In a Nutshell
Mental rehearsal of performances
is an excellent way to support skill development. LeaderLetter
subscribers have told me that they've found mental rehearsal useful for
job interviews, presentations, cheerleading performances, athletic performances,
sales calls and teaching. There are numerous opportunities to use
mental rehearsal to master managerial behaviors too.
In This Issue
Is Imagined Practice More Helpful Than Actual
Practice?
In the photo above, Tasha
Butts is executing one of the toughest shots in the sport of basketball,
and mentally rehearsing such a performance beforehand can be very helpful.
Butts is a guard on the University of Tennessee's basketball team.
Sunday night, in the last second of Tennessee's post-season tournament
game against Baylor, Butts was sent to the free throw line with a chance
to win the game. There was a lot of pressure on her to perform.
If she failed, her team might well have been eliminated from the tournament.
Such pressure makes free throw shooting at the end of a basketball game
very difficult. Butts succeeded and Tennessee defeated Baylor.
How should we prepare for
difficult performances in athletics, the workplace, or other situations?
Research has found that a combination of "imagined practice" and actual
practice often results in better performances than those achieved with
preparation that relies solely on actual practice. In addition to
athletics, studies have shown that imagined practice improves performance
in diverse contexts that include communication, education and clinical
and counseling psychology.1
A Managerial Example: Visualizing Supportive
Communication
Here's an example of how
a manager could use mental rehearsal to improve her management skills:
Morgan was scheduled to meet with Whitney, one of her staff members, at
2:00 to discuss the performance review she gave him. She expected
the discussion to be difficult, because Whitney has consistently demonstrated
a self-serving bias in how he perceives his performance. Last year
when they met to discuss his performance review, Whitney raised some concerns
about the scores that he received, and he put Morgan on the defensive.
She started to argue with him. Arguing with Whitney was counterproductive,
because it caused negative feelings and lingering conflict. This
time, Morgan wanted to use her effective
listening skills. Mental rehearsal before the meeting can help.
At 1:50, Morgan stopped
what she was working on and spent a few minutes mentally rehearsing possible
exchanges between Whitney and herself. She visualized Whitney raising
objections about his performance review and imagined herself listening
carefully, paraphrasing back to Whitney what she understood his concerns
to be and probing for additional information. She also visualized
herself tactfully explaining that she had a different perception of his
performance, and clarifying for Whitney what her expectations were for
her staff members. Morgan imagined that her efforts to listen to
Whitney, even though she couldn't always agree with him, helped to keep
him from becoming argumentative and baiting her into a quarrel. She
visualized herself summing up their conversation at the end, and discussing
the steps Whitney can take to improve his performance. Finally, she
imagined herself standing up, smiling and very professionally shaking Whitney's
hand as their meeting came to a close.
When Whitney walked in at
2:00, Morgan felt confident and prepared. As they began to go over
the performance review and Whitney raised some objections, Morgan tactfully
listened and responded in much the same way she did during her mental rehearsal.
As expected, showing Whitney that she was listening to him helped contain
the level of tension between them. Even though Whitney walked away
thinking that his scores should have been more favorable, he wasn't angry
like he was last year after going through the process with Morgan.
Mental rehearsal improved Morgan's performance!
What Mental Rehearsal Is and Why It Works
Mental rehearsal involves
imagined, mental practice of performing a task as opposed to actual practice.
That is, when engaging in mental rehearsal, one imagines performing without
having to actually do anything. (Insert your favorite consultant
or management professor joke here.)
As the saying goes, "Practice
makes perfect." Yes, practice can cause improvement, but "perfect
practice" can lead to better results than practice full of failures.
Because mental practice is perfect practice, it is also a confidence-booster.
Experiencing success increases confidence, even if that experience is imagined.
Basketball fans recognize
the old cliché that goes something like, "Free throw shooting is
90% mental, 10% physical." It's true that a major determinant of
a free throw shooter's success is his or her mental activity before taking
a shot and through the process of shooting (I'm not sure about those percentages
though). Focus and concentration are very helpful. Accordingly,
mental practice seems to assist mental preparation for the process of shooting
a free throw.
A limitation, of course,
is that one also has to have a certain degree of knowledge and skill for
performing the activity in order to be successful. My 7-year-old
can't make a free throw no matter how much time he spends mentally practicing,
because he still lacks the strength to do so. Mental practice should
supplement other forms of skill development, not replace them. For
instance, role playing effective listening skills and getting feedback
on performances helps to develop those skills in ways that mental rehearsal
cannot. Nonetheless, mental practice assists the skill learning process
and provides the extra edge for those who have reached sufficient levels
of skill development.
We experience stress when
we perceive threats or opportunities that we fear we cannot handle effectively,
and mental rehearsal helps us cope with stress. First, as I mentioned,
mental practice improves self-confidence, so we can reduce our stress by
visualizing ourselves successfully dealing with our challenges. Second,
relaxation is often a part of mental rehearsal exercises, and relaxation
helps reduce stress.
The following procedure
integrates the relaxation and the preparation features. Free throw
shooters usually get just a few seconds to visualize successful performance,
but they still find visualization helpful. More elaborate mental
rehearsal, like the following, is even more useful.
In Summary ...
The mental rehearsal techniques
that many of us have learned to help us perform in sports, on a stage or
in some other context can also help us perform challenging tasks in the
workplace. By reducing stress and boosting confidence, mental rehearsal
can help us succeed!
Notes
1. Neck, C. P., Nouri, H., Godwin, J. L. (2003).
How self-leadership affects the goal-setting process. Human Resource
Management Review, 13(4): 691-707.
2. Based on Manz, C. C., & Neck, C. P. (1999). Mastering
self-leadership: Empowering yourself for personal excellence, (2nd ed.),
pp. 70-71. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
About the Photo
AP Photo/L.M. Otero: e-mailed
to me from Yahoo! News; news.yahoo.com.
Other Sources
Von Bergen, C. W., Soper,
B., Rosenthal, G. T. & Wilkinson, L. V. (1997). Selected
alternative training techniques in HRD. Human Resource Development
Quarterly, 8(4): 281-294.
Whetten, D. A., & Cameron,
K. S. (2002). Developing management skills, (5th ed.). Upper
Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
About the Newsletter
and Subscriptions
LeaderLetter is written
by Dr. Scott Williams, Department of Management, Raj
Soin College of Business, Wright State University, Dayton, Ohio.
It is a supplement to my MBA 751 - Managing People in Organizations class.
It is intended to reinforce the course concepts and maintain communication
among my former MBA 751 students, but anyone is welcome to subscribe.
In addition, subscribers are welcome to forward this newsletter to anyone
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E-mail Your Comments
Whether you are one of my
former students or not, I invite you to share any insights or concerns
you have regarding the topic of this newsletter or any other topic relating
to management skills. Please e-mail
them to me. Our interactions have been invaluable. I
learn a lot from LeaderLetter subscribers! Let's
keep the conversation going.
A Good, Clean Joke
An elementary school teacher
starts a new job at a school in Durham, North Carolina. In an attempt
to make a good impression on her first day, she explains to her class that
she's a Duke Blue Devils fan. She asks the class to raise their hands if
they too are Duke fans. Everyone in the class raises their hand except
one little girl.
The teacher, looking a little
surprised, asks: "Hannah, why didn't you raise your hand?"
"Because I'm not a Duke
fan," she replied.
The teacher asked, "Well,
if you're not a Duke fan, then who do you support?"
"I'm a Wright State Raider
fan, and proud of it," Hannah replied.
"Really?" The teacher,
now becoming interested in the lone dissenter, asks, "Hannah, why are you
a Raider fan?"
"Because my Dad is a Raider
fan and my Mom is a Raider fan, so I'm a Raider fan."
"Well," said the teacher,
"that doesn't mean you have to be a Raider fan. Kids don't have to be just
like their parents. What if your Mom was a liar and your Dad was a crook,
what would you be then?"
Hannah said, "I'd be a Duke
fan."
