Episode 7: The Art & Science of World-Class Teams with Duncan French (Vice President of Performance, UFC)

Following a career spanning three Olympic games with Team GB, and several leadership roles within collegiate and professional US sport, Duncan French became the inaugural Vice President of Performance for the UFC when they founded the world-famous UFC Performance Institute in 2017.

Since then, the team has grown into a global, multi-cultural entity, with recent performance institutes opened in Mexico City and Shanghai. The team are now recognised as a world-leading authority on human performance, with Duncan leading the charge.

You can expect to understand;

 

• How to build an innovative culture that breaks status quo

• How to create an environment that breeds high performance

• How to identify the right qualities for an industry-leading team

• And how to create a culture that's admired by some of the world's best teams

PS. we experienced a few sound issues during the first 5 minutes, but it’s smooth sailing after that - and packed full of insight we hope you agree.

 

00:00 Intro

00:59 Diversity and depth of experience

04:09 Science and art in building world-class teams

09:37 Successfully challenging status quo

14:00 Riding the rollercoaster of success & failure

16:38 How Duncan reverse engineers success

24:18 Creating an industry-leading team & culture

35:26 How Duncan identifies the right people

44:07 Connecting a global, multi-cultural team

50:47 The 3 things people need to thrive

53:05 Reframing COVID as an opportunity

58:20 Prospect theory & leaning into risk

1:03:02 How to innovate with minimal time

1:07:30 The cost of leadership and loneliness

1:11:05 Stepping into roles you’re not ready for

1:14:35 Developing a network of peers

1:17:00 The advice he’d give to himself and others

1:21:50 How Duncan’s evolved as a leader

1:23:00 Word association

1:25:01 Three takeaways & action points