Business Innovators Radio - Mark Francis – High Performance Coach – Mark Stephen Pooler

Episode Date: November 7, 2025

Mark is a global High Performance coach working with Chiefs of Staff in the UN, for Sports teams and with individual business leaders. He leads two commercial consultancies both based in the UK.He manages Learning Academies across the world by mentoring internal Champions who then own the learning journey thereafter – this is Champion-led change.www.theuspiregroup.comwww.augmenta.co.ukhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-francis-78b3061/Source: https://businessinnovatorsradio.com/mark-francis-high-performance-coach-mark-stephen-pooler

Welcome to Business Innovators Radio, featuring industry influencers and trendsetters, sharing proven strategies to help you build a better life right now. Welcome to Brilliant's Business TV. Thank you, Mark. So Mark, I really am looking forward to a conversation with you today. I know our great friend Brenda Dempsey introduced us, and she's had so many great words to say about you. So I'm really looking forward to learning more about you and what you do. So share a little bit about yourself, Mark, and what you do. Well, creating the finest commercial leaders in the world is my passion.

And how do you do that? Well, I've created a business that has three different arms. One is absolutely about helping the leaders one-to-one, so executive coaching in the classic sense. Another is about building a leadership network, a community of leaders. And the third is helping smaller businesses get their strategy right. So three arms to the business. The whole thing is called the USPyre Partnership.

And I've been working in that business, which has evolved beautifully over the last 20 years. And it's afforded me this wonderful opportunity to travel the world, which in and of itself is magical, and meet the most amazing leaders and help them to be the finest commercial leaders in the world. Leadership is so, so important, Mark, and how did you get into this world of leadership? Do you know, it's amazing. When I first started in my business, which was well over 20 years ago, I thought you need to be a real specialist, and I was going to be a specialist in commercial skills training. So a trainer of selling skills, and I was going to specialize in that. And you very quickly realized when your customer says, can you help us with this as well or that?

and the this and that becomes a leadership element. You go, well, yeah, I've been a leader in business, so yeah, I can help you with that. And so you evolve into this multi-purpose consultant. And so leadership became something I was more and more passionate about because if you get the leader right, the business follows or the environment and culture follows. So it's the core focus now, leadership development.

Now, I know you have the most incredible book, and I want to hear more about it, what inspired the book. Tell us a little bit about that, Mark. It kind of builds on the last answer, actually, Mark. It's, I love being with leaders who lead with a different kind of power. And when I say different kind of power, I'm comparing it with old school leadership, the perception that it's demand, command, and it's my way or the highway. and unfortunately we still have many leaders of countries in this world who have that paradigm as that's what a leader should be, ego-driven, opinion-driven, and a new kind of leader with a new kind of power is much more about initiate, collaborate and energize people rather than put your thumb on them and tell them to do what you want them to do. So being with leaders that exercise a different

kind of power is really what the book's all about because I've captured 60 stories about amazing people who are leading in their communities in very different ways. And I've shared how they do that so that the book becomes something that people can take elements out of and use themselves to inspire change in whichever tribe they're in. So let me give an example of what I'm talking about in terms of a new kind of leader. Former Prime Minister of New Zealand, Jacinda Adirne, Prime Minister from 2017 to 2023, so a six-year term that included two major traumas for New Zealand. One was a global pandemic, which we all know about, COVID-19. And in 2019, they had a mass murder in New Zealand at a mosque where 51 people were killed. Now, that's a major thing to try and

manage as a leader. And I'm going to tell you how that was managed after I shared with you the nature of this person, Jacinda Adon. She gave a speech when she resigned. So she decided in 23, April, do you know what? I think it's my time. I think I've done my job and I think it's it's time for a different voice in a new leader. So she made that decision herself, which I admire as well. in her speech in the Parliament to say goodbye and thanks, she said something like this, I am absolutely not what people perceive as what a leader should be. I'm someone who has their heart on their sleeve.

I cry, I hug, I'm vulnerable, I'm anxious, and it's not what people perceive to be leader material. It kind of fell on me this being a prime minister. my intention, but a series of circumstances meant that it was an opportunity. And I thought, yeah, I'm going to take this opportunity. But I decided I'm going to be myself for the whole journey. I'm not going to change in any way to be political. I'm going to be myself. That in and of itself is pretty cool. But you don't go back to this incident in 2019 at the mosque. And 51 people were killed with a semi-automatic weapon. And she said straight away, she was always something.

one that came onto the media immediately and spoke from the heart. And she said, I'm going to change the law in New Zealand. This is wrong that someone can take a weapon that can mass kill in a few seconds and that that is something that we would accept in a modern democracy. And I'm going to get that law changed. And she did inside a week. Now that's a major law change where you have interested stakeholders saying, no, no, we want to keep it because it's a lot of money for certain companies. And within a week, got complete consensus in the Parliament to fundamentally change the law in New Zealand about guns. That is a phenomenal leader. Because how she did, it was collaborative, exactly as I said earlier. She took the initiative and then she

collaborated, collaborated, collaborated, energized the decision makers to make a decision incredibly fast. And that is a special leader. So that's my joy in terms of my job. I travel the world and I get to meet leaders like that. And you go, right, I think you can mold that. You can model it and say, can we replicate that all over the world and make the world a better place? As simple as that.

So that's what I mean by a leader with a different kind of power and not using the positional power of. of I am the boss, you do what I say, and using the power of intellect and influence. So that's, Jacinda, there's probably, that was a great example of using power but with strength and authenticity as well. I like that, Mark. What's the book called Mark? It's called the captaincy, and the concept is that everyone can be a captain of positive change. So, That's the core idea that we can all be a captain of something small or large in our community and make a difference. And so your captaining change to use the term. And so the book is full of examples of people who've done just that. And the reason I've called it the captaincy is a nod to

sport. And the reason there's a nod to sport there is my background outside of business is very much about being a player and a coach in sport, especially in women's rugby, interestingly, given that there's just been a world championship in England with women's rugby. And from that, I met so many extraordinary people who have become leaders beyond sport. And so that's the essence of the book. It's what can you take from what you learned as an athlete or a sports person and put it into practice as a captain of change beyond the sport. So, That's the core idea of the captaincy. And what community does it serve?

Cool. Wow, what a great question. I don't want this answer to sound trite because it might sound a bit trite. Any community, so one of the chapters in the book, Chapter 7 in the book is called Gather Your Tribe. Gather Your Tribe. And what it effectively means is we've all got tribes. That might be family, that might be close friends.

Could be something physically in your community that you all invest in. It can be the church. We've all got our own communities and tribes. And gather your tribe to do something. It's as simple as that. We all have a similar value set because we're together. Why don't we do something of positive impact? So the community it serves is frankly any community that collectively wants to or needs to drive change in their community in some way. And they can be the simplest things. You know, we need we need our streets to have better lighting. And so let's all get together in this neighborhood and make that happen. So community is any tribe, any group of people that have a common cause and want to do good, want to do something that. that makes the existence of that community better. Love it. And what makes the book so special, Mark? I alluded to it earlier around the connection of sport to lead.

So if you've had an experience at any level in a sporting competitive environment, you've learned how to cope under stress, you've learned how to communicate under stress. And in certain cases, hopefully, you've learned how to communicate under stress. lead under stress. So you take that learning and you put it into the community or tribe that you're now in beyond sport and you try and make a difference. So that wonderful red thread throughout the captain C is the idea of a sporting intelligence. So we've got IQ, intellectual intelligence. We've got EQ, emotional intelligence. And more lately, I've heard that you've also got CQ, cultural intelligence, which is a smart thing to have as well. And I've introduced this idea of a

sporting intelligence, and I call it SPQ, so sporting intelligence or sporting quotient. And there are four elements to that. And this is from my experience of being a sports coach for 35 years now, being an active athlete in a various number of sports, not to the highest level, but certainly competitive and certainly a huge fan of all sports. Male and female, any sport I will go and watch live, hopefully, and get the atmosphere and the feeling. From all of that experience, I've observed things that I believe are a sporting intelligence, the difference that makes the difference from pretty good at this to the very best. And I see four different elements to sporting intelligence. and they are positive intention.

And I talk about football. I do a lot of work on the psychology and football. And there's a huge difference between playing to win and playing to avoid losing. And playing to win is the positive intention. And playing to avoid losing is a defensive intention, which could work. But it's not a positive intention. It's defensive. So the first of the four elements of everything.

SPQ is positive intention. The second is self-command. Now, again, I mentioned this earlier, in a moment of stress and sports has those lovely moments where the result could go either way, and I call that a stress moment, that's the opportunity to, frankly be at your best as the athlete. In the moment of highest intensity, you have self-command. Because you've prepared and practiced, you've got your mindset right, you've got your technique right, now it's just about execution. And that is about self-command as opposed to getting a bit nervous and falling apart when it matters most. So self-command, super, super important. The third element is a lovely one actually because it's so simple and yet it takes a bit of thinking about.

And it's called thin slicing, thin slicing, like you're slicing a loaf of bread, but very, very thin. And the core idea here is simplify, simplify, simplify. There's so much information and distraction in our lives, isn't there? You know, mobile phones, my goodness me, constantly beeping, emails, social media. Our heads are more full today than they've ever been with information, confusion, distraction, surprises, all of those things going on in our head. And thin slicing is just simplifying the information that you've got into one decision based on your assessment of the situation and the information that's coming in,

make one decision. So I'm going to give you an example. It's a very real example of thin slicing, and it was me as a coach. So I coach in seven's rugby, so the smaller-sided game of just seven, super fast, short, dynamic, brilliant spectator sport. And we took a ladies' team to Melrose, which is the oldest Sevens rugby tournament in the world, something like 1835.

I'm guessing they. I'm not certain of the day. But it's a very old tournament and has always been men only. The whole tournament is a male-based tournament or was. And then in 2023, the organisers said, it's time to modernise. Let's get a women's tournament alongside the men's tournament. And we had the great pleasure of being invited. And we got to the final and we're in the final. Our team is called the Lionesses. And we're playing against the best team in Scotland.

So a select Scotland team who were very, very good. And it was going to be a very close finals. No question about that. Two excellent teams had made the final. 10,000 fans watching, which is really cool. And my highest try scorer in the season hadn't scored a try during that day. So I was thinking, I need to help her to be focused. And here comes to the thin slice. All I wanted to think about is scoring a try. Everything else can just happen because she's naturally talented athlete.

But I'd like her to focus on one thing to make a difference. And that small thing could make all the difference in the final. And so I was thinking to myself, how do I plant that seed, the thin slice, that it's just about score? I just want you to score. And I thought about it for a while, and I thought I'm going to do it relatively subtly rather than tell. And I said, can you remind me, Lizzie, how many tries have you scored today during the tournament? She looked at me quizzically when I see what you're doing there. She said, because I haven't scored any today anyway.

I haven't scored any. I said, oh, okay, thank you. It's just clarified in my mind. Now, that's a thin slice. It's the only thing I want you to think about because there are lots of things you could think about and you could get overstressed by thinking too much, just focus on that one thing.

And there's, of course, there's connectivity with thin slicing with outcome. That's the point. It's a sporting intelligence. And Lizzie scored two tries in the final, both of which were half the length of the length of pitch. Now in sevens you've got more space and it's not unusual to score distance tries, but she scored two, one of which was sheer pace and the other one was an amazing athleticism where she caught the ball in midair and then ran through lots of tackles with power. So scored

two extraordinary tries and we won by one score. So there's the thin slice, planted, seeded in the brain of the athlete and then the athlete only focuses on that. and lets everything else happen naturally. So that's thin slicing. That's thin slicing. Clever stuff, thin slicing. Thank you. Thank you.

And that's true in life, right? That's not just a point about sport. That's in every sense. Oh, definitely, definitely. I'm sure anyone that's listening can think about a situation and think, yeah, I'm overloading my brain. And focus on one thing, positive intention, love it. That's it.

That's it. And the fourth element of sporting intelligence is trying to, tribal fire. Tribal fire. So you're an individual in a team and you have the ability to create collective focus, collective enthusiasm, tribal fire. So the great athletes have the ability to ignite all the people around them. And I think great leaders do as well. So you create tribal fire by your own energy and behavior. And then, of course, course, that has a knock-on effect. It's a ripple effect so that everyone ignites in a very positive sense towards the vision that you've created ideally collectively. So that's what makes this book

special for me. It brings to life in those 60 leader stories, elements of sporting intelligence in all of them. And the most recent example is that the England women's football team played in European Championships in the summer. And in their last three games, quarterfinal, semi-final and final, they were playing opponents that were excellent. And in each game, the opponent got ahead. They were leading. And in fact, deservedly so. So England were being outplayed in the quarter-final and the final. And they went on to win. And there's no question the tribal fire, the tribal belief was a huge factor. in turning round, losing situations into winning ones.

There was a core belief and a self-command under pressure. Behind the eight ball, there was a self-command in all of the players that said we're going to execute our game plan to what we've specified, calmly, coolly and with passion and with tribal fire. So a lovely example of those four elements of sporting intelligence coming to fruition. Oh, they were great examples. I love it. And I think people can take a lot from those examples as well. And you've taken them from sport,

but they can be in all areas of business, life, and fitting beautifully with all aspects. No, Mark, I would like to ask you what's next for you. I know you're super busy working on so many incredible projects. And also, Mark, tell people they can get your book. And who should connect with you? Who would you love to reach out? TV you. Those are great questions. The book is available on Amazon at the moment it's a

pre-order because it comes out mid-November, it's just a few days away, but it's available for pre-order. So it's brand new. Go and grab it while you can. That's the first answer to that. And then in terms of how to use this book, it's reference point. I'm a huge believer in saying who's my inspiration. You know, and I'll look through the book. and there are several 60-odd examples, amazing leaders, and you just pick anyone and go, right, I'm going to model what they did to be successful in my area of interest. What's next was your first question?

And what I'd love to do is to get the message more out there. That's why it's wonderful working with you, Mark, getting your advice about how can we get more people to see the way to adopt sporting intelligence and apply it to leadership. And that almost certainly means get out on the road, speak, share, share the book, but also bring it to life in presentations and road shows. So it's a conversation starter.

It's a point of inspiration. And then hopefully it generates, and here's the key point, captains in lots of communities, doing things that are positive for their community and for the wider, the wider world. I've really enjoyed having a conversation with you, Mark. And my last question, because I think you may have forgot about how many questions I asked in one. Who would you love to

reach out to you and how can people can connect with you more? I'm going to try and be more targeted than the obvious, you know, anyone that's inspired by the captaincy. I'm going to be a little bit more specific than that. I think it's either people already in a leadership position that, that needs just a little tweak and guidance. And that can be one-to-one, right? Reach out for one-to-one perspective. I think it's more about how can we change the dynamic in our community or team.

So it's probably a leader thinking, my culture could be better, my team needs to be better, but I also want to invest in that team. So who would I love to reach out? people who have a team where they want to see change and want to invest in that change. And I'd love to help. And we do master classes.

We call them masterminds. And that's very much about how do you help people reframe their thinking so that after you've reframed the thinking, then behavior change comes. So you think differently, you feel different, you behave different. And ultimately, it's a different result, both for the individual and for the collective. So it's leaders who want to drive change, I think, is the target audience to reach out. How can they? Well, beautifully in the modern world, it's LinkedIn's always a good one. I love the LinkedIn community because it's an easy way to say hi and to exchange messages.

So that's probably the best way to connect with me. Perfect. And your clickable links will all be on the promotion with this as well. They can also go to your website. Do you want to just share that with the people who are listening in as well? Yeah, I mentioned before there are three arms to my consultancy business. We bring it all together. It's the USPIRE partnership.

The website is the uspiregroup.com. The aspiregroup.com. Three elements to that. Brilliant business called the Behuman Partnership. Business Doctors, which is a fantastic consultancy for small to media. size businesses and then USPIRE itself, which is about leadership academies. So three arms to the business and it's the uspiregroup.com. Mark, I've really enjoyed having a conversation with you.

Everyone out there, if you would like to improve your leadership and get where you need to get, do reach out to Mark. Mark, thank you so much for being my guest today. Thank you, Mark. I've loved it. I've loved it too. Thank you, everyone, for joining us for brilliant. Thanks for listening to Business Innovators Radio.

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