Psychologist columnist Karl Stevenson discusses practical ways to understand personality to improve performance.

A watchmaker knows the size and weight of each cog in order to make a watch tick correctly.

Similarly, if each member of a team understands what makes each other tick, they can push the right buttons to get the best out of one another.

Below are three exercises that allow your team to start identifying with each other, and a great way of raising team awareness amongst a group of individuals.

You don’t have to do them all, nor do you have to do the tasks the exact same way, just take what you feel is beneficial to your team and run with it.

1. Identify Your Core Team Personality

This exercise helps kick start awareness amongst team members; it takes them away from thinking about themselves and really gets them thinking about other people in the team.

It is also useful for each member to see how he is perceived. This is a constructive process; make it enjoyable, not offensive!

1. Briefly think about the members of your team when they are in a non-sporting everyday situation. Get a picture of each person in your head starting from no.1 in the batting order and work your way to the tail and into the coaching staff. For each person attach a single word to describe them when they are in that everyday situation.
2. The coach or captain pools the words anonymously from your team and puts them up on a board.
3. Identify the words that you think think identify you, pick a maximum of 5.
4. Finally, the coach or captain assigns the corresponding words around physical pictures of each player.
5. Give the group time to have a look around and see what words describe other players.
6. Give the group time to focus on the words that describe them, and ask them to make a comparison to the words they initially thought identified them.

A collation of these single words is usually a persons most stable and intrinsic characteristics which can be used to identify their 'core.'

If others see you the exact same way you perceive yourself, then you are projecting your true core to the group; well done. If you are seen completely differently, don’t feel bad, make an assertion to show more of your core, this will inevitably make you feel more comfortable within the group, as the people around you will be able to identify with you more accurately.

2. What would you do if…

This exercise is a brilliant way for people to see more of each other's core values by understanding how each other would typically react under a series of varied situations.

It's the coaches job to define the genre of the situations – they can be sporting related, or they could be totally random.

1. Each individual creates and writes down one anonymous, "what would you do if…?" scenario, also giving three completely different typical responses to that scenario.
2. A person from the group will then write down all of these scenarios onto a board, listing the three typical responses below each scenario.
3. Individually you must then make your choices from the typical responses to each scenario. Feel free to select none of the above if that is what you genuinely feel, instead write down what you would do.
4. Finally, read out each scenario, and ask for a simple show of hands or people stand up for each response to the scenario in question.

This task can be fun if a random genre is chosen. It can also be educational, specifically if a sport related genre is selected. It is beneficial to know how different people react under different situations. It allows people to be more calculated, providing the opportunity to say the right things at the right times to help get the best out of each other.

3. Scenario thinking

This exercise is a brilliant way of highlighting the importance of role related behaviors. Understanding how we are required to change when we are in one role compared to another teaches us how flexible our personality can be. It is also a valuable tool to understand how other people around you are expected to act.

1. The coach thinks of about 10 different cricket scenarios, include three different types of role that can be influenced by the scenario. For example, a front line bowler has picked up a minor but potentially harmful injury in training, but won’t accept that he is injured as you are building up for a cup final. How do you respond to this news if you are the head coach, the physiotherapist, or the bowler tipped to take his place?
2. As a participant, I would like you to try and put yourself in the position of each of the three people who are in the scenario, and respond in the way you think will be best resolve the scenario from each person’s perspective. Or I would like you to put yourself in the position of the bowler. Think about how you would expect those three people to respond to you in that scenario to ensure that it is resolved in the best possible way.

This exercise follows on from the previous one, allowing people to understand how people react, and more importantly understand how differently people can react depending on the role they are required to take.

These 3 exercises improve team cohesion and provide a useful and entertaining bonding task for players, coaches, support staff, and management alike.

The main thing to take away from all of them is that they are all brilliant for improving empathy, communication, and understanding within groups of people, potentially all the cornerstones to improving your team's performance.

Karl Stevenson is a final year PhD student who has spent the last 7 years investigating the psycho-visual skills of striking sports. He works alongside coaches and athletes as a mental skills coach to develop skills in an applied setting.