Oxford Place

Scientific Approach

This section of our website is intended for academics and experts to use as a resource for studying some of the key elements in the science of Peak Performance.

The science of Peak Performance comprises a varied and wide-ranging number of disciplines. In the last five years, groundbreaking new research in the fields of cognitive neuroscience and behavioural psychology in particular, have revealed the precise mental mechanics that elite athletes and world-famous business people have used to achieve extraordinary success.

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One of the reasons the science of Peak Performance has been restricted to academia and elite athletes, rather than being applied systematically in the business world, is because it comprises a number of disparate disciplines, ranging from organisational psychology and sports science at one extreme to biological psychology and behavioural neuroscience at the other.

In recent years, a number of leading academics have brought these varied disciplines together and published a range of papers which elicit many of the vital elements of applying the science of Peak Performance in business.

Professor Jerry Wind’s study of ‘Mental Models’ at Wharton Business School brings to a business environment cutting-edge methodologies for Peak Performance derived from the latest sports psychology research. At the more scientific end of the spectrum, Professor Gerald Zaltman (Emeritus Professor of Marketing at Harvard Business School) and Professor Jerry Oltman have pioneered the use of cognitive neuroscience to ascertain how to deliver highly targeted marketing communications strategies for Fortune 500 firms.

Oxford Place is in discourse with a number of leading academics in this field, with access to pre-publication research findings, to ensure that our clients benefit from the most up-to-date methodologies in the field of Peak Performance.

The list of reference articles below is by no means exhaustive. Nonetheless, we have focused on research which is easily-accessible to both the academic and lay expert (consisting mostly of research in fields of cognitive psychology and sports science).

We hope this resource is both engaging and beneficial for your research.

A. TEAM GOAL-ACHIEVEMENT

Coaching executive teams to harness their full power and potential to achieve extraordinary objectives is the most rewarding aspect of our work at Oxford Place.

There is a huge body of research on the nature and component parts of establishing choice-based targets and achieving goals which are groundbreaking or otherwise extra-ordinary.

Among the most valuable research studies are the following:

  1. Forward, J., & Zander, A. (1971). Choice of unattainable group goals and effects on performance. Organizational Behavior and Human Performance, 6, 184-199.
  2. DiBernardinis, J., Barwind, J., Flaningham, R. R., & Jenkins, V. (2002). Enhanced interpersonal relation as predictor of athletic performance. International Journal of Sport Psychology, 14, 243-251.
  3. Ommundsen, Y., & Roberts, G. C. (1996). Goal orientations and perceived purposes of training among elite athletes. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 83, 463-471.
  4. Locke, E. A. (2004). Problems with goal-setting research in sports–and their solution. Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 13, 311-316.
  5. Steers, R. M., & Porter, L. W. (1974). The role of task-goal attributes in employee performance. Psychological Bulletin, 81, 434-452.
  6. Scheflen, K. C., Lawler, E. E., & Hackman, J. R. (1971). Long-term impact of employee participation in the development of pay incentive plans: A field study revisited. Journal of Applied Psychology, 55, 182-186.
  7. Umstot, D. D., Bell, C. H., & Mitchell, T. R. (1976). Effects of job enrichment and task goals on satisfaction and productivity: Implications for job design. Journal of Applied Psychology, 61, 379-394.
  8. Duda, J. L. (1989). Goal perspectives, participation, and persistence in sports. International Journal of Sports Psychology, 20(1), 42-56.

B. ‘VAKOG’ and MENTAL IMAGERY

The use of the five senses (Visual, Auditory, Kinesthetic, Olfactory and Gustatory) combined with Mental Imagery to prepare for success has been championed in the modern era in business by the CEO of Siemens, Klaus Kleifeld and in sport by English rugby player Jonny Wilkinson and world record-breaking endurance swimmer Lewis Pugh among many others.

It has been proven in recent groundbreaking studies that when this use of mental imagery is combined with relaxation, results are considerably heightened and both businesspeople and athletes are at a significant competitive advantage.

  1. Munroe, K., Hall, C., Simms, S., & Weinberg, R. (1998). The influence of type of sport and time of season on athletes’ use of imagery. The Sport Psychologist, 12, 440-449.
  2. Lamirand, M., & Rainey, D. (1994). Mental imagery, relaxation, and accuracy of basketball foul shooting. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 78, 1229-1230.
  3. Bohan, M., Pharmer, J. A., & Stokes, A. F. (1999). When does imagery practice enhance performance on a motor task? Perceptual and Motor Skills, 88, 651-658.
  4. Weinberg, R., Seabourne, T., & Jackson, A. (1987). Arousal and relaxation instructions prior to the use of imagery: Effects on image controllability, vividness and performance. International Journal of Sport Psychology, 18, 205-214.
  5. Lohasz, P. G., & Leith, L. M. (1997). The effect of three mental preparation strategies on the performance of a complex response time task. International Journal of Sport Psychology, 28, 25-34.
  6. Morgan, W. P., Horstman, D. H., Cymerman, A., & Stokes, J. (1983). Facilitation of physical performance by means of a cognitive strategy. Cognitive Therapy and Research, 7, 251-264.
  7. Thomas, P. R., & Fogarty, G. J. (1997). Psychological skills training in golf: The role of individual differences in cognitive preferences. The Sport Psychologist, 11, 86-106.

C. CONSCIOUS AUTO-SUGGESTION

Conscious Auto-Suggestion forms the basis of ‘Applied Conditioning’ as a psychological performance methodology. It is highly effective and extremely easy to effect with a client who wishes to train themselves to significantly increase performance.

  1. Neck, C. P., & Manz, C. C. (2005). Thought self-leadership: The influence of self-talk and mental imagery on performance. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 13, 681-699.
  2. Deeny, S. P., Hillman, C H., Janelle, C. M., & Hatfield, B. D. (2001). EEG coherence and neural efficiency in expert and non-expert marksmen. Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise, 33(5), Supplement abstract 1008.
  3. Weinberg, R. S., Smith, J., Jackson, A., & Gould, D. (1984). Effects of association, disassociation, and positive self-talk strategies on endurance performance. Canadian Journal of Applied Sport Science, 9, 25-32.
  4. Oei, T. P., & Barber, C. (2004). Cognitive strategies used to rehearse positive self-statements. Psychologia: An International Journal of Psychology in the Orient, 32, 203-210.
  5. Rushall, B. S., & Shewchuk, M. L. (1989). Effects of thought content instructions on swimming performance. The Journal of Sports Medicine and Physical Fitness, 29, 326-334.
  6. Schumate, M., & Worthington, E. L. (1987). Effectiveness of components of self-verbalization training for control of cold pressor pain. Journal of Psychosomatic Research, 31, 301-310.

D. SELF-EFFICACY

Self-efficacy, when applied correctly, produces extraordinary results in both business and sports environments.

It is defined in Coaching Science Abstracts as “the strength of one’s conviction that he or she can successfully execute a behaviour required to produce a certain outcome”.

Self-Efficacy is the belief that one has the capabilities to execute the courses of actions required to manage prospective situations. Unlike efficacy, which is the power to produce an effect (in essence, competence), self-efficacy is the belief that one has the power to produce that effect.

  1. Mahoney, M. J., & Avener, M. (1977). Psychology of the elite athlete: An exploratory study. Cognitive Therapy and Research, 1, 135-141.
  2. Brody, E. B., Hatfield, B. D., & Spalding, T. W. (1988). Generalization of self-efficacy to a continuum of stressors upon mastery of a high-risk sport skill. Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 10, 32-44.
  3. Belciug, M. P. (1992). Effects of prior expectancy and performance outcome on attributions to stable factors in high-performance competitive athletics. S. A. Journal for Research in Sport, Physical Education and Recreation, 14(2), 1-8.
  4. Bandura, A. (1977). Self-efficacy: Toward a unifying theory of behavioral change. Psychological Review, 84, 191-215.
  5. Weinberg, R., Gould, D., & Jackson, A. (1980). Relationship between self-efficacy and performance in a competitive setting. A paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Canadian Association of Sport Sciences, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

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