HR Looks To Mental Toughness and Sport For Help

Performance psychology is a branch of psychology that focuses upon the factors that allows individuals, teams, and groups to flourish and to achieve their aim of being the best. It is far away, from other psychology branches steeped in malady and dysfunction. This is a combination of business, positive and sports psychology looking forward towards ideal outcomes. It engages the performer on how to be successful by developing the power of the mind and to practice mental skills training in their daily lives as they would any technical and learning training. This encourages peak performance, often under the most extreme levels of pressure in fields such as sport and business. In recent times there has been huge growth in this area as excellence in sport is being likened and applied to business performance. There are clear links being established between world class performance within sport and the results of businesses that engage the services. The training that underpins the psychology of performance has been researched and scientifically proven over many decades and is perfect grounding for those in business who wish to deliver an exceptional performance when it really matters. A good analogy is that of the ‘Corporate Athlete’ as featured in Harvard business Review.

There are many benefits to the organisation by introducing mental skills training. These include exceptional performance by individuals on a daily basis, less staff turnover and related recruitment costs, better working environment and improved bottom line results from performance enhancements, efficiencies and effectiveness. The workforce or management are highly motivated and engaged, focused and determined towards individual or team goals. They communicate better and produce more creativity in their work towards customer solutions. They bounce back from setbacks, identify the critical moments, they take the correct calculated risks and have the endurance to see the challenge through. The benefits are produced from a process of direction, drive, control and mastery within their working day achieved by the introduction of a Mindset 12 set of psychological skills training areas. The 12 areas are professional attitude, goal setting, motivation, intensity, concentration, psychological preparation, self-confidence, emotional control, mental rehearsal, thoughts control, mental toughness and team dynamics and cohesion. Imagine a workforce who is highly motivated, with the right attitude transacting with their customers, peers, direct reports and management.

So why is this important? As we travel through challenging and difficult economic times it is clear that modern business will need to evolve to compete in new emerging and fragmented markets, changing customers, demanding buyer personas and new product and service solutions. The pursuit of competitive advantage will become paramount and arming our staff and managers with new skills from within, may well be your answer. It may also be one of the cheapest and rewarding options available to you. Ask Proctor & Gamble, Google, PepsiCo, Dell, Merrill Lynch, 3M, Microsoft, US Army and many more widely documented for using these mental skills as part of their staff & executive development, particularly embracing all the new science around motivation and the costs involved with employee disengagement.

HR directors need to be interested by this performance area. Their workforces have been developed, trained and practiced often in an
expensive and sometimes fragmented way and yet training above the shoulders has only been approached in situations of poor behaviour or dysfunction. This is changing, and as in sport, this form of development is looked upon as a positive and performance enhancing thing to do not only for the individual but also for the company. It certainly isn’t touchy feely or of a soft nature. Could you imagine the world’s greatest sporting champions embracing anything that wasn’t underpinned by science or delivered by untrained and unprofessional consultants, as they look for the slightest edge in their sport? I don’t think so, because sport is ultra competitive like business and the rewards to the victor are substantial. Remember some of these guys have worked day after day for their treasured prize maybe for 20 years for this one opportunity of 20 seconds!!

Directors in HR need to become enlightened towards a new approach and how it will impact on their organisations. This change of thought process will need to be accepted at all levels. They will find that anyone understanding performance in sport, arts and entertainment will be advocates early on and understand that the skills transfer over into the business arena very well. The implementation and delivery method for the mental skill packages will need the same planning as with technical training. The planning will address which elements of a blended approach and technology if any, are needed; it may be right for workshops, elearning or personal coaching or various combinations. Once implemented the commitment should be there towards individual and team improvements and purpose.

So how are you going to do it? There are two ways to approach the development. Firstly, the organisation can develop mental skills coaches within the business as they may have done with coaches in the past. There are many sports coaches I work with that I train in psychological skills training who then pass self awareness and interventions on to their athletes. This can be successful if there are close relationships already there. Secondly, the organisation can outsource the awareness, design, implementation and ongoing improvement work to skilled mental training coaches who preferably have experience of sport and business. The HRD needs to allocate commitment and budget resources to the initiative.

So what could go wrong and why? There are important areas to consider that ensures success. If a failure results it is often when the changes in environment, attitude, and commitment are not communicated; the skills learned are not maintained with deliberate practice; tangible ROI’s are not identified and measured; management style needs to change more to Theory Y than Theory X and lack of understanding brings apathy and amotivation. However, get these right and the company is on the peak performance route to success.

In conclusion apart from the decades of scientific, empirical and anecdotal evidence within sport it is not difficult to understand every challenge we are trying to overcome at work with products, services, customers, suppliers, management are all connected to the performance of our people. Giving them the mental edge helps you gain competitive advantage for long term success over your rivals and turns your people into mentally tough individuals both at work and in their personal lives.

 

Geoff Greenwood Business Training

http://www.businesstrainingonline.co.uk

 

Sports Psychology In The Boardroom

Geoff Greenwood Feature Article In business Executive Magazine

People are screaming and shouting, the noise is intense, the clock is ticking, in a few minutes you will take to the track and get into your position. You have trained and competed for years for this single moment,  trained in all weathers and in all hours, but you have done this because you want to be the best. Your heart is thumping, your mouth is dry and your blood pressure is rising and you cannot quiet the thoughts in your mind. This anxiety starts physiological meltdown… The athletes condition is comparable to that of a CEO/COO on the verge of a major decision affecting his company and his reputation. This approach and situation is what is found everyday in elite sport, and every successful athlete has the knowledge and skills to train their mind to be able to deal with this type of pressure effectively.

The knowledge of performing under pressure in sport is now being harvested and implemented into Corporate life. The ability to change a manager’s mindset from a fixed mode into a growth mode coupled with working on their inner excellence starts to build mental strength allowing the individual to perform at the highest level often under the greatest amount of pressure. The process is one of direction, drive, control and mastery in many of the mental performing skills such as motivation, self-confidence, emotions, attitudes and mental toughness to name a few.

Many business leaders will understand the idea of the ‘Corporate Athlete’ the sporting and business worlds are very similar, both being highly competitive and have to operate under extreme stress to deliver exceptional returns. The ‘athlete in a suit’ delivers exceptional human performance in the workplace and has the ability to perform like an Olympian. They just need self awareness of what can change and how to implement into their daily performing lives at the office instead of the track. There is a serious need to implement a ‘Mental Game Plan’ for owners, executives, managers and staff who are entering extremely difficult market conditions within these challenging times. Staff need to be more creative and bring new solutions for a more demanding customer and new emerging markets.

These psychological skills added to the physical, technical and tactical creates and develops a more rounded individual ready for the changes in the workplace. The full lead feature that I have written for the business Executive Magazine can be read here…. and more information on our business consulting approach to training & development for exceptional human performance can be found at our business training website.

Geoff Greenwood FCCA MBA MSc

Business Consultants Specialising in the training & development of human potential and talent.

How to motivate and motivating employees

As we progress into our second decade of the 21st century, it is becoming clear within the body of evidence available that the mechanistic and algorithmic tasks within the workplace of the last 30 years or so will need to be replaced by heuristic, creative and right brain thinking and solutions. To achieve these solutions a change of emphasis within the ideas of motivation throughout organisations will be needed.

These changes will address issues such as;

• How to motivate
• Motivating employees
• Motivational training
• Motivation management 

All these issues and more are addressed within the latest scientific literature acquired by behavioural scientists within business, sport, medicine, entertainment and personal development to name a few over the last 50 years or so. Unfortunately, what science knows and what business does are miles apart in terms of application.

An understanding of how to motivate and motivating employees will need a mindset change amongst owners, executives and managers who throughout the latest decades have followed a pattern of rewards and punishment to staff on the grounds that they will be a better job with this control, direction, micro-management and coercion on a minute by minute basis. The future of our organisations needs change and they need it now.

It is not just me and my fellow scientists who agree but there is so much anecdotal evidence from some of the world’s greats such as Google, Toyota, Microsoft, Face Book, 3M etc who are generating exceptional growth, zero labour turnover and wealth along with a workforce who are focused, motivated and extremely happy and satisfied in their working arena.

Much of my work at present centres around organisations that are changing their motivational style from the old to the new. I can discuss with you the scientific and anecdotal evidence that underpins this work; show you how we can measure the engagement of your staff at baseline and implement strategies that will improve that engagement score in the near future. We can also help in implementing the whole shift in culture with you or for you.

Contact me any time to discuss what motivating management, motivating employees, motivation training and how to motivate can improve you and your organisation’s prospects today.

Geoff Greenwood FCCA MBA MSc

Corporate Clients Personal Clients

Technological Future of Business Training and Development

I have been shown sight of the latest research into business training and development utilising the very latest technological advances and platforms available for elearning. The research highlights why companies are using electronic and digital methods to deliver exceptional content and learning to a diverse range of staff spread geographically often highlighting differences in culture, understanding and language. I have created a slimmed down version of the elearning research for your convenience and can be downloaded here. E learning and etraining are available for companies of all sizes now embracing the new thought processes and delivery methods normally not available due to cost constraints etc.

The report discusses the background to the adoption of elearning and how it is affecting the professional development at an individual level along with the impact the technologies have on organisations and its’ customers and how the future in this area will look. Management training is top of the list overtaking compliance training for professionals.

We anticipate that learning programmes especially online learning will fit around work as opposed to work being fitted around training leave.

The report goes on to discuss:

1. The driving forces of talent strategies.
2. Technology as the support system for learning and work.
3. The online learning continuum.
4. The blended learning approach.
5. Creating a non-linear programme.
6. The e-learning benefits.
7. The implementation success factors.
8. How the future looks for our e-staff.
9. The fastest growth areas.
10. Practical recommendations for the future.

To discuss these findings or any requirements that you may have around blended learning solutions and the use of technology then contact us for an informal chat.

Geoff Greenwood FCCA MBA MSc

www.geoffgreenwood.com

www.businesstrainingonline.co.uk

Management Performance and Employee Engagement

Management performance and employee engagement are 2 critical areas for organisations in the new era. They will define the new competitive advantage for enlightened organisations in the next period following the agricultural and industrial revolutions, silicon chip and outsourcing. This new era will see the need to develop the minds of staff, managers and executives to deliver exceptional human performance for their companies and for themselves.

If business was to take a leaf from the sporting science world it would see exceptional advantage by developing the mind for mental strength in performance. All the great sporting champions develop their sporting performance mind for success and to establish an edge over their competitor. This edge is often the difference between success and failure. It is now commonly thought that being born with talent is not the deciding factor, but the practice, learning and development of a skillset more often than not determines the outcome. This is fabulous news for all of us that thought we are stuck with the hand that we were dealt with, when really we can decide to learn and become the best in whatever we choose to do.

Our approach in business for our clients is a pathway of psychological core, growth mindset, inner excellence, mental strength and performance under pressure. The outcome is an individual who has passion, clarity, determination, presence and pleasure from all that they do both at work and at home. Read more about management performance and employee engagement here.

Geoff Greenwood

Performance At Work Book

Performance at work and high performance work is very high in the list of priorities both for organisations and staff and management. As we are experiencing exceptional economic conditions that our generation has never experienced before it is vital that once we are in the workplace we make every moment and every decision count. Staff and management are under pressure to deliver high performance work even though they see cutbacks, redundancies, tighter resource allocation and uncertainty about their future.

This brought me to write my latest book on performance at work entitled “The 12 Biggest Business Problems You Cannot Solve…Are All Really Mental” In the book I have identified 12 business challenges that we all face everyday and linked them to 12 performance psychology strategies that will help to overcome them. Often these strategies are unknown to owners and leaders and the text is written in a simple style, often stripping out the scientific speak that underpins the research to make the understanding much easier.

For a limited time period I am willing to offer a complimentary copy to readers who would be prepared to give me some feedback on the book once read. The book can be ordered absolutely FREE from the following page: Performance at work

Did you know for instance that disengagement at work by your employees is costing US firms over $300bn per annum in lost productivity and that you are almost certainly using the wrong types of motivation in your organisation for your staff and management that is affecting your results and their job satisfaction.

I hope to speak with you very soon about your high performance at work.

Geoff Greenwood FCCA MBA MSc

www.businesstrainingonline.co.uk

Business Coaching Goes Mental

We have been asked to write a series of articles for Qype as a guest blogger covering the area of business coaching and our new and unique approach to business success by developing the human potential in your staff and workforce. The first article is entitled “Business Coaching Goes Mental” and can be read by selecting the link here.

The article gives an introduction into the constructs of what makes a corporate athlete or a businessman in a suit, whichever image fits your perspective. A new approach to business training is favoured as economic times are exceptional at the moment and strategies that are used by the world’s top performing athletes to become a winner can also be used as the competitive edge in business.

Enjoy the article and the further ones to follow.

Geoff Greenwood

Performance Psychology

How to be successful utilising performance paychology

At last people all over the world are waking up to the possibility of delivering exceptional human performance in anything that they do. They are now understanding the mind-body connection, power of the mind or psycho-physical as often known. This new mindset and awakening is towards performance psychology that uses the science behind exceptional sporting achievement and wraps it up/tailors it for the client whether they are sports performers themselves, dancers or other entertainers, business people and staff or individuals in the professions.

Professionals are using performance psychology for how to improve business, become successful and deliver exceptional human performance. Dancers, musicians and stage players may choose to finally alleviate stage fright or performance anxiety and business owners understand the need for new forms of motivation to help the organisation thrive and to allow their people to work in autonomy, practice mastery and aspire towards a higher purpose in their contribution.

To explain performance psychology and utilising the power of the mind, I have much written on my website that will give you a better understanding of its power and the control that it gives you plus a video showing the constituent parts and benefits.

Geoff Greenwood

Performance Psychology & Business Training

Mental strength in football

Mental strength in football can be characterised by 2 top premiership teams on Saturday and Sunday. Manchester United played Everton on the Saturday lunch time and as expected it was a tough game with Everton defending throughout the 90 minutes. United also had their sights on their next trip to Germany 2 days later in a vital Champions League semi final. Arsenal had a somewhat easier trip to Bolton who had been smashed the week before 5 -0 by Stoke in the FA cup semi final and where they nearly always enjoyed favourable results.

As the United match progressed, things were not going well and time was running out but with 6 minutes to go they made the breakthrough with a headed goal at the back post. At Bolton Arsenal came back from a goal down to level at 1 – 1 and had numerous chances to win the game as continually they breeched the Bolton defence until the 90th minute when Bolton headed the winner from a corner resigning Arsenal to 3rd place 9 points adrift of the leaders Manchester United.

The difference between the 2 teams was purely mental strength. United have been here before and never give up no matter how long is on the clock. Their manager is a winner who shows total determination and self belief in his players which carries onto the pitch with anyone wearing a red shirt. Arsenal think that the title can be won with the feet and not the head. They crumble in the face of adversity, pressure and opposition. They believe that they should not be tackled because they are purists and are looking for someone to step up and create the winning goal. It doesn’t happen because team spirt dictates that you all step up and give everything that you have for the cause and your own luck will be made.

Arsenal manager this morning has taken the blame; he is wrong the players need to take the blame, they didn’t convert yesterday and messed up in the last minute; they messed up in the last minute of the Carling cup final, they missed a winning chance in the last minute of the Champions league against Barcelona and have let many winning positions slip this year.

Two teams with equal ability, resources and history but major differences in mental strength. Those with the mental strength deliver silverware and those without don’t. Mental strength is about self belief, determination, a never say die attitude, steely focus and total concentration until that whistle has blown. Soon everybody will realise that the great winners and champions practice things above their shoulders to gain that competitive advantage.

Geoff Greenwood

Sports Psychology Business Psychology Online business training

Performance Coaching Final Step – Removing Outer Obstacles To Performance

The final article on performance coaching covers two final areas. Firstly, the external factors that get into the person’s head and affects their performance and secondly, performance psychology aspects that relate to teams. More information can be found on online business training, sports psychology and business psychology and how it helps you deal with these mental pressures.

1. People: These can be people very close to you and can easily undermine what you are trying to achieve. They say things like “Why not stop your dreaming and get a real job”.  These statements are negative affirmations and should be avoided at all costs. People not so close or in competition with you may want you to focus on other distracting areas that will hinder your peak performance.

2. Stress: This can appear from many external areas such as life events like bereavement, divorce and loss of job. Even happy life events can affect your performance like a new born or moving to a new home. Stress affects the mental and physical state of the person so eradicating strategies are needed immediately. We recommend relaxation strategies, coupled with mental imagery and positive self-talk.

3. Environment: Stress related to working conditions such as temperature, light, space and noise. All affect your psychology and performance. Learn to rationalise, relax and imagery to reduce stress levels.

Now we will look at these events that affect individuals, how it spills over into the team settings. The coach or manager needs to ensure that the team has goals that override those of the individual; realaxation and visualisation as a group imagining perfect performance; team music can bring all the girls together in one place prior to competition and team talk amongst each member, highlighting each other’s positives and strengths.

Always ensure that team communications are allotted plenty of time and delivered in a calm positive manner, this helps eradicate conflict when it happens; always encourage your team mates to perform better for the greater good of the team. Remember if the team performs better then individual performances must have also rather than vice versa. You should show commitment to a goal, maintain inner calmness, trust your intuition, be optimistic, have a positive mental preparation, enjoy the love and support of close members and have a persistance never to give up.

So there we have a quick insight into external triggers that we need to be aware of. If you have any questions on performance coaching then contact us to discuss.

Geoff Greenwood

Peak Performance

Web Based Training

Web based training offers some fantastic benefits to individuals and companies alike. If we consider cost, access and learning style then this adds up to significant benefits. Web based training covers a new and unique approach to improved business training and performance.

Web based training benefit 1: Cost in a fraction of what in person business training costs. There are no heavy overheads for the learning creators and the participants do not leave their office or place of work, so no work is missed. Trainers do not cancel at the last minute through sickness etc.

Web based training benefit 2: Access is greatly increased because online business training is available 24 hours a day, 7 days per week through any computer any where in the world. The trainee can access through rest periods and home time to suit themselves, in fact it is always on demand.

Web based training benefit 3: Learning style is facilitated with interactivity within the course. For instance our executive training online UK package incorporates end of course testing allowing for feedback and understandability. This style and pace suits many of our customers and online business training videos can be paused and replayed over and over again.

Web based training is available now and develops managers, high performers and all staff members in performance psychology improvements for peak delivery for their organisations. We transfer the work that we have done with great athletes and winners into a mental toughness package for delivery in business. It is available now at a recession busting introductory price.

Geoff Greenwood

Online business training & Web based training

Performance Coaching Step 5 – Removing more inner obstacles

The final section on performance coaching obstacles are self confidence and thought patterns. Many people believe that their confidence will return or in fact appear for the first time when a certain event happens in their favour such as football Premiership managers stating that when they string a few favourable results together, then the confidence will return. However, the thinking is the wrong way around. It is the self confidence that influences performance and not the other way around. Business training will address this type of thinking.

As we discussed earlier it is beliefs (confidence is one) that determine performance. So staff and athletes need to develop a new positive belief which is total confidence. A short list of solutions for this (not exhaustive at all) may include:

1. Complete positive listings
2. Write positive confidence building affirmations
3. Use visualisation
4. Watch video playback of confident moments, events or people
5. Produce a well formed confidence plan

It helps to ensure that the person’s manager is onboard to help with the identification of low self confidence and to help with feedback and implementation of resolving strategies. Online business training can assist.

Thought patterns are the damage to our peak performance and need to be identified and eliminated by replacement with empowering ones. We list here 5 negative thought patterns:

1. Self-sabotage; a pessimistic approach to sensing things will go wrong. The filters notice negative examples and our negative self-talk reinforces.
2. Middle Zone; this is where you get psychologically caught between two situations. An example would be an athlete worrying about his health when she trains and worries about her training when she is being checked over medically.
3. Over-competitiveness; can lead to problems with life/work balance and produce catastrophe thinking when a minor thing goes wrong. In a team setting this individual will pursue solo goals at the expense of team goals.
4. Old stuck states; what we consider a rut and leads to colleagues seeing them as stubborn or old fashioned.
5. Dreamers; these individuals enjoy the thinking about the goals and outcomes but never take any action to pursue them. This state actually demotivates them at the lack of progress.

So that brings us to the end of the inner barriers and tomorrow we will consider some external ones that hinder performance.

Geoff Greenwood

Sports Psychology Business Psychology Online Business Training

Performance Coaching – Step 4 – Remove Inner Obstacles

Inner barriers restrict peak performance. Lets consider the skills training here and some strategies to overcome.

1. Negative Memories: This is a common problem triggered by a particular event or venue. The negative memory triggers emotional discomfort and negative self-talk. The cluster of brain cells notices negative things and reinforces the memory. The negative aspect stimulates an anxiety response in the individual manifesting itself in tight muscles, poor decision making and recall along with loss of energy etc. If you consider this, who can perform efficiently under these circumstances? Thoughts and statements follow such as I cannot do that, it always ends this way and I always fail. Unfortunately, it may not be possible to identify the exact trigger and issues such as superstitions kick in and good or bad performances are linked to these. For instance, I performed a very poor presentation after nearly crashing my car on the way to work…guess what happens at the next presentations? The performance would depend on whether I nearly crashed the car or not. This trigger has stimulated negative memories which starts the thoughts and perceptions off leading to poor performance and thus reinforcement of the negative memory again.  We need to instil the techniques learned in the last article. Produce positive listings and reflection; Devise affirmations on how you would prefer to be; learn to reframe the memory creating new memories and practice pattern breaking.
2. Negative Expectations: This is different from negative memories in that they are not recalling a past memory but creating negative expectations of a forthcoming event. The worse case scenario comes to the forefront. You start thinking about a negative outcome with negative thoughts, self-talk and poor images leading to bad feelings. There are many techniques to overcome including affirmation, visualisation and detachment.
3. Limiting beliefs: Many people have these without really knowing and it is impacting on your performance. “All good things come to an end, My luck always runs out and I am not good enough with my peers. Challenge these limiting beliefs by questions asked repeatedly down 3 to 5 levels. It makes a nonsense of the belief. Other techniques include visualisation, affirmations and goal setting.
4. Inappropriate Emotions: Being over-emotional burns useful energy and steals your focus away from the performance. These emotions can include hate, anger, anxiety, envy and greed etc. Techniques to remove are relaxation, visualisation and affirmations.
5. A Systematic Approach: The well formed outcome can address these inner barriers and is made up of the following 7 stages: What do you want (positive); when, where and with whom do you want this; what will you see and feel when you have it; are you in charge of the changes required; will you lose everything if you achieve outcome; is outcome worth the sacrifice and what are your life consequences when the goal is achived.

We will consider more inner barriers to performance tomorrow. Remember that psychological techniques need to be practiced constantly until they become automatic. Have a look at our online business training course to develop the mental skills needed.

Geoff Greenwood

http://www.geoffgreenwood.com/

http://www.businesstrainingonline.co.uk/

Performance Coaching – Part 3 – Change Techniques

Over the last 2 sessions we have identified how people think, feel and perceive as a starting point for their performance coaching needs and skills training. We have understood the power of beliefs and now we will consider thechniques for changing some of these limiting beliefs and improving their performance, that a manager can use in their business training.

1. Positive Affirmations; a sentence or statement describing the way that you want to be. Best focused upon a specific performance aspect such as ”I am always calm under pressure” it indicated that it is what you are rather than what you do not want to be and indicates that you already have the quality.
2. Positive listings and achievements; get your staff or yourself to list as many achievements or positive qualities that you have and carry them around with you, looking them over 3 times a day. This technique reinforces alternative, positive beliefs, thoughts, feelings and perceptions.
3. Pattern Breaking or Thought Stopping; a technique to distract you from negative thoughts and emotions. Once you become aware of a negative thought you shout STOP or something similar and then stress to yourself that this thought is of no help to you.
4. Reframing; a powerful technique that removes negative thoughts by reframing them into an empowering positive alternative. An example would be changing “I am not good enough” to become ” I have put training in effect to become good enough”.
5. Visualisation or mental imagery; Bring into your mind an example of when you achieved peak performance and associate the feelings and thoughts that went with it. If this image is brought into your mind on a regular basis you will notice the removal of negative thoughts and emotions.

There are many other techniques to remove limiting beliefs which can be tailored to fit individual issues and challenges that you may come across. In the next few sessions we will revisit these techniques when we consider some of the barriers to performance. As a final note we have to emphasise that just like your physical, technical and strategy training and development, these techniques must be worked upon on an ongoing basis and do not happene by flicking a switch.

Geoff Greenwood

Mental Toughness Coach

Performance Coaching – The Power of Beliefs – Part 2

Performance coaching taps into perceptions as well as thoughts and emotions. An area to consider within perception is our reticular activating system (RAS). Don’t worry we all have one and is a filter to our perceptions packaged up as a cluster of brain cells. So if I told you to look out for tall dark haired men over the next week, you would start seeing them everywhere but wouldn’t recall how many short fair haired guys tat you have passed. The important element is that this set of brain cells filters in information that is consistent with your beliefs and goals. It also filters out irrelevant info as we would be overwhelmed.

Another aspect of performance coaching is what we term self-talk. Self-talk is also determined by our beliefs and is directly linked to our performance. Consider what you think about when things go wrong, or what do you say to yourself when faced with an uphill challenge etc. A confident person will have different empowering thoughts from someone who lacks self-confidence in the task or infact self-esteem for themselves. Your thoughts and self-talk will continually re-inforce your confidence or lack of. Mental toughness and mental strength all start with address an individual’s self-talk.

A confident person is always more optimistic and research shows that optimism always outperforms pessimism and the good news is that optimistic outlook can be learned.

So we have looked at perception and thoughts and how they affect our peak performance, but what about emotions and how does this fit into the pattern? People are comfortable with what they do and perform effectively, however, to move them into new areas, triggers uncomfortable feelings. To be pushed a long way from this zone triggers physiological and psychological symptoms if not addressed. The raised heart rate, panic attacks, palpitations etc all kick in. In the workplace this can be seen as successful people hitting “the wall” for no reason and talented people not beeing able to step up to the next level. If this is not addressed then having all the technical ability in the world is pointless.

In conclusion, we now have a working model that suggests and proves from the research that our beliefs influence our perceptions, thoughts and feelings and ultimately actions and performance. To turn this around. consider this; once we learn to think and respond the correct way, the correction in beliefs and habilts will automatically follow. This is why our business coaching starts at a psychological level way away from the working environment. Appraise these mind constructs and improve them, will automatically channels performance results both in the individual and the organisation.

Geoff Greenwood Sport psychology & Business psychology

Performance Coaching – 6 Steps to heaven – Step 1

Over the next 6 days I will give you an insight into performance coaching and how it will build mental toughness and mental strength in all participants. Many people do not understand coaching and what it is. Coaching is an ongoing process to help you gain greater competence and to overcome barriers to improving your performance.  It differs from training in that it is a structured process to impart knowledge and skills to perform certain tasks. It always involves a change in behaviour but does not areas covered by counselling or therapy.

Our approach to performance coaching is focused upon the psychology of peak performance so we will start looking at the link between mind and body.

If you cast your mind back to a time when you were in a poor emotional state you will also have noticed that you felt tired, lethargic and unable to stand up easily.  Conversely when you experienced a positive frame of mind you were able to rise easily, felt energised and stood tall and proud. What is incredible is we can change from one state to another in an instant. This is the power of positive thought control, it is like flicking a light switch. Imagine how our thoughts affect our peak performance; it could be a tennis match, presentation or a meeting.

Many of our thoughts are influenced by our beliefs about ourself. These beliefs will stop us doing or achieving what we want to. They are limiting beliefs. On later days we will also look how limiting beliefs affect our feelings, perceptions and self talk. These are all performance factors. Later in the week we will look at helping you change these thoughts and beliefs.

Performance is linked to clear goals that we set. It gives us direction and a line of focus and has been proved that people achive more if they have clearly thought out goals. Successful people review their goals regularly and have them set for daily, weekly, monthly and yearly time periods with a longer duration outcome goal say in 3 to 5 years. Ensure that they are written down and specific leaving aside any vague areas and they must challenge you to stretch yourself. Past research has suggested that organisations with unusually grand goals outperformed competitors bya factor of 10.

In business there are numerous examples of beliefs missing the point; for instance many people said that the world wide web, telephone banking, pc’s and photocopiers would not find a market, need I say anymore?

As a final point, consider this as all screwed up!!! If we have a mismatch between our beliefs and our results, our behaviour and thinking automatically changes to make the results consistent with our beliefs, instead of changing our beliefs. Our next posting will look at the power of beliefs.

Geoff Greenwood

Online business training for skills training

Many clients who approach us for online business training or skills training always want to know what return on investment does e learning provide to us? This comes from the old adage that is you can measure it you can manage it. However, this is not an easy question to answer as with all psychological interventions.

Many psychological tests use self awareness, self reflection or anecdotal evidence. In sport we are lucky because with most of our science the research is able to include a significant number of participants with which we can test our hypothesis. This is not so easy in business or the corporate world, because there is not the time for business leaders to participate, their performance is often a multi-disciplinary approach of others and other departments and many have to be convinced of a psychological approach to business performance.

Organisations that I have had the pleasure of dealing with, have real life business needs such as impending problems or available opportunities such as higher sales, customer retention, better quality throughput, efficiencies and staff effectiveness.

To achieve these aims have often been second place to reducing training budgets and checking off that quota for that guy or girl and elearning fits that profile. However, enlightened organisations are employing learning officers and considering that their real return on investment will come from learning investment and deliver expected business outcomes.

Online business training can impact on R.O.I. in 2 ways; the received benefits and reduction of training costs. To measure the effectiveness, then business outcomes need to be assessed before and after training has been implemented.

The majority of business outcomes can be measured in this way and if you add an agreed value  for your staff becoming highly motivated, in control of their emotions, implemented a professional attitude and build their self confidence plus much more then very high returns can be expected.

If you have an expected business outcome that you would like to achieve then contact us to discuss how skills training can help you achieve this.

Mental Skills Training – From arena to boardroom

Mental skills training commonly known as psychological skills training in sports psychology is a skills set to be developed for the improvement in mental strength both in individuals and teams. The development and improvement of mental toughness can be applied to anyone who needs to perform. This can be in the workplace, on the stage or in all forms of sporting arenas. The research both in the field and laboratory shows substantive proof of its success in helping great champions and athletes to become that little bit better, that beats an opponent either by 1 second or 1 inch. This small competitive advantage is the difference between winning and coming nowhere.

As we know in the modern world winners take all the spoils and the rewards can be incredible. This leads me to asking the following question: If there is proof of the success of mental skills training, why wouldn’t everyone practice it daily or why would their company not coach them into practicing them? There are many reasons;

1. The individual or organisation may not be aware of it’s power.
2. They may be aware but feel that it is therapy and too soft for them.
3. There is no appreciation of the results that can be achieved.
4. Mind training is just for sport.
5. Lack of motivation (they certainly need it!!!)
6. The skills training does not translate across categories.

We at Geoff Greenwood Associates have a passion for performance. In fact our motto is “Success is all about performance”. We have a mission to develop many more corporate athletes from enlightened organisations who require a competitive advantage. As more and more opportunities diminish through time, cost, distribution, quality, strategy and copying then it makes sense to develop the only part left, which is the minds of the staff, managers and executives who are your real assets. This development will produce exceptional results…in some cases a 10% increase in output or efficiency can generate huge returns to the bottom line.

This improvement can be acquired by having members of your organisation who have more direction from true goal setting, a greater desire by tapping into their motivational style, develop and show mental toughness and lots more which are described on our website that all contribute to better staff and performance by online business training, business training by 1 on 1 and bespoke skills training.

Executive Coaching – Where it can help

In general terms there are 4 general situations that call for management or executive coaching. Coaching certainly works best for high achievers, key personnel or those with the most potential for the future benefit of the organisation. Executive coaching should be viewed as a benefit or opportunity that is to be embraced.

We have identified four ways in general that executive coaches can help with.

1. When there needs to be big organisational change in areas such as their markets or environment or opportunities identified that they are not equipped to approach. These changes need new approaches from the executives and an executive coach can help the leaders adapt.

2. Individual skill development for the high achievers. An executive coach can assist the movement to higher positions requiring higher levels of authority and responsibility. Most usual situation is the person promoted because of their technical expertise. However, the leadership skills are not evident. These skills may include public speaking, networking and delegating etc.

3. Executive specific skill development which is identified as missing in the performer’s skill set. This missing skill can be anything from a particular social skill or a mental skill such as self confidence.

4. Specific problem resolution such as a dysfunctional behaviour than continually causes problems. This could be a control of emotions or an underlying gap in the self esteem of the individual. The sheer amount of new responsibility often identifies itself in poor stress management. The executive coach can often save the person’s career and the corporation alot of expense, discomfort and talent searching.

So in conclusion it is not seen as a weakness to employ or work with an executive coach but a sign of strength and an enlightened approach to talent development and succession planning.

Executive coaching can be very powerful in a one on one scenario but can also be developed via online management training and online leadership training. Ideally a combination of them both generates the greatest returns for the individual and the company.

Online business training

Online Business Training

We would like to announce the launch of our new and unique video based online training and development package for companies and public sector organisations. A new website has been created to differentiate between personal development individuals in sport, business and entertainment which can be found at online training development and companies who wish to develop their staff, managers and executives in mental mastery and strength. This new site can be found at online business training.

The online training course is a combination of video tutorials, a workbook that accompany’s the course, example videos and demonstrations plus the corporate version has an end of course test for feedback purposes. New material will be added throughout the year inclusive within the fee. The course has been set at a recession busting introductory price and is small change compared with the bottom line results that can be achieved from implementing this knowledge.

Geoff Greenwood

http://www.businesstrainingonline.co.uk/Business-Training-Video.html