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Research Review of Personality and Behavioral Assessments
This article will review and discuss the key aspects of personality and behavioral assessments and how they can be measured.
In order to do this, we must first review the distinction between personality and behavior. We must also evaluate the different methods of testing the two, specifically DISC (behavioral) and psychometric (personality) testing.
Both are used in creating organizational change and to encourage high team and personal performance, whether this be within an academic, business or sporting environment. It is important to point out that both have their merits and both will effectively provide objective data for otherwise subjective measurements.
Amy Hogue – Seniors taking initiative; know your job, do your job
As a Coach, when an athlete shows initiative and takes ownership of team culture, it’s a big deal.
Culture is a measure of the observable behaviors your team and organization promotes and accepts. Ultimately, culture is best defined as ‘the way we do things around here’ or ‘the way we behave around here’. Culture is not what you think, or want to do, it is what you actually do.
Q&A with Amy Hogue: University of Utah Head Softball Coach
We had a chance to chat to Amy Hogue about life as Head Softball Coach at the University of Utah and about some of her stand out moments along the way. You can also read more about Amy Hogue in our article on Seniors Taking Initiative.
Youth Sports, What Can They Learn From Finnish schools?
Sports in many ways is like education. Athletes need to be taught new skills, they need to be nurtured, especially in the conscious incompetence and unconscious competence stages of their learning where these new skills are still foreign to them, such as in youth sports, and athletes need to be given the best opportunities to grow and succeed by their Coaches and teammates. It is the overall environment, including a good Coach-athlete relationship, access to good equipment, training and competition environments, support mechanisms and athlete self-awareness that allows an athlete to be the best they can be. Similar to how a student given the best possible academic environment will thrive and grow into the best adult they can be.
Data Analytics in Sport: Science vs People
An article has been published in the MIT Technology Review looking at the best-selling book Moneyball by Michael Lewis and how it has changed the way people think about data analytics in sport.
Lewis’s book introduced the sporting world, and in particular those with the biggest vested interests, a method in which player performance was measured and assessed using algorithms and science driven by the ability to gather vast amounts of data about players and the play during a game.
And while this is exciting, and having and relying on all of this data is tempting, unless you can find a way to make it meaningful to athletes, it won’t work.
Former student-athletes blitzing the competition
We all know sports is good for us. We know it acts as a vehicle for life skills, gives us an opportunity to participate, be the best we can be and helps us develop resiliency during our training and in competition. But what you might not know is that former student-athletes are also stronger and more consistent, in areas of well-being outside of sports than non-student-athletes.
A national Gallup-Purdue Index study of nearly 30,000 US college graduates showed that former student-athletes are more likely to be thriving in four out of five areas of well-being that Gallup measures including purpose, financial, social, community and physical well-being.
DISC Profile Strengths in Sport
Our role at Athlete Assessments is to help people become more self-aware. When you complete your CoachDISC or AthleteDISC Profile, you are essentially given the tools you need to become truly aware of the behaviors that help you and those that can be limitations. This is where knowing your DISC Profile Strengths becomes so valuable.
I recently had the experience of working with a young athlete who had just completed her AthleteDISC Profile. During our consultation, we discovered that all of the behaviors she had previously seen as being a limitation in her sport, were in fact behaviors that could be her greatest strengths.
Values and Behavior in Sport
One of the challenges we face as Coaches or as leaders at some stage of our career is when we feel like our values have been compromised. So what are our values, what defines them and what is the difference between our values and behavior?
Knowing your DISC Profile gives job seekers the professional edge
For Dr. Hedlund, it is always exciting to hear about the successes of previous students. But it’s even more exciting when they tell you they were offered a position paying $20,000 more per annum than the one they applied for thanks to what they learnt in your class.
Natasha Miller was studying a Masters degree program in Sport Management at St. John’s University (New York) when she completed the Athlete Assessments Sports ManagerDISC Profile in a Sports Management class with Dr. David Hedlund.
Strategies for Athlete Accountability in Sport
Accountability in sport is doing what you say you’re going to do and executing the task to the best of your ability. Then being able to put your hand up and say ‘this is what I need to do better’ if you don’t get it right. Being accountable is not making excuses, not blaming others or whinging and complaining. Accountability in sport is taking ownership of something and making sure you ‘know your job and do your job’ 100% of the time.
Creating Life Changing Moments: Consultant Case Study
There are instances in sport when a coach will experience a significant break-through with an athlete, or an intense moment of satisfaction when something goes exceptionally well. We describe these instances as “coaching moments”. And although they are often fleeting, they are also treasured, and what makes the hard work and dedication worthwhile. For many coaches, it is what they love most about their role.
For consultants, it isn’t all that different. There are still those special moments when it all comes together and the dedication to the role delivers a “life changing” experience for the client. Performance Consultant Patrick Rufo recently shared one of these very moments with us.
Being the Best Player for the Team
Athletes and coaches understand the importance of each individual player performing at their personal best and to striving to be the best player they can be. But what does it mean to be the “best player for the team”?
During preparation for the 2004 Olympics, Athlete Assessments Bo Hanson was selected in the Men’s Eight Rowing team for Australia. He was performing at his personal best and for a period, was ranked as the number 1 athlete in Australia.
How to Break a Losing Streak
As a coach, nothing is more demoralizing than a losing streak that just won’t break. While we do our absolute best to avoid losing streaks, performance slumps, or even the prospect of our team underachieving it doesn’t mean we can avoid the topic, it’s too important.
US Navy SEALs Resilience: Lessons on Mental Toughness
Mental toughness and resilience is a key quality in athletes that are revered and successful in their chosen sport. The US Navy SEALs resilience is renowned, they are some of the most mentally tough people in the world. The Navy SEALs consistently work where regular combat units do not have the capabilities to create a successful outcome. This sees the Navy SEALs operating in places civilians cannot imagine, under circumstances which demand the highest levels of mental toughness and team work. That is what sets the Navy SEALs resilience apart.
Becky Burleigh: Investing in People
In 1995, Becky Burleigh became the First Head Coach of the Florida Gators Women’s Soccer Program. In the 20 years that have followed, Coach Burleigh has forged a career of excellence because she has continued to invest – invest in herself, in other coaches, in her student-athletes and in the younger generation of women’s soccer players. With an extensive list of achievements including a Division I National Championship already under her belt, we caught up with Becky to hear her insights into sustaining success in coaching.
Are you Missing the Most Important Factor when Recruiting in Sport?
Recruiting. It’s fundamental to the success of any team and as coaches, you make an enormous investment in time with the aim to get it right. So often, coaches are looking for the X-factor or conversations are focused on a physical attribute of a particular player. Are you missing one of the most critical aspects for your team’s success? And, could the success factor come from an unlikely place?
DISC Survey Design Improvements
We continue to strive to lift our game in providing an exceptional level of service and the highest quality products. Most recently, we’ve been working on DISC survey design improvements for our three DISC Profile assessments and we’re excited to share the latest development.
Research on Abuse in Sport and Athlete Welfare
Recently Sports Illustrated published an important article titled, ‘Is the era of abusive college coaches finally coming to an end?’. The article highlighted alarming issues with modern collegiate athletics based on surveys of 20,000 college athletes, as well as the latest research in psychophysiology, psychology, depression, health and abusive leadership.
Create the Right Sports Team Culture: 10 Critical Factors
Culture is being discussed in sporting circles now more than ever. Why? Because it is a significant performance factor. If you have the “right” culture, your team is more likely to achieve sustainable success – not always winning, but always being in the hunt. If you have the “wrong” culture, your chances of any success, even fleeting success are almost zero. So how do you create the right sports team culture? In this article we discuss 10 Factors that Define Successful Sports Team Cultures.
What is culture? In its simplest and most useful description culture is the “way we behave on this team”. Behavior is a reflection of values. Recruiting and developing a common set of values helps create success.
DISC Profiling Research into the Effectiveness of Developing Self-Awareness
Over the summer, Bo Hanson, Director of Athlete Assessments and David Hedlund, Assistant Professor of Sport Management at St. John’s University, New York presented at the National Coaching Conference in Morgantown.
The presentation focused on David’s ‘Research into the Effectiveness of Developing Sport Coaches’ Self-Awareness using DISC Profiling’. David previously presented accompanying research at the 2014 SMAANZ (Sports Management Association of Australia and New Zealand) Conference in Melbourne.
Play Like A Champion
Here’s two statistics you’re sure to be interested in. 98% of coaches surveyed believe that having an effective team captain positively impacts their teams’ winning percentage. No surprise there. But what may surprise you is that the same research into Leadership Development in College Sport found just 37% of coaches believed their captains were prepared to handle the responsibilities and challenges of leadership.
2015 National Championship Coach – Becky Carlson
Congratulations to Quinnipiac University’s Women’s Rugby team who have finished an exceptional 2015 season by winning the inaugural varsity National Championship. In this article, Head Coach Becky Carlson shares her secrets to success.
Since moving to Quinnipiac University from her position with USA Rugby as an Emerging Sports Program Manager in 2011, Head Coach Becky Carlson has led her team to uncharted success, and has dramatically changed the landscape of Women’s Rugby in the United States. Before becoming the 2015 Champions, the Bobcats had competed in three of the previous four National Championship games, demonstrating that Coach Carlson has already forged a legacy of excellence at Quinnipiac.
ONE Element
With Athlete Assessments we have now worked with over 22,000 individuals from over 40 different sports. This work has given me a unique vantage point to see the recurring patterns or themes that create success. When I see these patterns consistently creating success, year after year, the evidence certainly mounts. With this in mind, here is one of those concepts I have seen create consistent success. I believe it is critical for any coach and all teams to clearly understand and apply this concept to improve performance.
“Showing up” on the People Side
Q&A with Stephanie Wheeler, Head Coach of the University of Illinois Women’s Wheelchair Basketball team and the USA Women’s Olympic team.
When it comes to wheelchair basketball, few have experienced the success Stephanie Wheeler has in her extensive career as a player and now Head Coach. Recently, Coach Wheeler took the University of Illinois all the way to the Championship game. We had a chance to catch up with Stephanie and to ask her some questions about her approach to becoming successful in the Coaching environment.
Turning around the Team
A Personal Insight into David Zelenock’s Volleyball Program
Would you take on the challenge of turning around a team that has placed last in its conference three years in a row? Turning a team around is no easy task, yet just two years into his tenure, first-time Head Coach David Zelenock took Tennessee Tech’s Volleyball Program from 12th into the top four. We asked Coach Zelenock what has been key to this transformation.
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