Erik Giebels

Performance | Collaboration | Leadership

Why do people often manage to do all sorts of things on Saturday that they can't get around to on Monday? According to Erik Giebels, the answer doesn't lie with the people, but in the way organisations are structured. After fourteen years of working with top athletes, Olympic coaches, and TeamNL, he discovered that sustainable top performances are achieved when the entire organisation supports the person who needs to perform.

Languages:: Dutch, English
Categories:: Arts Culture & Lifestyle

Leadership & Strategy

Organizational Culture

Sports & Team Building

Teamwork

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About Erik Giebels

Why has the Netherlands been one of the most successful elite sports countries in the world for years? According to Erik Giebels, the answer lies not only in talent, but especially in the way performances are organised.

For over twenty years, Erik has been guiding boards and management teams in improving performance, collaboration, and leadership. In addition, he has worked intensively for the past fourteen years with top athletes, Olympic coaches, and performance specialists from TeamNL. This unique combination led him to a remarkable insight: organisations can learn a lot from the backstage of elite sports.

According to Erik, the medal winners are not the secret to success, but rather the system that supports them. Coaches, staff, data, facilities, communication, and collaboration are all designed around one question: how do we enable people to perform at their best?

This idea forms the basis of his book Elite Sport in the Workplace. The book reached the number 2 position in the Management Book Top 100 shortly after its release. A preview article appeared on Managementboek.nl, and in the podcast of the same name, Erik talks with top athletes, Olympic coaches, and experts from TeamNL about the backstage of sustainable top performances.

During his keynotes, Erik takes his audience behind the scenes of TeamNL. He shows why many organisations unknowingly lose energy on alignment, meetings, waiting times, unclear priorities, and internal processes, while top performances actually arise when the organisation is entirely at the service of the people who deliver value to customers every day. Just like athletes are central to TeamNL, so they are enabled to show their best performance.

His lectures are energetic, substantive, and immediately applicable. They change the way leaders view their organisation. Because in elite sports, the organisation is at the service of the athlete. Erik shows why successful organisations do exactly the same for the people who deliver value to their customers every day.

Hire Erik Giebels for your event

Why does what succeeds on Saturday remain unfinished on Monday? Erik Giebels worked for fourteen years with top athletes, Olympic coaches, and TeamNL and discovered that top performances occur once the entire organisation cooperates. He shares these insights on management and team days where results are central. Call or email us to discuss the possibilities.

Topics

1. From Employees to Top Athletes

In elite sports, everything serves the athlete. Coaches, support, recovery, data, and development are all aimed at enabling people to perform optimally. In many organisations, the exact opposite happens. There, people lose energy due to meetings, fragmentation, administrative burdens, and unclear priorities.

Erik shows why many organisations don’t need to extract more from people but should primarily remove obstacles. Interestingly enough, people often achieve things on Saturdays that they can’t manage on Mondays.

In this lecture, Erik demonstrates what happens when organisations stop burning people out and start organising for performance. After all, if you expect top performance, you must also build an environment where people can improve.
2. The backstage of top performances

Many organisations think that collaboration automatically occurs when you bring good people together. In practice, collaboration is often frustrated in various ways. Poorly designed processes lead to mistakes and irritation, unclear direction creates noise, and many teams only communicate when problems have already arisen.

According to Erik, the difference lies not only in talent but in how organisations organise collaboration. How information is transferred. How teams coordinate. How people address each other. And how often misunderstandings arise because communication is taken for granted, while almost no one ever really learns it.

In this lecture, Erik demonstrates why top performances don’t occur in the foreground, but in the backstage of collaboration, rhythm, structure, and communication at all levels within the organisation.
3. Why a shortage of people?

Many organisations think they have a shortage of people, while they mainly have a surplus of waste.

According to Erik, in many organisations 80 to 90% of the time is spent on peripheral matters: meetings, administration, searching, waiting, correcting mistakes, unclear coordination, and inefficient work processes. Not because people don’t work hard, but because the work is unnecessarily complicatedly organised.

The striking thing is: when you reduce that waste from, for example, 80% to 70%, productivity increases enormously. But the effect is not just practical. People become demotivated when they are busy all day without experiencing real progress. Less noise therefore not only leads to better performance but also to more energy and engagement.
4. The future of work demands mature organisations

Many organisations are looking towards the future of work in AI, hybrid working, and new office concepts. According to Erik, the real challenge lies elsewhere: building mature organisations.

Mature organisations are purposeful and realistic. It is clear what you are working towards together, people take responsibility, and performance is taken seriously. At the same time, mature organisations understand that people are not machines. Growth, change, and development take time, attention, and good guidance.

In this lecture, Erik demonstrates why sustainable performance emerges when organisations not only focus on results but also consciously build focus, collaboration, communication, and continuous improvement.
5. The strength and the chain of family businesses

Erik grew up in a family business himself and often recognises the dynamics within minutes of walking in somewhere. The interaction is different. The loyalty is different. People don’t talk about ‘the company’, but about ‘our company’.

According to Erik, family businesses have something that many other organisations lack: connection, pride, and the feeling that you are building something together. At the same time, that very strength can become a pitfall. Because as soon as history starts to weigh more than the future, change becomes complicated.

In this lecture, Erik shows how family businesses can retain their human strength while simultaneously evolving towards a new generation of collaboration, leadership, and performance.