When I was 18 I made my first Olympic Rowing Team. I guess that is one way to stand out to Colleges. At the time I made a decision to continue to pursue my rowing in Australia. My career eventually stretched to 4 Olympics and three Olympic medals in total. But I would dearly have loved to pursue the opportunities I had to attend US Colleges also. Be great to have your cake and eat it too! Today I assist High School athletes to achieve their ambitions in sport by giving them a way to stand out amongst their competition.

In a recent article called, Finding the Right Coach and Program for You, (as seen on the site, be recruited) it mentioned how critical it is to have an understanding of your prospective College’s and Coach’s philosophy on sport, coaching, education and I also would add the balance that must exist between those two areas. The article was excellent in how it outlined some important questions you will need to be assertive enough to ask if you are to gain this vital understanding. I chose my Coaches very carefully. I believe my Coach, who is actually now the US Rowing Head Coach, is the best Coach in the World. Maybe I am a bit biased. But he is a Coach who has his athlete’s best interests at heart. Nothing is more important that for him to see his athletes succeed in their life (not just their sport) and to be the best that they can possibly be. What a great philosophy. In my business, Athlete Assessments, we call this philosophy, Athlete Centered.

I strongly believe you need to search for an Athlete Centered Coach. A coach who wants you to win for yourself and the glory of your team and the College you represent. Of course Coaches want to experience the victory too, it is just a matter of priority for them, that is, they will enjoy it because it means so much to you.

The other great aspect of Athlete Centered Coaches is the way they will coach you. They will tailor their coaching style to suit the type of personality you have. They will coach you in a way that is appropriate for you. These coaches are excellent at building the strong bonds of rapport with you. And remember, rapport is all about trust and respect. Athlete Centered Coaches will trust and respect you and in turn you will naturally trust and respect them. The relationship will then truly become, over time, a collaborative one. In this collaborative relationship, you can develop techniques, throw different ideas around and essentially develop immeasurably as an athlete and person.

For you as an athlete to stand out, you must demonstrate a high level awareness of your knowledge of yourself. Athletes that have self-awareness know what they need and why. They can motivate themselves, can prepare consistently well to perform when it counts and they understand how to make changes to their behaviour to fit into any team. To learn this about yourself is simple. We have created an online first, in the Athlete Assessments AthleteDISC profile. This is a personality profile that gives you this vital information in a 21 page report. We even have built in the most effective way to stand out from the others by allowing you to ask your fellow team members for feedback on your performance, your strengths and even how you can improve. When you show your prospective Colleges and Coaches this information and report what do you think they will think of your professionalism? I mean how many of your peers do any mental skills self development.

How many times have you been told that a large portion of athletic success is in your head?

From my experience, the most successful athletes are the ones who are able to manage themselves through a complete understanding of who they are and how they behave. Coaches love this information because for them it takes the guess work out of trying to get to know you. You do not have the luxury of time when being recruited. Coaches must be able to gauge your suitability quickly. Imagine having your prospective Coach, look at your Athlete DISC profile, see the positive comments from your fellow team members and former Coaches and to appreciate that you are the type of athlete who is going to leave no stone unturned in your approach to sport and academic success.

I almost forgot…perhaps what I most respected about my coach, was this. He expected me to improve myself, to make changes, to continually search for ways to be better. Before he expected this of me though, he demanded it of himself. He was continually looking at ways to improve himself. So add that to your list of questions that you have for your next prospective coach. Just ask them, what development programs they have been on this year. I know this may be tough, but a coach must be prepared to role model the types of behaviour that they want to see in their athletes. It is that simple and I feel strongly about this and hope this helps you to select the best possible College and Coach so that you can enjoy and learn as much from sports as I have. Sport and Coaches have so much to teach and life is about learning.

Bo Hanson is a four time Olympian and Triple Olympic Medalist. He is one of Australia’s most dynamic speakers on sport and business performance. He founded Athlete Assessments to assist coaches and athletes to improve their results through better understanding of themselves and others. He can be contacted through http://www.athleteassessments.com or bo.hanson@athleteassessments.com

Great teamwork happens when those on the team have a philosophy of being the best person for the team rather than the best person in the team. Often athletes compete brutally against each other in order to be selected on the team and then once they are on the team, they are expected to put the team first. This is quite a departure from their previous thinking when they had to fight for themselves. However, if their thinking does not change, then we end up with a non-united team. A team of individuals. A team that without question, will fail to produce their best when it matters the most. As coaches, we may or may not have a role in selecting our team. Some do and some don’t. Regardless of this, every coach, must understand the interplay of behavioural styles / personalities that exist of their team. This interplay is called Team Dynamics and just by observing a team, it can be quite a challenge to accurately understand the diverse mix of these styles. To fully and accurately understand, coaches can turn to the Athlete DISC and the Team Dynamics Profiling. After all, most teams fail due to clashes of behaviour patterns (”personality clashes”). Clashes that could have been managed had the coach and team been aware of them.

Creating Great Teams

Some coaches assume any group can automatically be a team. One of the biggest single reasons that teams misfire is that personality differences are ignored. In short, who’s selected for the team will affect the outcome. For best results, we must be strategic about the athletes on the team, what their behavioural style is and what the outcome of these behavioural styles is in creating the Team Dynamics Profile. With this knowledge coaches can begin to understand likely team behaviours and the most effective way to coach the overall team. Coaches can also see where gaps are in the team’s diversity and can, where able, recruit athletes of particular profiles to fill those gaps.

When coaches create a sporting team and employ their knowledge of the four Athlete DISC behavioral styles, they can greatly improve the team’s chances for success. Coaches will need to take into account that there are natural allies and antagonists among the styles and also that each style functions best at a different phase in the life cycle of a team. For information on Team Development Stages, stay tuned as an article is coming out soon on this topic.

For example, Interactive styles (I’s) often see Compliant styles (C’s) as overly-analytical and rule governed. Dominant styles (D’s) might sooner die than have to continually wait on the more considerate style of the Steady team members (S’s). Compliant styles, while often drawn to Steady styles, have difficulty understanding the Interactive style’s lack of focus or the Dominant style’s impatience. And Steady styles only wish everyone was as amiable and tolerant as they. So while the potential for conflict is always there, it needn’t become the reality. In creating a team, think about who you are putting on it and monitor how they function during the group’s evolution. That way you’ll not only make the best possible use of the strengths of each team member, you can help create a whole that’s much larger than the sum of the parts. Discovering what styles you have on your team is easy. When each of your team, complete an Athlete DISC Profile, they will be mapped onto a Team Dynamics Chart like the one below.

Visit our site to see the article on this topic and view the Dynamics Profile Chart.

In the Team Dynamics Profile example, a coach can see that there are two different percentage measures in each Behavioural Style. The first percentage is the Norm Group. The norm group is a measure of the % of team members that theoretically form a healthy amount of a certain behavioural style. The other percentage is Your Group. This is the actual percentage of a certain behavioural style that exists in your team.

The first aspect to look at in the Team Dynamics Profile, is the Norm Group vs Your Group percentage. We ideally want these percentages to map to the theory percentages. Successful teams tend to have healthy diversity within the behavioural profiles. Can you think of what may occur if one behavioural style is oversupplied?

In the above example, the first team issue to notice is the lack of D’s. In teams, D’s provide a sense of urgency, a pace setting style of leadership, a love of a challenge, a strong results focus and a what ever it takes style of play. What do you think may be the outcome for a team that is missing these qualities? Think about team members who naturally want to assume a leadership role, what profile do you think they are most likely?

The second observation is that there are too many I’s. Interactive (I) style behaviours are fast paced, people oriented, motivated by change and fun, are impulsive with their choices, will be interested in the social side of sport as well as the need for individual recognition. As well, I’s are talkative types who tend to wear there heart on their sleeve more so than the other styles. With roughly twice as many I’s as the theory suggests is required, this team will likely struggle at times to switch on a focus. There may be a lot of off topic communication and if their coach does not provide excitement and fun elements at training, then they will start to disengage.

The other factor in this team, is that their Steady style (S) is under represented. S styles are described as the ultimate team player. They listen, are observant of others, portray tolerance, are highly amiable and generally will naturally put the team before themselves. Some describe S’s as the glue that binds the team together. What do you think may happen in this team given that there are not enough of the S’s?

Finally, the Compliant style. You will notice that this style is also over represented by 25%. Compliant styles (C’s) are rule guided, motivated by structure and systems being effective and efficient, are stubborn and inflexible to change unless there is sufficient evidence such as facts and figures to support the change. They are also likely to be highly conscious of quality above all else, are interested in the “right” process before the result and are more a thinker than a feeler who will be reticent to express themselves. Whilst fantastic people to have on a team, they can often be prone to preferring to work alone. So knowing this what impact do you think the impact on the team will be?

In summary, Team Dynamics Profiling gives us concrete indications on how the team will bond, interact and ultimately perform. Obtaining accurate information on Team Dynamics is easy and inexpensive using the Athlete DISC Profiling system. I have noticed that when teams significantly underperform, there is almost always critical behavioural issues (”personality clashes”) that were never addressed by the coach. Sport is tough enough. Coaching is one of the most challenging roles a person can have. In a recent survey of elite coaches from a diversity of sports, coaches rated the three most challenging aspects of their roles. 50% rated “Understanding individual athlete’s personality and how to best motivate them”. 46% rated “Personal life balance – managing sport, career, home and social life.” And 31% rated “Team/squad dynamics and managing relationships within the team/squad”. Don’t make your job any harder by neglecting this critical aspect of team performance. Use the knowledge available with Athlete Assessments and the Athlete DISC to assist you to make better informed decisions.

Boden Hanson is a four time Olympian and Triple Olympic Medalist. He is one of Australia’s most dynamic speakers on sport and business performance. He founded Athlete Assessments to assist coaches and athletes to improve their results through better understanding of themselves and others. He can be contacted through http://www.athleteassessments.com or bo.hanson@athleteassessments.com