Creating Context to Achieve Success

On a cool, misty day in October of 2019, Eluid Kipchoge ran the fastest marathon ever along the Danube River in Vienna. He ran 26.2 miles in 1:59:40 — at a pace of 4:34 per mile — breaking the previously impenetrable barrier of two hours. It was an awe-inspiring feat. (At that pace, I can probably run about an eighth of a mile, maybe a quarter mile on a good day). Kipchoge, known for his softspokeness and humility, would go so far as to compare this achievement to running’s equivalent to the moon landing.

Kipchoge holds the marathon world record, but remarkably, it’s not for his sub-two-hour triumph in Vienna. His world record race was one he ran two minutes slower in Berlin. Kipchoge’s Vienna race will not count officially because its context was engineered specifically for him alone. Obviously, the marathon matched his greatest talents, but Kipchoge, along with organizers and coaches, designed minute details to match his ideal culture and comfort. Organizers found the flattest, straightest course at sea level that was also only a one-hour time difference from Kipchoge’s home in Kenya. Until the finish line, he was surrounded by a rotating crew of seven pace setters that formed an aerodynamic V, with everyone wearing a specially designed Nike shoe. Most endearingly, Kipchoge’s family had never seen him compete in person and were flown to Vienna to cheer him on. Dozens of details were considered, designed, and controlled to ensure Kipchoge would be the first person to break the hallowed two-hour barrier.

Of course, Eluid Kipchoge has incredible talents but to accomplish this goal, he needed to create the ideal context. To do this, Kipchoge had the self-awareness to understand his purpose for pursuing his goal. He had a vision for excellence that he targeted with preparation and execution. He assembled the ideal team with a clear set of responsibilities. And he designed the culture that would create a holistic context for him personally.

Outside the running world, there is a lot we can learn from that. So often we try to achieve our potential by focusing on our talents alone, but in this process we ignore other critical factors that alter the context for ourselves and our teams. If we consume ourselves with measuring our potential by our talents alone, we can overlook the purpose that drives us, the culture in which it’s harnessed, and how those elements serve as the medium to achieve our desired outcomes.

LionPoint’s clients are the leaders building the contexts in which they and their teams achieve their potential in their daily work. While we can’t necessarily engineer the detailed environmental contexts that Kipchoge experienced, as leaders we can thoughtfully design the right context that meets the needs of our team and communicate it with clarity. Even with decades of experience, senior most leaders often fall into talent based mindsets, trying in vain to unlock individual and organizational potential through talents alone. At the same time, seasoned leaders attribute problems to a lack of or incomplete talents. This only leads to schisms that widen over time, creating increasingly fragile teams and failing to improve other key aspects of the organizational context.

Creating a holistic context begins with the leader demonstrating self awareness. In 2017, Eluid Kipchoge had teamed up with Nike for a similar race but failed to break the two-hour mark. This race had multiple competitors and little variation in the course that created a context that did not align with Kipchoge. Coming out of that disappointment, Kipchoge didn’t just need to train harder; he needed to understand and articulate his ideal context. He relied on his coaches to process the failure and refine the context for his next attempt. This is the same role an executive coach plays, helping leaders gain the necessary self awareness to design a context that aligns with them.

For early stage companies experiencing high growth and rapid context shifts, emphasizing talent over context is a key factor in lost productivity and unrealized potential. Instead we should make evaluating context part of the process in daily workflow to increase self awareness and alignment. As leaders, our most important job is creating a holistic context that is consistent with who we are and responds to the evolving needs of our teams and then communicating it throughout the organization.

To meet goals in rapidly changing environments, we don’t need to build a new toolbox of talents over a short-period of time. Frankly, ambitious, high-growth organizations that need to maintain a high trajectory don’t have that kind of time. Whether preparing to receive Series B funding or certainly pushing towards an IPO, changing your capabilities as a leader every few months to keep pace is unrealistic. A leader’s time is much better spent diagnosing problems and points of confusion and understanding the root cause why they are not delivering clarity to their organization.

We can all breathe a sigh of relief, understanding that success doesn’t just hinge on remarkable talent. To achieve our goals, we don’t need to become an Obama level orator, Morrison level writer, or Kipchoge level runner. Instead, we need to focus on creating the contexts of our organizations, and ensuring the full organizational context is understood and applied. Talents are part of the equation, but we must also focus on creating a purpose and meaning that motivates our teams. Perhaps it's just the father in me, but I suspect that Kipchoge’s children waiting at the finish line added a degree of purpose that contributed to his success that day. People - whether it’s our teams, our employees, or ourselves - do not succeed or fail because of talents alone. This lesson is learned by a leader who has the self awareness to know their role and where they are not delivering clarity to their organizations.

To achieve our highest potential, let’s steal a page from Eluid Kipchoge’s playbook. Let’s prioritize building context and communicating it clearly throughout the team. We will train hard and develop our talents, but we will also think about the shoes on our feet, the air that we breathe, and who is waiting for us at the finish line. That is the best way to run any race, as a team, identifying and delivering the ideal context.