What Lionel Messi and Venus Williams have to teach us about being better professionals

 

What makes Lionel Messi one of the world's best footballers? Believe it or not, it isn’t just his dribbling or goal-scoring skills. Data shows that Messi moves his head more during a game than other players, demonstrating a high level of situational awareness as he gathers data to decide what to do next. 

Similarly, research shows that what defines the best tennis players is not the shots they hit but the 16 seconds between each shot that matter most. Their ability to re-centre, settle, focus, and not let their errors take over is what sets them up for success. 

Being able to make good decisions based on solid information is crucial for success in just about all fields of endeavour – including business – says Jon Foster-Pedley, dean and director of Henley Business Africa. He was talking to a group of young Titans cricketers last month on the role of critical thinking, strategy and systems thinking for high-performing athletes, as part of a broader initiative within Henley to empower young professionals. 

‘The skills we need to succeed in the world of work today are very similar, no matter what field you are playing on,’ says Foster-Pedley. ‘If you want to excel at the highest level, you need to hone your critical thinking, strategy and systems thinking skills.

‘Take a good pilot, for example. Pilots are skilled at managing their awareness, keeping themselves focused and calm, awake and situationally aware with a broad perspective. They also manage their thinking habits,’ adds Foster-Pedley, who was himself a pilot before he transitioned into business, marketing and strategy, and, most recently, running a business school.

Foster-Pedley started by breaking down some of these terms that, because they are more commonly found in the boardroom than on the sports field, are often dismissed as irrelevant.

‘Critical thinking is a disciplined and reflective process of analysing information to form reasoned judgments. It’s about thinking like a scientist rather than a cult leader. In a nutshell, this means you are not always right, you need to allow for the fact that you might be wrong and be able to move your position on the basis of data. You need to be curious, you need to be sceptical and you need to be humble and suspend judgement until you have all the facts.

‘It’s all about strong opinions lightly held, learning from your mistakes and creating a culture where others can point them out.

‘Systems thinking, by contrast, is about understanding the broader context in which you operate. In sport, this means recognising that it’s not just about individual performances. You are part of a team, a league, and a larger sporting ecosystem. It’s about how everything fits together – the team, the conditions, the strategy, and even your mindset.’

He emphasised that by understanding how these interconnected elements work together and setting up systems to learn and improve, individuals can make more informed decisions and contribute more effectively to their team's success. 

‘Think about it this way: If you’re a bowler, how you bowl sets up the next bowler. For example, if you’re bowling tight and restricting runs, the next bowler might have a better chance of taking a wicket because the batsman is under pressure to score. In business terms, this would be called a high-performance system.

‘Developing a high-performing system is a bit like growing the best apple tree,’ continued Foster-Pedley. ‘You might want the biggest and juiciest apples, but you can’t get there unless you first pay attention to the soil, the time of year you plant, what kind of climate you are planting the tree in. These are the foundations or drivers of your success. And that’s not all. You also have to pay attention to supporting activities. These could include building a fence around your tree to protect it from grazers, pruning it, and watering it regularly. Only then do you get your healthy outcome. 

‘The same is true in sport and in business. Even the most talented individuals can’t thrive in a team if the foundations are weak and if they are not getting the right kind of nurturing support. 

‘Like the tree, this is a continuous process. As all good leaders and coaches know, nobody gets it perfectly right the first time. It’s all about what Matthew Syed, in his best-selling book Black Box Thinking: The Surprising Truth about Success, calls “the magic of small gains”.’

Foster-Pedley stresses that small gains are not about making small changes and hoping they fly. Rather, they are about breaking down a big problem into small parts in order to rigorously establish what works and what doesn’t and then doing more of the right things, even if that means failing from time to time.

‘We need to have a progressive attitude to failure if we want to grow, and we need to set up the feedback loops that can help us grow.’

This approach is how Henley Business School Africa was built, he adds. Starting 30 years ago with just a small office in South Africa and a licenced MBA, the business school, which is part of the University of Reading in the UK, has experienced rapid growth over the past decade. From a full-time staff of just five in 2011, Henley Africa now boasts more than 120 staff. Under Foster-Pedley’s leadership, the school has steadily broadened its programme offerings, graduating more than 2,000 students in 2022 and 2023 at both undergraduate and postgraduate level.

Two new offerings will be added to an already busy programme schedule in 2025: a Doctorate in Business Administration (DBA) and, at the other end of the spectrum, a Work Readiness Programme, accredited at NQF-level 5.  This programme caters to matriculants who might not know what they want to do after school, who can’t get into university, or who don’t want to follow a traditional university path.

‘Our business model is entrepreneurial, and we are disrupting traditional education pathways by finding ways of making workplace learning faster and more relevant. More than anything, the country needs an injection of skilled and confident individuals who understand themselves and the bigger picture and know how to get things done. This is paramount if we want the economy to grow, and grow in the right way,’ says Foster-Pedley.

‘We can all benefit from developing this kind of situational awareness – a mix of critical thinking and systems thinking that allows us to observe what is going on in the world around us and make better decisions based on better data. The very attributes that make you a great athlete are also essential for good leaders, coaches and also good businesspeople who want to build a better South Africa.’

For more on Henley Africa’s accredited programmes in management practice, including undergraduate programmes, the Postgraduate Diploma and the prestigious international Executive MBA go to: https://www.henleysa.ac.za/management-programmes