Sports Team Culture
Articles and Videos
If you work with or in a team, this section is a must. We cover pre-season preparation, the development of teams, team selection, the secrets of great teams as well as all things related to building strong athlete engagement from team loyalty to building athlete responsibility. You may find our sections for our most recent articles, resources and materials, latest newsletters, or 5 Minutes with Bo Hanson video series valuable too.
Team Day Activity a Festive Season Favorite in February
Athlete Assessments Team Day #1 2021; Team Day activity, using DISC profiling, developing communication, team work and some fun.
We are in the AITD 2020 Excellence Awards Finals
We are incredibly proud and excited with the news we recently received from the Australian Institute of Training and Development (AITD). Each year they preside over the national Excellence Awards and Athlete Assessments have just been announced as one of eight finalists in the Best Leadership Development Program Award. Prior winners range from large corporations and Australian household brands such as Coles, Blackmores Institute, Volkswagen Group, Government departments and top Universities, so it is truly an honor to be named a Finalist now and we have our fingers crossed for the winner announcement later this year.
Athlete Assessments’ Team Day #1 2020 – Re-establishing & Symbolizing Values
How did we get to a point where the CEO has confidence in the people she relies on? How did a group of people become a team with shared goals and a sense of excitement about navigating the challenges that the journey might bring? The answer lies in the process and so you can see how the specialists in the people side of sport connect their people to the organization’s goals – I will take you inside our latest Team Day at Athlete Assessments.
Debunking The Myth of Leadership
Leadership is not anchored to a nominal position or the domain of the select few within a team, according to Sarah Leberman, Professor of Leadership at Massey University, New Zealand. Also a Fulbright Scholar and the author of highly significant research on leadership, Leberman specialises in applying the knowledge surrounding leadership to the sport space and in particular women and girls.
The How, What and Why of Athlete Leadership – Tips for Coaches
So, you’ve just decided on the leadership role or roles within your team. Now the journey begins! What do you want your leaders to do? How do you expect them to carry out the role? You might have your own ideas and that’s fantastic. Maybe you’ve coached a team with effective leadership, and you know what works. Or perhaps you’d like your athletes to role model someone around them. But, if you’re wondering what effective leadership looks like in sport, I’ll give you a short method that I know works well. It’s crucial to know what’s important, what impacts performance.
Embracing Values from Inside the Sports Team
There are some non-negotiable principles teams need to have in place if they are to achieve success. Firstly, every unique team must have a set of values they agree to live by. Secondly, they have rules to co-operate within a framework. What’s interesting is how many of these teams fail to live their values, or only live them to some degree. The special few, live them to the degree required to achieve success.
Directing Team Culture
Fundamentally, coaches need to be involved in directing team culture to ensure that the culture surrounding their athletes or program supports the level of performance and behavior that athletes need to succeed.
5 Minutes with Bo Hanson: Talking Toughness
Does your program breed toughness in your team? In this concise video, Hanson simplifies the dialogue around toughness in sport by providing a short definition of what we mean when we talk toughness. He describes what tough athletes look like, and the ways in which this attribute can separate and elevate performance. Hanson also presents effective strategies for athletes to utilize when they need to rely on their toughness and how to perform at their best when it matters the most. The video also covers techniques for coaches to facilitate toughness development with the current generation in an era that doesn’t make it easy.
5 Minutes with Bo Hanson: Talking Team Culture
Every team has a culture, some cultures support high-performance while others simply grow around dominant personalities in the team. In this video, Hanson simplifies the dialogue around culture in sport with a succinct definition of the term. He describes what culture looks like, and how to identify it in the sporting context. Together, Hanson and Antoniolli talk about a Coach’s role in guiding team culture. They question whether the team or its individual players’ level of skill and experience has a bearing on team culture. Hanson examines the fundamental components of a successful culture and explains what can happen when a team culture is left to develop on its own.
Accountability Key to Championship Form
After a stellar playing career that included 4 consecutive NCAA Tournament appearances, Kristi Stefanoni, Head Coach of the UMass Softball Program, has solidified her position as a stellar coach with another successful year and being rewarded with the title of 2018 Atlantic 10 Coach of the Year.
Athlete Assessments’ Team Day
Every team needs to set aside time to re-connect, review goals and revisit values. Athlete Assessments is no different. We have four Team Days a year and the first one for 2019 saw us rock climbing, getting to know each other a little better from a DISC perspective and making some tough “Decisions” over a lunch menu!
6 CRUCIAL Steps to Success in Taking Over a Program
Congratulations! You’ve just been recruited as the new Head Coach. Whatever circumstances led to your appointment, the fact remains; you need to turn this team around – fast. You’ve got to get important elements of the team on side and develop what’s left of the team culture into a culture that you want. A culture that develops growth and delivers performance. There are six non-negotiable elements to success in this situation.
Energize your Team like a Rock Star
Rock bands follow a formula for managing their audience’s energy. When you think about any of the live gigs you’ve been to, they follow a pretty predictable pattern. Predictable but effective. In this short video Bo Hanson shows you how to apply that formula to coaching sessions.
It’s unrealistic to expect athletes to be energized 100% of the time over the course of a training session which may be 2-3 hours long. Instead, it is our job as coaches to manage their energy in an effective way, taking into account physical development, skill acquisition and importantly, enjoyment.
It’s enjoyment and satisfaction that keeps athletes coming back.
It’s essential that most needed, least enjoyable and favorite drills are scheduled in an order that manages your athletes’ energy, ensures they make the most of every session and come back for more.
Watch this video as Bo Hanson explains:
Strategies to Develop Team Culture
Strategies that drive the development of team culture are universal and they include establishing a team’s; goals, roles, values and behaviors By Mim Haigh, Sports Writer – Athlete Assessments In our early article on ‘Getting
Getting Clear on Team Culture
Team culture – a definition, an explanation of what it looks like in a sporting context and a guide as to how Coaches can identify what their team culture is. By Mim Haigh, Sports Writer
Looking Beyond Skill and Talent
The movement towards “looking beyond skill and talent” must be backed by all Coaches who want to develop a concrete set of behavioral and non-technical criteria that support their team while they reach for their goals. Each Coach looks for something different in their athletes and in this article we look at the advice Mel Downer of Basketball Queensland, Australia gives to emerging athletes.
Roadblocks to Accountability
In a revealing interview with Dr. Jen Fraser, for End Bullying & Abuse in Sports Summit, Bo Hanson 3 x Olympic medalist and 4 x Olympian explains why a Coach’s bullying tactics will not create a pathway for personal growth, long-term results, mental skills or mental toughness.
Footballing Bible FourFourTwo Investigates Team Chemistry
When the world’s biggest football magazine, FourFourTwo, took a look at team chemistry, writer Ben Welch spoke to premiership winning players, like Crystal Palace midfielder Yohan Cabaye and Celtic’s Musso Dembele for their insight into the unbreakable bonds that build team chemistry. He also spoke to Arsenal’s premiership winning Coach,
Athlete Assessments Team Day: We Walk Our Talk
Athlete Assessments’ Senior Coaching Consultant, Bo Hanson, walks his talk at the organization’s Team Day. In this article we give you exclusive access to our Team Day, a day we set aside to review our internal scoreboard, establish goals for the coming year, assess our achievements, spend time with new team members and revisit our purpose.
Tim O’Brien – Once, Twice, Three times a National Champion!
Which is exactly what Saint Mary’s College of California’s Head Coach Tim O’Brien achieved when he led the Gaels to their third National Championship victory this year.
Elise Ray – Phenomenal First Year as Head Coach
It’s a big deal to turn a team around as a first year Head Coach. It’s an even bigger deal to do this and get your team to the National Championships. And when it’s the first time that team has reached the NCAA Nationals since 1998, well you don’t get much better than that.
Coach Roland Thornqvist: Winning Coaches Never Stop Learning
Have you ever wondered what successful Coaches do differently? How they manage to amass title after title and build a team culture athletes want to be part of?
The first thing we noticed with winning Coaches is that they never sit back and become complacent. Instead, the fact that they don’t is what sets them apart from the rest. Winning Coaches are always learning, always striving for the 0.1% and this set them up for success game after game, year after year.
And that’s exactly what University of Florida’s Head Women’s Tennis Coach Roland Thornqvist has done.
Elissa Kent – From Championship Player to Championship Coach
It takes a different skillset and a different mindset. Many incredible athletes have tried to make the transition and been unsuccessful. But there are a few who have got it right. Elissa Kent is one of these few.
Ali Carey-Oliver: How to take over a Program and Win! The Game Plan for Coaching Success
Head Coach Ali Carey-Oliver achieved unprecedented success at Mt. San Antonio College after her women’s Volleyball program won their first ever Conference Championship with a perfect 8-0 conference record and an outstanding 20-4 season overall.
Solving a TOUGH Problem in Sport
The book GRIT made it onto many coaches reading lists over the summer (including ours) and there has been significant media coverage on the topic too. The interest is well founded as more than ever before, Coaches are unanimous in saying that their athletes are lacking resilience, they aren’t as ‘tough’ as their teams in previous times have been. And not just physically tough, mentally tough. But is ‘grit’ really the solution needed? Has the word ‘grit’ become too interchangeable that the real definition has been lost?
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Learn more about Athlete Assessments
DISC Profiling
Learn how to master the people side of sport using DISC Profiling...
What We Do
We specialize in helping our clients create and sustain winning results...
Our Clients
See who we work with and read what they say about us...
