The back story: The Gilbert Model

Introducing the Gilbert Model

My book, Make work work for you is hitting the Amazon bookshelves and flying out the door as Christmas presents for the leader, team members or colleague you want to give a gift of learning and growth.

In this edition of my blog, I share with you how the Gilbert Model came about and why it is the underpinning of all business excellence now and into the future.

The back story: How I made the Gilbert Model

Sitting in front of my IKEA 5 x 5 “KALLAX” bookshelf, each of the 25 boxes represents a stage where I went deep. Books are double stacked, taking up entire sections, reflecting my hyperfocus and relentless dive into learning. This isn’t just a collection—it’s a testament to late nights, mentorships, courses, and endless research that shaped what would become the Gilbert Model.

Yes, I’m a total nerd. I froth at this stuff. I’ve spent Saturday nights reading blogs, following leaders in the lived experience and thought leadership spaces, and soaking up therapies like Schema Therapy, Acceptance Commitment Therapy (ACT), and Neurodiversity affirming practices. Looking at this bookshelf now, it’s clear that my journey to understanding performance, growth, and wellbeing wasn’t just academic. It was personal, shaped by challenges, triumphs, and a fierce need for change.

Why the Three Pedals?

I’ve encountered many leaders who’ve suffered through occupational burnout. Their stories are often gut-wrenching—tales of two-month hospital stays and the determination never to risk it again. They weren’t willing to expose themselves to a system that demanded “all in” without considering the cost. The Gilbert Model was born from this collective pain and my own life experiences.

“If you don’t have your health, you don’t have anything.” That’s more than just a saying—it’s the reality. Wellbeing isn’t a part of life; it is life. It’s the heartbeat. Yet, even when leaders shifted to prioritize wellbeing after periods of high performance, they often found themselves in the same place just months later: Six months later, everybody’s burnt out again. It became a vicious cycle.

The Mechanics of the Gilbert Model

The Gilbert Model frames contemporary methods needed in today’s world of work. It’s time to throw out the broken basics—the strategies that haven’t evolved and are no longer serving us.

Performance is about doing great. It’s delivering impactful results in a way that’s strategic and sustainable, and creating a ripple effect that sustains future performance. It’s not just about checking boxes; it’s about results, approaches, and creating lasting impact.

Growth is about getting better. It’s more than growth for growth’s sake—it’s movement with direction and purpose. Purpose fuels depth and ensures growth aligns with meaningful goals.

Wellbeing is about feeling good. But not in a superficial, individual-responsibility-only way. It’s the synergy between the internal (your mindset and resilience), external (environment and systems), and relational (connections and social expectations). Wellbeing is more than a personal endeavor; it’s influenced by and influences the ecosystem around you.

Each of these elements is essential, and without anyone, you risk an imbalanced and unsustainable system:

· Performance + Growth = Acceleration, but without wellbeing, it’s unsustainable: As I say in my book, at one point, burnout became an epidemic and everybody was jumping ship.

· Growth + Wellbeing = Evolution, but without performance, it’s potential left unrealized: You’re moving forward and developing… However, unless you include performance in the mix, the organisation will be unviable.

· Performance + Wellbeing = Consistency, but without growth, you stay

underdeveloped.

Performance + Growth + Wellbeing means an individual, team, or organisation is accelerating and evolving consistently. This is excellence. It’s about pushing the right pedal at the right time and creating a balance where all three coexist, reinforcing one another. It’s not a zero-sum game where focusing on one means sacrificing the others. It’s about flow, alignment, and hitting all three pedals in a way that doesn’t compromise: “It’s not a trade-off. It’s plus, plus, plus!”

Excellence Found at the Edges

The biggest misconception? Thinking of these elements as separate or in competition. The real magic happens in the spaces where they intersect. Excellence is found around the edges… We need to reduce the friction between these three areas and create flow and alignment between them. Leaders often viewed performance, growth, and wellbeing as separate forces, or worse, as a zero-sum game. But when leaders learn to push the right pedal without backing off on the others, excellence becomes attainable.

Real Stories, Real Lessons

I’ve lost count of the number of leaders I’ve coached through these challenges. One of the most impactful lessons they’ve learned is that pressing one pedal hard while ignoring the others never leads to lasting success: Are you personally enhancing the whole organisation’s ability to be agile? Each coaching session reinforced the reality that balance is key, and only when leaders move beyond trade-offs do they truly thrive.

The hard hitting stats

To ground this model in hard evidence, let’s look at some relevant data:

· The World Health Organization reports that burnout leads to a global loss of productivity, costing an estimated $1 trillion annually. This underscores why integrating wellbeing with performance and growth is essential.

· Gallup’s research shows that only 32% of U.S. employees are engaged at work, and when wellbeing declines, this percentage drops further, impacting performance and retention.

The Urgency of Change: Hurry up, let’s go

We’re in a moment when rethinking work is more important than ever. As I say in my book, Make work work for you, the need to make work truly work for more people is urgent. And we know what Einstein thought: “We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.” It’s time to evolve—not just in our organisations, but in ourselves.

Wrap up

The Gilbert Model isn’t just theory—it’s a response to real struggles faced by leaders and teams. It’s the culmination of years of study, life experiences, and stories of resilience. It’s time to stop bargaining between growth, performance, and wellbeing and start creating a model that’s plus, plus, plus. To feel good, do great, and get better.

When performance, growth, and wellbeing align, that’s when we find business excellence. That’s when we make work work for you.