Leadership is probably one of the most published subjects in the business world. And that may say less about how much we already know than about how much we still need to talk it through. It was in that spirit, sharing what we have learned while staying open to listening, that Pedro Medicis (President of Tátil) took part in Precision Leadership, a Vanto Group programme in Tokyo, alongside the CEOs of ten Japanese companies and Ryan Bernacchi, former Blue Angels commander and former TOPGUN instructor.

"The goal was never to find extraordinary talent, but to develop ordinary people capable of delivering extraordinary results." High performance stops being an exceptional quality held by a few and becomes something the organisation helps to build. It lives in precise language, in rituals that turn mistakes into learning, in clear roles and in a leadership that knows how to offer context, make room and listen before deciding.

That may be exactly where the conversation about leadership gets more interesting. In the ten Japanese companies visited, happiness is written into the purpose without being treated as the opposite of performance. At the Blue Angels, excellence coexists with a debrief where everyone can acknowledge what worked and what needs to change. Very different contexts pointing to a similar question: what if high performance has less to do with finding extraordinary people and more to do with creating the conditions for people to do extraordinary work?