About Us

Athlete Assessments:

Our History

Once upon a time there was a rower...

Athlete Assessments owes its existence to Bo Hanson, an Australian elite rower who competed in four Olympic Games, winning three bronze medals. As an athlete, Bo left no stone unturned in his quest for reaching his full potential.

During the latter stages of his career, Bo searched for a way to understand his behavior as it related to his training, racing and his performance results. This led Bo to learning about DISC behavioral theory, the Myers Briggs Personality Type Indicator, Emotional Intelligence and Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP). Bo learned about his strengths and how to use them more often, and he learned how to improve upon his limitations. DISC Theory also enabled Bo to understand his fellow crewmembers and how to build more productive and fulfilling relationships with them.

Thanks to his understanding of DISC and behavioral profiling, Bo found the latter stages of his rowing career became the most successful and enjoyable years he spent in the boat.

Prior to retiring from his competitive career in 2004, Bo became an expert in DISC behavioral theory and application. At that time the DISC model was most relevant to those in the business world, and whilst it was somewhat useful to Bo as an athlete, he observed that it was not designed to really meet the specific needs of sport.

So, together with a team of passionate experts including sports coaches, IT developers and other DISC accredited professionals, Bo developed AthleteDISC, and created his company Athlete Assessments in 2007. In doing this, Bo and his team gave athletes around the world the first sports version of DISC theory and behavior profiling. Because athletes and coaches have different needs, CoachDISC, a similar tool specifically for sports coaches, followed in early 2009.

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Our Goals

Athlete Assessments was created to provide personality profiling tools for athletes and for coaches, so they are able to improve their performance and realize their true potential.

Athlete Assessments wants to help athletes enjoy their sport as much as possible. So much enjoyment in sport comes from making small improvements to your performance. If this means you win more races or games, then that is a bonus. Sport is an opportunity to be your best. We just want to be part of helping you achieve that.

For coaches, Athlete Assessments recognizes the incredible contribution every coach can make to the lives of the athletes they look after. Not only are coaches mentors and role models who shape young athletes' commitment to and enthusiasm for a sport, coaches impact athletes' whole lives outside of sport as well.

As the Australian Government acknowledges in its 2008 paper 'Australian Sport: emerging challenges, new directions', sport is integral to our way of life. Sport has the unique ability to unite us - to transcend race, religion, gender and creed. It is truly a tool of social cohesion.

Athlete Assessments is passionate about striving for greater sporting performances and the on-going development of sport, coaches and athletes. That's why we are also passionate about the importance of profiling in sport today. Engaging our services sends a strong positive message to your coaches and teams that they are respected and valued, and their organization wants to support them in being the very best they can be.

Our goal with this website, whether our profiles are used or not, is to provide coaches and athletes with an excellent resource to support their development. That's why we have developed a reference section with useful articles and resources and our free e-courses which you can sign up for by filling in the form on the right of this page.

Few things are more inspiring than to see athletes improving themselves. Please join us in this exciting journey.

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Our Services

Athlete Assessments Services include:

Sports Program Reviews	Team Consultations	Development Workshops
Online Behavioral Profiles	One-on-one Consultations	Keynote Presentations
DVDs, books and other resources

 

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About Bo Hanson

• Four Times Olympic Rowing Representative for Australia.
• Three Times Olympic Medalist.
• Specialist Coaching Consultant.
• Corporate Training Consultant and Presenter.

In 1992, Bo became the youngest-ever rowing Olympian for Australia. Since that first Olympics, Bo has won bronze medals in the 1996, 2000 and 2004 Olympic Games.

Drawing on his learning experiences from the Olympics, as well as formal university education and his training and development qualifications, Bo founded and developed Athlete Assessments with a team of colleagues in 2007. Athlete Assessments has created the first online sports-specific behavioral profiling tools for athletes, sports teams and coaches.

Today Bo is highly educated and accredited in the use and administration of the Myers Briggs Personality Type Indicator, DISC Profiling and Emotional Intelligence (Emotional Competence Inventory 360). He is fully aware of the value profiling can deliver, and how far this journey has taken him. "Looking back on my days as an elite athlete, I think of how differently I would have approached many situations. As we become more experienced that should be the case with all of us," Bo says in his article "The teacher will arrive when the student is ready to learn."

Not only has Bo's journey and learning benefited many coaches and athletes, it's also helping those in the corporate world. Bo has been training and presenting to premier companies such as American Express, Bain Consulting, Commonwealth Bank, ANZ, Macquarie Bank, Insurance Australia Group, Telstra and many others. Bo is highly regarded for his expertise in leadership development and all aspects of teamwork, such as goal setting, team attitudes and communication. Bo draws unique parallels between the world of elite sport and high performance business.

In keynote presentations, Bo regularly speaks about leadership and teamwork and how we can develop our skills using behavioral profiling, emotional intelligence and other tools to create greater success in our personal, sporting and business lives.

We welcome your questions please contact us with any inquiries or comments.

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Media/News

On TV News

Watch the evening TV news clip about Bo Hanson working with the Scorchers Cricket Team (November 2008):

Newspapers and Magazines

Read examples of Athlete Assessments in the printed news:

• Personality profiler to fire up the ‘Birds (3 May 2010)
• Business Matters Magazine 5 Minutes with Liz Hanson
• Making mark on sporting world Liz Hanson (30 March 2010)
• Czech-mate for rivals in breakthrough win (29 March 2010)
• Coach expects pay-off (27 March 2010)
• Local to speak at world conference (16 March 2010)
• What's Happening at Cedar Crest College (January 2010)
• US Trip for Coast Sports Coach (December 2009)
• Australian Sports Commission Coaching Video Presentations (September 2009)
• Runners World: How Well Do You Know Your Coach? (July 2009)
• Students To Battle For Medals On Coast (July 2009)
• 1300 Students Converge on Coast for 16th Annual Games (July 2009)
• Pat Has A Mind To Have A Big Dig - Ski Paddler A Dark Horse Favourite (January 2009)
• Helping Coaches Hit Their Mark (September 2008)
• National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics Association: Rapidly Improve (June 2008)
• National Soccer Coaches Association of America: Discover New Ways (June 2008)

Brochures

Our most recent marketing brochures include:

• What Great Coaches Get Right (and how others miss the mark)
• 3 Critical Facts All Sports Coaches Should Know

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