Boost!: How the Psychology of Sports Can Enhance your Performance in Management and Work

by Michael Bar-Eli

Overview

To perform better in any situation - in your career, hobbies, relationships, or in any facet of your life - it is critical to develop psychological skills, which, just like physical abilities, can be taught, learned, and practiced. Both as individuals and as groups, we can tone these psychological skills and use them to heighten awareness, foster talents and technical abilities, and reach peak performance. Mental preparedness and psychological awareness are the keys to thriving in any environment.

Few understand the importance of psychological skills better than the internationally recognized professor Michael Bar-Eli. As both a sports and organizational psychologist for more than 35 years, Bar-Eli has not only researched the science of performance but has also worked directly with elite athletes, coaches, and teams to help them improve their success on the court or field. Boost! takes the lessons he's learned from sports psychology and translates them for leaders and managers at any stage in their career. With prescriptive advice, Bar-Eli illustrates how anyone can apply these lessons to better support and inspire co-workers and employees and create a sustainable, successful working environment and business.

Boost! breaks down the complex behavioral science of getting ahead. Through original scientific research, unique case studies, and anecdotes from the world of sports and beyond, Bar-Eli explains the psychological underpinnings of human behavior and how we can harness this knowledge to perform at our highest levels, succeeding in our careers and personal lives.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780190661731
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	11/01/2017
Pages:	330
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.40(h) x 1.30(d)

About the Author

Michael Bar-Eli is a Professor and Chair of the Business Administration Department and the Nat Holman Chair in Sports Research at the Faculty of Business and Management, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer-Sheva. He also heads the Sport Management program at the Wingate Academic College. Bar-Eli has consulted for elite athletic teams, including the Israeli and German national basketball teams, the Israeli national water polo team, several Israeli male and female soccer and basketball teams, and Israeli Olympic teams, along with prominent organizations such as the Israeli Defense Forces, where he was the head organizational psychologist of both the Israeli Artillery Corps and the Combat Fitness Center.

Table of Contents

PART I: GETTING STARTED
Chapter 1: Arousal - Is a Lot of Stress Really That Bad?
Chapter 2: Motivation - Defining Our Driving Force
Chapter 3: Aspiration - Enhancing Performance through Goal Setting

PART II: CALIBRATING YOUR BEHAVIOR
Chapter 4: Self-Confidence - Handling Expectations and Unexpected Obstacles
Chapter 5: Action - to Do or Not to Do?
Chapter 6: Creativity and Innovation - on Floppers and Vaulters

PART III: WORKING TOGETHER
Chapter 7: Cohesion - All for One, and One for All!
Chapter 8: Team Building - Finding the Right People for the Right System
Chapter 9: Leadership Values - Becoming a Head Honcho

PART IV: ENHANCING YOUR STATE OF MIND
Chapter 11: Visualization - Incorporating Imagination into a Daily Routine
Chapter 12: Mental Preparation - Crises, Weighed Responses, and Marathon Runs
Chapter 10: Moral Performance - Is Winning Really Everything?

Conclusion

Editorial Reviews

07/10/2017
Bar-Eli, a professor of business and sports psychology at Israel’s Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, takes an energetic look at management and business success. Inspired to write a book on his lifelong interest—human performance—after a Parkinson’s diagnosis made him realize that his time was limited, Bar-Eli presents lessons from sports psychology, a field that he posits can aid our understanding of human behavior in general, and particularly our understanding of business activities. His interesting and varied life provides plenty of fodder; he begins with his time in the Israeli army during the Yom Kippur War and describes holding down unlikely jobs such as that of psychological consultant to Israel’s national table-tennis team. Focusing on the often hidden psychological forces behind human performance, he dives deep into the methodologies for cultivating mental preparedness and psychological awareness. He covers stress and performance, aspiration, self-confidence, and action, and he includes interesting anecdotes from sports history such as the story of the Fosbury Flop—an innovative new style of high jump when it was introduced at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics. The exuberant tone and fresh angle make this a standout in the crowded job-performance subgenre, and readers looking for help with their careers need look no further. (Nov.)

Publishers Weekly