Peter Boltersdorf, a sports and business consultant in Germany, applied the 16 human needs to competitive athletics. Peter's first consult was with the minor league professional soccer team in Mainz, which was struggling in mid-season, largely because of poor performance from a star player. Peter determined that the player had a "high need for acceptance" and further noticed that the Mainz coach constantly berated the player during games, yelling, "Kick it right! Kick it right!"
Since a player with a high need for acceptance will only be discouraged by criticism, Peter advised the coach not to yell at the player while a game was in progress. Instead, the coach should provide calm, constructive criticism after the game. The player's performance improved dramatically and the team went on to win a division title and move up to a higher league.
When Peter told me of his consult, I gained new insights into how to apply the 16 human needs to sports. By relating each of the human needs to specific athletic tendencies, I could see that a player with a low need for honor, for example, might have a tendency to commit penalties. A player with a high need for status might perform best against a high status opponent.
In total, I deduced scores of sports-specific implications from my knowledge of the 16 needs. I later evaluated the needs of each player on an NCAA Division I baseball team, NCAA Division I golf team, and a soccer and a tennis team playing in NCAA Division III. The results showed dramatic differences in what motivated the various teams. The Division I players were primarily motivated by competition and achievement, whereas the Division III players - i.e., those from smaller schools - were primarily motivated by social experiences. In other words, Division I athletes wanted to win, but those playing in Division III wanted to make friends.
After evaluating each player's needs, I interviewed him or her one-on-one. I might say to a baseball player, for example, "The results of my assessment suggest that you have a tendency to perform better on game day than in practice. We know my assessments are often invalid; in your case, do you play better on game day than during practice?" Despite the invitation to disagree with my assessment of their needs, we found that the athletes agreed with about 85% of the tendencies suggested to them.
We then consulted separately with the players' coaches, who also agreed with the vast majority of the results. By the end of the year, the Division I golf team finished sixth in the nation (the best performance in the history of the university) and the baseball team showed modest improvement over the previous year. (We did not ask the Division III teams for performance outcomes because their stated goal was participation, not winning.)
Peter and I then expanded our model of sports motivation. Our current model uses an individual's needs to suggest: (1) What motivates each athlete; (2) What are the athlete's tendencies (such as inconsistency, leadership); (3) How each athlete is likely to relate to the coaching staff (what specifically each athlete likes and dislikes about each coach; what specifically each coach likes and dislikes about each player); and (4) How coaches might best utilize their players' characteristics in various game situations.
Peter has had significant success using the 16 human needs: One of his teams won a world championship in handball while playing before a television audience estimated at 20 million. Peter consulted with a major league professional soccer team who played in a national championship game. Matthias Steiner, with whom Peter consulted for two years, won the gold medal in weightlifting at the Beijing Olympics and is now the "strongest man in the world." In the United States Dr. David Laman has successfully used the 16 human needs in coaching a star high school hockey player.
Thus far, we have assessed more than 1,000 athletes, the vast majority of whom think our theory identifies and explains their particular athletic tendencies. I have published two books on human needs: "Who am I," which is the book Peter applied to sports, and "The Normal Personality: A New Way of Thinking about People" (Cambridge University Press).
