ULOCKING Your Alpine Climbing Performance Through Empowerment

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Some of you know that I used to be a professional golfer, competing on the mini-tours and the various state opens across most of the US. While it seems like a very individual sport, at the professional levels, it is not. I had a caddy and a swing coach and regular practice partners and a sports psychologist. In that way, it’s not unlike climbing in that it appears very individual, but we have (usually) a climbing partner and maybe a movement coach or a strength coach and mentors and the like.

Let’s linger on the sports psychologist, for a moment.

Sports psychology can be thought of as a subset of overall performance psychology: how do we - as individuals, as part of teams, or both - do our best, continuously improve, and achieve whatever our definition of success may happen to be. Regardless of the domain, be it climbing or in the business world, every member of our team has a job to do to make success achievable, whether that be holding the belay while the leader pushes the route or having the manufacturer produce products within defect tolerances while the salesperson generates revenue.

For those teams to perform in partnership, they have to communicate. And while the substance of the communication is important, we shouldn’t overlook the act of soliciting others’ perspectives and actively listening. This is where shared decision making comes in. The power is in the act of having everyone be heard. It isn’t just about the decision, it’s about the sense of buy-in people get from participating in the decision-making process. So, soliciting the opinions of the team, when its time to make a decision, isn’t a check-box activity; it is important that we really listen, understand, provide feedback, and come to consensus on the decision. While a lot goes into that, the emotional connection people generate with each other and with the planed course of action is well worth the effort.

So, while my sports psychologist would work with me on self-forgiveness, and emptying my mind before taking a swing, we also worked on communication and shared decision making with my team. It made my work with my swing coach a situation of mutual investment: he was as dedicated to improving my swing as I was. It made my work with my caddy so much better, especially given the myriad decisions we made before each stroke, come from a place of mutual respect and trust.

Each member of my team had a clear understanding of their importance as we worked towards the collective goal of winning golf tournaments. That is empowerment: each member free to do what they do best, feel fulfillment from their contributions, and work in coordination with the group. That’s team performance.

And while climbing is analogous, rather than specifically the same situation, the principals are the same. So, in this video we get into a mental model of a team-psychology chain: shared decision making can yield empowerment which can yield performance.