Young Top Performers – How to Best Manage Them

Article by Adam Blicher, Consultant at A&D Resources

Spring is the NFL off-season, at least for the players who have already been drafted. The new prospects for the NFL are at the NFL ScoutingCombine to showcase their skills to coaches and team scouts with the hope of securing their spot when the league starts again. 

According to Dr. Patrick Rishe, who is an Associate Professor of Economics at Webster University in St Louis, “(…) there are certainly some strong correlations between prudent drafting and on-field success” (Rische, 2012).

Therefore, the big question that is on the mind of coaches and scouts is “Who to pick?”. In sports, like in business, there is a risk of solely focusing on similarity (Ardashir and Ardabili, 2017), attractiveness (Warhurts et. Al, 2009) and who plays the politics the best (Reardon, 2002).

To make an informed choice, the athletes are assessed in several different ways to determine their current abilities and their potential. Most of these assessments are on physical factors. However, this year it included doing several personality assessments as well. Namely, the Hogan Personality Inventory (HPI), the Hogan Development Survey (HDS), and the Motives Values Preference Inventory (MVPI). 

So, what does aggregated data on 600 younger elite athletes tell us about their shared personality denominators? The following data is from Hogan Assessments and are presented in the Hogan specific terminology.

Ambitious individuals that are not (yet) satisfied

• The average HPI Ambition score was 61%.  
• High subscales: Competitiveness, Leadership and Identity
• Low subscales: Accomplishment

So what does this tell us?

It tells us that the group of NFL-draft athletes are highly competitive, comfortable taking leadership and they have a clear career path. At the same time, there is a theme of “not being satisfied yet” or a “willingness to achieve more”. That can be seen as a great motivator in terms of improvement and also a point of awareness in terms of mental health and self-compassion in their everyday. 

Potential obstacles for success

Selected HDS average scales

• Reserved: 84% (Tough-minded, getting things done)
• Bold: 84% (Highly self-confident individuals) 
• Colorful: 48% (Charismatic, but not self-absorbed) 
• Diligence: 84% (Meticulous with a tendency to be perfectionistic) 
• Dutiful: 91% (Disciplined and willing to follow instruction) 
   

What does this tell us?

It tells us that they are hard-working, goal-oriented, very self-confident individuals, who are organised, and they listen to superiors. Equally so, they have an individualistic approach to their “job” which has worked well for them (at least so far in their career). This tendency is further underpinned by the MVPI with an Affiliation average score of 26%. 

If we compare the NFL-draft athletes with control groups in Hogan, their development areas are as follows:

• Communication
• Networking 
• Relationship building
• Influencing others  
   

So, what can you use this information for?

When managing young top performers (i.e. graduates) here are 3 bits of advice from A&D Resources:

1. Help graduates with internal relationship building. Most of them have a very competitive background as individuals and now need to learn to be part of a team, a division and a company.
2. Help them understand the political part of a workplace, their individual role and raise awareness of how they can exercise their ability to influence others.
3. Be aware of their mental health in the balance of the self-driven, highly disciplined individuals they are, with a nagging tough inner critic that can make them overly reliant on others (under pressure) as well as thinking that their performance is never good enough.

Should this article spark your curiosity or raise any questions, please reach out directly to Adam Blicher, Consultant at A&D Resources, at abl@adresources.com or contact our support team at info@adresources.com.

References

• Ardashir Zahed and Farzad Sattari Ardabili (2017). Effect of similar-to-me effect on job satisfaction and organizational trust. Problems and Perspectives in Management, 15(4), 254-262. doi:10.21511/ppm.15(4-1).2017.09
• Reardon, K. (2022). The Secret Handshake: Mastering the politics of the business inner circle. New York. Currency; Reprint edition (January 15, 2002).
• Rische, Patrick (2012, April 25). The Best and Worst NFL Teams regarding Drafting Proficiency. Forbes, USA Editon. https://www.forbes.com/sites/prishe/2012/04/25/the-best-and-worst-nfl-teams-in-drafting-collegiate-talent/?sh=41594703346a
• Warhurst C, van den Broek D, Hall R, Nickson D. Lookism: The New Frontier of Employment Discrimination? Journal of Industrial Relations. 2009;51(1):131-136. doi:10.1177/0022185608096808