What licensees can learn from British Cycling's journey from also-rans to heroes

You are so submersed in the ‘day to day’ and the many strains, stresses (and successes) it brings that it becomes increasingly difficult to take a step back and consider whether what you’re doing is valuable.

Are you running things effectively? How could you do things differently to positively affect your operations? Which are the areas to focus on that could lead to meaningful improvements to the business?

In the run up to this summer’s Olympics, I’ve been reading about the concept of marginal gains — something that has revolutionised sport. It’s all about making small incremental enhancements to a process that result in substantial improvement when added together.

Theory

Perhaps the most well-known proponent of this theory is Sir Dave Brailsford, the former performance director of British Cycling, who took the team from a bunch of also-rans to Olympic glory. He believed that if it was possible to make a 1% improvement in a whole host of areas, the cumulative gains would end up hugely significant.

The same approach is now proving effective in many areas of business and public services, with hospitals, schools, airlines and tech companies, to name just a few, all reaping the benefits of this way of thinking. And it can work in our sector too.

But for marginal gains theory to succeed, you must remove yourself from the day to day and take an objective view of your operation — regardless of the type of pub you run.

Make Money

Easier said than done, I know. But if you want to make more money, achieve a better work-life balance, provide a better customer experience or are thinking about trading up — you need to scrutinise what you do and how you do it.

It might sound easy to identify areas of focus but if, for example, the problem you want to solve is ‘improving customer feedback’, you could spend hours finding solutions to try to fix an indistinct issue. The success of anything implemented would be hard to measure.

Solving a seemingly huge problem can seem impossible if you approach it like this. However, if you break ‘improving customer feedback’ into smaller parts then figure out one solution for each of those, such as revamping staff training or clearer team communication, you might solve it a few pieces at a time.

Flexibility

Brailsford also said flexibility is critical. You don’t know what will work before you try it. What may seem a good idea in theory doesn’t always work in reality. So come up with a few solutions, weigh the pros and cons of each, and if the first doesn’t work, try the next one.

I’m not advocating this method as a silver bullet that will transform your business. It requires a mindset and discipline to scrutinise everything you do, and not fall back on the mantra of “it’s always been done like that”.

But if you ultimately want to reach your goals, it’s an approach worth exploring.