When people think about elite sport, recruitment is not always the first thing that comes to mind. Performance, leadership, discipline and mindset usually dominate the conversation.
But behind almost every consistently successful sports team is an incredibly intentional approach to identifying and selecting people. Not just based on technical ability alone, but on behaviours, mentality, resilience and long-term fit within the environment.
That’s one of the central ideas behind the CPD-accredited Hire Great People methodology developed by Simon Hartley, Founder of Be World Class, in partnership with Headstar.
Why elite teams rarely recruit on talent alone
Simon Hartley is a globally respected sport psychology consultant, performance coach, award-winning speaker and published author. He has spent almost 30 years working with Olympic gold medallists, world-class athletes, championship-winning teams and senior business leaders to understand what genuinely drives high performance.
One of the recurring themes throughout that work is that elite teams rarely build success purely around technical talent.
In fact, many highly successful sports teams are incredibly selective about the mindset, accountability, coachability and resilience of the people they bring into the environment, alongside how consistently they perform under pressure and contribute to the wider team culture.
That’s because high-performing teams are rarely built around individuals alone.
They’re built around groups of people consistently working towards shared standards, behaviours and expectations.
Importantly, the same principles apply in business.
The parallels between sport and business recruitment
Over the last three decades, Simon Hartley has increasingly applied these same world-class performance principles within business environments, working with senior leadership teams and global organisations on areas including leadership, culture, performance and recruitment.
That’s important because whilst elite sport and business are obviously very different environments, many of the underlying principles around high performance are remarkably similar.
Most organisations already understand the importance of technical capability when hiring people. The challenge is that technical capability alone rarely guarantees long-term success.
Some people interview brilliantly and look exceptional on paper but struggle once they join the organisation. Others may be less polished initially but go on to become some of the strongest performers because they demonstrate the right mindset, behaviours and willingness to learn.
That’s one of the reasons the Hire Great People methodology places such a strong emphasis on recruiting on character as well as capability.
Rob Burgess, Senior Director of Talent Acquisition at adidas, described this focus on character as “the real unlock” for his organisation after working through the methodology with Simon Hartley.
Reflecting on the similarities between elite sport and business recruitment, Rob explained: “The parallels between high performing sports teams and the corporate world are clear but channelling this down into how they actually recruit talent and focus a lot on ‘character’ was the real unlock for us.”
Why recruitment decisions shape long-term performance
One of the biggest lessons high-performing sports environments tend to understand is that culture is rarely accidental. The people brought into a team ultimately influence standards, accountability, communication, behaviours under pressure and long-term team dynamics.
The same applies within organisations.
Over time, recruitment decisions shape the wider culture and capability of the business itself, which is one of the reasons Headstar began implementing many of these principles internally after working closely with Simon Hartley through leadership workshops and recruiting on character events.
At Headstar, our recruitment outcomes improved significantly (from 45% to 89%) after hiring more intentionally around character and long-term fit. But beyond the numbers, we also saw wider improvements in collaboration, consistency and team culture.
Over the last few years, Headstar and Simon Hartley have continued refining these principles to develop Hire Great People – a CPD-accredited online programme designed to help organisations build a more intentional and consistent approach to recruitment, with a particular emphasis on recruiting on character as well as capability.
What’s included in the Hire Great People programme:
• Three live group coaching sessions with Simon Hartley
• 45+ bite-size video lessons with a comprehensive interactive workbook
• 14.25 hours of recognised CPD learning
• Signed copy of Simon Hartley’s best-selling book, Hire Great People
More importantly, the programme is designed to help organisations:
• Improve hiring success rates by recruiting more intentionally around character
• Reduce the cost, disruption and frustration of poor hiring decisions
• Build stronger cultures and higher-performing teams
• Create a more consistent and repeatable recruitment process
50% introductory discount currently available using code: HireGreatPeople50
Learn more here: www.headstar.co.uk/great
