Sport psychology and the world of business have many parallels. Perhaps the main underlying reason being that both share a performance aspect. As such, sport psychologists come ready with knowledge, as well as tools and practices well suited to the business world, as they are commonly hired to provide mental strategies which may double up as performance enhancers.
Sport psychology is not limited to sole matters of enhancing motivation. Other important elements of it include developing effective team dynamics, collaboration and communication strategies, identifying roles and responsibilities, goal setting, focus and taking action. These concepts can replicate not only in sport, but in business and even life in general.
How is Sport Psychology applied in the business world?
Articles such as Performance Excellence: A Personal Perspective on the Link Between Sport and Business[1] have been published explaining the parallels between the two fields and some of the cross-over principles are goal setting, leadership, performance under pressure, team dynamics, competition and confidence matters.
Lessons from the sporting world are powerful because provide insight into the challenges faced by business people. The sport psychologist will often establish relatedness with teams or individual sports people by drawing parallels between athletes and their performance environment and business people and their work environment, such that the term “corporate athlete”, originally coined by Loehr and Schwartz (2001)[2], has become highly popular.
Sports psychology helps to understand some of the effects of poor attitudes and behaviours leading to poor team dynamics, the importance of efficient communication, dealing with adverse situations on internal performance and business performance. Similarly, they can analyse workplace environments and provide sustainable strategies to enhance the internal environment and ultimately the business performance.
Some Applications of a Performance Psychology Model in Business
Focus
Learning to deal with distraction by situations or people that may detract from goals, but also being flexible if the ‘business game’ conditions change.
For example, multi-tasking may not always be a productive behaviour and could be detrimental to performance. Dealing with one task or one situation at a time is key when it comes to high performance. Overthinking leads to increased anxiety, which ultimately leads to poor focus. This is often seen in sports like tennis and golf.
Commitment
Elite performance starts with a personal choice of succeeding. What sets apart achievers from the rest is their deep determination to win, no matter how challenging the goals, they put in effort and commitment to reach their outcome. However, similarly to the athlete who also has to look after their health to perform at their peak, the corporate athlete has to evolve in a medium providing a good work/ life balance to avoid burn out.
Facing Adversity
Just like athletes have to work on building up a mindset have self-regulation strategies to turn to when they face critical situations and have to take critical decisions, sport psychology can provide similar tools in the business world, so that employees and executives build their own mechanisms to help them cope with their business demands.
Coping with Setbacks
Athletes prepare to perform, but also prepare to deal with setbacks because they learn how to face failure and redefine it. Managing setbacks develops the ability to refocus when things go off track. It is then easier to re-evaluate, establish contingency plans and initiate change.
Ongoing learning process
Ongoing learning is essential to peak performance. It includes reviewing, taking decisions, implementing changes after setbacks. It is also keeping an open mind and exploring new methods to improve performance, examining others, educating and training to improve ourselves. Feedback is also part of learning. That’s a key part of the relationship between coaches and athletes. It has to be understood that coaches, learn from their athletes and vice versa. In the same way, business leaders should understand, accept and practice that the learning process is a two-way traffic.
Given the strong parallels between sport and business it has become common for businesses to call on performance psychologists or sports psychologists to deliver training.
[1] Jones, G. (2002) Performance Excellence: A Personal Perspective on the Link Between Sport and Business, Journal of Applied Sports Psychology, 14 (4)
[2] Loehr, J., & Schwartz, T. (2001) The Making of A Corporate Athlete, Havard Business Review, 79 (1),120-8