The Accomplishment Podcast with Sir Michael Barber

What can elite sailors learn from professional cyclists? What does a left back at OGC Nice football club have in common with a Formula One driver at Mercedes?  In this episode of the Accomplishment Podcast, Sir Dave Brailsford discusses his distinguished career in elite sport and some of the characteristics that cut across all high performance environments. Along with insights into managing d...

Just a few weeks into her new role as CEO at UK Youth, Ndidi Okezie faced the immediate chaos of the pandemic and the following months of lockdowns, restrictions and disruption. The impact on young people was huge - suddenly many were cut off from their only safe spaces in schools and youth centres. In this episode of the Accomplishment podcast, Ndidi Okezie discusses the importance of youth work,...

After four years as Secretary of State for education, David Blunkett became Home Secretary just a few months before 911 changed the world dramatically. In this episode of the Accomplishment Podcast, Lord Blunkett discusses the lessons from his many years working in politics and what he would do differently if he had his time again, his advice to current and future Ministers, and why spending time...

Baroness Sue Campbell is one of the most influential people in British sport. In her most recent role as Director of women’s football at the Football Association, she played a critical role in the recent success of the England team at the Euros. In this episode of the Accomplishment podcast, she talks about her battles to get the right resources for the women’s team, the pride of seeing 20,000 peo...

Katherine Swift was a rare book librarian who gave up her job to create the acclaimed gardens at the Dower House, Morville Hall. The accompanying book “The Morville Hours” is a beautiful chronicle of the 20 year project and includes stories of the previous generations who had put roots down in that same soil. In this episode of the Accomplishment Podcast, Katherine discusses her motivation for und...

David Miliband quit British politics to escape ‘the soap opera’ and now leads the International Rescue Committee (IRC) in New York. Founded by Albert Einstein in the 1930's, the IRC is an international charity that responds to humanitarian crises, helping people displaced by conflict and disaster. In this episode of the Accomplishment podcast, he tells Sir Michael Barber about his s...

Maryam Monsef arrived in Canada as an Afghan refugee aged 11 years old. By the age of 30, she was elected as an MP and became the youngest member of Justin Trudeau’s new cabinet. But in 2021, she was defeated at the federal election and found herself out of office. In this episode of the Accomplishment Podcast, she talks to Sir Michael Barber about her early life and the highs and lows of bei...

Who'd swap Hollywood for Westminster? ‘Chariots of Fire’ producer David Puttman did exactly that. After a hugely successful career including winning 10 Oscars and more than 20 Baftas, he left the world of American movies for politics in Westminster. In this episode of the Accomplishment Podcast, Lord Puttman talks to Sir Michael Barber about the impact of his childhood, how an obsessive atten...

Gareth Southgate has been manager of the men’s football team since 2016 and there are high expectations for the team in this winter’s World Cup in Qatar. In this episode of the Accomplishment Podcast, he talks to Sir Michael Barber about the importance of setting ambitious goals and a collective identity, the intricacies of World Cup planning, the importance of ego in a group and why rules ca...

Dr Sania Nishtar is an internationally acclaimed physician and world leading health expert. In 2018 she was appointed to the cabinet in Pakistan to lead Ehsaas, a new programme aimed at alleviating poverty by increasing social protection and welfare for those that need it most. In this episode of the Accomplishment Podcast, she tells Sir Michael Barber about her motivation to work 18 hou...

Dame Katherine Granger is one of the most decorated women in British Olympic history and went on to become the Chair of UK Sport after retiring as a professional athlete. She talks to Sir Michael Barber about how she faced her fears of life after sport and how the lessons she learned as an athlete are just as useful now. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Imagine creating a school system in a newly independent country. “It was exciting, it was scary. If I made a mistake, I can doom the nation forever”. That was the task facing Dr Dzingai Mutumbuka - Zimbabwe’s first education minister. Before 1980 black children in Zimbabwe were only able to get a basic education because of segregation. But after independence, in one year,  the education syste...

Peter Hyman worked in No 10 as a speechwriter for Tony Blair but left government more than a decade ago with a new mission - to reset the British education system with a new philosophy. He began as a classroom assistant and worked his way up to becoming headteacher of a new school in the East End of London with a radical approach. He wanted to create a system where school wasn’t a grind and teachi...

What can the story of a 19th century African American composer teach us about Accomplishment?  Sir Michael Barber and British pianist and musicologist Dr Samantha Ege discuss Florence Price and the lessons we can all learn from her remarkable life. Florence was a classical composer, pianist and music teacher who became the first African-American to have a composition played by a major orchest...

Helen Zille has been one of the most prominent, and sometimes controversial, figures in South African politics for several decades. The daughter of German Jews who escaped the Holocaust, she has been an activist and campaigned against apartheid her whole career. While working as a journalist in the late 1970’s, she helped expose the cover-up of the murder of black activist Steve Biko and has held...

New podcast coming soon! There is no secret formula for success. But what if there was a pattern you could follow? Sir Michael Barber has spent many years advising governments, businesses and major sports teams around the world on how to achieve ambitious goals. In the Accomplishment Podcast he discusses how to achieve ambitious goals with guests from the worlds of politics, education, sport and m...