A conversation with Dr. Maggie Tieman
By Kevin Sparrock
A presentation at an N.C.A.A. preseason meeting helped change my approach to coach/partner relationships. After taking the human behavior test of Dr. Maggie Tiemen’s Mindset Matters, I was paralyzed with its accuracy. She designed a system that categorizes Human Behavior into four models. Dominant, Cautious, Inspiring, and Supportive style personality traits, ‘D.I.S.C.’ The DISC model is based on the fact that most people have predictable patterns of behavior. The first pattern reflects whether a person is more OUTGOING or RESERVED. The second pattern reflects whether a person is more TASK-ORIENTED or PEOPLE-ORIENTED. Through a list of approximately 20 questions, I discovered I have a SUPPORTIVE personality style. The test says I tend to naturally express sincerity and concern for others. My strength is your ability to sense emotions and create a supportive environment for others. The test also says to build better relationships, I need to speak freely. I need to say what’s on my mind.
In other words, I need to tell coaches, “This is what I saw, and I saw what I saw.” Depending on the personality trait I am interacting with, I need to respond with less base and a little sweetener on top.
Dr. Maggie Tieman’s officiating career began in Connecticut. Her high school officiating career didn’t last very long before moving into the Division 3 ranks. Thanks to Doc Ed Meyer, supervisor of the Ivy League, in 2009, Maggie got her Division 1 break. Dr. Tieman is Sport and Performance Psychology Professional, N.C.A.A. Women’s Basketball Referee, F.I.B.A. Referee, professor, nutrition specialist, and certified strength and conditioning coach.
It was a blessing to chat with this decorated University of Vermont softball alum before the season’s opening to discuss the Mindset Matters initiative.
What was your major in college? What interested you?
Dr. Maggie Tieman: I went to the University of Vermont and majored in physics and health. I really was more of an exercise physiologist, major, or physiology major. I should say, my first passion was being an orthopedic surgeon. But then I kind of got going and did some shadowing in hospitals, and I was like, I don’t know if I want to dedicate six or seven years of my life to this, and teaching and coaching was always a passion. I related to my teacher and coach, who was my role model in high school. She coached all three sports all four seasons. She was just my everything. Like anybody would have a teenage role model as a teacher, Karissa Niehoff was that it, and I wanted to follow in her footsteps. I was going to be a teacher and a coach and try to make the impact that she had on us all. Karissa Niehoff is now the executive director of the National Federation of High Schools in Connecticut.
What was that problem that you saw in officiating that started your company? Or was it in officiating?
Dr. Maggie Tieman: It wasn’t in officiating at all. It had to do with coaching. I coached field hockey for 15 years when I was at high school teaching. It always stumped me that I would have a group of kids that were All-Stars. One group, in particular, went off to Division One universities on a full scholarship for field hockey. This team lost in the first round of the state tournament, and I had four studs. Two in the backfield, two on the front, and we lose. The two times we won a state championship, that team was all disheveled. If you looked at my roster, we walked out on the field, kids weren’t matching. They had hoodies on. They had gloves on. At the time, I was halfway through my doctorate, so that was some of the reason why. Those were teams that didn’t have any studs. So, it was frustrating for me as a stats person and a very procedural style person. How can I have phenomenal teams, and they can’t win? I’ll have an average team, and they run the table and win a state championship? For myself, there’s got to be something that I’m missing. Maybe it was the mental aspect that I was missing because we were repeatedly drilling.
Flip back to when I was little. I was a gymnast from the ages of three until my freshman year of high school. All I did was go into a gym from 2:30 in the afternoon until eight o’clock at night. Routine after routine. Every single moment of a practice schedule was written down for every bit of drill. I realized that it really didn’t have much to do with physical skill. We need that too, of course, but it had to do with the mental reps that I never knew how to do. So that’s what created that impetus to go get my doctorate.
‘See the whole play.’ …Frame four is when that foul occurs. In that frame, some kind of contact happens where now I have to make a decision
It’s 2013, and I started my doctorate. I was teaching, coaching, and refereeing simultaneously and started getting some decent Division 1 assignments. When I was a Division 3 referee, there was that saying, ‘you don’t know what you don’t know. They call it a rookie effect. When you’re a rookie. Everything is positive. It’s a happy experience. If you make a mistake, somebody just chalks it up to being young. So as my schooling progressed, I recognized that people’s human behavior is predictable. And once again, I was reading about it in school, but my operational brain, like I need someone to tell me the steps to change or adapt.
Let me give you a referee example. Referees say, “See the whole play.” Somebody kept telling me that at camp, I was like, I’m sorry, but what does that mean? I don’t. I’m watching the whole play. I would ask, ‘could you give me feedback that is actually useful to my brain?’ Because ‘See the whole play’ was like that big global picture, but it didn’t mean anything to me until somebody broke it down into the five frames of officiating. Like step one is the beginning of a play. Step two and Step three. Well, that makes sense to me.
Talk more about that.
Dr. Maggie Tieman: So, if I go five frames of officiating, it’s my procedural way of saying, ‘See the whole play.’ Frame one and frame two are the beginning and the development of a play. Frame three is when kids start to mingle, and you have to decide whether it’s illegal or incidental. Frame four is when that foul occurs. In that frame, some kind of contact happens where now I have to make a decision. Then the last frame is where I will gather from the situation to make an appropriate decision? On a block/charge play, somebody’s legs get taken out from underneath them. On a simple out-of-bounds play. Everybody starts running back the other way. We gather information from a scenario. To me, that is an operational version of ‘See the whole play.’ I’m not so sure that comment would have been so irritating to you just based on your Supportive Style big picture brain. To me, it was the most highly irritating sentence, and it just kept eating away at me. I had to figure out the steps to make that work.
So going back to behavior-wise, I was being the same person in basketball, and it wasn’t going over so well because of my task-oriented, very outgoing, normal nature. It had worked for me as a teacher. It worked for me as a coach, but the refereeing environment was very different in reception, perceptions, and intention. I had never been in an environment that had challenged me to adjust who I was so that I could work better with others.
So let me put my psychologist hat on now. For you, relationships are, I don’t want to say easy, but they come more naturally in terms of, ‘Hey, how are you doing, Maggie?’ How’s your day going?’ To someone more of a dominant or cautious style individual regarding that disc report, asking somebody how they are or how their day is unfortunately not the first thing on their list. It’s terrible to say that because we all have beating hearts, but we get into a locker room as a Dominant or Cautious style person, and we want to take our clothes out of our bag, and we want to get going with our pregame routine. We want to make sure everybody is in order versus taking 30 seconds to say, ‘Hey, how was your trip in?’
I would try some of the things that he would suggest, and my relationships got worse.
How do you decipher these different levels? For example, I’ve worked with Maggie before, and I know she wants to get to the point. She wants to get it going. She wants to lay her uniform out, and she wants to pregame. But I’m that guy who wants to start with a friend. ‘Hey, how’s it going? How are things going with you?’ But if I’m working with newer referees, I want to know more about you. I want to hear your life story, your family’s story, and what you’ve been through in your life. It gives me comfort knowing who you are because it can assist me when conversations with you. But I also think it allows the other person to say, I can open and have a conversation with this person.
Dr. Maggie Tieman: Wow, so that’s a huge relational style, people-oriented perspective. Thank goodness there are people like yourself who are willing to do that in the same respect, especially in just relationships where we have to work with various people, whether it’s basketball or any kind of job-related teamwork. We often will negatively perceive someone if they don’t receive that information, as we would have expected.
So, let’s play it out. Kevin and I meet for the first time. We’re in the locker room, as you just shared with yourself. Hey, Maggie, how are you doing? How is your trip in? Let me ask you some personal questions. Now here’s Maggie as the dominant style person. I’m just getting in. I’m going to my locker room. I want to take my clothes out. Dude, Kevin, I don’t have time to have a dissertation. I’m like, why are you bothering me with all of these are bubble thoughts. So now the first time we ever met. I’m like, Dude, can this guy just stop asking me questions, and you’re on the other side going, why is she such a pain in the butt? 
So here we are. I’m thinking to myself, why are people misinterpreting my excitement for working with you. If you’re giving your pregame, I interrupt you because I’m excited because you’re so much better than me now, and I want to learn from you. Oh boy. You being a Supportive Style, you’re not going to get super mad at me. You’re probably not going to recognize that.
But your ‘Inspiring’ style people, holy god, both legs will get chopped out from underneath me. They will probably say, ‘Well, if you know everything, then you referee the rest of the game by yourself.’ I had interactions like that, and that doesn’t make sense to me. That’s why I started to do a pathway of behavioral science in behavioral studies. There must be a predictable pattern for humans. It’s not right all the time, but it’s a pretty good guideline. Maybe I can answer two questions to drive your thought process to have better information about someone else. You can then start to adjust whether you’re going to be more outgoing, rev up your motor, and be a little bit more excited, or are you going to flip over and be a little bit more procedural versus relational.
I am a Supportive style, and one of the things it was written down was that I, ‘Do what is right. I have to convince myself that being honest by speaking up is important to maintain peace. I think there’s some honesty that I avoid. I don’t avoid it for not doing the right thing. I avoid it, so I don’t create conflict.
Dr. Maggie Tieman: You like to keep level water. The choppy seas are something that a Supportive Style person is going to shy away from. If the Supportive Style person would say something that might be taken the wrong way by one person. You know what? Let me just hold off and see where this is going to go, and then time happens, and then the moment passes, and you’re like, OK, everything’s cool. Everything’s calm.
I’m trying to keep the peace, but in someone else’s brain, they’re saying, he’s so indecisive, he can’t figure this out.
Dr. Maggie Tieman: Right. And I’m saying, I know he’s got the information. I know he’s got a lot in his brain right now. Why is he just being so shy? Why is he being so reserved? Why is he being so antisocial?
Sometimes, I just want to hear what you have to say. What’s your perception of what you hear? For example, when I see block/charge plays, I ask why do you think this is a block? And someone will say because they’re in a legal guarding position. I will respond by saying, let’s go over the rule. Let’s talk through the rule because explaining the rule helps us all be better. Through this Mindset Matters Personality test, I realized that when I ask those types of questions, sometimes people may say, ‘Well, he really doesn’t have an opinion, and he’s indecisive.’ In my brain, I’m trying to honor their opinion and be graceful in their decision-making because what you have to offer is important to me.
How long did it take to create this? Or was it a platform that you had already seen, and you expounded from it?
Dr. Maggie Tieman: The DISC behavioral analysis is like a Myers-Briggs. It’s been around for a long time. Tons of research. You can’t put anything out there when it comes to behavioral or personality styles without a whole lot of research. When I started looking at behavior patterns, Myers-Briggs was the predominant and comfortable one for everybody. But for me, it wasn’t easy enough. I could not remember my letters in Myers- Brigg’s study even though I have a doctorate in this subject. For me, this was too flipping hard. I tried to find different tools to understand it myself. I start with the DISC tool. When I was teaching it, I could teach it to 12-year-olds. I could teach it to 42-year-olds, I could teach it to coaches, and I could teach it to lawyers. As you saw in your report, it shows you that circle, and in that circle, it shows you how to separate the D, I, S, and C. Dominant, Inspiring, Supportive and Cautious. Those two questions split the circle into northern and southern hemispheres and then east and west. I need to be able to use this on the basketball court because I stink at relationships.
Most coaches are D’s and I’s. Dominant and Inspiring.
My husband, Mike, tried to share some things to work with coaches and communicate with them on the basketball court. I would try some of the things that he would suggest, and my relationships got worse.
I had some of the same problems. What worked for others didn’t always work for me. I had a fellow official watch me interact with coaches, and I was told, “Kevin, I don’t think what you’re saying is the problem. I want you to look them in the eye when you say it.” I never realized I wasn’t looking at the coaches when I responded.
Dr. Maggie Tieman: Most coaches are D’s and I’s. Dominant and Inspiring. The Dominant style coach wants control, which means they want to look you in the eye because they want to beat you. For a totally different reason, the Inspiring Style coach wants to look you in the eye because they love approachability and human interaction. If you think about the nature of what our coaches typically are, if they fall into those two categories, well, eye contact will be number one for both, for very different reasons. Eye contact works so well because the majority of our coaches tend to be that behavior style.
When I’m standing on the court, I don’t know this coach for the first time or meet a new partner, I ask myself a few questions. Is that person more outgoing? Is their motor revving like a Ferrari, or is their motor more like a Ford? Nothing wrong with a Ford, but clearly, the engine is going to be a little bit less amped up. The first thing I can tell is through body language. If I see a coach talking with their teammates or their assistant coaches and using their hands and facial expressions animated, I can probably guess that they’re more of an outgoing coach. If everything is lined up on the scorer’s table, like the pieces of gum on the sideline. They’re sometimes the piece of paper with all of the official’s names on it.
Question number two, is this person more task-oriented or more relational or people-oriented? Task-oriented people are very procedural, very sticky notes. They have sticky notes all over the place. I like to get a schedule. I want to have things done. Someone who is more people-oriented. Well, it says it right in the name. It’s just relational. They like recognition and approval, or they like teamwork or harmony. If I can answer those two questions quickly, I can probably have a good idea of what quadrant they fit in. Then I can go to my little cheat sheets. For example, one coach is very reserved, almost like a cheerleader. He’s always very positive with his kids. I know he will probably be somewhere in that critical, Cautious, ‘C’ style or Supportive.
Automatically I have taken away two different types of guesswork. I don’t have to turn my Dominant or Inspiring brain on. I have to go to details, excellence, precision, teamwork, harmony, and support. Those are keywords that go along with Cautious and Supportive styles. So, I gave to turn down the motor of my Dominant Style, Challenge, Choice, and Control, and that’s because this coach talks much softer, and he’s much more of a, let’s figure this out together coach. I’m not going to run right over there and start talking. I’m going to go over, and I’m going to say, ‘Oh boy. That look on your face. Usually, you don’t have many facial expressions, but right now, that one is looking like I’ve done something very wrong. Tell me what that is.’
What about the coach that is always amped up. I can’t tell when they are upset. How do you manage that type of personality?
Dr. Maggie Tieman: So, when you have a coach that is an Inspiring style, they will come out with that intimidating, over-the-top passion. They look like they’re going to pop. There’s so much going on right there. Remember, an ‘I’ or Inspiring style coach is on the other side of a ‘D’.
All of the couples therapy that I have done, every single last one of them, somebody is a ‘D’ or ‘C’, and they’re married to an ‘I’ or an ‘S’. When we get into a fight, I’m either going to win or be right, but you want me to sit down and have a conversation and work it out together? So, let’s go back to your Inspiring style coach. That people-oriented coach wants that recognition, approval, and popularity because they’re all over the place. Look at me, look at me, I’m over here. That used to irk me. Now I think to myself, how can I recognize how amazing they are with their athletes to create a connection with them. The first time I have them, I may go, ‘Whoa, how did you get that freshman? She is outstanding. It was just a compliment, but they like recognition, popularity, and approval because they live in that inspiring world.
If you remember three words that go along with each of the disc letters, it can be helpful. And once again, it may not be right. You may say, Oh, that didn’t land correctly. Maybe they’re a ‘D’ Dominant style. Let me just ask him a question. Give them a choice, and then they’re going to be much better. D’s are really tough coaches because they always want to be right; you will be wrong no matter what you say to them. They will continue to try to prove their point.
What is your option when dealing with a Dominant style coach?
Dr. Maggie Tieman: Great question. Giving Dominant Style a choice is mind-blowing, even if the option is directed towards what you want them to answer.
So, it frustrates them more?
Dr. Maggie Tieman: No, that’s good if you give them the choice. Challenge, Choice, and Control are the three words for Dominant Style people. They love the challenge. They love interacting with you because they want to win and think they can win every time. The Control piece is accentuated with ‘D’ coaches because the only time they don’t have control is when we step onto the floor and they interact with referees. They control every other piece of their student athletes’ lives. So now they’ve given that control up to someone. I may say to someone I know I’m not going to win with them. ‘You know what? You’re absolutely right.’ That play, we can continue to talk about it. Or would you rather just kind of chalk it up? Let’s move on to the next play, and when I see you again, do you want me to follow up with you?’ I’ve given them a choice, and I acknowledge the fact that they’re right. I don’t know if they’re right or not, but if I tell them that they’re right or you may be right on that, I’m admitting the fact that I could be wrong for Dominant Style referees and for critical thinking, Cautious ‘C’ style referees. We’re never wrong because we’ve thought about it so many times. We can’t possibly be wrong. When I work with D’s and C’s referees, allow yourself to be wrong because you’re trying to make a relationship with them. If you admit to being wrong, that’s like music to a D’s or a C’s ears.
This is incredible information. Some think that recognizing your personality style is unnecessary. For those who believe this is too much, you say what?
Dr. Maggie Tieman: For referees that say it’s too much. I’m going to ask them how many hours they spend looking at their rulebook. They spend many hours getting another book together because they want to fill their planner up with games. The only way that I get more games is when I do good work. Well, who’s evaluating me on my good work? Coaches, supervisors, and regional advisors. If somebody wants to do business with me, they’re only going to continue to do business if they like me. So how do I connect with them on their level so that they want to continue doing business with me? If I continue to be a ‘D’ style referee, I turn people off because people think I’m intimidating, rude, callous, and whatever other non-pleasant description you want to tell me that I am. Well, then that evaluation is going to reflect that. And after a while, I’m not going to have a job. I’m not going to fill this day planner, which correlates to money. For those who don’t want to spend the time in this, I would challenge them to ask themselves, what is your end goal? Do you want to work basketball? Because basketball and refereeing are relational activities? I must figure out how to make myself into someone that people want to do business with. All our great relationships have come from basketball. And more importantly, that just makes us a better person.
(Connect with Dr. Maggie Tiemen and the Mindset Matters team at
www.mindsetmattersllc.com)
