A High Performer in your field can be an eyeopener and inspiration for you.

Some years ago I was called by a man, who presented himself and his project in this way: “My name is Allan Levann. My idea is to found a High Performance Institute based on the experiences of High Performers in Business, Art, Sport and Science. I have no money, but my hope is, that you will join me as founder by creating the Mission, Strategy and Concepts of this Institute, free of charge?”

The project idea was challenging and after my evaluation, I called Allan with this message: “If you can give me a team of experienced world class: Business Executives, Opera Singers, Composers, Actors, Authors, Scientists, Athletes, Coaches, Football Players, Handball Players, Master Chefs, then I will, free of charge, manage this team to the development of The Mission, Strategy and Concepts of your High Performance Institute.”

If Allan Levann could deliver these High Performers, I would listen to their experiences to find out if there would be common patterns in their ways to become High Performers and in making High Performance in their respective fields.

Allan delivered the team and arranged that all meetings took place in The National Stadium in Copenhagen. The project followed our Development Spiral and the Innovation Pathway: Collection of information, Analysis, Creating ideas and Evaluation.

Everybody in this ’’team’’ of stars and individualists, were so dedicated to their own careers and performances, that I decided each to have one hour to present their personal story and their special way to reach the point of High Performance. During this process we step by step discovered and got a deep understanding of the fundamentally needed elements of a High Performance.

To the astonishment of all involved, these elements were the same for a Master Chef, a Composer, an Athlete, an Author, a Scientist or for me as Innovation Executive. Finally the elements were expressed, in Action-Words and Value-Words as the Mission, Strategy and Concepts of the High Performance institute, and presented in an Innovation Tree. The Mission was ’’Encourage – HighPerformance’’. We founded the High Performance Institute.

The Innovation Tree did show, that the early beginning for all these High Performers in Business, Art, Science and Sport had been, that eye-opening day, when they met a real High Performer in action in that special area, where they,  with desire, courage and will, wanted to become excellent.

I discovered during the development of the High Performance Institute, that our Innovation Pathway with its key templates, facilitates all the High Performance elements. In this way, I better understood why the Innovation Pathway has resulted in so many High Performance Innovation experiences and results.

Erik Keldmann