Relentless: Leading Through Performance, Relationships, and the Lessons of Sports
Success in any field - whether it's sports, business, or life - is based on more than just the end result. It's the daily interactions and consistent practice of fundamental values over time that bring about the winning moment.
Purchase RelentlessTasked with developing a best-in-class leadership program for executives across 60 plus countries, Rich Thompson set out to discover the formula for good leadership. Working with the world’s top business management schools, successful presidents and CEOs, and international consulting firms, he identified the exercises, assessment tools, and training methodologies for organizations to hire the right talent and develop their next generation of leaders.
But what he also discovered is that leadership isn’t all that complicated after all. He found that the truly good leaders consistently exhibited the same few traits, relentlessly. He also began to see clear parallels with what he had learned from coaches as a high-level athlete.
Highlighting stories and examples from both business and sports, Relentless delivers an entertaining read while providing management tools to put to use immediately.
what You'll Learn
Practical tools and strategies for effective people management that can be used by managers at any level
Unique insights and a fresh perspective on how to create and implement strategies that create winning teams
- Ways to help managers think more like coaches, taking the best from Rich’s athletic experience under a transformational coach and applying those concepts to business.
Drawing from extensive expertise in leadership, operations, training, HR management, and talent development, Rich shares practical tools and strategies for effective people management that can be used by managers at any level. With his background in high-level sports, Rich offers unique insights and a fresh perspective on how to create and implement strategies that create winning teams.
You’ll learn the 5 Foundational Cs of Leadership:
COURAGE
Rich placed courage at the foundation of the skills it takes to build great teams. That’s because it’s the single biggest barrier to being the best leader you can be and getting the most performance from your team. Most managers know what needs to be done. They know what – and who – their problems are. Where they have trouble is finding the courage to have that conversation, take that action, or cut the cord when it becomes necessary.
CONNECTION
Connection is what drives engagement. In order to do your best work, you have to feel connected to your work in some way. Rich has found that over their careers, employees will be connected to at least one of four areas:
- Their boss
- The company / mission
- Their job / role / the work they do
- Their team
The goal for any manager should be to identify and strengthen connections whenever possible and foster multiple connection points, if possible.
COMMUNICATION
Intent is the lens through which we hear all communication, especially in the office. That puts trust – and trustworthiness – at the forefront of good communication. Rich believes in feedback that is clear, direct, and often, and he outlines steps to better communication.
COACHING
Rich says that management and coaching are two very different skills that achieve two different outcomes. Coaching is the process of taking good instincts and raw material and turning them into predictable performance. Coaches don’t just tell you what to do and how to do it; they also take the time to watch you do it over and over. Instead of looking for patterns, they stop patterns from forming in the first.
CONSISTENCY
There is no relentless without consistency- without it, there can be no true and lasting success. All of the work you’ve done on the other core values: courage, connection, communication, and coaching – means nothing if they are not practiced consistently. A vulnerable and courageous discussion or a great coaching session make a difference for a few days. But if what you’re doing contradicts what you’re saying, you’ll lose any ground you gained.
Because how you do anything is how you do everything. Commit to winning—all the time, in everything that you do.
Rich Thompson is an accomplished global executive with more than 25 years of experience in staffing, recruiting, human resources, leadership development, culture, performance and talent management.
Rich’s passion for building strong cultures and winning teams started on the football field, as part of the revolutionary turnaround of the Wisconsin Badger football program under legendary Hall of Fame coach Barry Alvarez where Rich was 1st Team All Big Ten, Honorable Mention All-American and a semi-finalist for the Lou Groza award, given to the nation’s best placekicker. He was also a Free Agent with the Green Bay Packers for 2 years. More than 30 years later, he remains Wisconsin’s current record holder for the most field goals in a single season.
Rich’s career has been marked by success, growth and opportunity. He has held leadership roles across the globe with expansive scope and responsibilities. His expertise includes; Talent Attraction, Organizational Design, Development Strategy, Leadership Development, Compensation Strategy, Performance Management, and Culture Programs. He has been responsible for the design and development of talent and leadership programs for tens of thousands of people across 60 different countries as well as partnerships with three of the top business schools in the world.
In addition to talent strategies, Rich was the Chief HR Officer for a $10 billion region across North America, South America, the United Kingdom and Ireland where he developed a progressive and “best in class” operating model that changed how the function executed by aligning to operational strategies and increasing efficiencies. His unique blend of operational and HR experience positions him as an expert in functional alignment to operational execution, making HR a tactical source of revenue generation and driving a people strategy through engagement and productivity.
In 2020, Rich founded the Xtra Point Group, an HR consulting company, and XPG Recruit which provides talent and HR solutions to staffing and recruiting companies across the country. In 2021, Rich saw an opportunity to assist transitioning athletes and launched XPG Recruit-Athlete which helps athletes translate their unique skills and qualities into advantages in the workplace. In 2022, he launched Podium X, a personal branding software for athletes that helps maximize opportunities in NIL, careers, internships, and graduate school. The platform currently has partnerships with some of the most recognizable names in sports and works with student-athletes from over 300 different universities.
In 2023, Rich published a leadership book titled, Relentless: Leading through Performance, Relationships, and the Lessons of Sports, which delivers tools for people strategies every manager, at every stage of their career, can embrace to build and lead a winning business team.
Rich holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Wisconsin and a Master of Management from North Park University in Chicago. He is also a graduate of the Leadership Development Program at IMD in Lausanne, Switzerland, the Senior Leadership Program at INSEAD in Fontainebleau, France and Leading in Innovation, at Hyper Island, in Stockholm, Sweden.
Rich is also the past Chairman of the 75th Gator Bowl.
interested in Rich as a Speaker?
Consider hiring Rich to present to your group on the lessons of Relentless or on one of his other popular topics on culture or performance management.