23 chapter 1 • AN INTRODUCTION TO THE SIX BATTERIES OF CHANGE added that he wanted a clean (drug-free) winner. He attracted not only great riders, but also top sport experts, such as Rod Ellingworth, Tim Kerrison and Steve Peters, to rally behind that aspiration. He built an ambitious top team that worked towards realizing a shared ambition. After a disastrous Tour de France in 2010, Team Sky analyzed where it had gone wrong. Their conclusion was that Bradley Wiggins and Team Sky need- ed a different game plan, one that meant a break with cycling tradition. Ker- rison was the mastermind behind the new strategy: intense training at high altitude and reverse periodization – less racing and more training – turning the idea of gradual build-up to the Tour on its head. In the races, Team Sky adopted a defensive racing style, especially in the mountain stages. This rac- ing style leveraged Wiggins’ strengths as a time trial specialist and allowed him to cope better with the acceleration of the star climbers of the peloton. Team Sky’s strategy was clear to everybody in the organization. But strategy without action is merely a daydream. Team Sky needed an over- view of their action portfolio as well as a sound performance management system to keep track of progress on actions. For Team Sky, the aggregation of marginal gains principle unified all efforts to make the dream come true. Brailsford and his team put performance and training programs in place, worked on nutrition, and introduced technological innovations to boost rider performance, among several other initiatives: the grouping of all those ini- tiatives becomes a program, that needs to be monitored and screened. (Just like a strategy map groups all activities, this is a program for all Team Sky’s activities). In other words, Team Sky developed a powerful management in- frastructure to turn the strategy into results. Ellingworth, Sky’s performance manager, was responsible for recording what everybody was doing and monitoring how it was done. There was also commitment to discussing the lessons learned along the way. Ellingworth and Kerrison put together a method of internal communication, essential (though often neglected) if your team is spread across Europe. The pair also put advanced planning and logistics systems in place.13 Whether rider or member of staff, each individual had absolute clarity concerning