What our Olympians can teach us in business deal-making

Have you been hooked by the Olympics? If the extraordinary cornucopia of the opening ceremony was not enough, the range of sporting disciplines and the talent and dedication of the athletes are enthralling — and moving.
I found myself gripped by the women’s lightweight double sculls last week (not a sentence I have often written). It was won by two young Brits — Emily Craig and Imogen Grant — in a display of “calm synchronicity”, to quote British Rowing. Their interview following the medal ceremony was remarkable for its warmth, genuine friendship and mutual support, encapsulated by the way in which each talked only of the other’s remarkable qualities. Their unaffected sentiment and joint appreciation of the “give and get” of their journey to winning shone brighter than their gold medal.
It seems to me to offer a parallel for how good (in every sense of the word) companies do business today — not only in the display of exemplary teamwork but also in the desire to see others succeed, and knowing that a partner’s success is also your own. Many of us have witnessed unsavoury episodes, generally in deals, where each party is determined to extract an uncompromising “win” from the other, with insufficient regard for the companies in play or the people who work in them.
There are also those situations (listings come to mind) where businesses are “ramped” — talked up beyond any reasonable expectation of performance if investor frenzy, created through overheated market sentiment, was taken out of the equation.
And perhaps the saddest outcome is when a good, established company, needing new money to compete or new owners to succeed a family leader, gets sold too cheaply because the buyers fail to understand its real worth — which, more often than not, is the care and dedication of the people who work there, producing quality goods for valued customers.
Confrontation versus collaboration — which feels right to you? What is going to achieve the optimal result for all stakeholders? What brings out the best in people? Confrontation feels such an old-fashioned, short-term way of doing things. The resentment of the losing party doesn’t go away but continues to simmer.
Courtesy, respect and fairness through collaborative ways of working can — and, in my view, generally do — bring the long-term win. For all parties.
I am quite often asked to come in as chair when a founder takes their first private equity cheque; I have started businesses and have also worked with a number of private equity firms. The first phase of a new partnership throws up some interesting challenges, generally confrontational and with the glow of deal love receding fast.
Founder: “This enterprise is my creation — only I understand it and never tell me what to make or do.”
Private equity house: “Your margins are too low, your labour costs are too high and you spend too much.”
These are exaggerated stereotypes, but a truth is there. Resolution requires finding the widest possible crossover in the Venn diagram of the two positions, where collaboration and mutual understanding will flourish, allowing the enterprise to grow purposefully and prosperously. As the definition says: “A Venn diagram uses overlapping circles … highlighting how the items are similar and different.”
That’s the power of collaboration: seeing and appreciating both similarities and differences, learning from each other and reducing friction and barriers to understanding. “My way or the highway” never achieves that end. This isn’t world peace (but maybe a step towards that); it’s a productive, challenging and interesting way of working to get the best out of each individual and the team as a whole.
It also allows an unhindered focus on what the enterprise is trying to achieve, looking up and out, not down and into disagreements or ego-driven demands, which wastes so much energy. It requires the ability to listen, to reflect and to understand and move past failures. It also requires the smart use of data to back up a position and to remove reliance on “I think …” rather than “the evidence shows …”. Both attitude and content have to be present: “The argument/discussion point I am evidencing is clear and I will present it calmly and knowledgeably, and genuinely invite input. On such collaborative ways of working, winning well is created.
Emily and Imogen won well. Imogen: “The loss in Tokyo [the host for the last Olympics, where the pair missed out on gold by 0.5 seconds and on bronze by 0.01 seconds] was part of our story … We’ve put so much work into this and we are such different and better people this time around that there was a certain inevitability to the racing.” Collaboration and content. Bravo.
Dame Karen Jones co-founded Café Rouge and was chief executive of the Spirit pub group. She is a non-executive director at Deliveroo, Whitbread, the Crown Estate and Mowgli Street Food, and chairwoman of Hawksmoor