Image: http://www.grootbosfoundation.org/

“Sport has the power to change the world. It has the power to inspire. It has the power to unite people in a way that little else can. Sport can awaken hope where there was previously only despair.” (Nelson Mandela, Laureus World Sports Awards Ceremony, 2000)

Author: Dr. Nicola Taylor

The South African Department of Sports and Recreation recently published an in-depth study on the social and economic value of sport to the nation. Sport contributes greatly to the nation’s culture, recreation time, health, economy, and even education. Sport helps create a forum through which values and discipline are instilled, entertainment is provided, and a sense of camaraderie is evoked. While the social and economic value of sport cannot be denied, the challenge lies in maximising this value to the benefit of every stakeholder.

In South Africa, the government spends an estimated R3 billion annually on sports-related activities. With the hosting of major sporting events such as the annual Nedbank Golf Challenge, the Comrades marathon, the Argus Cycle Tour, the Rugby World Cup in 1995, the Cricket World Cup in 2007, the Indian Premier League in 2009, and now the 2010 FIFA World Cup, South Africa has demonstrated its capacity, willingness, and enthusiasm for arranging world-class tournaments.

So, with all this focus on sport – what happens with the players? While some of the funding goes to community sports development programmes and facility maintenance, the Department of Sports and Recreation proposed in their strategy for 2010-2014 that they will attempt to focus on making the transition from mass based programmes to high performance easier for athletes. In order to do this, they would have to coordinate and monitor talent identification and development programmes as well as the delivery of scientific support to national development athletes. These sports development programmes will supposedly be reinforced by an athlete tracking system to allow the impact of the interventions to be assessed.

And so enters the psychologist. In business, we are experts at identifying and developing talent, and these skills can be put to excellent use in the sports arena. Talent in sport is multifaceted, and many models exist for evaluating the areas in which an individual needs to excel in order to become successful in a particular sport. The main components usually include physiological, physical, psychological, and technical attributes, along with other intangibles such as being coachable. It follows that even though an athlete may be exceptionally physically and technically talented, other aspects could hinder their ability to fully perform. In a study conducted by the Evashaw Sports Programme across all sporting activities, it was found that 40% of all athletes were not receptive to their coaches, and 98% of elite athletes fail to achieve their full potential.

As psychologists, we have excellent tools to assess areas in need of development, and we have the models to develop practical development plans. While there are exceptional sports psychologists doing good work in South Africa, very little research is published on the use of assessments and the outcomes on the sports field. Where assessments have been used, they tend to be specifically developed to measure aspects of coping in athletics. JvR has been privileged to work with some of our clients in research in sports, and also have a wide variety of assessments that have been shown to measure aspects of sport performance in the international arena.

Recently, a study done by David Crombie highlighted the importance of emotional intelligence in sport in South Africa. He showed that specific aspects of EI (as measured by the MSCEIT™) actually predicted where a provincial cricket team would finish on the log in the SuperSport Series. Other studies are currently underway looking at the importance of mood states, personality, emotional intelligence, and attention skills in athletic performance in various sports.

The creators of the Vienna Test System have also put together a special system for use in assessing sports performance. The VTS has the ability to assess aspects such as reaction time, visuomotor coordination, vigilance, attention, peripheral perception, and many other psychological attributes. This Expert Sport System has been used successfully in predicting performance in motor sports, has been used by the German football team for development, and is used at a number of Sports Institutes across the world in training for high performance. In addition to the assessment function, there are also programmes that help train special abilities, such as memory and attention (Cogniplus), and physiological stress management (Biofeedback).

Call or email Nicola on 011 781 3705

Author: Shawn Bakker of Psychometrics Canada

Leadership and change are two of the most popular business topics in North America. There is good reason for this popularity; effective leadership and effective change management are important for a business to be successful. Leadership and change are also strongly related. A key part of leadership is recognizing and adapting to change.

I recently worked with a successful Colonel in the Canadian Forces, and he was by no means the stereotypical military officer. He was not someone with a primary focus on efficiency, cool logical analysis, and rigid schedules; instead he was very flexible, warm and friendly, and genuinely excited about possibilities for people. Using a normative comparison, the Colonel has little in common with other military commanders. So how could someone like this be successful in the military? The Colonel’s success relies on two things – recognizing his skills and guiding his career toward projects that match his natural strengths, and being willing to stretch himself and act differently when required. As the Commanding Officer of the health services group that covers half of the armed forces, his atypical military profile fits very well with the demands of his job and the people who work for him.

The WPI Leadership Competency Report is designed to help leaders examine how they interact with others, complete their work, deal with change, solve problems, and manage stress. The Leadership Competency Report outlines how a leader typically functions in these areas, links their traits to specific competencies, and helps identify leadership strengths and blind spots.

When working with leaders on recognizing and adapting to change, it is useful to identify their current strengths (so they can lean on them), and their blind spots (so they can address them). When leaders are consciously aware of their skills and where they may need assistance can deal with change more effectively. The key questions for leaders are: What are you like? What strengths does that bring? Where might you need to adjust your style to be more effective?

At the beginning, I make leaders’ aware that their personality traits influence how they manage change on a number of levels:
• Their openness to change
• The types of change they prefer
• The information they need to be convinced of the need for change
• How they sell the need for change to others
• How they implement change

Then I stress that their task of recognizing and adapting to change is doubly complicated because as leaders they need to take their own preferences into account and also the preferences of their employees/followers. This can be difficult and requires leaders to be willing to flex their style to meet the needs of those they are leading.

To focus on a leader’s openness to change, and the types of change they enjoy I have them look at their results on the Flexibility and Innovation scales. Very flexible and very innovative people are open to any and all changes. Very structured and practical people (the opposite of flexible and innovative) generally resist most changes. The natural reaction for both these types of people can be detrimental in certain circumstances.
When I want to help a leader evaluate how they buy in to change and then sell change to their followers I look at their results on the Analytical Thinking, Concern for Others, Outgoing, and Persistence scales. The conversation needs to revolve around the amount and detail of information they need in order to feel comfortable evaluating a change, and then look at how they interact with others and consider the needs of their employees when trying to convince others to get on board. A common insight for leaders is that the things they need to feel comfortable and convinced about, and the need to change is not the same for their employees.

How a leader implements change is affected by their results on the Initiative, Energy, Ambition, Teamwork and Concern for Others scales. Some leaders are very driven, quick to take initiative, and happy to go forward alone, and this push for individual action can result in missing important information from others, and a stressed out workforce. Other leaders are very people focused, and this can result in difficult decisions being avoided.

There are two methods for helping leaders review their WPI profile. The first is using normative comparisons which show how a person is similar or dissimilar to other people. We do know that corporate managers have some similarities, including higher levels of ambition, initiative, energy, the desire to be in control, and comfort with stress. However, leadership appears in a wide range of different styles and effective leadership is not always the same.

That is why using an ipsative comparison can be valuable. Analyzing a leader’s profile by identifying their personal highs and lows can help them focus on their own skills and developmental needs in relation to the requirements of their work. Simply being like other leaders and managers in a normative way is not useful. Instead, how a leader uses and adjusts their natural style to meet the needs of their work and workers is the more beneficial evaluation.

“The JvR Training Academy is extremely happy to announce that Shawn will be visiting us in October this year as part of our International Lecture Series (ILS). Shawn, a co-developer of the Work Personality Index, will be sharing cutting edge information on the WPI and Leadership, and we look forward to bringing you more detail in the upcoming months. Watch this space!”

Click here to read more about the WPI in our online-catalogue
or Call us on 011 781 3705 for more information. Fatima, Yvonne or Andrea will gladly help you out with any request or query you migh have.

Author: Shani van der Merwe

There are numerous articles referring to the value of psychometrics that are used by many consultants alike to build a business case for using psychometric assessments as part of an organisation’s HR processes. Well in some instances the ‘sale’ tends to be quite easy, in other instances you are dealing with skeptics.

During a recent workshop I facilitated with HR Consultants, whom were all quite familiar and committed to using psychometrics, they raised these pertinent questions: “ How do I get line management to buy-in to the psychometrics?” and: “how can we convince them that it is important and a necessary step?”. It appears that in most organizations there will always be a ‘level’ of resistance which one needs to overcome – but how?

The how tends to be contingent on the organizational dynamics but may include education, enhancing positive experiences and even streamlining the psychometric process to ensure quick turnaround times.

With one of our clients we have taken the approach of personally visiting all of their sites on a regular basis in an effort to personalize the interaction between the psychologist and the manager. This has been quite successful and has assisted us in gaining the necessary buy-in and commitment. However, the only problem is to actually get into the manager’s office in the first place…

As a psychologist, HR manager or consultant working with psychometric tests, how have you managed to overcome this kind of buy-in resistance?

Shani works as a consultant for JvR Consulting Psychologists.

Author: Dr Anna-Rosa le Roux

Stay a while and listen!

I love the experience of musical events in the form of screened concerts at Cinema Nouveau and a recent event triggered my thinking on a trio of themes. I was watching BBC’s Last Night of the Proms, one of the most popular musical celebrations enjoyed by millions of people and billed as the ‘biggest classical music party in the world’. The guest conductor of the BBC symphony orchestra, David Robertson summarised the spirit of the 2009 promenade concert drawing from a musical metaphor. I remember this to be something along the lines of:

“ … each instrument has its unique voice, its unique history, its unique sound, its unique technical design, its unique tone … these are all seemingly unrelated … however in a symphony orchestra all these seemingly unrelated instruments play together to create harmony and a showcase of spectacular sound!”

I realised that each instrument has its own story to tell … creating identity … creating synergy … creating shared identity.

A recent consulting assignment in Africa challenged our insight and understanding of the construct of synergy and identity. We were tasked with the notion of creating an improved strategic collaboration and to build more fruitful, synergistic relationships between our client and their implementation partners at national level. How are we going to give all the implementation partners a voice? How will one leverage individual identities to create an overarching shared identity? How do we create future hopes and dreams that will transform current operational obstacles? How do we create meaning? How do we create a picture of the future that is worthy of their efforts? How do we create alliances? How do we look beyond the practical and discuss value drivers? How do we define the character of our relationships? How do we develop ideas for information sharing, fruitful co-operation between implementation programs?

We found part of our solution in the linking of identity at individual, team, organisation and inter-organisational levels. Stories needs to be told to explore and unpack who we are: our perceptions, values, thinking, goals, aspirations, dreams and future hopes. Story-telling is central to who we are:

“A need to tell and hear stories is essential to the species Homo sapiens: second in necessity after nourishment and before love and shelter. Millions survive without love or a home, almost none in silence; the opposite of silence leads quickly to narrative, and the sound of story is the dominant sound of our lives …” Reynold Price

In our modern, disorganised, hierarchically random world of disparity, there is a need to listen to the voice of individuals and create identity and shared identity. John Seely Brown, Chief Scientist of Xerox and co-author of The Social Life of Information define, from a scientist perspective how the world has changed from Descartes’
proposition, “I think, therefore I am,” to the current “We participate, therefore we are.”

Stories are also an important vehicle for facilitating change and transformation. Steve Denning, former program director, Knowledge Management, at the World Bank beliefs that springboard stories enable individuals to make a leap in understanding how an organisation, a community, or a complex system can change.

Our methodologies ranged from the introduction of participants as cartoon characters, thematic dialogues creating new futures and themes, working on collages to express the future positioning of the partnerships and facilitating conversation on guiding principles and practices going forward.

Story-telling transcended the differences in individual identity, paved the way for creating a shared group identity, contextually positioned and defined for the mammoth task of transformation at hand.

Author: Lize Strauss

The entertainment industry is one of the fastest growing industries at present, and seen as relatively immune to recession. The US economic downturn after September 11, for example, led to technology demand crashing, while sales of video games increased by 43%. Leading into the current recession, retail sales fell by 0.06% in February, but video games and equipment sales increased by 34% (d_skin, 2009). Much of this can be ascribed to the fact that video games, while initially more expensive, can keep a player busy for more or less 100 hours from start to completion of a game. This means less time for other, expensive entertainment pursuits, which makes financial sense to parents. It also offers an escape, however temporary, from the realities of daily life.

LFG Hogger! PST

Video games appeared as the third fastest growing segment of the entertainment and media market (Scanlon, 2007). The movie Spiderman 3 raked in $59m in the USA on its opening day. Grand Theft Auto IV, a video game, recorded sales of $310 million on its first day.  Already in 2008, monthly game sales were averaging about $1.5 billion per month (d_skin, 2009), with total sales for the year at $21 billion (Ortutay, 2009).

This tremendous wave has created interesting effects in family dynamics. The fastest growing demographic is the 50 year plus group, with the majority of game players between the ages of 18 and 47. Females make up just over 40% of players. And almost a third of parents are now playing video games with their children (d_skin, 2009).

The psychological research into the gaming culture rests mainly on game addiction and the impact of violent games on children, but we do not have consensus yet to the full impact. Some studies point to heightened aggression after gameplay, while others have found reduced aggression, since the gameplay allowed the user to ‘purge’ his or her need to act out violently.

Other detrimental effects studied include time taken from homework, responsibilities and socialising to invest in gaming, and with adult populations, either time off work or trying to function on two or three hours sleep a night. Relationships may suffer, as gamers prefer to focus their time on gaming rather than interacting with family and friends, leading to decreased social skills. It also affects health:  insufficient breaks during long gameplay, and a preference for instant meals or unhealthy snacking could bring long term problems that can be devastating to the health of the individual.

Psychologists have started to explore the detriments, but some benefits are also emerging. Playing games in moderation bring about various positives: improved spatial abilities, improved critical analysis, as well as the ability to develop and implement different strategies simultaneously. Action game players have better visuo-motor skills, like resistance to distraction, heightened sensitivity to information in the peripheral vision and the ability to count briefly presented objects, compared to nonplayers (Green, 2003). These enhanced abilities could be acquired through training with selected video games.

The APA (APA, 2008) found that games can improve dexterity and problem solving ability. A study of 33 laparoscopic surgeons found that those who played video games were 27% faster at advanced surgical procedures and made 37% fewer errors that their non-gaming peers.

Neils Clark, author of Game Addiction, perhaps sums it up best (Clark, 2009):

“…people’s lives have been changed by this media. Whether it’s for good or for ill, media has an effect. As a society, we desperately need to understand media’s effect on communities, families, and individuals. Individually, we can choose to inform ourselves, or choose not to. But I’d warn that ignorance invites hazard”.

As psychological professionals, our responsibility is to provide people with tools to not only safeguard them from psychological harm, but also improve their quality of life. Be it relationships, health or personal well-being.  The entertainment industry, and specifically the gaming industry is one where our understanding of people is crucial, and it is an imperative that we understand not only the risk inherent in this industry, but also the benefits to be had, in order to equip others to maintain a healthy balance in avoiding the risk and reaping the reward.

Author: Dr. Grant Freedman

A COMPANY IN CRISIS

 In 2003, we embarked on a process of consultation with a large Healthcare company.  The Healthcare company, registered as a separate entity, is wholly-owned by its parent company (which operates an entirely different business) and serves a patient base of some 32,000 employees of the holding company.  

Relationships between the Healthcare company and the holding company had begun to deteriorate progressively, with the Healthcare company being perceived to be poorly aligned with the interests of the holding company and consuming cash resources for little value in return.  Allegations of poor human resources management practices, including favouritism and nepotism, began to emerge.  A forensic audit, commissioned by the holding company, revealed significant legal and business risks. 

Faced with the prospect of failure of its healthcare business, the holding company replaced the management team in September 2003.  The new Managing Director was tasked with turning the company around…

A SUCCESSFUL TURNAROUND

 By the end of 2007, the Healthcare Company had successfully repositioned itself.  Progressive reductions in operating costs had been achieved, involving labour reductions and the realization of economies of scale, efficiencies in consumable utilization and the costs of various services and contracts.  Several innovative changes were made to the manner in which patient care was provided.  The 2008 budget was almost R100 million lower than that of 2004, in real terms.

Along with the reductions in operating costs, significant improvements in service outcomes were recorded. Key results included lower admission rates, a significant reduction in the tuberculosis incidence, stabilization of employee absenteeism, reductions in ill health retirement and reductions in the death rate.  The company received external recognition when it won the 2007 ABSA Pan African Healthcare Award in the Global/Multinational category and was judged the overall winner in two categories – the Greatest Impact and the Most Sustainable work in the area of HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. 

RESEARCH INTO DRIVERS OF THE TURNAROUND

 The Managing Director of the Healthcare company is conducting research on what variables had the greatest impact on this turnaround for his MBA thesis.  He identified 9 anatomical drivers and 8 physiological drivers (using Kotter’s (2001) eight steps for managing change) that the Executive Team (EXCO) responsible for the turnaround, felt had the greatest impact. In October 2008, we facilitated a focus group with the EXCO to investigate which of the 17 variables they felt had the greatest impact on a composite score for organisational, team and individual success.  The impact of each of the variables was determined by means of group consensus on a 9-point scale. 

THE RESULTS…

 CONCLUSION

 Among many other observations, these results highlight, once again, the important role of people in effecting organisational turnaround.  There was significant debate about the relative importance of, for example, the Integrated Strategic Approach and Empowering Others to Act on the Vision.  The analogy was drawn to the flywheel concept of Porras & Collins (2001), where activities such as Strategic Repositioning, Restructuring the Organisation and Building Core Competencies start the process of turning the flywheel in a particular direction, but when people are empowered to act in alignment with that vision, the flywheel really gathers momentum and turns on its own.