The Performance Booster We Rarely Invest In

How the Collins Hume team recorded a 61% improvement in mental performance over 50 days!

In most professional environments, performance improvement focuses on skills, systems and effort. Yet there is another variable that quietly shapes all three.

Mental capacity. We recently explored what happens when that capacity is trained deliberately, measured objectively and applied to real work.

Over a 50-day period, our team undertook structured mental performance training delivered by Nathan Laverty, Founder of Advanced Mental Performance (AMP), using a framework grounded in cognitive neuroscience.

This 61% improvement was measured using neurocognitive assessments across areas including attentional control, cognitive flexibility and pattern recognition. These are the functions that determine how well a professional sustains focus under load, holds and processes information, and adapts thinking under pressure.

This experience reshaped how we think about performance and highlighted a powerful opportunity for teams to unlock even higher levels of professional capability.

Why we focused on mental performance

Like many professional teams, our people are capable, motivated and highly skilled. Yet even in supportive environments, familiar challenges still arise. Mental fatigue during sustained complex work. Difficulty maintaining focus amid constant interruption. Stress influencing judgement and productivity.

These challenges are often treated as workload issues or personal limitations. In reality, they reflect how the brain responds under prolonged demand.

Mental performance, like physical performance, is not fixed. It is trainable.

As one participant noted early in the AMP program, "I expected something abstract. Instead, the techniques were practical and immediately usable in a normal workday."

That practicality mattered.

What we trained

This was not a wellbeing initiative or a mindset seminar.

The AMP framework focused on training specific cognitive and nervous system functions that underpin professional performance. Attentional control and executive focus. Emotional regulation under pressure. Cognitive flexibility during problem solving. Mental recovery between demanding tasks.

Training consisted of short, structured daily practices designed to integrate into existing work patterns. There was no requirement to change personalities, working styles or workloads. The emphasis was on learning how to enter the right cognitive state for the task at hand and how to recover more quickly when focus or energy declined.

What changed in practice

Over the course of the program, several consistent shifts became apparent.

Thinking became clearer under pressure. Focus held for longer periods with less mental fatigue. Recovery from interruption and stress became faster. Reactive responses gave way to more deliberate decision making.

As one team member described it, "My thinking feels clearer than it has in years. I regain focus quickly and carry far less mental fatigue."

Another noted, "I'm getting through the same workload with far less mental strain, and making better decisions while doing it."

Importantly these improvements did not come from doing less work. They came from operating with greater cognitive efficiency.

Why this matters

In most organisations, performance improvement focuses on skills, systems and effort. Far less attention is paid to the mental capacity that enables all three.

As work becomes more cognitively demanding, mental performance often becomes the limiting factor long before technical ability does.

Our experience with Advanced Mental Performance reinforced that mental performance can be trained, measured and applied directly to real work.

For teams and leaders curious about what becomes possible when mental capacity is treated as a trainable skill, we are happy to share what we learned.

Advanced Mental Performance works with business leaders and their teams to improve focus, decision making and sustained cognitive performance under real world demands.

For those interested in exploring how mental performance training could apply in their own context, please contact Nathan Laverty Cognitive Neuroscientist at Advanced Mental Performance by email at nathan@advancedmentalperformance.com.au or via the website advancedmentalperformance.com.au.