A leading sports psychologist is taking time out from working with top Olympic athletes to help an innovative Derby accountancy firm perform at its very best.
Award-winning Vibrant Accountancy has been using the talents of leading sports psychologist Dr Phil Clarke to help its team adopt some of the mental fitness and teamwork strategies employed by the world’s star athletes.
Dr Clarke has worked with GB sports men and women who are representing this country at the Olympic Games in Paris this year.
Now he is stepping away from the track and field to help the team at Vibrant Accountancy with teamwork strategies, demonstrating how the mentality that helps athletes focus on their A-game can be successfully applied in corporate settings.
He said: “Whatever the context is, there will be an element of performance in the workplace – and it’s just a case of: what does that look like? Teamwork is an active decision for any workplace.”
Dr Clarke has been working with Vibrant after connecting with the Lodge Lane based company through Derbyshire Institute of Sport’s Business Champions course.
His career as a sports psychologist comes after his own beginnings as a keen basketball player and Gaelic footballer with a promising future.
“I was very into sports growing up but I always struggled with the mental side of the game,” said Dr Clarke. “When I first looked into sports psychology, it changed my whole career path. It was something I wished I’d known about when I was younger. I would have been a different performer.
“Sport is the shop window of human performance, if you like. By its very nature it’s clearly about performance. That’s not necessarily the case in a corporate setting, but that shouldn’t mean that those in the corporate world shouldn’t consider themselves as performers. In a corporate setting, no-one is coming away having watched you and commenting on what they would have done. Athletes have to contend with that all the time.
“Athletes will analyse their performance afterwards and assess what worked and what didn’t. We don’t necessarily do that in the corporate space, but it’s inevitable that you’re not going to win all the time. You’re not going to win every client.
“I don’t need knowledge of accountancy to deliver training in an accountancy firm. It’s about knowing your strengths and being able to analyse them, whatever the setting. That’s something we can learn from top athletes. Through analysing their performance athletes are great at knowing their strengths – and how those strengths can also become weaknesses.
“It’s great to work in a forward-thinking firm like Vibrant Accountancy who are very open-minded about learning the lessons from the sporting arena which are all to do with how to have the best possible mindset which allows everyone to play to their strengths, and to debrief on what went right as well as what went wrong.”
Bev Wakefield, owner of Vibrant Accountancy, said: “Working with Dr Phil – as we call him in the office – has been a game-changer for Vibrant Accountancy, if you’ll pardon the pun! As a business owner I know that every company relies on its greatest asset: its people. I’m very proud to have an absolutely brilliant team at Vibrant Accountancy and I’m so happy to be working with Dr Phil to ensure we are all playing to our strengths, so we can offer the best accountancy service we can. I’m continually looking to improve and I can honestly say that Dr Phil’s work with us has been a revelation. It has enabled us all to see how we can function as a great team as we grow and look to the future.”
Vibrant Accountancy employs a team of nine people, but is currently expanding, and aims to break the mould by putting human relationships at the heart of its work with clients, helping Derby leaders to create successful businesses for the whole benefit of the city’s growing economy.
This story was written and shared on behalf of Vibrant Accountancy by Lucy Stephens. Can we share your news and get you in the headlines too? Find out how we can help by getting in touch.
