CHRIS WAINWRIGHT MOTIVATING COLLEAGUE AND STAFF

CHRIS WAINWRIGHT

Business Committee member, athlete extra-ordinaire, and best selling author now discusses how he motivates his colleagues and staff.

Every now and then in history, mankind or maybe personkind achieves something extraordinary and some of those times unexpected.

In May 1954, a tall and rangy 24 year old called Roger Bannister collapsed over the line into the arms of overcoated gentlemen to become the first human to run a mile in under 4 minutes.

Some 14 years later in 1968 and at the Mexico Olympic Games, Robert Beamon was starting his run up in the long jump unaware that he was about to leap a colossal 29 feet and 2.5 inches, nearly 22 inches more than any other human being had ever done before. That feat still remains to this day the second longest long jump ever. Such things are rare but those that witness them will never forget the day and what they saw there: their lives will never be the same again.

Such is the new life now for the small gathering that recently witnessed the inaugural Beech employees seven a side association football match on the all-weather pitch at Birkenhead Park Football Club.

They witnessed greatness.

It wasn’t a single athletic one off that they witnessed but a glorious selection of skills, tricks, athleticism and maybe even the occasional miracle that played out. Fourteen players revealed secrets that had lain dormant for so many years hidden under office attire, work PPE and in most cases a copious supply of extra skin and natural padding. The sporting world had been deprived of this spectacle for too long and it saddens the writer that the truth has taken so long to emerge.

I think I overheard spectators incredulously asking why these men had not had their skills spotted when they were younger. Countries have missed out by not nurturing that possibility. I say I think, because I was playing myself and it was hard to hear clearly over my own heavy panting and the noise of the feet hitting rubber crumb all around me.

It was end to end and savage. Strava tells me I did 2.73 miles and the digital map it produces using satellites to follow me shows that I covered every single square metre of that hallowed pitch. I never stopped. I am trying not to be boastful, but it’s hard. You see, I had worried that the raw talent that had seen me selected for Cornwall under 12s when I was merely ten years old would have gone by now. But the opposite was true. Like the others, youth revisited me and I could pass, shoot and head like a hero from a 1950s boys magazine.

If De Bruyne had been watching I fancy he might have filled two notebooks with jottings to improve his one game, one which he had thought up to that moment was more than adequate……..

Do you know what, I will stop there. I start typing and it all just flows out but I really don’t know where it’s going so………. enough.

My message to you all out there is get your staff together do something new. The after-effects are staggering. We all mucked in: trainee manager, digital marketing apprentice, asbestos surveys manager, machine drivers……… it didn’t matter: two teams fighting for the spoils and forgetting the stresses of the working day.

You only have to look at the photos to surmise that I am slightly exaggerate our abilities and quality but I cannot understate the effects of that afternoon off followed by sarnies, banter and a beer. For years to come the argument will rage: was James Millward, the youthful and mercurial transport and logistics manager of the Group heartlessly cut down on purpose or did rising demolition star Campbell Wainwright ‘not touch him, honest’……….?

Did that ruin the game? Did that nasty twisted knee change the game, the office leading at the time 3-12 never recovered from the loss of their talented attacker and it reverse to 7-5 in favour of the petrochemical demo team…….. we will never know for sure….. but such is legend. I can’t describe to you how hard we all tried. It was so competitive. We were making ourselves run back to defend or attack when our bodies were screaming at us to stop messing about and sit down.

It’s a quiz night next but we have had a challenge through Linkedin from Catalyst Support Services who reckon they can ‘take us’ at football. We will see, but we are reenergised, re focused and just buzzing now so the skies the limit.

It only took 40 minutes.