Using a sports-inspired mindset to reset corporate leadership directly affects growing shareholder value and attracting foreign investment.
London, 13 November 2024—Brand identity has become as important as results, whether in business or sports.
A study published in August by the research journal Nature shows that brand identity significantly affects brand lifestyle congruence, brand satisfaction, and repurchase intentions.
Somewhat shockingly, research undertaken by management consulting firm Interbrand shows that 67% of companies in the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index may need to be more accurately valued due to a misunderstanding of brand power.
Interbrand’s study says that business brand growth and earnings potential are not always reflected in a company’s public share price.
“Individual brands’ price-to-earnings ratios are not consistently performing against peers – or are experiencing high volatility, signalling stock may be improperly valued,” the report states.
“The investment community of analysts and journalists today sees the influence of the brand on valuation, with the brand being the second most important consideration [after financial forecast] to investment analysts and journalists when evaluating a company’s prospects.”
The upshot is that corporations can secure more significant investments by enhancing their brand’s standing in the market.
Professional sports can teach us much in this regard. Celebrated sports franchises and national teams generate millions of pounds in revenue each year thanks to extensive brand-enhancement efforts.
Paddy Upton, considered one of the world’s leading mental coaches, has enjoyed considerable success working with sports and business leadership teams. Through his experience, he has found that many of the same principles work just as well in either space.
The South African, whose mental input helped the Indian cricket team win the 2011 ICC Men’s World Cup and was instrumental in the Indian hockey team’s bronze medal at this year’s Paris Olympics, says establishing a performance-based mindset aids in building a winning brand.
He points out two ways a sports team attracts fans: by helping the public understand what the team stands for and delivering results.
He became head coach of the Sydney Thunder cricket franchise in Australia’s Big Bash League after the team won only one of 22 games in the tournament’s first three years. Crowd attendance was at an all-time low.
This meant the franchise had to find other ways to attract supporters. Their answer was to embark on a community outreach programme, where players held coaching sessions with youngsters and fun parks were set up for families.
The cricketers also went above and beyond to sign autographs and pose for photographs.
“The result was that we became a community-oriented team,” Upton explains.
“Fans started coming to the games, and even if we didn’t win, the players went out onto the field and into the stands after the match to mingle with fans. They did not return the changeroom until the last fan had left with a signature.”
In effect, Sydney Thunder engaged directly with its stakeholders, in this case, its fans. Had it not taken this approach, its poor record would have kept the stands empty.
Upton says embracing effective stakeholder engagement programmes will help businesses through difficult quarters, halves, and annual results, sometimes due to market volatility, which is beyond their control.
“But they will constantly be attracting loyalty and followers to their products, thereby attracting the interest of stakeholders and foreign investors. Emotions often drive people’s decisions, so winning isn’t enough anymore.”
The “Work Trend Index Special Report”, released by software giant Microsoft last year, corroborates much of what Upton says. Its analysis of more than three million employees at 226 large global companies that trade on US stock markets found that stocks of companies with high employee engagement performed twice as well as those with low engagement.
Upton believes building a successful brand starts internally, where a performance-based mindset is crucial. Essentially, this mental approach involves clear direction and great alignment between all the players or the various departments in the business sense.
Simultaneously, there needs to be commitment at the individual level, where each person is dedicated to their role to align with the others within the organisation.
“Sport can again teach us valuable lessons here,” Upton says,
“Every athlete wakes up daily looking for a 1% improvement somewhere in their game. That might be in their diet, training, skillset, or strategy clarity. However, top athletes might need to spend four- to six hours intensely focused on one minor aspect to get that 1% gain, whereas within the business context, finding that 1% improvement might only require 10 or 15 minutes of application.”
Another factor contributing to an enhanced performance mindset is concentrating on what needs to happen today rather than dwelling on what occurred yesterday or worrying about what might happen tomorrow.
Focusing on mistakes that happened previously undermines confidence, which in turn creates stress about the future.
Upton says the ideal is for an organisation to have a performance mindset that is part of its DNA. This stems from leadership creating a culture that is the norm at every level.
“It’s not about leaders imposing their performance mindset; it’s about creating opportunities for people to contribute. It’s a servant-leadership or employee-centred coaching approach to leadership that invites people to deliver their best.”
According to a 2024 study by the UKG Workforce Institute, a labour analysis and insights specialist, 72% of employees in India say their manager’s support and leadership directly motivate them to go the extra mile in the workplace.
Based on his observations, Upton recommends that organisations should focus on the following to create a performance-based mindset:
- Clarity of direction that is understood by all.
- Leaders model and reward desired values.
- Acknowledge success at every level.
- Approach failure as a gift of learning.
- Encourage and reward new ideas.
