{"id":6863,"date":"2020-11-25T15:06:14","date_gmt":"2020-11-25T15:06:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sites.reading.ac.uk\/connected\/?p=6863"},"modified":"2020-11-25T15:27:34","modified_gmt":"2020-11-25T15:27:34","slug":"redefining-success","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.reading.ac.uk\/connected\/2020\/11\/25\/redefining-success\/","title":{"rendered":"Redefining Success"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

After she delivered Reading\u2019s first ever online Alumni Lecture, CONNECTED interviewed former Olympic rower, senior diplomat and now leadership speaker, business coach and consultant, Dr Cath Bishop. Cath shares with us how she got into rowing, how her time at Reading influenced her career path, and how her experience has shaped some of the themes of her new book, The Long Win: The search for a better way to succeed<\/em>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"While some athletes dream of becoming an Olympian from a young age, this wasn\u2019t something that Cath had aspired to be. She told CONNECTED that she hadn\u2019t been very sporty at school and didn\u2019t intend to take up rowing when she got to Cambridge.<\/p>\n

She said: \u201cInitially I didn\u2019t sign up to rowing because it looked like really hard work and involved early mornings. But a few weeks into the first term, some of my friends asked me join when one of their team members got injured. They said \u2018We\u2019re all learning, just come and have some fun\u2019. And so I did. And I had a lot of fun and really fell in love with rowing, without any aspirations to be an Olympian at all.<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cLife isn\u2019t linear. I think a lot of people probably dream of being an Olympian and then don\u2019t get there because they go off in another direction. It\u2019s all about finding things at the right time and really connecting with something that you love more than anything.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\u201cFor me, rowing is the ultimate team sport. Once you\u2019re in a boat you can\u2019t opt out and you have to make the best of it. You all need each other \u2013 you don\u2019t need one person more than another \u2013 it’s lovely being part of a team that\u2019s balanced and equal. I love that about being in a boat.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Berlin Wall<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Cath\u2019s passion for German studies started when she was an undergraduate student at Cambridge at the time the Berlin Wall came down. Cath then decided to apply to do a PhD at Reading because of the Centre for East German Studies<\/a>, and also because the national rowing squad was based in Reading.<\/p>\n

She said: \u201cMy PhD was about German authors who had written about the Berlin Wall coming down in their literature. I was so delighted that I had found lecturers and a dedicated centre that was looking at how literary, sociology and politics are all combined, and how this political event and very personal experience for so many people was expressed through fiction. I absolutely loved it.\u201d<\/p>\n

While at Reading, Cath was selected to represent the GB Rowing Team. She said: \u201cThe German department and my supervisor were really supportive of my Olympic commitments and gave me a lot of flexibility.<\/p>\n

\n

“I did my PhD part-time over five years, and during that time, I went to the Atlanta Olympics in 1996 and finished my PhD just ahead of the Sydney Olympics in 2000.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

A balancing act<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Cath felt very lucky that she was able to pursue both of her passions at the same time. Although she didn\u2019t have much time for anything else, having another identity outside of rowing was really important.<\/p>\n

She said: \u201cRowing was very demanding and so it was helpful for me to have another project that was my own \u2013 that the coaches and sports scientists didn\u2019t control \u2013 and that could be part of my life after rowing.\u201d<\/p>\n

She explained that balancing her passions side-by-side was really helpful: \u201cIn rowing you\u2019re under a lot of pressure all of the time \u2013 constantly being monitored and measured \u2013 so when the rowing wasn\u2019t going so well, I still had my PhD and the career that might come from that in the future. And vice versa \u2013 when you\u2019re doing a PhD you can become overly consumed by it and feel quite isolated, but rowing gave me a break and helped me to come back to it with fresh ideas.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cSometimes when you\u2019re doing something really obsessively like rowing, you can lose your identity. When you don\u2019t have anything else to offset that, then it can become a real crisis as opposed to just a moment where you can stop, reflect, adapt and keep going again.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Life beyond the medal<\/strong><\/h4>\n

After becoming an Olympic medal winner, Cath went on to work as a diplomat for the Foreign Office for 12 years. She attests it was her PhD at Reading that helped set her up for life beyond the medal.<\/p>\n

She said: \u201cDiplomacy works around a deeper connection with the people you are negotiating with, trying to build relationships with, or trying to build new partnerships or alliances with.<\/p>\n

\n

“My PhD helped me to connect with culture at a deeper level, and to understand how politics and cultural behaviours are part of that complex picture that people bring to a political negotiation.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Cath is now a renowned and respected leadership speaker, business coach and consultant, supporting organisations who want to build effective teams, enable cultural transformation and develop effective leaders. In October she published her first book, The Long Win<\/em>: The search for a better way to succeed<\/em>, and Cath explained how winning is engrained in today\u2019s society: \u201cIt comes up as we go to school, in our family life, in the workplace, in sport, and we often see it in the political systems that run our society.<\/p>\n

\u201cHistory has traditionally been written by \u2018the winners\u2019 \u2013 the strong, almighty, powerful ones \u2013 and we have centuries of books that tell us about all the wars that were fought and who won. This is how we used to measure success, but now I think it\u2019s a very narrow measure. Historians have actually started to tell a much richer picture of what\u2019s also happening in society \u2013 which is not just a game of winning or losing.<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cIn the twenty-first century we are facing complex issues of climate change, inequality and global health. These aren\u2019t things that you win or lose, they\u2019re ongoing things for us to manage and to think about in a different way.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Doing things differently<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Reflecting on what society should be doing differently to make changes for the better, Cath told CONNECTED that there were three areas that needed to change: the education system, the political system and the underpinning purpose of business.<\/p>\n

She explained that education shouldn\u2019t just be about assessing people individually, because life is about how you work with others: \u201cNone of the problems we face as a society can be solved alone, and we need more of a collaborative focus in education from the start, so that we\u2019re actually learning the sort of skills we need later on in life.<\/p>\n

\n

“Team-working skills, creativity, innovation and resilience should all be incorporated into education, to ensure we\u2019re developing citizens capable of contributing to society.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Cath also explained about how the political system was setup for the short-term, and that it was therefore difficult to get the best minds to come up with the best approach for tackling global issues. She said: \u201cIt shouldn\u2019t be about choosing the path on the right or on the left; neither of them hold the answer, we need the best people from all sides to come up with the best policies to solve our biggest global challenges.\u201d<\/p>\n

And lastly she explained that she would like to see a shift with some of the incentives in business. She said:<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cWe need to radically overhaul the system of metrics that we use to measure success, for example measuring success based on the impact on communities and the environment, and focusing on delivering to a longer-term purpose rather than short-term returns.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Better people make better players<\/strong><\/h4>\n

When asked what words of advice she would like to share with the aspiring student athletes of today, Cath responded that people should enjoy sport and in order to perform at our best, we need to be operating at our best as an individual with multiple identities.<\/p>\n

She said: \u201cThe All Blacks talk about how better people make better players \u2013 think about how you can become a better person. It will give you a better basis on which to perform and how to manage the challenges along the way.<\/p>\n

\u201cBe clear about why you\u2019re on this high performance journey beyond the medal or result \u2013 what else are you gaining? What are the other things that make this journey worthwhile? It\u2019s really important that you understand the other things that you\u2019re learning and gaining.\u00a0This will not only give you the best chances of winning the medal, but ensure that whatever result you get has meaning and relevance for what you go onto do afterwards.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cThink about the responsibility that comes from the elite sporting journey \u2013 you\u2019re a role model for lots of other people once you take on the mantle of being a top athlete. There\u2019s an opportunity to think more widely about how you can use that now and in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Discover more about postgraduate research in German studies at Reading<\/a>, or order a copy of Cath\u2019s new book, The Long Win: The search for a better way to succeed<\/a><\/em>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After she delivered Reading\u2019s first ever online Alumni Lecture, CONNECTED interviewed former Olympic rower, senior diplomat and now leadership speaker, business coach and consultant, Dr Cath Bishop. Cath shares with us how she got into rowing, how her time at Reading influenced her career path, and how her experience has shaped some of the themes […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":170,"featured_media":6869,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false},"categories":[3],"tags":[54,16,17,21,81,34,96,88],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nRedefining Success - Connected<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"After Reading\u2019s first ever online Alumni Lecture, CONNECTED interviewed former Olympic rower, senior diplomat and leadership consultant, Dr Cath Bishop.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/sites.reading.ac.uk\/connected\/2020\/11\/25\/redefining-success\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Redefining Success - 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