11 Team-Building Lessons From Champions
A 6-minute investment to make you a better leader - In role. In life.
Hi, I’m Jason. I'm here to help you thrive mentally, physically, and emotionally through a powerful combination of science-based advice and coaching guidance.
Think of this as your weekly ‘cheat sheet’ to help you lead better and live better.
What’s coming up:
Prime Performance: This Week’s Best Transformation Tips & Life-Hacks
The Prime Perspective: 11 Team-Building Lessons From Champions
Be a Prime Mover: 1 Quote to Spark Change
Prime Performance: This Week’s Best Transformation Tips & Life-hacks
🎞️ WATCH 55 Seconds On Living A Life of Meaning
TPM’s own Dr Samira Cutts explains how your brain's selective attention isn't random, it's highlighting what you need for growth. She uses her cognitive expertise to explain how neural networks actually reshape when you practice gratitude and mindfulness. Essential viewing for leaders seeking to reconnect with their sense of purpose.
📖 READ 5 Lessons From Being Defeated In The Marathon
Olympic-level runner Natosha Rogers transformed a disastrous marathon debut into a breakthrough performance by completely changing her approach. Any leader will benefit from learning what failure taught her. A powerful reminder that talent and grit aren’t always enough.
📻 LISTEN The Optimal Diet For Your Brain & Body
Performance scientist Dr. Andy Galpin reveals the surprising truth: small nutritional adjustments could dramatically enhance both your cognitive sharpness and physical resilience, especially during high-pressure periods.
The Prime Perspective: Thoughts on Leadership and Growth
11 Team-Building Lessons From Champions
If ever a picture told a thousand words… this is the definition of what a high performance team looks like.
Some of the time the performance links between sport and business can be exaggerated, but I strongly feel that what has happened at Liverpool FC this season mirrors exactly what we champion at The Prime Movement - a perfect blend of art and science; of data and emotion.
So when they won the title on Sunday I decided to scrap my regular format to bring you this special deep dive…
What if I told you that one of the most high-profile leadership transitions in recent memory contained all the secrets to building sustainable high performance in your organization?
When Arne Slot took over from Jürgen Klopp at Liverpool FC, he inherited a talented team that had consistently fallen just short of becoming champions since their last triumph 5 years previously. Within months, he transformed them into Premier League winners and here’s what I believe you can learn from this:
1. Evolution Not Revolution
One of the most impressive aspects of Slot's approach was his commitment to evolution rather than revolution. He resisted the inevitable temptation to make his mark with new signings, he instead focused on evaluating the talent already in place and working out how to take them to the next level.
TPM Lesson: When a leader is new in role, a self-imposed pressure to implement radical change can arise, driven by their belief that they need to be seen to be justifying your decision to appoint them. You can teach them there is real power in self-awareness in this situation - sitting with that emotional urge and assessing whether that is unduly influencing their decision-making process. You can also create psychological safety by talking this through with them - it’s an opportunity for you to invest in their success and earn trust in the process.
2. The Best Can Still Get Better
Even an elite performer like Mohamed Salah was told he could improve and received individual coaching sessions tailored to the specific development areas the coaching staff had identified. Salah responded so well to this personalized approach that he had his best ever season.
TPM Lesson: Coaching and personalised development programs can help any team member improve - it can be tempting as a leader to focus solely on those who you think are under-performing, but imagine what getting 10% more from one of your star performers could do for your business? Who’s your Salah and how long are you spending coaching them versus other team members?
3. Be Data-Driven
As with other elite sports teams, Liverpool's approach to performance bears no resemblance to the ‘gut instinct’ approach of 20 years ago. Player data is rigorously monitored and analysed to identify where improvements can be made.
TPM Lesson: While the boardroom is a different environment to the pitch, we strongly believe that most current approaches to leadership development and coaching are stuck in the 1990s and neglect the value of data. Your leadership lives or dies on strong cognitive performance - the ability to make complex decisions under pressure, manage stress etc. And the reality is that your brain, just like your body, can be ‘trained’ to improve. Furthermore, cognitive health is affected by how you sleep, eat and move, so the ability to track these data points can be critical for those seeking to perform better. This is why a data-driven approach is integral to the TPM Program - we practice what we preach.
4. Environmental Design for Excellence
Liverpool redesigned their training center this season to foster greater collaboration - something as simple as building a central coffee bar where players could congregate fostered a greater sense of camaraderie.
TPM Lesson: It’s never just about ‘hard ‘data - we know from neuroscience that social connection is critical to wellbeing. Creating the right environments to foster this will strengthen bonds and develop a stronger sense of belonging among team members that will ultimately transfer to better performance.
5. Going Through The Gears
Liverpool's training structure is remarkably sophisticated and is built on the understanding that it’s impossible to operate at your prime constantly. Their ‘Assess and Prepare’, ‘Load and Explode’ and ‘Refine and Recover’ protocols are designed to ensure players hit peak performance when needed and can recover quickly in the interim.
TPM Lesson: One of the biggest mistakes we see in leadership is what Josh Waitzkin called a “simmering 6" - that lethal zone where you’re not operating at your best, but you’re also not recharging. The key here is your leadership team need to learn how to move quickly between their sympathetic state (think of this as your hyper-focused, activation mode - your ‘10’) and their para-sympathetic state (where you relax and recharge - your ‘1’). The great news is that there are neuroscience-based skills and techniques they can acquire to make this a reality - and if you need help teaching them, you know where we are.
6. Honesty + Psychological Safety
“It can be brutal” said a source about Slot's feedback sessions with players. "Arne is a serious guy, absolute football obsessive, very polite, very gentle in some regards, but as hard as nails when it comes to football." Crucially, however, his feedback was "never to belittle, always designed to improve."
TPM Lesson: The most effective leaders create what we call psychological safety with high standards - an environment where challenging feedback is given, but within a context that preserves dignity and focuses on growth. Without this balance, teams either become complacent (high psychological safety but no accountability) or fearful (high accountability but no safety). Neither produces sustainable excellence.
7. The Power of Personalization
Slot and his team tend to take a remarkably specialized approach, even when compared with other Premiership teams. For example, each individual player has their own ‘Refine and Recover’ protocol based on their unique needs versus one single team program.
TPM Lesson: Generic leadership development tools rarely deliver transformative results - think about your own experiences in the past - I’m willing to bet there were times where the 1-size-fits-all approach you’d been told to adopt felt like a jacket you were being forced to squeeze into. It limited and compressed you rather than unleashing your full potential. To get the best out of your team, adopt an approach that is tailored to getting the best from the individual, within the context of what is needed from them in terms of team contribution.
8. The Integration Impact
A key factor in Liverpool's transformation has been the conscious seamless collaboration between specialists from diverse disciplines. Data scientists, sports psychologists, nutritionists, and tactical coaches all working in concert, with information flowing freely between them.
TPM Lesson: The most pressing leadership challenges rarely fit within a single domain of expertise. Complex problems require integrated solutions - breaking down silos between different types of expertise creates exponential rather than incremental improvement. That’s why the Prime Performance Program brings together neuroscience, executive coaching and performance psychology in a way that multiplies their individual impact. The whole really is greater than the sum of the parts.
9. Redefining Leadership
Virgil Van Dijk, Liverpool's captain, was challenged to expand his concept of leadership - he was already one of the best defenders in the world, demonstrating his ability to coordinate others as well as being an exceptional individual in his own right. However Slot tasked him with taking more responsibility for building attacks and breaking lines with his passing - a challenge that he embraced and hit new heights.
TPM Lesson: True development often involves expanding how leaders definetheir role rather than just improving within their current conception of it. We frequently work with leaders who make transformative progress not by getting better at what they already do, but by reconceiving what their role could and should encompass.
10. Stand On The Shoulders Of Giants
Despite the pressure to establish his own identity, Slot showed remarkable confidence by acknowledging and building upon Jurgen Klopp's foundation rather than distancing himself from it. He maintained communication with Klopp throughout the season, referencing the former manager's successes, and even led fans in a chant honoring Jurgen after clinching the title.
TPM Lesson: There is a reality where on most occasions you are bringing new people into your leadership team, they are walking into a role that is not in a turnaround situation. Teach them that true leadership comes from recognising those who came before them rather than trying to erase their impact. This will allow them to demonstrate confidence and gain valuable institutional knowledge, while sending a powerful message about continuity and respect to the team. In short, you will be setting them up for success.
11. Clarity and Consistency Is Everything
In their very first full team meeting, Slot showed players specific data to highlight precisely where improvement was needed. He used visualization techniques to demonstrate how many players each Premier League team had behind the ball when defending, showing Liverpool's position below halfway in the league on this metric.
TPM Lesson: Vague feedback rarely drives meaningful change. Help your leadership team adopt an evidence-based approach that removes the personal sting from feedback by focusing on observable behaviors rather than character judgments. Leaders who can deliver this kind of precise, data-backed feedback accelerate improvement in a way that general encouragement or criticism simply cannot match.
The Bottom Line
The magic happens when you adopt an integrated approach that combines the best of both worlds.
Evidence-based science + Human coaching = Measurable transformation.
You need to adopt both to get the best out of your team and help your leadership team do the same.
And remember it starts with you. If you want to lead better and live better, The Prime Performance Program has been built for you.
THE PRIME PERFORMANCE PROGRAM
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Be A Prime Mover: 1 Quote to Spark Change
“We do not just want you to dream, we need you to dream. This is a big part of what makes this club so special because it challenges the players and the staff to do everything that we possibly can to be the best that we can be. But it is important that you know that for us to stand any chance of living up to those hopes it takes an incredible amount of hard work every single day. There can be no let-up.”
— Arne Slot
Send this to a fellow leader - they'll thank you for it.
