Chapter 9
Teach Your Team to Visualize

How important is visualization? If you're physically talented, have the knowledge to execute on the job, or have solid skills to perform, than why should you engage in mental practice? The answer is compelling. Match two people with equal physical talents in a competitive encounter, and the person who is stronger mentally will win most of the time.

Good leaders should learn to visualize, not only to enhance their own performance, but also to teach their team. It's a very important skill to have. It creates confidence and positive expectations.

In working with some of the best performers in the world for the last 45 years, I have found that the winners are not necessarily more talented than their competitors but they are much better prepared mentally. They are better organized, able to visualize, and able to recover quickly.

In the corporate environment, this has not been emphasized very much over the years, but I find it provides an incredible edge. For example, salespeople who visualize prior to a meeting will be better prepared than those who don't. If you're going to have a meeting with one of your team members, being able to visualize what will happen and anticipate different outcomes is a valuable tool to have.

Mental practice is an extremely valuable tool no matter the environment. It's used for two primary purposes. First, it enables you to review your competencies, in other words, to remember your assets. This motivates you and gives you a picture to guide you when executing. And that's the way that it's commonly used.

Second, mental practice is also useful as a learning tool. You can actually learn a skill, sales technique, or whatever. Basically, if you can see what you want to do in your mind and you have the assets to execute it, then you can mentally practice until you package the skill.

It seems incredible, but some people can learn to play sports before they ever try to do it physically. I know two individuals who have done this. One of them learned to play golf at a basic level before he ever picked up a club or teed up a ball. He did it by watching videotapes and then visualizing himself executing drives, putts, and other shots on the golf course. The other person became a fairly proficient tennis player simply by mentally practicing, visualizing himself playing the game. Using the techniques of mental practice, he learned the basic skills that enabled him to become a reasonably good tennis player in a very short period of time. Once he started to play, his proficiency accelerated remarkably because he had the basic skills firmly in his mind.

There is much more to mental practice than simply imagining yourself executing skills the correct way. This chapter will show you how to do it and what to avoid. Once you've looked at the mechanics of the whole process, then you will be equipped to take whatever you do and plug that activity into this basic model for mental practice. It will make you better professionally and personally. There is no question about that because it will make you more comfortable. It will reduce your anxiety level before you start and enable you to lower your post-performance anxiety level more quickly.

Research shows conclusively that mental practice is effective in performance enhancements. My colleagues and I, as early as the ’60s and early ’70s, conducted research with free throw shooting in basketball. We had four groups of basketball players who participated in the study. They were: one, a control group (no practice); two, a mental practice group; three, a physical practice group; and four, a mental and physical practice group. All four groups were equal when they started. Each group shot 25 free throws to start the seven-day study. The control group did no practice during the seven days. The mental practice group stood on the free throw line every day and mentally practiced 25 free throws, then walked away. The physical practice group came, shot 25 free throws, and left. The mental and physical group visualized taking 12 or 13 free throws and then finished up by physically taking 12 or 13. When the groups came back to be retested a week later, the no-practice group predictably had the worst results. The mental practice group scored significantly better than the no-practice group, indicating that at least at a basic level, skills were learned without actual physical participation. If you think it through, do it correctly, and have all the parts in place, you can actually learn the skill. The physical practice group, as expected, performed better than the mental practice group. Next, the mental and physical practice group went to the line. This group performed better than the other three groups. Similar results will be found for almost any motor skill that's researched over the years. It's a true indication of the value of mental practice.

If you receive and process information correctly, keep only the proper cues, package that together, and store it in your mind, you have the behaviors necessary to practice mentally whatever you have stored. However, if you store and mentally practice mistakes, then that's what you will execute.

The process often fails because of flaws in the mechanics of mental practice. One of those is speed of practice. It's critical that you mentally practice at the actual speed of whatever you intend to do. Obviously if you mentally practice at a faster speed, you set yourself up to execute physically in fast motion. If you visualize in slow motion, then you actually set your body up to respond in slow motion. It's a prerequisite to know how long it takes to execute a given skill so that you can mentally practice that skill in real time.

In baseball, it's possible for me to tell if the pitcher is using true visualization. I ask him to step back, visualize the pitch, step up, and throw. Then he steps back off the mound, takes a quick breath, steps up, and throws and says, “I saw it.” He claims to have visualized the correct pitch, despite taking only one second to visualize what should take several seconds. My reply: “You must have seen it faster than I could.” If, in fact, he completed the mental exercise in one second, he set himself up to fail simply because he's going to overthrow or speed up his motion, and it's not going to be natural. It's so imperative that you visualize in real time.

One of the most significant impacts of mental practice is an attitudinal change. Positive anticipation of an event provides at least an opportunity for success. People can foresee the consequences of their actions if they walk through the visualization process and anticipate the consequences. This ability to prepare is another critical factor in performance.

In order for visualization to help you, it's absolutely essential that you know what your capabilities are. Review your assets and liabilities. You must understand what your entry behaviors are and you need to visualize those, but be careful not to go overboard. It's not only frustrating, but also discouraging to visualize things that you're not capable of executing. For example, I can visualize myself throwing a 95-mile-an-hour fastball at the stadium, but when they put the speed gun on me, my top speed is only about 42. So you need to visualize what you're capable of doing. The old cliché if you can see it, you can do it is absolutely a lie. If you visualize what you're not capable of doing, then you become frustrated when your execution falls short.

You always need to stretch your system and push your abilities, but you should visualize realistic skills that you're capable of executing given your talents, your tools, and your mechanics. What you visualize is something you may not have done before but are capable of doing, reaching a higher level of performance within your capabilities. It's a commonsense approach to execution.

A pitcher who is able to step back from the mound, take a deep breath, visualize the next pitch—which takes about three seconds—then step up and throw that pitch has more confidence and motivation. Visualization becomes an incentive to perform better, and many times it will yield more consistent results.

If you make a speech, for example, then review it afterwards and visualize your punch line that fell flat, then the next time you try to avoid that mistake, the probability is high that you'll repeat it until you correct it mentally. You want to avoid visualizing the bad joke because replaying it in your mind sets you up for an incorrect performance.

Look to previous experiences only to make mental corrections. No matter what your environment, don't dwell on past negative experiences. Adjust the visualization and go to the next action. Never perform the previous execution without making necessary changes. In other words, don't perform off mistakes. As I've said before: Never leave anything bad unless you're going toward something good. That's true in physical performance, true in the corporate environment, and true for your mental practice.

Hitters visualize a swing. They step up to the batter's box and imagine themselves swinging and hitting the ball. They step into the batter's box and try to execute to that visualization. Golfers do the same thing. If a golfer wants the avoid carrying mental baggage after a bad shot, she steps back, visualizes a good shot, steps up, and executes according to what she replayed in her mind. There's another way this works, too. If the golfer hits a great shot, she can step back, visualize it, and store it mentally for later use, even if she doesn't manage to catch it on video to watch an actual replay. A mental replay provides her with the same positive information.

If you have a great sales meeting, then immediately after it's over, you need to find time to be alone and visualize what just took place in the meeting. In this way, you can store that data and execute the same way in the future. Don't visualize and think about the things that went wrong. Visualize and execute mentally the things that were correct. You'll build a mental data package to draw on at the next meeting.

Leaders are in a unique position to help their team execute visualization. As a leader, you remind your team every day to mentally replay good experiences because those are the things that you want to store for future use.

Parents can visualize conversations they're going to have with teachers, or with their children, or with each other. By doing this they're able to anticipate questions, conflicts, and the consequences of their actions, which can be very effective. Teachers should use visualization as a daily process before classes. In fact, the execution of any activity will benefit from the visualization process.

One of the top international tennis coaches, Dennis Van der Meer, once defined true visualization at a tennis clinic: “True visualization is when you can see it in color.” A pro golfer recently made the same comment. The idea is that in true visualization you can see everything. You can see your clothes. You can see the course. You can see everything that's going on around you. That gives you a vivid picture of what you want to do and how you want to do it. The whole visualization process means that you mentally see your performance from beginning to end. You don't just see the end result.

If you ask golfers if they visualize, 90 percent will say yes; and when you ask them what they visualize, 90 percent of that group will probably tell you they see the ball going where they want it to go. True visualization is reviewing the process.

Again, as we previously discussed, your emphasis needs to be on the process, and the best way to keep your focus is to visualize it. If you set out to visualize a sales meeting, but you only visualize signing the deal, you have no mental preparation for what will get you to that point. Similarly, a golfer who only visualizes the ball sinking into the hole would have no mental storage about what caused the ball to get there. True visualization is again seeing everything from start to finish—don't ever leave out anything. With the whole sequence in mind, you can make corrections in your performance or make adjustments in how you are communicating with people.

In these effective mental practice sessions, you get to the point where, if you want to make a change in whatever it is that you're executing, you can plug in the change you want to make and then continue to visualize. You can make changes in performance through visualization before you ever execute. That's a benefit for visualizing very specific correct things. To do this correctly, you may need to describe the activity and create a specific list of segmented events making up the total package.

Visualization is most effective if you have yourself videotaped. Everyone needs a videotape of his or her performance, if possible. As an aid to my own speaking, I have videotapes of past speeches and seminars. When I work with golfers, I videotape every swing, including drives, long irons, short irons, sand shots, approach shots, fringe shots, and putts. My objective is to provide the golfer with a videotape of what he or she is able to execute. I do it with every sport—videotapes are used extensively with football and baseball players. The videotape gives them a ready-made picture that they can pull up at any time. If possible, get a videotape of your performance and review it a number of times. It's not uncommon for me to repeat a certain pitch 10 to 15 times back to back so I can bombard the pitcher's system with what he's able to execute. Then it's easier for him to mentally pull out that picture and throw that great pitch. This holds true in other situations, as well.

It's critical to note here that you only view positive recordings. Don't view videos of mistakes. If you are working in a corporate job, don't review tapes of mistakes you've made in meetings or in one-on-one sessions. Always record correct execution because that's where you want to go. On the one hand, if you videotape mistakes, then you tend to go into a meeting trying to not make mistakes. On the other hand, if you videotape positive performance, you go into a meeting with the intent to execute positive performance.

Salespeople consistently improve their presentations by videotaping them and playing them back as described. These people have more energy because they are not consumed by all the things that could go wrong. They are also more successful more often. Use of video footage can be a critical factor in visualization.

When approaching this technique as a mechanical process, there are seven critical elements:

  1. Always see yourself executing correctly.
  2. Always mentally see correct techniques.
  3. See everything involved in every part from start to finish—and see it in color—every time you repeat it.
  4. Visualize the action at actual speed. If you omit parts or you can't visualize clearly certain parts, then go back and start over. Don't ever muddle your way through and store incorrect material.

    I experienced a good example of the actual speed process firsthand when I worked with a world-class ice-skater. She was ranked 150 in the world. Now, in a routine that's two minutes long, you have to be sharp; you have to be quick in all your movements. I noticed when I watched her that her jumps were slow. She was slow getting into the correct position. So I asked her to visualize the routine from start to finish, which should take two minutes. Her visualization took six minutes. That explained to me why she was slow in execution. So I had her work with her coach at least three times a week to sit down and visualize her performance until she was able to visualize it in two minutes. Once she got to that point and she could do it whenever she wanted within two minutes, her world ranking went from 150 to 50, and we did nothing with mechanics. It was simply because we worked on her mental preparation.

  5. Remember you're trying to develop total confidence and mental consistency. That's your goal in visualization.
  6. Repeat the mental practice several times during each session. Do not mentally practice one time and execute. Mentally practice several times and don't rush, but do it in real time. This deliberate visualization will enable you to set yourself up so that you're motivated and you have an incentive to execute. At that point, you almost get anxious to execute because you've just visualized a correct performance.
  7. When you reach the place where you're going to execute your skills, visualize everything just before performance.

Once the mental process becomes conditioned, you won't necessarily have to do it every time, but you need to pick your times to do it. It's comforting to know that if you have it in your mind, you can execute it.

If you need to make changes in whatever you're performing, then you need only to pull the mental picture into the conscious mind and plug in the execution and do it again and again. Repeat the initial process until the change becomes part of the conditioned response when you're making corrections.

Remember that the prerequisite to the success of mental practice is that you know how to execute correctly and know what you can do. This means that, number one, you don't think you can do it, you don't wonder if you can do it, you know you can do it; number two, you visualize only correct skills. This is critical. If you mentally practice mistakes, as previously mentioned, you're going to make mistakes. To compound this problem, if you visualize mistakes and then you try to not make mistakes, anything you do wrong will be worse than it would have been otherwise.

Any time you feel like you're losing concentration or rhythm or focus, then you use the visualization process. You can enhance your concentration by using a key word or phrase as a trigger. Imagine a football place kicker who tells himself to be aggressive, make good contact, and have good leg speed. If you visualize a conversation, then you walk in and you're ready to start the conversation. You might say something to yourself such as “go for it” or “let it go” or something that's significant to you. Choose a word or phrase that pulls everything you visualize back to the front of your mind so you're able to execute. The trigger is a critical part to the performance. It actually brings your mental practice to physical realization.

In sport, especially in golf and hitting in baseball, your visualization or your trigger word needs to take you to the ball, not be a distraction that takes you away from the ball. If, for example, your last thought is stay back, then you're going to stay back and you're going to be late on pitches. In golf, if your last thought is good back swing, then you may or may not hit a good shot.

In place kicking, if you visualize a field goal, you need to make sure your visualization draws you into the behavior you are trying to execute. If a place kicker doesn't visualize, he runs a risk of making two mistakes. First, if he tries too hard to make it, 80 percent of the time he pulls it and is too far left. If he tries too hard to not miss it, then he pushes it and misses it to the right. He can only be successful when he lets himself kick.

In meetings, you can only be successful if you visualize letting yourself perform in whatever environment you are likely to experience. It could be one-on-one communication or it could be in a conference environment. Always let your talent take you toward you goal. That's a very important phrase you need to remember. In other words, execute the process well and let it happen. Don't try to force it to happen.

I work with a pitcher on a National League baseball team who gets caught up in the moment, so I put a white L on his glove so that when begins to wind up, he'll see it. The L means let yourself pitch. Sometimes when he was getting too emotional, he'd see the L, step back, take a deep breath, and tell himself to let himself pitch.

There are any number of things you can do to help yourself use triggers and initiate the process, and I've included an example here that you can adapt to any environment. I use golf because it is an easy process to look at, but you can adapt it to any environment that you're in.

When you review this chapter, it becomes very obvious that this is commonsense information. If there is anything you can do to make yourself better as a leader or as a member of a team, then you need to learn how and do it every single day. Visualization is one of those things. Why leave things to chance when you can visualize and anticipate and set yourself up to be successful? You find that a lot of ex-athletes working in the corporate environment use visualization because they did it in sport. That doesn't mean it's only appropriate for athletes; it's appropriate for everybody.

img Visualization

Example of Visualization Using Golf

Before trying to visualize, break down the parts of your swing, starting with club selection and ending with the follow-through. Then place that shot breakdown into the total sequence outlined below.

  1. Select club
  2. Visualize
    1. Address
    2. Take-away
    3. Backswing
    4. Swing
    5. Contact
    6. Follow-through
    7. See the ball's flight
  3. Physically address the ball
  4. Use trigger
  5. Execute shot
  6. Mentally store good shots

List the steps to visualize team meetings and/or individual meetings.

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