Going for Gold: Sport Psychology Supports Learning & Development
What does it take to win a gold medal? It takes a lot more than healthy eating and long training sessions, according to Dr. Greta Dzieciaszek, Senior Director, People, Organization and Capabilities for Ipsen North America and a trained sport psychologist. Mental fortitude is key to transforming good athletes to great ones. But the same philosophies behind sport psychology can also help us achieve peak performance in the workplace.
In this Q&A, hear from Greta on how she applies sport psychology to her learning and development initiatives at Ipsen to help support the growth of her colleagues.
Q: Tell us about your career journey and how you made your way to the biopharma industry.
After getting my doctorate in psychology, I started my career with the U.S. Army where I trained soldiers to be more resilient and mentally tough. I helped prep them for deployment or for attending elite schools within the military, so some of it was centered on resilience and some of it was on achieving peak performance. I loved this work, but when I was ready to do something new with my career I thought, “Where else can I incorporate this idea of peak performance and how we can make people and teams great?”
The corporate space felt like a natural next step. Like in sports, people in business are trying to achieve and accomplish things that are really challenging and difficult. In the corporate world, the question is: “How do we help the organization perform at its best? How do we help people within the organization achieve their purpose and greatness within their role or whatever they aspire to do?”
This led me to the biopharma industry and ultimately to Ipsen. I love our mission and focus on improving the lives of individuals and their families.
Q: For any readers unfamiliar, how would you define sport psychology?
Sport psychology is about looking at the mental aspect of someone’s performance and helping them to optimize their mental game so they can achieve success or greatness. Typically, when you reach the top level of sports, you’ve done everything physically that you can do. You’re eating perfectly, you’re exercising, you’re completing all your training. The difference between you and the person next to you might just be your mind and what you believe you’re capable of. Sport psychology is that last piece. In a competition, it can be the differentiator between someone who medals and someone who doesn’t.
Q: What areas of sport psychology most apply to your work at Ipsen? Are there specific strategies you focus on?
I love feedback. In sports, coaches and athletes are always giving each other feedback during each game or competition. A football coach is always telling players what to do on the field and the players are interpreting that as information that can help them reach their goals. It’s not construed as negative feedback. This is an idea that I try to bring to our work: feedback is just information that can help you better achieve your goals.
I also like to remind my colleagues that sometimes your peak performance can be achieved through a simple mental switch. We have thousands of thoughts throughout the day – some may be encouraging, while others are disruptive, so how can we use those thoughts to our advantage? I try to remind teams that changing our mindset and how we look at things can often bring a better solution.
As an organization, our ultimate goal is to innovate for the benefit of people living with a rare disease, cancer or neurological condition and their caregivers. If we look at feedback or that mental switch as a means for helping individuals impacted by the diseases that we provide treatment for – the answer is simple.
Q: Why is focusing on professional and personal development so important in the workplace?
There is an intensity that top athletes bring to all aspects of what they do, including how they train and prepare themselves for their sport. For them, it’s about achieving the gold. This is the same for the workplace – it’s so important to learn new skills that will make us more effective within our roles – but for us at Ipsen, the stakes are even higher as we work on behalf of individuals and their families.
