In the world of professional sports, it is increasingly proposed that what differentiates high performers from average performers is the athletes’ “mental toughness” or their “mental skills and attitude.” Mental toughness is a term used to capture a set of psychological skills that are required for athletes to excel. It is commonly agreed that in the sports arena, to ensure peak performance, an athlete needs to concentrate on three crucial areas:
• Physical fitness
• Technical and tactical knowledge and skills
• Mental toughness or psychological skill
Traditionally, sports coaches have focused on the physical, technical and tactical skills. More recently, there has been a growing acknowledgement of the importance of mental skills.
MENTAL TOUGHNESS IN THE SPORTS ARENA:
There is a wide range of mental skills and attitudes that can be developed by elite athletes. These mental skills and attitudes are categorised into three groups:
• The Foundation Skills – i.e. motivation, commitment and self-confidence.
• The Performance Skills – i.e. emotional control, concentration and coping with pressure.
• The Facilitative Skills – i.e. communication, diversity skills and team skills.
MENTAL TOUGHNESS IN THE WORKPLACE:
All organisations strive to be efficient, competitive and to maximise their effectiveness. The effectiveness of an organisation is determined by the degree to which people are meeting or exceeding their performance goals. Unfortunately, the reality for many organisations is that although some people may exceed these goals, the vast majority fail to do so.
The challenge, therefore, is to maximise the performance of ALL people. As elite athletes require a combination of physical, technical, tactical and mental skills and attitudes, so do high-performing people.
The mental skills and attitudes that have been identified as key to the success of elite athletes are no different to the key skills and attitudes required to be effective in life: Motivation, commitment, self-confidence, self-discipline, stress tolerance, communication and team skills.
SUCCESS = ABILITY + KNOWLEDGE + MENTAL SKILLS AND ATTITUDE
Although each of the above-mentioned mental skills and attitudes are important, this article focuses on the Foundation Mental Skills, that is: motivation, commitment and self- confidence.
Few would debate that having committed, motivated and confident people is a critical factor for optimal organisational performance.
People commitment can be defined as the psychological involvement of an individual with the organisation. People who are committed would say they “want” to be part of an organisation, rather than they “have to be” because they have no other options.
Committed people demonstrate:
• Superior performance, e.g. more sales, better service and higher quality
• Greater perseverance, e.g. less turnover, more hours worked and less absenteeism
• More pro-social behaviours, e.g. more helping, less fraud and theft
Commitment is a critical factor for organisational performance but not sufficient on its own. It needs to be blended with two other key ingredients, namely motivation and self-confidence.
Motivation – a person’s drive to achieve the goals that are important to them.
Self confidence – a person’s belief that he or she has the ability and skills required to be successful.
MOTIVATION
There are two forms of motivation – intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation.
Extrinsic motivation is externally driven, such as praise from a supervisor, a promotion or a pay rise.
Intrinsic (self) motivation is internally driven, such as the sense of achievement a person has about doing a good job or the satisfaction got from completing a challenging task.
Both forms of motivation are important. What is key to understanding motivation is to realise that it is not a matter of “one size fits all.” Each individual looks for a slightly different set of intrinsic and extrinsic rewards depending on their particular needs.
Praise is like champagne; it should be served while it is still bubbling.
To ensure superior performance, the pertinent question then becomes: in addition to having the required knowledge and skills, are people intrinsically motivated?
Intrinsic motivation is the person’s internal drive to achieve the goals that are important to them. Motivation is most effective when it is self-driven and regulated. Empowerment involves the energising of people to take action, the mobilisation of intrinsic motivation.
Contemporary management theory indicates that people are empowered or intrinsically motivated when:
They feel that the work they do is important and has personal meaning:
• They have the personal competence necessary to perform a job or task well. In other words, they believe that they have what it takes to do their job well.
• They have autonomy or control over how they do their work. This self-determination reflects whether people see themselves as able to influence their own work.
• They can influence strategic, administrative and operating outcomes in the organisation. In other words, they can make a difference and have an impact.
SELF-CONFIDENCE
As well as being committed and motivated, people need to believe that they have the ability and skills required to be successful.
However, in addition to believing that they have the prerequisite ability and skills, the actual performance of an individual is further influenced by a set of three beliefs that the person has regarding the relationship between their efforts and the outcomes they receive.
These three beliefs are:
1: The effort I put in will lead to performance.
2: The performance level I obtain will lead to a certain outcome.
3: The outcome I get will be satisfying.
In other words, a person needs to believe that working hard (effort) will result in doing a good job (performance), which will lead to substantial gains (outcomes) that are satisfying to the person.
To conclude, as in the sports arena, where the success of an athlete is determined by a complex combination of ability, technical and tactical skills and mental skills, high performing people needed to be selected in terms of their knowledge and technical skills as well as their mental skills and attitudes.
The good news is that there is a range of well-developed, psychological profiling tools available for screening in positive mental attitude. These assessments can measure mental skills such as self-confidence, enthusiasm, optimism, frustration tolerance and positive attitude.
DR HILLARY BENNETT
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