We have been dazzled by high-performing athletes this summer from the delayed Euro 2020 and Tokyo 2020 Summer Olympics.
While athletic feats and the incredible performances on the pitch, swimming pool, and track are all impressive and require years of training and dedication on the part of the athletes, many of us neglect that succeeding in our nine to five jobs – especially fast-paced and highly pressurised ones – also requires care and attention to our minds and bodies.
Whether it is in sport or the corporate world, opportunities to gain tangible improvements to one’s performance are critical for success.
This is very much the mantra of Northern Gas and Power’s Head of Health and Well-Being Sam Cooper. He states: “The reality is, in a business we are just people, much in the same way that athletes are just people – people who are working towards very specific outcomes.
Sam Cooper brings his expertise in health and well-being to the leading energy procurement and management business, helping his colleagues from all roles and disciplines to maximise their performance and achieve professional and personal excellence through small, sustainable personal changes.
He continues: “People here can benefit from increasing their well-being and their performance, and access tools that help support that. It’s my role to help bring that expertise and knowledge into this setting, so that colleagues can benefit from it and increase their performance and well-being and ultimately thrive here.”
Sam acknowledges that health and well-being tactics in organisations are often “disjointed” and are “single-faceted” in that they focus only on one of the components that comprise total well-being.
“Physical, mental, and social health are all components that are central to wellbeing,” he says.
“It doesn’t matter if you are an Olympian, a Premier League footballer, or you’re working nine to five, the reality is that these tools apply to everyone.”
Sam’s love for the science behind health and performances, as well as seeing those he works with achieve their goals, drove him to develop an individualistic and holistic approach to performance training from which even office job workers can benefit.
He worked in the private, public and voluntary sectors consulting on evidencebased health and well-being interventions designed to improve well-being and increase performance. Before joining Northern Gas and Power, Sam worked in high-performance sport with professional athletes for over a decade. He managed multi-disciplinary teams in a range of disciplines geared towards finding opportunities to improve in some of the most competitive environments in the world. He most recently worked with Newcastle United.
“My passion comes from the science behind it all,” he says. “What I love about it is that it will never be finished – it is always expanding. What brings the natural reward for my role and the reason why I can enjoy my role so much is because I help bring those tools to affect the lives of people. When I see that happen, it makes my job a wonderful one to have.”
Sam’s programme dovetails wonderfully with the existing culture at the energy management company, one that is demanding and pressurised but exceedingly rewarding. Because employees buy into the culture, he observes, and that it can truly change their lives, there is a hunger and a recognition on their part that treating their whole self is crucial to success.
“The way we go about our business here is that we treat it like a highperformance sport. It is demanding and pressurised, but it is rewarding, and you can’t help but be influenced by it. What I am most impressed about it is that the people here buy into that mindset and believe that they can improve things for themselves and contribute to a wider future for themselves.”
To ensure that employees from all departments and roles get the most out of their performance, Sam has built a one-to-one, individually focused programme from the ground up at Northern Gas and Power. Every person devises an action plan with him that contains small, achievable, and, most importantly, sustainable steps to improve their person. A person’s action plan comprises of small, accessible changes to the way they do things, be it what they eat, when they wake up or arrive to work, or how they do their work. Through action planning, Sam and his colleagues create a realistic plan to change one’s life. These changes are only effective if the goals are intrinsically sourced, he says, and the individual programme is built around that. Extrinsic motivation – one that is imposed on an individual by others – is fleeting and not substantial.
“What one wants to achieve is intrinsically motivated. The science and methodology provide the way to reach one’s goals.”
The programme derives from the philosophy of the “aggregation of marginal gains”, popularised by British Cycling performance director Sir Dave Brailsford. “The philosophy is beautifully simple,” Sam says. “Seek a one percent marginal improvement in everything that you do; when the marginal improvements are added together, they ‘aggregate’ to form substantial results over time.”
This methodical approach to performance improvement is unattractive, Sam admitted in a recent article. “Everyone wants a quick fix – they want lifechanging results overnight. Few seemingly want to work on small, accessible changes that get them there. This explains why the concept (of marginal gains) has yet to be widely monetised. For most, putting in groundwork to get longterm results isn’t as attractive as the lure of finding an easy quick-fix.”
To overcome this, Sam encourages his colleagues and clients to develop sustainable habits because these require little motivation. As his own example, Sam’s lunch at Northern Gas and Power has been the same every day for the entire year: chicken, greens, grains, apple, and water. “It’s an easy change because it’s a habit – I don’t have to think about it much.”
Other ways to implement sustainable habits which he teaches range from simple to complex solutions. It can be as simple as getting back to the basics of making exercise that the person enjoys or is passionate about, such as swimming, hiking, or yoga, a regular part of a daily routine. An example of a complex solution is what he calls the “habit tracker.” This “creates accountability for the small changes you’re making,” Sam comments. “By ticking off and ‘tracking’ each day, you follow through with the desired habit, and you’re creating a visual prompt and effectively coaching yourself toward success. With each day that passes, and each subsequent ‘tick’ you give yourself, you’re building self-efficacy.”
Northern Gas and Power invests a lot into action planning for its employees because not only does it improve their work performance, but it also improves other aspects of their lives. It is a way to develop self-leadership qualities in all of its employees.
“The needs of everyone are different,” he says. “We put the person in the middle and build out from there — a holistic approach. It’s not a one-size fits all. It is led by the individual, and we find easy things to improve on. Sustainability is integral. When a person makes one small personal change, the person can then change other areas of their lives.”
