Jack Groppel
Co-Founder & Vice President of Applied Science & Performance Training
Dr. Jack Groppel, Ph.D. is the co-founder of the Human Performance Institute, and Vice President of Applied Science and Performance Training at Wellness & Prevention, Inc., a Johnson & Johnson company. He is an internationally recognized authority and pioneer in the science of human performance, and an expert in fitness and nutrition.
Dr. Groppel served as an Adjunct Professor of Management at the J.L. Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University for several years and continues to instruct courses at the University in a supplementary role. In concurrence with his Human Performance Institute duties, Dr. Groppel is also the Co-Chair of the Health Enhancement Research Organization (HERO) Health & Performance Study Committee.
Dr. Groppel authored The Corporate Athlete book on achieving the pinnacle of corporate performance and co-authored The Corporate Athlete Advantage. He developed the Corporate Athlete® concept for his training program while serving as an associate professor of kinesiology and bioengineering at the University of Illinois, helping both business executives and athletes increase performance levels. In 1992, he combined his program with Dr. Jim Loehr to form the Human Performance Institute, which is now part of Wellness & Prevention, Inc., a Johnson & Johnson company.
Dr. Groppel is a Fellow in the American College of Sports Medicine. He is also a fellow in the American College of Nutrition. Dr. Groppel is a Board certified nutritionist and a former Research Associate to the U.S. Olympic Training Center. He served as Vice President on the National Board of Directors of the United States Professional Tennis Association. Dr. Groppel also dedicated 16 years of service to the United States Tennis Association as Chairman of the National Sport Science Committee.
Energy, not Time, is the Fundamental Currency of High Performance in Business
Energy, not time, is the fundamental currency of performance and the most precious gift we have to give. Productivity, as well as health and happiness, are grounded in the skillful management of energy. To be fully engaged means to be physically energized, emotionally connected, mentally focused and fully aligned with the company's mission. Each individual represents a cell of potential energy in the larger corporate body. Great leaders begin by effectively managing their own energy. Great leadership is marked by the capacity to mobilize, focus, invest, channel and renew organizational energy in the service of the corporate mission. Just as individuals have a pulse, so too does the corporate body. The skilled management of energy fuels a strong and vibrant pulse and a fully engaged workforce.
The Fully Engaged Leader
The most important dynamic of leadership is the ability to ignite, focus and sustain people's energy in the service of a mission. The fully engaged leader must be physically energized, emotionally connected, mentally focused and spiritually aligned with the corporate mission. Each of these capacities are necessary, none is sufficient by itself. The fully engaged leader learns to draw on all four sources of energy and to consciously cultivate them throughout the organization. Doing so requires leaders to be committed to training in the same way elite athletes do to expand capacity both individually and organizationally.
The Making of a Corporate Athlete
As demand accelerates, many executives lack the capacity to sustain high performance--especially under pressure. The creators of the Corporate Athlete performance model, described in a January 2001 Harvard Business Review article ("The Making of a Corporate Athlete"), argue that in order for executives to achieve sustained high performance, they must learn to train in the same systematic ways that elite athletes do. This requires drawing on four seperate but interconnected sources of energy to achieve sustained high performance. This presentation outlines the multidimensional training strategies adopted by executives and managers at more than two dozen Fortune 100 companies.
The Power of Full Engagement
Nearly 75 percent of American workers are disengaged, according to data collected by the Gallup Organization. To be fully engaged, one must be physically energized, emotionally connected, mentally focused and spiritually aligned with the mission of the organization. Drawing on 25 years of experience working with world-class athletes and other elite performers, this presentation describes a unique science-based system for driving full engagement, grounded in the management of personal energy, and the development of highly precise performance rituals.
The Pulse of High Performance: Life is a Series of Sprints, not a Marathon
The conventional wisdom is that the best way to manage the endless demands of our work lives is to assume the mentality of a marathoner, conserving energy in order to stay the course over many years without burning out. In fact, sustained high performance requires the mentality of a sprinter--fully engaging for clearly defined periods of time and then strategically recovering. To live like a sprinter is to break work down into a series of manageable intervals--fully engaging and then fully recovering. This principle is called oscillation and it creates a powerful pulse that drives greater efficiency, improved health and happiness, and sustained higher performance.