Karen sits down with performance psychologist Adie Shariff, who has spent over 25 years helping people unlock better results in sport, business, and even the military. Adie’s approach blends structure and frameworks with real-world experience, giving leaders and teams the tools they need to perform at their best.
In this episode, they explore what it really means to sustain high performance – from mastering technical capability and communication to building resilience and learning agility. Adie shares his “capital J” model of performance, a five-mindset framework for navigating pressure, and practical tools leaders can use to create alignment, autonomy, and stronger cultures.
It’s a conversation packed with insights on leadership, learning, and growth. Whether you’re leading a business, building a team, or striving to be at your best, Adie’s wisdom offers strategies you can apply immediately.
Karen Falcon (Host, Performance & Development Lead at Tenzing):
Hello, and welcome to The Ascent. I’m Karen Falcon, Performance and Development Lead at Tenzing — a private equity firm passionate about the human stories between high-growth businesses and their teams. Guy, Tenzing’s co-founder, and I speak with driven and insightful founders, CEOs, and high performers. Previous series focused on the tech world; now we’re looking beyond. We talk through the highs, the lows, and everything in between — what fuels people, how they build standout teams, and how they keep pushing boundaries. No topic is off-limits, and every conversation is packed with lessons you can apply to your own journey.
Today I’m joined by Adie Shariff, a performance psychologist with over 25 years’ experience. Adie helps people unlock better results by using structure and frameworks to get alignment and accountability. From elite sport and business to the military, his work is grounded in the real world, not just theory.
We discuss what it takes to perform at your best, a five-mindset framework, and how to use psychology to create lasting change. Adie, it’s great to have you with us today.
Adie Shariff: A pleasure to be here.
Karen: You and I talk a lot about learning, development, happiness, and openness. With the podcast’s focus on high-performance teams, let’s dive into your insights and experiences that support building one.
Adie: Let’s go.
Karen: What do poor performers lack?
Adie: I do a lot of coaching, and “poor performance” rarely opens a productive dialogue. I see performance as the interaction between a person and their environment. With someone who isn’t delivering results, I focus on: what does it take to be at your best despite adversity? It sounds dull, but what does it take to be competent?
I use the idea of a capital J:
- The vertical (stem): technical capability. We trust the physio, the finance lead, the marketing expert because they diagnose well and get to root cause. CEOs also need technical capability about the market — disruptors, competitors, dynamics. If you’re too immersed in operations, you lose market feel.
- The crossbar (top horizontal): communication — connecting your expertise to others. That’s where magic happens. I worked with a brilliant tax specialist who loved the history of tax, but he didn’t simplify or communicate clearly. Great ideas, no impact. Missing crossbar.
- The hook (bottom curve): your ability to go through the dip — resilience and speed to learning. A CFO I coached was told she lacked executive presence. Instead of reacting emotionally, she turned it into a learning project. She adopted BLUF — Bottom Line Up Front. She’d lead with outcome, vision, market and business need, then details. It changed her footprint. That’s the J in action.
So, poor performance is not “doing the J.” Good performance is: whatever your environment throws at you, what does your J look like?
Karen: If a team masters the vertical (capability), the crossbar (communication), and the hook (speed to learning), what happens?
Adie: When my brain connects with your brain, we solve problems we don’t yet have answers to. You get creativity, innovation, solutions — and camaraderie and culture. For senior leaders, that means work the culture: create an environment where people connect brains.
Karen: Many teams are fast-paced and high-pressure. Why do people fail in those environments?
Adie: It’s fascinated me my whole life — from my own sporting failures to work with the Royal Marines, A&E, and other high-risk organisations. Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning shaped my thinking. A summary idea often attributed to it is: Event + Response = Outcome. Events happen — sometimes unfair ones: shifting goalposts, constant demand, limited resources. Your response determines the outcome.
People struggle when they don’t detach. Unfair events trigger the limbic response; we get emotional, irrational, blamey, defensive. That hurts performance and mental health.
Detachment means stepping back to gain perspective (not just perception): What’s going on here? Why is it happening? What’s the right response now?
Karen: How do we step back and detach?
Adie: Be literal and routine. Every Friday, run a structured reflection: where did I get it right, what’s the learning? Where did I not get it right, what’s the learning? What’s my response next?
Also, recognise career phases. Early on, people are process-focused and open. Success can flip you to outcome-attachment and away from process.
A tool I like (from CrossFit coach Ben Bergeron) is the five mindsets: victim, pessimist, optimist, realist, and warrior/thrive. Ask: Which mindset am I in? Which one would help now? It’s okay to feel victimised; name it, then choose. I also like the playful image of emotions as a toddler with crayons — have a quick chat with it. In high pressure, you need fast dialogue with yourself. Structure gives the brain bandwidth.
Research consistently links high performance with: conscientiousness (useful structure), emotional calmness, and openness to learning.
Karen: Lots of successful people thrive under pressure but aren’t great learners. How do we keep them open to learning?
Adie: You achieve potential through learning. I’ve run programmes to embed learning loops rather than deliver answers. Set vision and critical success factors, identify “crushing problems,” do root-cause, create actions, then return: What did we learn? Reset actions. Over time, the problems teams tackle become more fundamental — like hiring for openness to learning — because they’re addressing root cause.
The opposite is when a leader arrives assuming they have all the answers. Learning stops; culture turns toxic. Learning is irresistible in results, but it feels vulnerable: you must be comfortable with incompetence and being judged.
Karen: How do we get people owning and leading their area?
Adie: From the military and later work in colleges and banks, the practical principle is alignment and autonomy. Your job as a leader is to secure alignment — with teams and stakeholders. If you have alignment, give autonomy. Get out of the way; coach, don’t interfere. If there’s misalignment, bring people in and fix it.
Practical tools: Red/Amber/Green decisions (credit: David Mellor, British Sailing). Give a decision-making language like GROW (Goal, Reality, Options, What will you do?). Use Clarity / Confusion / Chaos buckets (Gustavo, Fearless Culture). Leaders often default to critic or cheerleader. Learn to coach — which includes listening and giving feedback well.
Karen: Structures support thinking and make voices more equal in groups, especially under pressure.
Adie: Exactly. Listen deeply; it gives you X-ray insight. Treat errors as signals of something in the system, not just individual failings. Use Five Whys, fishbone, and other root-cause tools when problems repeat. Over months, you’ll find yourself tackling issues that weren’t even on the original agenda — because you’ve learned your way to them.
Karen: Thoughts on culture?
Adie: I love the line (often attributed to Drucker): culture eats strategy for breakfast — because behaviour determines execution. But we overcomplicate culture. Be practical. Go two or three layers down; talk to middle managers about: who is making decisions (empowerment), how are decisions made (belonging), and how fast are decisions made (collaborative skill). If you make your organisation a place where meetings are so good that people love attending — voices heard, decisions made, ownership clear — you’re nailing execution culture.
Karen: Along the way, some people need a performance boost. How do you support them?
Adie: Separate feedback and coaching. Feedback: say it clearly. Do they recognise the need to change? Outcome picture: how would you know you were in a better place? Options: ask for 3–10 options. Then partner on the best one. Leaders should aim to create other leaders. That means helping people think harder than they have before — and it starts with clarity of feedback. Many managers avoid that first hard conversation.
Karen: Final question. Why are you so passionate about helping people grow?
Adie: Personal failures that had consequences. You want to be a contribution. I decided to do justice to those experiences by applying the lessons and helping others avoid the same mistakes — to find a better version of themselves. Under pressure, I want to role-model the response I’m advocating. In my fifties doing CrossFit, I’m not going to win — but I can “fail with grace” and hopefully inspire others. And leadership matters: if people go home excited for tomorrow, that might be because of your leadership. If they go home dreading it, that’s on you. Be a contribution — or get out of the way.
Karen: Thank you, Adie. We value how thoughtful and creative you are in sense-making and providing structure for people and teams. This has been an insightful conversation with practical tools — frameworks that make complex things more straightforward (not always simple, but clearer).
Adie: Absolute pleasure talking with you and working with Tenzing.
Karen: What a jam-packed chat with Adie, exploring structures that support the development of high-performance individuals within high-performance teams. Adie has worked with us extensively through our Altitude Academy and shared tools that are increasingly shaping how we work together.
If you enjoyed this conversation and want more inspiring stories, search Tenzing wherever you get your podcasts. We’d love you to rate and review this episode. Don’t forget to subscribe. You can find out more about us at Tenzing.pe, on LinkedIn, or on Instagram. Bye for now.
