Is ‘the extraordinary often surprisingly normal’?

Garden centre delegates will be asked to consider if the extraordinary is often surprisingly normal when they attend our annual conference in January (2017).

Writer and leadership expert Rasmus Ankersen, who has been dubbed ‘the high performance anthropologist’, will be posing some thought provoking topics when he takes to the podium on Tuesday, January 24.

Rasmus is a fascinating speaker with plenty to say that resonates with our industry. He has worked and trained with some of the world’s best athletes to understand and contribute to how they work, and it’s his successes here that he has been able to bring to the world of business.

Rasmus looks at leadership and high performance from a different perspective, finding

patterns, examining the big data and realising that the extraordinary is often surprisingly

normal and imitable. He delivers real, tangible lessons to audiences with verve, enthusiasm

and wit. I’m really looking forward to hearing what he has to say and how it impacts on our industry.

A former footballer, who trained as a UEFA-accredited coach and serves as Co-Director

of Football at Brentford FC, Rasmus has lived and trained with Jamaican sprinters, Brazilian

footballers and African long-distance runners.

His work has given him a unique insight into what gives these sportspeople the edge. He will discuss personal attributes like focus and mental and physical stamina, but also touch on the statistical analysis of performance and decision-making skills.

Rasmus has taken his understanding of performance, leadership and teamwork and translated it into the everyday and the business environment, forming strategies to enable groups and individuals to achieve great things.

In his first book, ‘DNA of a Winner’, Rasmus considered what attributes world-class performers share. He went on to write ‘Leader DNA’ where he took his studies to the boardroom looking at top CEOs and politicians, and what made them inspiring leaders and strategic winners.

In his next book ‘The Gold Mine Effect’, Rasmus returned to sport looking at naturally occurring centres of sporting excellence, from the footballers from Rio’s favelas to marathon-runners from an Ethiopian village, to women golfers from Korea. He examined the links and effects of their social, personal and environmental circumstances.

Rasmus’s latest book ‘Hunger in Paradise’ examines the drawbacks of success, which he says are primarily complacency, arrogance and the fear of failure, and how to counteract them. These are the sort of topics we hope all our delegates will find interesting and will also encourage dialogue in the social areas outside the auditorium, as well as back at our member garden centres once the event is over.

The aim of the conference is to promote communication between members and the sharing of information on lots of diverse issues that matter on a day-to-day basis. These include merchandising, marketing and management. But it’s not all about the formal presentations. 

There are numerous chances for delegates to meet friends old and new, and to chat to one another over a cuppa. 

There are places available for anyone interested in signing up and we’d love to welcome as many of our members as possible this year.