How do you enhance performance?

Never mind the cars, in a game of conference venue top trumps, McLaren’s Thought Leadership Centre is the card to hold.

In this outrageous setting, we sat back and were immersed in one of the world’s most unique organisations to find out about their approach to enhancing performance.

We were lucky enough to hear from all three parts of the McLaren business; racing, automotive and applied technologies.

John Allert, CMO, was quick to remind us that this wasn’t a how-to guide, but simply one way of doing it. With that in mind, here’s a few of my highlights from the day:

Learn from other sectors on how to use data to create and measure fans

Unsurprisingly given F1’s reputation, “data” featured heavily as a topic throughout.

As well as some great examples from Mike Collier on using data to “model what great looks like”, Rob Bloom (group digital director) talked about learning from other sectors. Programmes like Tesco Clubcard are inspiring new ways that the brand can interact with fans to push the sport forward.

We also heard how Rob’s team are measuring the media value of their work for their partners – perhaps another grocery influence.

Find ways to balance long term innovation programs with accelerator projects

Duncan Bradley gave us an insight into the applied technologies division, who take the technology developed through racing programmes and look for uses in other contexts.

There’s genuinely exciting and meaningful potential here in healthcare, but regulatory factors can slow the innovation process. To counteract this, the team have looked for “easy access accelerators” where technology can be applied, learned from and developed at pace. This includes sports in Olympic cycles, professional teams and commercial applications where great products and authentic marketing stories have been incredibly successful.

Running these programmes in parallel with healthcare is a great way of maintaining the pace vital to innovation whilst also doing meaningful work.

Know that high performance teams aren’t always comfortable places to be

Simon Roberts, CCO, McLaren Racing, gave plenty of fascinating insights into the inner workings of a racing team, both process and people related, pointing out that high performance teams aren’t always comfortable places to be.

However, giving 700 individuals a shared objective of making 2 cars go faster 21 times a year is a powerful way of pushing forward.

He also proved that even F1 teams think about cost controls, advising a focus on limiting wasted resources in the middle of the system. Doing this avoids stifling innovation at the start and cutting corners in production – critical when the winning margins are so fine.

On that subject, his reflections on McLaren’s challenges in recent seasons were fascinating. When you win for too long, it’s easy to forget why you’re winning, and there’s a huge amount of humility needed to learn when things stop going your way.

Use technology but don’t compromise agility

Our day was topped off with a taste of the pressure of F1, with twelve ‘lucky’ attendees getting to change the tyres on an F1 car. Impressively, the fastest corner change was a shade over 3 seconds. Not bad!

The tour around the building (the epitome of Ron Dennis’ legacy at the business), also revealed some unexpected inner workings.  Despite being such a highly tuned business, the 4,500 cars that roll out of the factory each year are all hand made. It’s a reminder that there’s still a huge amount of value in flexibility over automation, being able to change the production line at a moment’s notice.

This was far from the usual Friday – one of those days where you feel lucky to be learning from some impressive operators you wouldn’t normally cross paths with. 

By James Graemer, strategy director, LIFE agency