Mental Coaching: Potential With Training And Intelligent Management
Business leaders now claim that geography is now irrelevant to their activities. Labor migrates freely, good do as well, and thus the lowest price for any good or service wins no matter where the bid comes from. Companies now spend millions on single orders over the internet, without a single person-to-person conversation. The only voices associated with most companies now are those of paid spokespeople and actors.
Are people skills even relevant, at a time when posting a job opening online will get you applications from around the world? The answer is a resounding "yes": at the end of the day, someone is still designing the products, the web sites, and the marketing material.
And that one needs a proper environment in which to perform his or her job, not "even if" but "especially if" that person was born and raised somewhere else. Immigrants and guest workers are as much members of the corporate world as anyone else, but their special issues and hardships need close attention to bring out the most in them, and that means mental coaching. Mental coaching is an excellent way of bringing someone from a different culture into the team 100%, and it is one of the most important functions of human resource management nowadays.
While mental coaches, such as Dr. John F. Murray, who developed "Mental Performance Index" for American football (and proceeded to help Vincent Spadea overcome a losing streak that was one of the longest in the history of tennis), might be associated with professional sports, outdoor sales-people, or CEO's, the truth is that mental coaching is relevant from the highest to the lowest rung of the corporate ladder.
In the end, if someone is worth spending tens of thousands of dollars to hire and train, doesn't it make sense allow the Human Resources department the freedom to bring out the most in him or her? If sports teams can hire mental coaches to increase their performance, so can corporate teams. Even if the labor they're coaching is fresh off the web.
While the world may well have become metaphorically "flat," it is still populated with human beings -- and human beings don't perform up to peak potential without training and intelligent management. Companies are fundamentally composed of people, something that is as true during the age of Bill Gates as it was during that or Rockefeller, the changes owing to the Internet notwithstanding.
Despite globalization and intensive use of technology in communications, people skills continue to remain relevant. And when the workplace has people from different cultures, mental coaching brings out the best from them. Immigrants and guest workers from other countries face special issues and hardships and they can become more productive if their employers address these concerns. Originally applied in sports and athletics, the concept of engaging mental coaches has spread to the corporate world as companies strive to maximize the value of their human resources. It is a vital ingredient in human resource management as it enables people to perform at their peak potential.
Published July 20th, 2007
Filed in Business, Career, Management
