Christopher Pratt - Speaker on leadership

In offshore racing as in leading a company, decisions are rarely made with all the cards on the table. Data is either lacking or overwhelming, the context shifts, and one must still make a call, often alone, unsure of being right. In this conference, I share the method I have built over nearly 25 years of racing and refined through academic research, to help leaders make better decisions when the benchmarks disappear.

I start by dispelling two costly illusions: that of the visionary decision-maker who sees before everyone else, and that of intuition being sufficient to guide. A good decision is neither magic nor pure feeling; it is experience put into method. I provide participants with a simple framework to analyze each of their difficult decisions through three levers they can truly act upon: themselves and their understanding of their own functioning, their organization and resources, and the environment in which they operate.

From there, I show how to decide quickly without deciding poorly: prioritizing the essentials rather than trying to foresee everything, deciding at the right time and level, and then sticking to it to free up mental energy instead of burning it doubting. And how to decide collectively without drowning, to reduce blind spots without diluting responsibility.

Participants leave with a concrete and transferable method by Monday morning, to regain control over even their most difficult decisions.

No leader chooses their crises, but they can choose how to face them. At sea, uncertainty is not the exception, it is the daily reality: we navigate by sight, and crisis is part of the scenery. I experienced mine in its most brutal form, a capsizing in the middle of the night in the Atlantic, with a nine out of ten chance that it would end badly. What I took from it is not a tale of heroism, it is a method, and it is this that I share with leaders to hold on when the pressure rises.

I start from a paradox that sailors know well: we plan extremely rigorously, not to freeze the action, but to be able to deviate from it at the right moment. The more precise the plan, the better we know how to detach from it without panicking. I draw transferable benchmarks directly applicable in business. First, a crisis procedure is written in calm, when we are still clear-headed, never in the storm. Then, in the heart of the crisis, we execute what has been prepared: it is not the time to think, it is the time to act. Finally, the debriefing, essential for progress, is never done in the heat of the moment, lest it damage the team's cohesion.

I also show how, in the midst of a storm, we are already preparing for the exit from the crisis, to set the sail again as soon as the sky clears and turn the ordeal into an advantage. Participants leave with concrete benchmarks to anticipate, hold on, and bounce back, nourished by the tools of offshore racing teams and by research on decision-making in extreme environments.

Most of the leaders we support experience the same paradox: cutting-edge tools, and yet a still artisanal method for using them. I know this gap well because my profession has experienced it before them. In less than a decade, competitive sailing has changed worlds: the adventurous sailor, on deck in contact with the elements, has given way to the engineer pilot, locked in a cockpit at the controls of complex systems. On board an IMOCA, three hundred sensors measure the boat and the environment in real-time, and almost none measure the sailor. One pilots with the numbers on a screen, sometimes without even seeing the sea.

In this conference, I share with leaders a method to truly benefit from AI and data without being dispossessed of their judgment. I start from a simple idea: AI does not change the usefulness of data, it multiplies what can be done with it, but incomprehensible data does not become strategic just because a model has processed it. Its relevance always relies on that of the expert analyzing it. The real issue is therefore not what AI can do, but how to feed it intelligently and to answer what question. The need precedes the tool, whereas in business, tools are often purchased before the question has been posed.

I provide concrete benchmarks to decide: to distinguish between data that secures and that which optimizes, to know when to listen to the numbers and when to listen to one's experience, and to remember that the best sensor on board is not instrumented; it is the human, their sensations, and their experiences. Participants leave with a method to integrate AI and data into their decisions without ever delegating what must remain a human choice.

Every leader has already made this observation: bringing together the best is not enough to create a great team. A collection of experts does not constitute a crew. In offshore racing, where a few live and decide in a confined space under high pressure, this truth becomes evident: what makes the difference is not the sum of talents, but the ability to cooperate. In this conference, I share with leaders what sailing has taught me to transform a group of good individuals into a truly high-performing collective.

I start from the zone of genius, that space where everyone is both excellent and fully motivated. The diversity of backgrounds and personalities becomes a real driver of performance, provided that everyone finds their rightful place. I describe those moments when a collective truly works together, where everyone adjusts their role without needing to say everything: this is what I call flow, and a crew in this state even makes its leader dispensable.

I then show what creates it concretely: clear roles, life rules on board that are enforceable by all, economical and precise communication, and above all this principle that changes everything, the lead goes to the one who knows, not to the one who has the title. I recount how repositioning just one person in their zone of genius can revitalize an entire team. Participants leave with concrete levers for cooperation, transversality, and collective intelligence, directly transferable to their own teams.

I will start with something a bit disturbing: I am not sure that my profession is ecological. Competitive sailing is a mechanical sport. A racing boat is a concentrate of technology, but also of resources, with a carbon impact that is not neutral. So before asking me how to save the oceans, I prefer to ask the question that too many leaders avoid: are we even legitimate to talk about it? It is from this honesty that I start to help leaders move beyond speeches and truly take action.

In this conference, I refuse greenwashing and easy postures to focus on what matters: behaviors. The real challenge of the transition is not primarily technological. Changing a model is not about changing a tool; it is about changing habits, reflexes, ways of deciding and cooperating, and this is where almost all transformations falter. I show how the world of offshore racing is gradually moving from a sport that consumes to a sport that contributes, through the solutions it transmits, particularly to the merchant navy, to provide leaders with a concrete model of transformation through actions rather than intentions.

But the greatest lesson the sea has taught me is not technological; it is frugality. When you live for weeks at sea with very little, you realize that almost nothing is missing, and you relearn how to define what is essential. Saving the oceans may not be about repairing them; it is about learning to live without damaging them. Participants leave with a different perspective on their transition and on what, in their organization as well as in their life, truly deserves their attention.