Have Have you realised someone’s talent in the office?  Or are you aware of the hidden skills among your workforce?

Great organisations utilise their staff and put their strengths into practice to further the organisation’s performance. It seems simple, but there are a lot of ‘9 to 5’ers’ out there who are sitting on talents that could potentially turn your business around.

Having a half productive workforce that harbours hidden talent is like asking Victoria Pendleton to row a boat or Sir Steve Redgrave to ride a bike!

We recently chatted to Anthony Ogogo the GB middleweight boxer currently ‘Ogogo-ing’ for gold during the London 2012 Olympics about the importance of realising talent and setting the scene for success.

Investors in People (IiP): How integral to your performance is belief and confidence from your team?

Anthony Ogogo: Extremely important. It does matter how hard you train and prepare, but it is human nature to have doubt. Boxing is a psychological sport. It is important to have coaches who believe in you and empower you to do your best. That is the only way you can grow in your profession. My coach is excellent and he has worked with a number of great boxers. I respect him and his feedback means a lot to me. To hear that he thinks that I am good allows me to perform well and exceed my goals.

Investors in People (IiP): How thankful are you to team GB who invested in your talent?

Anthony Ogogo: Extremely thankful, without the push that team GB provides I would have just been another kid who was good at boxing but never great. It hasn’t been easy though; at the age of 19 I was set back with an injury. UK sport is funded through the National Lottery and because the programme wasn’t as well funded as it is now they had to release me. I was training at home in Lowestoft but did not feel like I was progressing. Eventually through hard work I got back on the squad. They sent me all around the world and got me through another injury. It is a two way deal though, you have to make yourself worth investing in and through learning from my setbacks I have been able to exceed where I was before and have a realistic chance of winning a Gold medal.

Investors in People (IiP): How important do you think it is to allow the next generation  to realise their potential and talent in the UK?

Anthony Ogogo: Setting the scene for success is extremely important; it is integral to give young talent a sense of self worth and the ability to achieve. Children have a world of opportunity and they need to be inspired to take advantage of it. But realising potential is a two sided coin; the flip side comes with the need to be proactive and take opportunities of your own accord. It takes hard work to succeed. Support is one side of the equation; it also requires resilience and an element of luck.

  What applies to those in sport can also be applied to those in the business world.

So whether it is about encouraging contributions from staff, developing a capability into a talent, fostering innovation or inspiring your next leaders; businesses can learn a lot from the disciplines that coaches and athletes apply to become world beaters.  To be the best everyone needs someone to believe in them, challenge and invest in their abilities, and identify their future potential.  There is much the individual needs to do for themselves to drive their own aspirations, but a supportive coach or manager can make all the difference.  The better your people perform, the better your business performance will be.

We fundamentally believe that by encouraging people to believe in themselves, and the contribution they can make, will make any business more successful.

So if you want to push your staff to their personal best and to increase your business performance, why not see what  Investors in People can do to help you by clicking here.

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