More than 25 years ago, performance psychologist Jim Loehr and journalist Tony Schwartz introduced a deceptively simple idea: if we want to understand sustained high performance at work, we might learn something from elite athletes.

Their High-Performance Pyramid challenged the idea that performance was primarily cognitive. Instead, they argued that sustained performance draws on the whole person: physical capacity, emotional capacity, mental capacity and, at the top of the pyramid, a sense of purpose (Loehr & Schwartz, 2001).

Underpinning it was another principle:

Energy expenditure needs to be balanced by energy recovery.

A quarter of a century later, the metaphor still holds up remarkably well. But the occupational psychology research that has followed gives us an increasingly sophisticated understanding of the science beneath it.

We understand recovery in athletes. Why not at work?

We readily accept that an elite athlete cannot train or compete at maximum intensity indefinitely.

We understand that extraordinary performance from athletes such as Rafael Nadal or Novak Djokovic is supported by deliberate recovery: sleep, nutrition, physiotherapy, lower-intensity training, psychological preparation and periods away from competition.

We don't interpret recovery as a lack of commitment.

We understand that it is part of performance.

Yet our expectations of the corporate athlete can look remarkably different.

We routinely expect people to perform cognitively and emotionally at a consistently high level for 30, 40 or more hours each week, across perhaps 48 working weeks of the year.

We move between strategic decisions, difficult conversations, presentations, deadlines, problem solving and back-to-back meetings, often with very little transition between them.

And then we wonder why performance eventually deteriorates.

The problem isn't necessarily capability.

It may be capacity.

Work requires something from us

This idea isn't simply metaphorical.

The Effort-Recovery Model, developed within occupational psychology, proposes that work requires us to mobilise psychological and physiological resources. That effort allows us to perform, but it also produces load. Recovery allows those systems to return towards their pre-demand state (Meijman & Mulder, 1998).

In other words, performance has a cost.

Attention is a resource. So is emotional regulation. So is the ability to make considered decisions, remain patient, think creatively and communicate effectively under pressure.

These capacities aren't infinitely available.

This gives us a different way of thinking about performance.

Rather than asking only:

How do I get more out of myself?

We might also ask:

What does this work require from me, and what allows me to restore what I'm using?

Recovery is more than doing nothing

Research into recovery from work has developed this idea further.

Sonnentag and Fritz (2007) identified four experiences associated with effective recovery: psychological detachment, relaxation, mastery and control.

That distinction matters.

Recovery isn't necessarily lying on the sofa doing nothing.

It might be mentally switching off from work.

It might be exercise.

Learning something unrelated to your job.

Cooking.

Spending time with people you enjoy.

Doing something that gives you a sense of competence or choice.

What matters is that the resources being taxed by work have an opportunity to recover.

And recovery doesn't only happen on holidays or weekends.

It can also happen within the working day.

The power, and limits, of the micro-recovery

A walk outside between meetings.

Lunch away from a screen.

Five minutes without incoming information.

A transition between deep work and a difficult conversation.

Moving the body.

Talking to someone who makes you laugh.

Closing the laptop before opening it again.

None of these behaviours is revolutionary.

But research suggests that short breaks can reduce fatigue and increase vigour during the working day (Albulescu et al., 2022).

There is an important nuance, though.

The same meta-analysis found that micro-breaks did not significantly improve performance overall, and that highly cognitively demanding tasks may require longer periods of recovery.

That's important because recovery shouldn't become another productivity hack.

Five minutes away from your laptop isn't a magic reset button.

Different forms and intensities of effort place different demands on us. Sustainable performance requires learning to recognise those demands and matching them with appropriate recovery.

Sometimes five minutes is useful.

Sometimes you need sleep.

Sometimes you need a weekend.

Sometimes you need a holiday.

And sometimes the problem isn't your recovery strategy at all.

Sustainable performance isn't only an individual responsibility

This is where contemporary work psychology adds something important to the corporate-athlete metaphor.

The Job Demands-Resources model proposes that our experience at work is shaped partly by the relationship between the demands placed upon us and the resources available to meet them (Bakker & Demerouti, 2007).

Those resources might include autonomy, support, feedback, role clarity, appropriate staffing, time or access to the information and tools required to do the job.

That means sustainable performance cannot simply become another responsibility placed on the individual.

We can't indefinitely compensate for excessive workload, unclear priorities, inadequate resources or poorly designed work by asking people to become better at breathing, taking breaks or managing themselves.

There are two sides to the equation.

Individuals can become better at managing capacity.

Organisations can become better at creating the conditions in which capacity can be sustained.

The strongest performance cultures need both.

Sustainable performance requires oscillation

This brings us back to Loehr and Schwartz.

Perhaps the most enduring part of the corporate-athlete metaphor isn't the pyramid itself.

It's the idea that high performance depends on oscillation: periods of deliberate effort followed by opportunities for recovery.

The highest performers aren't necessarily those who can push hardest for longest.

They're often those who become exceptionally good at understanding what performance requires from them, recognising when those resources are being depleted and deliberately restoring them.

We understand this instinctively when we watch elite sport.

Perhaps it's time we extended the same understanding to people performing in complex organisations.

High performance isn't about operating at your maximum all the time.

It's about having the capacity to perform when it matters.

Sustainable high performance is ultimately an exercise in capacity management: understanding what different forms of work demand from us, recognising when those resources are being depleted, and deliberately creating the conditions in which they can be restored.

References

Albulescu, P., Macsinga, I., Rusu, A., Sulea, C., Bodnaru, A., & Tulbure, B. T. (2022). “Give me a break!” A systematic review and meta-analysis on the efficacy of micro-breaks for increasing well-being and performance. PLOS ONE, 17(8), e0272460. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0272460

Bakker, A. B., & Demerouti, E. (2007). The Job Demands-Resources model: State of the art. Journal of Managerial Psychology, 22(3), 309–328. https://doi.org/10.1108/02683940710733115

Loehr, J., & Schwartz, T. (2001). The making of a corporate athlete. Harvard Business Review, 79(1), 120–128, 176.

Meijman, T. F., & Mulder, G. (1998). Psychological aspects of workload. In P. J. D. Drenth, H. Thierry, & C. J. de Wolff (Eds.), Handbook of work and organizational psychology: Work psychology (2nd ed., pp. 5–33). Psychology Press.

Sonnentag, S., & Fritz, C. (2007). The Recovery Experience Questionnaire: Development and validation of a measure for assessing recuperation and unwinding from work. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 12(3), 204–221. https://doi.org/10.1037/1076-8998.12.3.204