Organizational Psychology - 3 Critical Similarities Between Corporate Teams & Sports Teams
About the Author
Ben Foodman is a licensed psychotherapist & performance specialist. He owns his private practice located in Charlotte North Carolina where he specializes in working with athletes to help them overcome mental blocks (the yips), PTSD, ADD / ADHD and achieve flow states through the techniques of Brainspotting & Neurofeedback. If you are interested in services, use the link here! Enjoy the article below!
Introduction: Organizational Psychology & Sports Teams Performance Processes
When I am working with corporate athletes and leaders within the business community, these individuals are often surprised to learn that the approaches I use to help them improve their performance are almost exactly the same as the ones I use with athletes and sports teams. Some of this confusion is rooted in the perception that because elite athletes & sports teams are engaged in physically demanding activities, then this must mean that the psychological training approaches they use will need to be immensely more complex than those needed within the world of corporate athletes. This misconception couldn’t be further from the truth when in fact some of the most critical aspects of psychological skills used by sports teams are in fact directly transferable to the business world.
Because this is a topic that frequently comes up during my work with teams within the corporate athlete world, I wanted to use this Training Report to discuss 3 critical similarities between corporate teams & sports teams. First I am going to review the importance of an authentic mission statement and why this is the first step towards establishing a successful team. Next, I will discuss what exceptional leadership means and how organizations can recruit and develop these types of individuals. Finally, I will explore what it means to be an organization that is focused on process driven outcomes. Let’s begin by diving into what an authentic mission statement is.
Part I. Organizational Psychology, Corporate Athletes & Scale
I have discussed the importance of having an authentic mission statement in previous Training Reports, and this truly is an issue that consistently comes up during my work with new organizations. When speaking with team leaders one of the most common issues I hear from them is that their employees seem to ‘lack energy’ and do not appear as motivated as one would hope. When discussing the possibility of ‘rebranding’ the organization’s mission statement, many of my clients initially are very hesitant with this idea because they feel this action would either make them look indecisive, or would change the foundation of their entire purpose for existing. This doesn’t need to be the case though when developing an authentic mission statement, and is actually a common issue even amongst collegiate and professional sports teams. There are many effective ways to deal with this issue.
For instance, let’s say you have a company that is involved within the clean energy industry that develops and distributes hardware focused on environmentally friendly solutions such as solar energy. The company’s current mission statement could be the following: we create energy efficient solutions meant to help both our environment and communities. It’s not that there is anything wrong with a statement like this, but is there a way your company can connect more with people on an individual and personal basis? In my experience, an authentic mission statement should speak to individuals on a personal level. When done properly this connection will inevitably lead to both finding team members that are truly bought in and will organically increase individual motivation levels. This methodology works when trying to motivate athletes, and there is no reason to think this won’t work in the corporate athlete sector.
Part II. Organizational Psychology & Leadership
Whenever we take an inventory of some of the greatest team sport athletes, one feature that they almost always have in common is that they are exceptional leaders. In my opinion there are two key features of exceptional team sport leaders: these individuals possess immense integrity (meaning that there actions are consistent and supported by well-documented experience these individuals truly care for each and every member of the team (this includes everyone from fellow athletes, to support staff members). Like successful sports teams, high performance corporate athletes and business leaders have more in common with these characteristics than they don’t.
Leaders that run successful companies no doubt have a variety of unique characteristics, but without these two key features it will be incredibly difficult to get ‘buy in’ from team members. In order to cultivate an environment and culture that has both long-term sustainability and durability, team leaders need to actually demonstrate on a regular basis that everything they do is in keeping with the mission statement (possessing immense integrity), and communicate empathy and positive social connection with their team members (truly caring for each and every team member). By regularly practicing these features, business leaders will be establishing a culture that will outlast their time on the team, therefore creating a successful team.
Part III. Corporate Athletes & Process Goals
Like sports teams, many organizations are driven by bottom-line outcomes. How profitable was the company? Did we secure new contracts with the types of clients we are pursuing? Are we scaling our business at the most efficient rate possible? While we all want to have story-book endings when it comes to our organization’s outcomes, corporate leaders need to rethink the importance of outcome goals. A different way to think about this is that an outcome goal is actually a shape, and that shape is conceptualized through the collection of many process goals. Most people think that process goals lead to desired outcomes, but in fact an outcome goal allows us to accurately identify what our process goals should be.
Team leaders and elite corporate athletes should place exclusive focus individuals accomplishing their process goals rather than bottom-line results. For instance, a baseball pitcher can focus on throwing x amount of strikes, or they can focus on executing proper throwing mechanics and creating positive psychosomatic feelings. Any baseball player will tell you that even with perfect movement mechanics it is still possible to throw a dud pitch, but these athletes will agree that the more often you focus on the process, the more likely you are to throw a specifically desired pitch. Wanting to throw strikes doesn’t actually make you throw strikes. Corporate athletes and business leaders should take the same approach and trust that if their process goals are accurate measurements of their desired outcome goals, then they will have put themselves in the best position to succeed!
Note To Reader:
If you are an athlete reading this segment of the TRAINING REPORT, hopefully this content was helpful! I put the Training Report together because I felt like many of the discussions on issues such as the Yips/mental blocks, strength training & other subject matter on athlete performance concepts were really missing the mark on these ideas (e.g. how trauma is the direct cause of the Yips). If you are interested in learning more, make sure to subscribe below for when I put out new content on issues related to sport psychology & athlete performance! Also, if you are looking to work with a mental performance specialist, you are in the right place! USE THIS LINK to reach out to me to see if my services are the right fit for your goals!
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