Drop Vague Olympic References to Inspire Greatness at Your Next Department Meeting

The Olympics is the one time every two years the world comes together to admire branded content, and there’s no better way to tap into the emotion of the Games than with a rousing, contrived speech at the end of your conference call or Thursday status meeting.

Here are some helpful words and phrases to inspire your team to greatness.

Figure out which sport most people in the office enjoy most

Sports like soccer and basketball are popular enough year-round, so gymnastics and swimming metaphors are crucial here. Even your non-sporty coworkers can tolerate 17 days of minor excitement. They’ve been in a municipal pool! They’ve done a tumblysault! Your HR minions will be in the palm of your hand, and right now your routine is scoring a 10! Which, with the new standards in gymnastics scoring is quite terrible, but you get my point.

Go for the gold and begin with “go for the gold”

Many folks would say to hold back and drop the bomb at the end, but no! Your audience of admin staff and Super-Competitive Ellen from Marketing need to know immediately that this will be one of those speeches. A high-energy, early reference to gold medals will put you in the driver’s seat, though the Rio competitions themselves have no driver positions in any sport.

Let everyone know “this won’t be easy”

Samir Ait Said of France broke his leg on the vault. Armenian weightlifter Andranik Karapetyan dislocated his elbow. Even Kerri Strug hurt her ankle and had to finish the all-around, though her team had already won but she didn’t know that.

And just as those folks were physically broken in the pursuit of dreams, your officemates shall be mentally broken--unless they are explicitly told, “It won’t be easy.” Copiers will be offset, networks will go down, feelings will be hurt. But through adversity comes strength, might, and increased 3rd quarter gains. Glory rarely comes easy, unless you’re Usain Bolt, Simone Biles, or Michael Phelps. Or Frank from Sales.

“Usain Bolt, Simone Biles, Michael Phelps”

Namecheck them repeatedly.

“USA! USA! USA!”

It’s fine every once in awhile if you want to invoke the inspiring tale of the Lithuanian basketball team or an Argentine dressage whiz. But if you want your corporate team leaning in, you gotta praise our team, the United States of America sponsored by VISA Checkout Only Takes a Few Clicks. Americans are winners! Americans never back down! Most of you are probably Americans! Thus you will be winners in the battle against Accounting or IT or your new voicemail system that hasn’t even realized yet that you’re in a fight.

Think about an American you know who constantly says that he’s a winner every chance he gets, even if someone points out he’s not winning at all. That guy wouldn’t be lying, right? Why, that guy could even wind up being president.

Focus on winning

Meeting people around the world to honor and understand their basic humanity through the universal language of sport? That’s not going to help us hit 100% widget production capacity. No, your best bet is to use the Games as a cudgel and smash people in the face with it until they understand there is no God but victory--and you are its prophet.

Seriously. Name a silver medalist in the 100-meter dash or any bronze medalist, ever. Exactly. The unadulterated Olympic message is, “If you work hard enough, you’ve done your job--no matter what happens.” But you need to adulterate the shit out of it until everyone in your conference room thinks of nothing but soaring onto the podium and kicking everyone in the face who comes near it.

Now go out there and go for the gold! I know, I know...shouldn’t have saved it til the end. USA! USA! USA!

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Sean Sullivan is a writer for “The Koch Brothers Mystery Show” podcast, now in its second season.