This is a YouTube video titled "The Power of Marginal Gains" featuring Mike Richards delivering a motivational talk on the concept of marginal gains, illustrated by the success story of the British cycling team under Dave Brailsford. Mike Richards addresses an audience of treasury professionals, encouraging them to apply small incremental improvements to their careers and personal development. The talk was created in January 2019.
The power of marginal gains. So all of you lot apparently are busy treasury professionals, but you still make the time to come out here. It's education, I know, and it may seem overwhelming or time consuming to do any of the things that I've recommended. So I want to introduce this very simple concept. I didn't make it up. So has anyone. And I will buy a beer for anyone. That's quite unusual in itself. Not you knows who that person is and you can't answer either. Anyone? Sorry, Jeff. No, no. This is Dave Brailsford, or Sir Dave to his friends. British cycling team performance director. He came up with this idea of marginal gains. He joined the British cycling team performance director in 2003. Before he arrived, professional cyclists in Britain had only ever won one gold medal in the Olympics in 110 years. Sorry, ever. In 110 years, no British cyclist had ever won the Tour de France. They were so bad, the manufacturers would not sell them their bikes because they were worried it would affect sales. It's true. This is actually true. Exactly. And it was just. They were, please give me a bike. But he became focused on this strategy and what he called the aggregation of. Of marginal gains. Technical phrase. And it was the quest to find tiny improvements in everything he did all day. You do. If you break down everything you think of when riding a bike and improve it by 1% cumulatively, you'll get a significant increase when you put them all together. So him and his coaches, they started to make a few adjustments. They redesigned the bike seats. First of all, the riders wore electrically heated shorts to maintain bum muscle temperature. They identified ideal pillows and mattresses and got them transported wherever they went. So they got the best night's sleep. Small margins every time. Hundreds of these soon accumulated. He set out to win a Tour de France within five years. He didn't do it. They did it in three. They then went on to win 60% of the gold medals at the Beijing Olympics. Nine Olympic records, seven world records at London Olympics same year, Bradley Wiggins, first British cyclist to ever win the Tour de France. Following year, Chris Froome. 15, 16, 17. He was actually going for it this year for the fourth time in a row. His riding partner, Geraint Thomas, he won it instead. And their success that they put it down was making 1% changes. So where does this all apply to you guys? What if you were to make one of those changes? Put a better photo on LinkedIn? What about if you were to think about talking to a mentor that might actually help you? In the past so maybe it's setting your next goal and the stepping stones that we talked about of how to get there developing your skills do you need to do some more study as I said reviewing your LinkedIn profile adding a bit of content there it will actually also then helping with your consistent branding getting the coach or mentor developing decent elevator pitch when you're on the train home tonight thinking actually if I meet someone what I should have said was this this, this imagine the effect all of these could have on your treasury career hope you've enjoyed it and I look forward particularly to this side of the room who are very happy all buy me a beer in the bar later thank you the bike seats first of all the riders wore electrically heated shorts to maintain bum muscle temperature. They identified ideal pillows and mattresses and got them transported wherever they went so they got the best night's sleep small margins every time. Hundreds of these soon accumulated. He set out to win a Tour de France.
