“If Plan A doesn’t work, the alphabet has 25 more letters!”
– Clare Cook, Author
If you’re into radically improving your business there’s a fantastic article
available today from the economist David McWilliams.
In it he references the decision by Billy Walsh to leave the Irish Boxing team.
Billy is the man responsible for the transformation of the Irish Boxing team into one
of the most successful sports team in the world.
Whether you’re into boxing doesn’t really matter – it’s the story behind
an amazing transformation that will be of interest to anyone.
Over the past 10 years, this team from a small country have won a huge amount of
medals across major competitions – 57 gold medals, 49 silver medals and
96 bronze medals.
An amazing feat and all the more remarkable in light of the fact that in 2002 the
Irish Sports Council was about to remove all funding from boxing because the
performances had been so poor.
Billy Walsh took the team to Russia to study the best team at that time in the world.
Realising that it it wasn’t good enough to keep doing what they’d been doing for
years, Walsh ripped up their plan and completely changed their training schedule.
The trainers set about measuring everything from heart rate, to footwork,
punch rate to number of combinations, diet, emotional stability
and perhaps most importantly the boxers’ own belief. Were they hungry enough?
Half the team left because they weren’t up for the new level required.
But the ones that stayed got better. A lot better.
And the results proved it.
Billy Walsh probably never got the recognition he deserved from the powers
that be in Irish Boxing but his legacy is an inspirational true story of
real transformation that everyone can learn from.
Maybe what we’re doing isn’t good enough any more because we’re not getting
the results we want?
Maybe it’s time to change from plan A and start looking at other ways of doing
things?
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You can read the article by David McWilliams here.