Real Wins

I raced through Michelle Moore’s Real Wins in just one week. Described by Denise Lewis OBE as ‘Powerful and inspiring. A must read’, and shortlisted for the Business Book Awards 2022, Real Wins is an urgent call to action from one of the most influential women in sport. In her unflinching style, Michelle seeks to redress inequality at all levels and shows us how to challenge stereotypes and tired assumptions to transform our experiences and environments. The practical guidance in the book is superb, and Michelle kindly gave me some of her time to share some insight into what lay behind the book, and what are some of the pitfalls and challenges and others regularly face.

Former athlete and award winning leadership coach and speaker, Michelle has spent the last twenty years in senior leadership roles across sport, government and education.

The context

We started off by discussing the journey that lay behind the writing of this book. Michelle explained that, like many, the first lockdown had caused her to take stock and redefine some of her work. She had worked hard to get to a stage where the opportunity to write the book came to find her, and her sporting career had taught her to make the most of such opportunities. It also meant that she knew how to apply herself, and work with discipline. This didn’t mean the writing of the book was easy however – something which gave me comfort to hear whilst in the final stages of completing my own book manuscript! Central for Michelle was the fact that she was being given permission to write what she really wanted to write; not something where she would feel censored or fettered.

We also delved into Michelle’s family background, and how the central theme throughout has been one of service. Social work, voluntary work, nursing, teaching, all of these have been recurring themes through the generations.  This was clearly of huge significance to Michelle, the way she has led her life, and the roles she has taken.

Key Messages in the Book

Central to the book is the concept of tapping into the leader in all of us. Ensuring that we can all make more conscious decisions. And how we can unleash leadership potential and enhance leadership skills.

Drilling down a bit further, it was clear that much of the message around Real Wins is about learning from adversity, from failure. Michelle shares her own stories, as well as those from athletes, leaders and other inspirational people, to emphasise how each of us can learn from our experiences, as well as how to ensure personal agency; how we can get the most out of ourselves, find our own unique leadership style and drivers, and so find our own part to play.

One area that particularly stood out to me was the advice and practical tools on how to challenge stereotypes and practical assumptions; something that we all know we need to get better at, but don’t possibly have the discipline or knowledge to know how to actually go about it. Linked to this was the critical importance of visibility; how leaders must do better and create the interventions and programmes that increase the visibility of Black success in the workforce. Michelle argues that it will only be after this is achieved that real progress will be made.

Common pitfalls

I asked Michelle about the common pitfalls she sees in her work. Where is it that organisations consistently go wrong?

Tick box initiatives was top of the list. Followed by situations where people who are part of the problem are the ones trying to solve it; where there is a problematic lack of representation.

Michelle also highlighted challenges around organisations buying in the expertise, signalling that they want to learn, understand and do the right thing, but then either not listening to that expertise, or not being prepared to take the steps needed to drive real change. Michelle asserts that accountability and responsibility are the cornerstones of a new conscious style of leadership and could provide the foundations for redressing racial inequities.

Michelle cited the fact that people from marginalized identities are not afforded the same chances to fail in the workplace and on the sportsfield; being held to a higher standard of performance than white counterparts.

Finally Michelle asserted that there is no short cut to strategic thought-out antiracism work – in doing the unravelling of your own inherent racism you develop the consciousness to apply it to your context – and when you start to get to grips with the deep learning that takes place, you’re then empowered to recognize the actions needed in your areas of expertise.

We finished our conversation on this very thought-provoking note. I would urge you to read Michelle’s book to extend and jolt your thinking in this crucial space. It is out now in the UK and the US (on 12th April), and available online www.michellemoore.me and from all good bookshops. You can order it from Amazon here