Business Book Review: Rest, Practice, Perform

I heard about the book Rest, Practice, Perform, and couldn’t wait to read it. The subtitle, 'What elite sport can teach leaders about sustainable wellbeing and performance,' had me hooked.

Karen Meager and John McLachlan drew on extensive research and their deep understanding of leadership behaviours to provide us with methods of adapting elite sports’ winning techniques to business.

Karen and John have years of research and professional experience spanning twenty years and more. Karen holds master’s degrees in psychology and health research, and her specialist research area is mental health and burnout in organisations. John has master’s degrees in psychology and health research, specialising in what organisations can learn from elite sports performance.

I was fascinated to see how two vastly different approaches to performance in sport and business were compared, and I was interested to find out how one could learn from the other.

Businesses tend to focus on maximum performance at all times. The goal of elite sports is to perform at key times.

Employee burnout has become a global issue, and the authors draw on recent research to establish the extent and the damage that burnout has to performance and the individual.

Expecting 100% (and some even expect the impossible 110%) performance takes a massive toll on employees.

This book explores organisational performance through a different lens. It refers to a lot of academic studies to draw its’ own conclusions.

The authors have examined three elite sports in particular. Professional tennis, Formula 1 motor racing, and professional football.

The book explains that tennis is mainly about individual performance, Formula 1 relies on distinct roles at different times, and football requires a team to work together simultaneously. However, there was great commonality between each sport's approach to performance.

The book, as its title suggests, sees three key elements to delivering performance, which can be applied to the business world as well as the world of sport.

The three elements are rest, practice, and performance.

There are chapters giving examples, case studies, and key takeaways.

The chapter on'rest’ looks at things like the physical, mental, and emotional components of effective rest. The section on ‘practice’ looks at practicing for improvement, practicing for new things, and how to correct errors. The segment on ‘perform’ considers striving towards outcomes, maintaining focus on performance, and celebrating success.

In the beginning, I was struggling to see the synergies between sport and business, but as I read further into the book, it became clearer that some of the practices used by elite sportspeople could be adopted, adapted, and applied in a business environment and lead to better outcomes.

I had been excited to read this book, and I wasn’t disappointed. It has great insight into the world of professional sports and the way in which they organise to deliver exceptional performance. I began to appreciate how tennis players time their highest performances to the four Grand Slam events so they could peak for each of the Australian, French, and US Open events and, of course, Wimbledon.

In business, it is important to identify your flows. For example, in retail businesses, there are peaks and troughs; this can also apply to manufacturing, wholesaling, and even service industries. Taking advantage of the peaks and troughs to apply the lessons from sport can bring dramatic improvement in results and the impact work has on employees.

I found the book easy to read; it’s relatively short and written in an easy-to-follow style. I enjoyed it, and I think most business people will too.



Rest, Practice, and Perform was written by Karen Meager and John McLachlan and published by Right Book Press.

Ian Garner is a retired Fellow of the Chartered Management Institute (FCMI) and a Fellow of the Institute of Directors (FIoD).

Ian is a board member of Maggie’s Yorkshire. Maggie’s provides emotional and practical cancer support and information in centres across the UK and online, with their centre in Leeds based at St James’s Hospital.

He is the founder and director of Practical Solutions Management, a strategic consulting practice, and is skilled in developing strategy and providing strategic direction, specialising in business growth and leadership.