High Performance Culture – Matthew Syed

Matthew Syed is perhaps best known for his motivational books – like Rebel Ideas or the modern day classic – Black Box Thinking. He’s also a Times columnist and ex-ping pong champion!

He closed the PMO Conference in London in 2023 with a session about performance.

Matthew’s talk focuses on high-performance culture, examining the psychological and cultural factors that drive excellence. He emphasises the importance of understanding these factors to create and sustain a high-performance environment.

Matthew also encouraged the audience to ask questions and share their observations, indicating that he was there to learn from them as well.

He gives a great example of a fixed and growth mindset using Microsoft’s recent fortunes and David Beckham’s free kicks being in his DNA.

An interesting and thought-provoking session, perhaps one all the team can watch together?

Recorded Session

Notable Quotables

When you have a critical mass of even talented people in a fixed mindset, it’s detrimental. We need to shift from a fixed mindset of know-it-alls to a growth mindset of learners.

In the complex, rapidly changing world, talent isn’t enough. It’s what we do with our talents.

People with a growth mindset are much better at constant self-evaluation. They’re higher in what’s called agency. They’re better at reaching out to diverse voices to plug the inevitable gaps in any one person’s knowledge.

People in the growth mindset are also better learners

We learn, of course, from our successes. But are there not rich learning opportunities when things go less well than perfectly? You know, when we make mistakes, when there are errors.

Overcoming the fixed mindset isn’t just about combating complacency, which can sometimes set in when you’ve been successful. It’s overcoming the limitations we place on ourselves, often unconsciously.

If everyone’s seeking to look as if they know everything, what’s the last thing they want to hear about? When a great idea emerges from someone else in the team. One can think, well that person’s trying to look smarter than me.

We underestimate the significance of our own ability to market and to provide good optics on what we do.

When you have a critical mass of even talented people in a fixed mindset, it suppresses the collaboration, the bottom-up flow of ideas and innovation that is so important for learning, for staying ahead of the curve, for anticipating and shaping the future disruptions

One negative experience becomes a reason to give up in the fixed mindset.

Psychological safety is not a meek environment. It’s one of mutual challenge, respectful disagreement and debate so that we can test each other’s hypotheses and assertions to get to the best solution.

Continuous learning and adaptation are vital. The landscape is always changing, and staying updated with the latest trends and technologies is crucial. Building strong relationships and fostering collaboration are also key elements. No project can succeed without a cohesive team working towards a common goal.