Dr. Phil Hopley has been working with, among other teams and organizations, the F1 powerhouse McLaren, and he’s certainly been synonymous with their success. In particular, their embracing approach of mental health and performance has made a difference with on-track results. He’s been discussing the collaboration with CNN World Sport’s Don Riddell.

McLaren's Formula One team has experienced notable improvements in performance by placing a strong emphasis on mental health and well-being across all levels of the organization. The team's leadership has established a clear culture that prioritizes excellence, support, and open communication, encouraging team members to seek help and support each other when needed.

This approach extends beyond the drivers to include the entire team, from engineers to support staff. By fostering a non-judgmental and collaborative environment, McLaren has enhanced both individual and team resilience, turning mistakes into opportunities for learning and growth. The team's drivers have also embraced this focus, setting an example for the rest of the organization.

McLaren reaping on-track benefits from their focus on mental health

If you have leaders operating consistently together, setting a very clear culture about what expectations are around commitment to excellence, about consistent performance, about supporting each other, and in McLaren's case, prioritizing mental well-being as a sort of, if you like, a cornerstone for performance, then you see significant progress being made. So I think that that's one of the key things. Are the leaders aligned? Have they got a vision, and does that vision cascade effectively into the rest of the team in a culture that drives high performance? It's fascinating because you look at a Formula One team and you would think that all the pressure is on the drivers, and of course the cameras point at those guys, and we all are entertained by what they do on the track. We don't see so much what's going on behind the scenes, but I would imagine there is an immense amount of pressure being experienced by many people within the team as well. Well, there's no doubt about that, and a lot of people that maybe haven't had the opportunity to observe a team up close might not realize that of a race weekend, there's upwards of 100 people with a team, 100, 110, 120, 140 people, all of whom have super important roles, whether you're in the pit crew, whether you're an engineer on the wall, whether you're someone who's helping with catering. It's that whole team approach that becomes really important. I think that's why McLaren embracing the importance of that and making as much as possible of an open culture and encouraging people if they're struggling to seek help and to help others and to look out for each other has made a huge difference. When you get those things right, it's another key feature that contributes to individual and team resilience. How much interaction have you actually had with the drivers, or is it kind of mainly the rest of the team that really benefits from your expertise? Well, plenty, but the interesting thing about Formula One is that the drivers are almost like a plug-in to the main team. They're contracted into the team. You've got the team, which is McLaren, then you've got the drivers with their own little sub-teams. The drivers have often had years of support in terms of what we're talking about from performance psychologists, maybe not mental health specialists like ourselves, but both of our drivers are very, very keen in this area, very, very open, and they're comfortable talking about this, and they're comfortable talking with the team about it, which is so, so important because if you've got those elite athletes who are showing you that for what they do, it's important for them to get their mindset right, then it filters down beautifully to everybody that works closely with them and beyond. It does take everybody rowing in the same direction on any team. In a Formula One team, it could just take one mistake by one person to change the outlook of the whole weekend. How do you advise a team to navigate something like that when people could easily all point the finger and find a scapegoat, and you're the reason that things didn't go to plan? Well, you know, you kind of described the journey in a way that McLaren have been on. I think when I joined the team, there was that sensitivity, that sense of pressure, and that fear that if you get something wrong, you're going to be in trouble, you're going to be exposed. If you are an individual athlete, that's a significant factor. The more you can encourage people to work collectively and share that kind of responsibility and not point at someone and turn the mistakes or the difficulties or the underperformance into opportunities for learning, so instead of that, oh, it's me, what have I done, you know, run away from it, avoid it. Make that part of what you do. Make that part of your performance domain and your progression. It really takes a lot of that stress out of the situation and enables people to be much more honest with each other rather than talking behind people's backs. You want people to be completely open and frank with each other, but in a way that's as best as possible, not judgmental, not critical, but observational. I think Andrea Stella is probably one of the best leaders for this I've ever worked with across business and sport.

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