FEATURE
WHY PURSUING HIGH PERFORMANCE LEADS TO CORPORATE BURNOUT( AND HOW TO FIX IT)
Organisations want teams that work faster, deliver more and consistently outperform the competition. On the surface, that sounds positive. Ambition drives innovation and growth. But many businesses are discovering a difficult truth: the relentless pursuit of high performance is often creating the exact opposite result. Adolfo Gomez Sanchez, CEO, GOLD Results, discusses how businesses can look to elite athletes to evaluate how to maintain and sustain performance.
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High performance’ has become a defining ambition for modern organisations. From start-ups to global enterprises, leaders are pushing their teams to work more efficiently and deliver better results, while often under constant pressure. The intention behind this way of working is commendable. The outcome, increasingly, is not.
Across industries, we are seeing record levels of burnout, disengagement and diminishing returns.
The uncomfortable truth is that organisations are not failing despite their pursuit of high performance; they are burning out because of it.
In my work with elite athletes and corporate leaders, I often introduce a simple framework called the Performance Triangle. It is designed to answer a fundamental question: what sustains optimal performance over time? Most leaders assume the answer lies in effort alone. Science tells a different story: performance is built on the interaction between three forces – work, nutrition and rest. This is where many organisations go wrong, because when one of these is overemphasised at the expense of the others, the entire system becomes unstable.
Why businesses trip up in their pursuit of elite performance
Many business leaders, particularly highachieving, Type A personalities, operate on a
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