In September, 2x World Match Racing Champion Phil Robertson spoke to 120 CEOs and EQTarians at EQT Ventures and Growth’s FWD Summit. In this piece, he shares his thoughts on the role inspiration, adaptation, and trust in discomfort play in building a winning team — both at sea and in the office.

Photo credit: Jean Lapin

Foreword from Alastair Mitchell, Partner at EQT Ventures

For those of us in tech, it can be all too easy to only take inspiration and advice from other residents of the tech bubble. But sometimes it’s vital to look beyond tech for inspiration. Personally, I’ve always been fascinated with the lessons business — and startups in particular — can learn from the world of sport. Lessons in resilience, leadership, mistakes, team building and adaptation.

So when we decided that the primary theme for this year’s bi-annual EQT FWD Summit was the role the past can play in building our future, I knew we had to get an elite athlete involved. So I thought who better than Phil Robertson. Two time sailing world match racing champion and current SailGP helmsman for Canada.

The summit, taking place in Stockholm this year, brought together founders, investors, portfolio CEOs, advisors, and scouts to reflect on the last six months, network and listen to talks from international experts on the state of global tech, geopolitics, financial markets, and more.

I’ve known Phil personally for a while and knew how valuable his story could be to all in attendance.

Phil was kind enough to agree, and over 30 minutes or so he imparted his wisdom to the Summit before taking questions. He was then kind enough to put some of those words into writing for us here.

Over to you, Phil.

Saling is a technology race. It’s constantly evolving. We used to sail at 10kph; now we sail at over 100kph on the fastest race boats in the world. They’re powered by wind and by nature, but driven by hydraulics, electronics, sequencing, and software. Everything’s coded. There are 1,200 data points coming off at any moment. Traditionally it was all about ropes and tackle, blocks and purchasing. Now we have one rope that doesn’t actually need to be on the boat anymore. It’s just nice to hold on to tradition sometimes. To the things we dreamed of doing when we were younger.

Sailing is full of startups. Take the Canada SailGP team, where I’m the helmsman — the team leader. It’s a brand new team. And SailGP, the competition we’re racing in? Well that’s brand new too.

I appreciate it can be pretty fast paced in Silicon Valley but has anyone ever described it as being like “standing on top of a car going downhill in a thunderstorm with only the aerial to hang onto”? Although it might be a little quicker out on the ocean, there are marked similarities between building and leading a new sailing team and a startup. Both are global ventures, often built around multinational teams. And success in both is all about being agile and adapting, about innovation as much as it is inspiration and, almost more than anything else, about being comfortable with being uncomfortable — but I’ll get to that later. First, I want to take you back and tell you my story.

It all starts with inspiration

My story starts, as they all do, with a kid with a dream. A kid who was inspired. I was inspired by seeing a product, the America’s Cup, the oldest sporting trophy in world sailing. Watching that as a kid, I’m sure the competitors didn’t set out to inspire me. They set out for success and for victory. But I think it’s always worth remembering that whenever we do anything well, whether you’re launching a company or racing a F50, you’re inspiring those watching.

From that point, I dreamed of being a professional sailor. So what did I do? I went for it. At 21, I packed my bags and went off to Europe to try and progress to the top of the sport. I set myself a clear goal. I was going to win the World Match Racing Tour within five years. In the end, it took seven. As anyone who completes their goals knows, it nearly always takes a little longer.

When I started in sailing, the path to the top was very clearly defined. You sail boats at 20kph. That’s 10 to 12 knots of boat speed on these big, slow keelboats. That was my pathway. I was going to get as good as I could, turning these big, slow boats all the way to the top.

Then, as it always does, technology came along and disrupted it all. With better computers, design tools and materials, within ten years the progression of boats changed completely.

We went from these slow mono-hull boats, with about 14 tonnes of lead under water, to lightweight two-hulled catamarans. Then people decided that still wasn’t fast enough — Let’s make these things fly above the water. That’s when we started hydrofoiling and from hydrofoiling catamarans it’s now circled all the way back to big mono-hull boats — but now they’re lightweight and strong and they fly above the water.

All of those changes were made for racing success and for victory. But without meaning to, it’s inspired change all through water sports, leisure sailing and even transport. That’s all trickled down from the top end of the sport, which is sailboat racing. To me, that really shows you never know who and what you might inspire.

Building a winning team

Over the last 10 years, I’ve led eight teams from eight different countries. Along the way, we’ve won four World Championships with four different teams. What I learned there is that building a winning team takes time.

You have to build one that you trust completely. If my team is working perfectly, my role on the boat is basically just turning the thing. Imagine it as driving a car. One person is holding the steering wheel, that’s me. But then one person’s underneath your feet doing the accelerator and the break. They can’t see what’s going on. Then you’ve got another person doing the gears. Oh, and they’re blindfolded. It all has to be perfectly choreographed and if someone screws up, it’s going to be a catastrophe.

So when you build a team, you need to find people that you trust to learn and execute that choreography. And like I said, that takes time. In professional sailing, it’s a three year job. Year one you find the right people. Year two you formulate a plan. Year three you execute.

But how do you find the right people? Well, I can tell you how I find the right people.

I’ll tell my potential teammate we need to go to the store and chuck them the keys to my car, which is always manual. Then while we’re driving, and often we’re abroad on foreign roads by the way, I’ll try and engage them in a really deep conversation. That way I can see how their brain works under pressure, while trying to change gears, at high speed in a new environment. Unorthodox? Sure. But essential.

How I build trust is a little simpler. I get to know them. We go for dinner, go to a bar. And that’s probably been the biggest lesson for me in over a decade of building teams. Get to know these people, not only in a high performance, high pressure environment, but in a relaxed and calm one as well. I knew this was something that applies just as much in tech too when, at the Summit, I heard Einride CEO Robert Falck say: “if there’s something at the heart of recruiting the right people to your team, it’s honesty”. I couldn’t agree more, Robert.

The second biggest lesson has been about building global teams. Just like the world of tech, sailing is a global business. We’re all English speakers on team Canada, but in the past I’ve worked with guys from Spain, New Zealand, Russia, China, Oman, everywhere. I’ll be honest, I’ve got things horribly wrong. I’ve offended almost every single culture in the world. Why? I didn’t know any of the language, any of the culture. Understanding a culture, how people work, how they process things and how they think, a lot of it is through language. If you can understand a little bit of someone’s language, you’ll start to understand who you’re dealing with.

And look, it’s going to be pretty uncomfortable at times. But that’s ok. That’s part of it. Embrace it. Adapt to it.

You have to be able to adapt

My career has gone from 20kph to 100kph. My pathway has changed four times. In my sport, no two racetracks are ever the same. We’re on the ocean and it’s different every single day. It can be 30 knots one day, five knots the next. There’s tides, currents, wind, waves. There’s even jellyfish. Every day it’s a completely different sport, so when I wake up I just have to go: “how am I going to apply my skills today?”

But how do you perform in an environment that’s changing every day?

You’ve got to be open minded, to be able to adapt. One of the things I’ve learnt from high pressure sport is that all your past experiences are there to help you overcome any new challenge. To me, adaptation is about learning from the past. It’s using the mistakes I made 20 years ago going 20kph, and applying those today when I’m going 100.

You learn those lessons performing under pressure in an ever-changing environment. I can’t control my racetrack. I can’t control the racing conditions. But there are a few things I can control so you have to learn to really control them. That just better prepares you for everything that’s going to be thrown at you.

During the Summit I heard a similar sentiment echoed for tech in Nothing CEO Carl Pei’s talk. He said: “You will always be under pressure as a CEO, including from consumers, investors, and the media — you have to remain rational through that. Remaining rational means you can cut through the noise, minimise mistakes and make the right decisions regardless of what’s at stake.”

Be comfortable being uncomfortable

This might feel like a bit of a cliche, but it’s really true. Success is all about getting comfortable feeling uncomfortable. As the road changes in front of you, you’re gonna be uncomfortable. That’s life.

For me, that was racing a boat at 100kph last weekend. That was the first time we’ve ever done it. We’re within one metre of another boat, knowing that any mistake is going to write off two boats and possibly kill someone. That’s pretty uncomfortable! But you have to be comfortable in those situations. I think the more you’re comfortable being uncomfortable, the more you’re going to be able to attack what comes at you, using your past experiences as a weapon.

In my world, in some ways, everything is still the same. My team works the same way, our strategies are the same. Even the decisions I have to make are the same. But it’s the pressure that has changed. Now I make those decisions in a fraction of a second. In the past, when I was in those big, slow boats, I made them in 10.

I’d like to end with one of my favourite quotes from Mario Andretti. He said: “If everything seems under control, you’re just not going fast enough”.

I think that’s such a perfect statement for business and in life. If you feel in control, you’re probably not pushing hard enough and you’re certainly not going fast enough.