leave a review on Apple Podcasts - it helps other senior leaders find the show.Sally's book The How of High Performance is available at amazon.co.uk and from all good bookshops.Visit sallyhenderson.co.uk or connect with Sally on LinkedIn.

Jackson Wray spent 20 years at Saracens, made 309 appearances and won five Premierships and three European Cups before retiring on his own terms with years still left on his contract.In this episode of The How of High Performance he talks about the morning his team were told they were being relegated, the away game two days later where none of it counted on the scoreboard but everything counted in how they showed up for each other, and why what he did as captain in that moment only worked because of the years of consistency that came before it.Jackson shares what he calls thunderbolts, the high stakes moments you can't prepare for, why shared understanding is the true leading indicator of a high performing team, and why his advice to senior leaders is rooted in something you have to practise every single day long before you need it.About the ShowThe How of High Performance is a podcast hosted by Sally Henderson, High Stakes Leadership Mentor, Author, TEDx and Keynote Speaker with 26 years of experience mentoring senior leaders.Why you lead gets all the attention, but it's HOW you lead that makes the real difference, especially when the stakes are high and the pressure is permanent.Every episode, Sally talks with a leader who has been tested in leadership and in life, with guests spanning C-suite business, Olympic sport, academia and the military, and asks them to share what they learned about their HOW under pressure.Please follow or subscribe and leave a review on Apple Podcasts - it helps other senior leaders find the show.Sally's book The How of High Performance is available at amazon.co.uk and from all good bookshops.Visit sallyhenderson.co.uk or connect with Sally on LinkedIn.

Kerttu Inkeroinen built her career at Kimberly Clark and Coca Cola before taking a salary cut to join a specialty coffee startup with no marketing budget, and is now CMO of Lucky Saint, a promotion that came since this episode was recorded.In this episode of The How of High Performance she talks about the morning COVID wiped out most of Union Coffee's revenue and how the leadership team she calls the three musketeers turned that into one of the most energising periods of her career.Kerttu shares why she believes the more senior you are the more stress you need to absorb rather than spread, why clarity matters more than certainty, and her one piece of advice comes from a question most people avoid asking themselves until it's too late.About the ShowThe How of High Performance is a podcast hosted by Sally Henderson, High Stakes Leadership Mentor, Author, TEDx and Keynote Speaker with 26 years of experience mentoring senior leaders.Why you lead gets all the attention, but it's HOW you lead that makes the real difference, especially when the stakes are high and the pressure is permanent.Every episode, Sally talks with a leader who has been tested in leadership and in life, with guests spanning C-suite business, Olympic sport, academia and the military, and asks them to share what they learned about their HOW under pressure.Please follow or subscribe and leave a review on Apple Podcasts - it helps other senior leaders find the show.Sally's book The How of High Performance is available at amazon.co.uk and from all good bookshops.Visit sallyhenderson.co.uk or connect with Sally on LinkedIn.

Nicky Bullard is a Chief Creative Officer, creative activist and founder of Elevator, the UK's only creatively led intermediary for creative pitches. She was also one of the first female creative leaders in the UK to take on full P&L responsibility when she stepped into the chairwoman role at MRM. In this episode of The How of High Performance, she shares what it was like to weigh up the risk of proving that creative people could be credible business leaders against the possibility of getting it wrong and closing that door for others. Nicky talks about why she believes you don't need to be brilliant at everything as long as you fill the gaps with people who are, and the simple habit she comes back to every time someone pulls the rug from under her. About the ShowThe How of High Performance is a podcast hosted by Sally Henderson, High Stakes Leadership Mentor, Author, TEDx and Keynote Speaker with 26 years of experience mentoring senior leaders.Why you lead gets all the attention, but it's HOW you lead that makes the real difference, especially when the stakes are high and the pressure is permanent.Every episode, Sally talks with a leader who has been tested in leadership and in life, with guests spanning C-suite business, Olympic sport, academia and the military, and asks them to share what they learned about their HOW under pressure.Please follow or subscribe and leave a review on Apple Podcasts - it helps other senior leaders find the show.Sally's book The How of High Performance is available at amazon.co.uk and from all good bookshops.Visit sallyhenderson.co.uk or connect with Sally on LinkedIn.

Pete Markey is the former CMO of Boots and president of ISBAR, with 30 years spent across British Gas, One Tel, More Than, Post Office, Aviva, TSB and Boots, every role defined by coming into new sectors and driving change.In this episode of The How of High Performance, he shares what it was like to arrive at Boots post COVID when the business was underperforming and marketing had lost the confidence of the organisation, and the relationship he built first before he pitched for a single penny more.Pete talks about recruiting nine fellow CMOs to learn improvised comedy for charity and what that taught him about carrying too much of the high stakes yourself, why he believes there's no room for politics when the stakes are real, and what playfulness in the executive context actually looks like when it's done well.About the ShowThe How of High Performance is a podcast hosted by Sally Henderson, High Stakes Leadership Mentor, Author, TEDx and Keynote Speaker with 26 years of experience mentoring senior leaders.Why you lead gets all the attention, but it's HOW you lead that makes the real difference, especially when the stakes are high and the pressure is permanent.Every episode, Sally talks with a leader who has been tested in leadership and in life, with guests spanning C-suite business, Olympic sport, academia and the military, and asks them to share what they learned about their HOW under pressure.Please follow or subscribe and leave a review on Apple Podcasts - it helps other senior leaders find the show.Sally's book The How of High Performance is available at amazon.co.uk and from all good bookshops.Visit sallyhenderson.co.uk or connect with Sally on LinkedIn.

Rak Patel is Chief Commercial Officer at Channel 4, with 26 years across media owners and platforms including EMAP, the Financial Times, Microsoft, AutoTrader and seven years at Spotify where he grew the UK advertising business into a pan European operation.In this episode of The How of High Performance, he shares what it took to persuade an organisation to back a bold growth strategy that would double the size of the team and why the goal never changed even when everything around it did.Rak talks about losing his father and the way it reshaped how he thought about what mattered, the four years at AutoTrader that he nearly turned down and that became the most formative of his career, and why he says there will always be a reason not to act and the only answer is to trust your instinct and get it done.About the ShowThe How of High Performance is a podcast hosted by Sally Henderson, High Stakes Leadership Mentor, Author, TEDx and Keynote Speaker with 26 years of experience mentoring senior leaders.Why you lead gets all the attention, but it's HOW you lead that makes the real difference, especially when the stakes are high and the pressure is permanent.Every episode, Sally talks with a leader who has been tested in leadership and in life, with guests spanning C-suite business, Olympic sport, academia and the military, and asks them to share what they learned about their HOW under pressure.Please follow or subscribe and leave a review on Apple Podcasts - it helps other senior leaders find the show.Sally's book The How of High Performance is available at amazon.co.uk and from all good bookshops.Visit sallyhenderson.co.uk or connect with Sally on LinkedIn.

Claire Hollands started out heading for medical school before finding her way into advertising, spent 14 years at AMV rising to chief client officer, became CEO of Mullen Lowe and is now CEO of Saatchi and Saatchi.In this episode of The How of High Performance she talks about the merger she led at Mullen Lowe where the real job wasn't the finances or the client proposition but bringing three fierce cultural tribes together under one roof in a way that made everyone want to be part of what came next.Claire also shares the personal high stakes of leaving a 14 year career during COVID while pregnant with her second child and walking into a new agency after nearly two years away from an office, carrying what she describes as an unhealthy paranoia that nobody around her ever saw.Her advice to senior leaders is rooted in trust and in something she says sounds basic but that most leaders still don't do.About the ShowThe How of High Performance is a podcast hosted by Sally Henderson, High Stakes Leadership Mentor, Author, TEDx and Keynote Speaker with 26 years of experience mentoring senior leaders.Why you lead gets all the attention, but it's HOW you lead that makes the real difference, especially when the stakes are high and the pressure is permanent.Every episode, Sally talks with a leader who has been tested in leadership and in life, with guests spanning C-suite business, Olympic sport, academia and the military, and asks them to share what they learned about their HOW under pressure.Please follow or subscribe and leave a review on Apple Podcasts - it helps other senior leaders find the show.Sally's book The How of High Performance is available at amazon.co.uk and from all good bookshops.Visit sallyhenderson.co.uk or connect with Sally on LinkedIn.

The How of High Performance is a podcast hosted by Sally Henderson, High Stakes Leadership Mentor, Author, TEDx and Keynote Speaker with 26 years of experience mentoring senior leaders.Why you lead gets all the attention, but it's HOW you lead that makes the real difference, especially when the stakes are high and the pressure is permanent.Every episode, Sally talks with a leader who has been tested in leadership and in life, with guests spanning C-suite business, Olympic sport, academia and the military, and asks them to share what they learned about their HOW under pressure.Please follow or subscribe and leave a review on Apple Podcasts — it helps other senior leaders find the show.Sally's book The How of High Performance is available at amazon.co.uk and from all good bookshops.Visit sallyhenderson.co.uk or connect with Sally on LinkedIn.