The Psychology of Performance

There is a psychology to performance – that is to say attitudes and behaviors play an important role. So, too the dynamics within a group or team including its culture and norms.

That is why psychology is a key element of pitstop programs. The objective is new insight, new thinking and new movement.

Pitstop Performance Dynamics

An organization or team is a complex social system and the process of change requires engaging with (and respectfully challenging) embedded patterns of behavior.

Pitstop Programs focus on ‘dynamics’ – that is 8 critical behaviors that shape the patterns of behavior and interaction within groups and teams.

Shown at the bottom of the Pitstop Meta-model™ , dynamics represent a major source of performance losses and potential gains and are measured via the Pitstop Analytics™. 

Pitstop Behavioral Observation

Pitstops are an opportunity to observe your team in operation as it reviews its performance, talks about wins and losses, sets goals, prioritizes activities, and so on.

This provides a window into the performance potential of the team, including its task effectiveness, decision smarts and social health.  

Pitstop facilitators will guide you through a behavioral observation of your team, including; norms of behaviors and patterns of interaction that represent performance losses, risks and blindspots.

Pitstop Psychological Insight

Pitstop programs leverage the latest insights from the fields of social psychology and behavioral economics.

Pitstop Programs include some of the hottest topics in psychology at this time, including:
(i) Growth Mindset
(ii) Grit & Resilience
(iii) Psychological safety
(iv) Psychological Well-being

(i) Carol Dweck, ‘Growth Mindset: The New Psychology of Success’, Ballantine Books, 2007.  (ii) Angela Duckworth, ‘Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance’, Vermillion, 2017.
(iii) Amy C. Edmondson, ‘Teaming: How Organizations Learn, Innovate, and Compete in the Knowledge Economy’, Jossey-Bass Pfeiffer, 2014.

Pitstop Cognitive Re-framing*

Many of the limits to performance are to be found in the way we think and talk about the subject.  That makes re-framing the conversation about performance vitally important.

To change how people see things is to affect change on the most fundamental level.   Using Cognitive Re-framing the pitstop de-personalizes and de-politicizes the issue of performance, thereby un-locking new thinking and creativity.

*Cognitive Re-framing means creating a way of viewing and experiencing events, ideas, concepts and emotions to find more positive alternatives.

Pitstop Engage-Change Model

Today we know more about change than ever before, including why it is so difficult.

Pitstop programs are based on a six-step group model designed to engage and energize organizations and teams in the process of change. 

The key steps in the ‘Pitlane Engage-Change Model‘ are: Status Quo, Awareness, Dialog, Focus, Mobilize, Act and Sustain.

Pitstop Mental Models

The behaviors and strategies of an organization or team derive from its dominant mental model.  Want something different?  Well, first change the model with its underlying beliefs and expectations.

Creative problem solving or any form of innovation requires working on our mental models – holding them up to scrutiny, stretching and even smashing them.  

In Pitstop Programs leaders and their teams look beyond the obvious, question old ways of seeing things and see new linkages and inter-relationships. 

Pitstop Systems Thinking

Performance is too complex to be reduced to one or two isolated factors.  Yet this is what happens in performance conversations every day.

As human beings we have an innate tendency to simplify things.  For example, to identify a particular person or event as the cause of a problem.  The antidote is ‘Systems Thinking’ – something that is key to pitstop thinking. 

Systems Thinking enables leaders to recognize patterns and tackle their underlying causes – key to this is the use of the Pitstop Meta-model™ and Pitstop Analytics™ data-set.