Watching Slam Dunk competition winner Mac Clung in 2023 had me on the edge of my seat. As a Chicago Bulls fan in the Michael Jordan era, I was interested to see a player brought up from the G league just to compete with professional players seemingly twice his size. McClung made all three dunks on the first try; the last dunk was a display of beautiful choreography that seemed to defy the laws of physics as if he were a spinning top flying upward. When I learned that he never completed his 2023 final winning dunk in practice, completing it for the first time (and on the first try) in the contest, I was floored.
Visualizations may seem too fluffy, too woo-woo, or possibly, too much work to incorporate as a best practice in a business setting. While professional athletes incorporate visualizations rigorously, side-by-side with their physical training, the technique is greatly underutilized in the workplace.
You may be wondering: How do visualizations apply to me? However, you wouldn't ask someone going for a jog, "what are you running from?" or someone washing their hands before they eat, "why?" But historically, those questions would be common, as the benefits of cardiovascular exercise were not widely understood. Without a way to see germs, the man who proposed the idea was ridiculed to a mental institution and died of sepsis there, never learning of the lives he saved by insisting that doctors wash their hands before delivering babies.
Practicing visualization can help employees bolster their performance and contribute to their team's success in the corporate world. Scientists are now just scratching the surface of understanding how visualizing a desired outcome can yield measurable results.
What is visualization?
Visualization is the process of imagining outcomes you'd like to experience. It often involves closing your eyes, calming your body, and picturing as many details as possible with regard to how the desired outcome would engage your five senses. In other words, how does the picture of your success feel, imagining that you've already accomplished it. The best visualizers incorporate this strong positive emotion, feeling it as vividly as possible.
Techniques vary, and sitting still in a quiet place to imagine a desired outcome may be harder than it sounds. Perhaps you write down what success looks like to you and then read and record it to visualize it in your mind's eye.
It may seem easier to imagine hitting a home run or making a jump shot than the more ambiguous and nuanced success in the corporate world. But what our world-class athletes do to train their mind is transferrable.
What are some practical applications?
Visualize an effective presentation
Just like a boxer who doesn't practice visualizing or shadow boxing until after learning the proper technique from a coach, leaders in the corporate world can practice skills with an expert before setting off to practice visualization. When a leader is tasked with giving a speech to their team about a reorganization where job titles will change to realign after an acquisition, they can visualize their speaking performance and the outcome they want, but their output will be only as good as their input. Seek expert advice to hone your visualizations.
Visualize engaged employees and decisive action
When an elementary school teacher, overwhelmed when fidget spinners showed up in her classroom, instead of a reactive "no devices allowed policy," took a proactive approach. She told her class to give her a week to come up with a custom solution. Giving herself some time and space to visualize a more peaceful classroom where the fidget spinners could have a harmonious place allowed this teacher to also seek relevant input.
After discussions with parents, she realized that no one in her class needed a spinner to concentrate, so at the end of the week, she told her students that they could keep the fidget spinners in a shoebox and play with them during a designated recess period.
It's not a challenge to imagine the metaphorical fidget spinners we have hampering productivity in the office and visualize how enforcing the right boundaries could boost employee engagement while maintaining morale. Perhaps it would be permitting remote work with mandatory quarterly all-hands meetings or complementing casual office happy hours with structured team-building off-sites.
Visualize strong team morale
A typical behavior of admirable leaders is to third-party edify others in their workforce. Edification has two requirements:
- It must be true
- It must be positive
The effect is magnified when it's done as a third-party action. Instead of telling a coworker, let's call her Mary, something true and positive about herself, tell another coworker, let's call her Jo, something true and positive about Mary. Eventually, word will get back to Mary—and the effect on her confidence and morale will be more powerful. For example, when a manager of managers, Donna, has a skip-level meeting with Ed, who reports into Sally (Donna's direct report), she edifies Sally by sharing how Sally was a strong advocate for Ed. Sure enough, the next day Ed and Sally's one-on-one meeting was so successful that it circled back to Donna when Sally said, "Donna, I don't know what you did in your one-on-one with Ed, but whatever you said made a world of difference in how he understands the work I do for him and our team." Visualize true and positive things you can say about others to their peers and colleagues, to leverage these opportunities to boost morale.
Deliberate practice
To write a book, you must write; to run a marathon, you must run; to visualize success, you must practice visualizing (not just thinking about visualization).
Experiment with visualization to amplify your workplace success. Perhaps you'll see results immediately, but if not, stay consistent. You can't brush your teeth only right before a trip to the dentist and expect a sparkling review. You can't cram for a successful marathon.
Practice won't make perfect, but deliberate practice will. Be clear on your goal, seek help from experts, and stay present and focused on your visualization when you are directly engaging in the practice.
Find creative and unique ways to test your visualizations. Just like my experiment with publishing an article here.
Image credit: Phototechno