From the University of Luxembourg to the NBA courts

Specializing in Mental performance coaching, the ID37 company turned to the Faculty of Humanities, Education and Social Sciences in 2016 to develop a personality assessment tool. The idea was to build a scale that would help looking into people’s motives and what drives their behavior. The instrument had the purpose to be used for coaching, but did not only focus on sports.

The team from the University of Luxembourg built a questionnaire that includes 16 different dimensions, each representing a driver that can influence one’s behavior. Two versions of the questionnaire resulted from this project. One intended for research purposes and the other one commissioned by the company. In particular the second questionnaire looks comprehensively at what drives people and contains multiple questions to understand where each individual stands. 

Rainer Meisterjahn, Director of Mental Performance at Courtrex Performance has been using the tool developed by the University of Luxembourg and ID37. He explains : "The ID37 was used to assess NBA Draft prospects during the 2021 NBA Pre-Draft. In addition to information obtained via direct interviews, physical measurements, performance analytics, and scouting intel, ID37 results helped develop comprehensive prospect profiles. Specifically, the ID37 contributed to the organization's understanding of athletes' motivational "fingerprints" and offered suggestions for how to most effectively integrate a player into the organization if drafted. From a team perspective, knowing players' values, preferences, and needs is pivotal in the establishment of high performance cultures. The ID37's ability to shed light on crucial factors such as a player's relative desired level of physical exercise, structure, autonomy, and status--just to name a few--can produce tangible considerations in NBA draft scenarios where team executives make multi-million dollar decisions that can have long term implications for an organization." 

The instrument developed by the researchers of the Faculty of Humanities, Education and Social Sciences is available under a license distributed by “ID37” and not everyone can use it. Only certified trainers can conduct the test and make sure the results are properly understood. 

Today, the team is proud of the contribution of their research in life beyond the academic community. They are pleased to have contributed to a scientific approach of personality coaching and have shown that both worlds can cooperate and bring the best of each other.