Driving Performance - by Marcia Goddard (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

A neuroscience-based and hands-on guide to building a high-performance environment in any organization

In Driving Performance: 10 Lessons About Building High-Performing Teams From Neuroscience and Formula One, neuroscientist and psychologist Marcia Goddard delivers a groundbreaking new approach to sustainable high performance. Dr. Goddard draws on her extensive experience working with global organizations and Formula One teams to highlight effective strategies for encouraging innovation, productive culture, leadership, and teamwork within people and within companies.

This book is a roadmap for building and maintaining high performance environments in any industry. It offers practical tools, reflective tips, and actionable insights for leaders and team members who hope to elevate their performance and the performance of everyone around them. It skips the hustle culture clichés and focuses exclusively on proven behaviors that work in the real world, with real people, who are part of real teams.

You'll also find:

• Insightful strategies that leverage the latest neuroscience research to frame change as a challenge, instead of a threat
• Effective techniques for creating leadership practices that encourage trust, autonomy, and psychological safety
• Advice for cultivating useful traits in your team members, including emotion regulation, mental flexibility and empathy

Perfect for managers, executives, entrepreneurs, founders, and other leaders, Driving Performance is an invaluable strategy guide for everyone interested in improving their own performance, or the performance of those who work for and with them. It's a science-based, step-by-step guide to creating a durable and resilient high-performing team in any organization.

From the Back Cover

Praise for DRIVING PERFORMANCE

"In Formula One, performance isn't just measured in tenths of a second--it's built on trust, adaptability, and relentless precision under pressure. Marcia Goddard captures this reality with remarkable clarity. As a People leader in F1, I've seen firsthand how resilience--both cultural and individual--is the true differentiator in elite teams. This book doesn't just echo our experience; it explains it, grounding our practices in neuroscience and offering a framework that's as applicable in the paddock as it is in the boardroom. It's a must-read for any leader serious about building sustainable high performance in an unpredictable world."
--ZOE MILLS, Chief People Officer, Cadillac Formula One Team

"A high-octane playbook for modern leaders. Driving Performance fuses the best of Formula One with real-world leadership challenges, turning race-day rituals and neuroscience into practical tools you can use on Monday mornings. Fast, fun and firmly grounded, this will help leaders build resilient teams that thrive through change--and make your culture go faster."
--VICTORIA COADY, Global Transformation Leader, Deloitte

"Driving Performance does not just raise the bar--it shows us how the bar is built. Leaning on exclusive insights from the world's fastest teams and the science that underpins them, Marcia Goddard reframes performance not as an outcome but as a culture. It is a book that all leaders should read."
--PEDRO DE LA ROSA, former Formula One driver, Arrows, Jaguar, McLaren, Sauber, HRT

"Marcia Goddard does not merely decode performance--she rewires how you think about it. With rigour and elegance, she connects the precision of neuroscience with the pressures of Formula One. The result is a book that is as practical as it is profound. Read it--and prepare to reimagine leadership."
--OTMAR SZAFNAUER, former Formula One Team Principal, Force India, Racing Point, Aston Martin, and Alpine

"Driving Performance is not just for fans of Formula One--it is for anyone who works under pressure, leads a team, or wants to understand the real mechanics of resilience. Marcia Goddard's insights are not vague metaphors; they are neurologically sound, vividly told, and immediately applicable. This book is the real deal."
--DAVID PITCHFORTH, former Managing Director, Jaguar Racing Formula One Team

About the Author

MARCIA GODDARD, PhD, is a neuroscientist, psychologist, and founder of boutique consulting firm Brain Matters. Her company focuses on building sustainable high-performance environments for clients. Marcia has a PhD in neuroscience, with a focus on brain-behavior relationships behind neurodiversity. She left academia to apply scientific insights directly to business challenges. Over the past decade, she has studied high performance in large global organizations and Formula One teams, helping them create environments that optimize team dynamics, culture, and leadership.