KEY POINTS:
So we didn't win the America's Cup. A disaster on the day, but today it is meaningless; there are more important things in our lives to expend our energy on.
But spare a thought for Grant Dalton and his team. Defeat - in sport or business - is
a bitter pill to swallow and often lingers for a long time if you can't cope.
Defeat, or failure, can be a destroyer or a motivator. It can be seen as the end or an opportunity. These situations are controlled by two physical and psychological constructs.
Defeat in business is often driven by economics, lack of cashflow, failure of suppliers, natural disaster or death of a key partner. In sport it could be a wind shift, a torn spinnaker or the bowman falling overboard.
But what of the psychological impact of defeat? In sport and in business it is dangerous to believe we will never have to deal with adversity. How we deal with it when it comes along is where our individual differences support or fail us. These differences can best be described as our innate personality characteristics.
Characteristics that help us cope with failure or criticism can be measured through any validated personality assessment. Understanding where a person fits with these measures will give us a good idea as to how they will perform, especially in the areas of stress, failure and criticism - what will they do when things "turn to custard"?
If we cast our minds back to the Team NZ crew when the regatta ended, it would be understandable if they felt disappointment. But they deserve congratulations for how they behaved.
During the 48 hours after defeat, their personality attributes helped them re-frame their situation - getting them through the disappointment of losing with strength, hope and dignity.
What were some of these attributes? And how do you think the crew would would have scored on a personality assessment in these areas?
The Rembrandt Portrait, Prevue and ASSESS are personality measures that can identify a person's strengths or weaknesses through a wide range of attributes. Let's touch on some that would have helped the Team NZ crew cope with defeat.
* Resilience (often labelled self-confidence). People who score highly in this area can "get off the canvas" quickly. They can bounce back from failure without getting diminished in the process. People with resilience have the ability to deflect and not take the whole failure too personally; they don't "carry the monkey on their back".
However, too much resilience is dangerous, as failure may be treated as "water off a duck's back". The person may not stop long enough to learn, or be responsible for the failure. I would say Team NZ had a good balance of resilience.
* Criticism tolerance. This measures the way that you respond to criticism of yourself and your performance: objectively as opposed to subjectively or sensitively. People who score highly in this area usually look at situations objectively rather than in terms of personal implications. They accept criticism as constructive. But like the above example, they may be so unaffected by the criticism that they do not hear it when it is intended and may not adjust their performance accordingly.
* Frustration tolerance. High frustration-tolerant people tend to view situations positively; they are not easily upset.
They seldom worry, they can remain positive and resilient under difficult circumstances and recover quickly from setbacks and disappointments; they are not easily discouraged. Grant Dalton demonstrated his criticism and frustration tolerance admirably each time he faced the media after losing a race.
* Assertion and willingness to confront opposition (a polite term for aggression) are both a measurement of confidence. They give a good guide to a person's ability to deal with adversity. An assertive person has the ability to present ideas and concepts with confidence. Having a willingness to confront opposition allows them to stand their ground and have the ability to say "no" when it applies. These two measures are important in leadership, sales - and sails - roles.
Finally, the measurement of optimism is properly a combination of all the above. Optimistic people always see the glass as half full. You can bet that the Team NZ crew would score highly here. This bodes well for a speedy revival from the depths of despair to beginning the preparation for the next America's Cup regatta, believing it can be conquered.
In hiring his crew, Dalton needed not only the technical sailing ability (knowledge, skill and experience) easily measured through crew trials (work sample test), but also people with the personality to drive those skills.
Many times as the sailing progressed and we observed the team's body language and listened to them in interviews, there was a sense that all of these men had the personality fit for the role.
For those in the business of recruiting new teams, don't just rely on the fruits of the tree - what a person can do.
Make sure you also check out the roots - how will the person do it.
What a person can do is observable when you are hiring staff; it is assessed through the CV, interview and referencing. Who a person is can only be identified through a valid and reliable personality and mental ability assessment.
Think about the people you have hired over the years. Most managers hire on "what" and dismiss, or have later problems, around "who" that person is.
* Rob McKay is a business psychologist and director of AssessSystems Aust/NZ.
