By Max Groen, Masters of Education Student, BU Wheelock, Counseling & Sport Psychology Program
Often when one thinks of a strongly competitive team, they look to some of the more obvious factors such as the level of talent on the roster and the abilities of the coaching staff. Although talent is certainly an important factor towards a team/programs success, there is a saying “hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard”. Although a bit cliché, this saying stresses the importance of culture, specifically effort, within a team. Through research it has been found that effort, particularly the way an individual player views the effort of his teammates, has a positive impact on a team’s culture (Spink, McLaren, & Ulvick, 2017). While effort is an important factor, another concept that might go a bit under the radar in terms of culture, and a team’s success, is their frequency, and ability, to communicate with one another. Results from research with basketball players, as well as team sport athletes in general, have found that when a large portion of players/teammates interact, and communicate with their teammates, there is a stronger perception of task cohesion (McLaren & Spink 2019). This positive uptick in team task cohesion is an important piece to a strong culture, for it shows the players feel that they are all “on the same page” in pursuit of the groups goals.
Cohesion
Task Cohesion can only take place when a team establishes, and agrees upon, a clear and defined set of group goals (Filho, 2015). Once team/group goals are established, task cohesion in its simplest form can be described as the process of how likely/well a team/group remains united on the path to chasing their goal/task. For instance, if a team’s goal is to win their conference, their task cohesion would be measured by how well they stick together and work as a unit to achieve this goal. Therefore, the stronger team cohesion within a team, it is likely they will increase their chances of winning/achieving their goals (Senécal, Loughead, & Bloom (2008).
Communication
Communication has been found to be an important factor in a team’s level of cohesion. Studies have found that the larger amounts of teammates an individual athlete communicates with, the stronger perception they have of team cohesion (McLaren & Spink, 2019). For instance, the more athletes feel that their team is communicating, the more likely they are to have a higher perception of the team’s commitment level to its tasks/goals, compared to athletes who feel communication is limited (McLaren & Spink, 2019).
Effort
Another positive factor of team task cohesion is effort (Spink, McLaren, & Ulvick, 2017). However, while it is by no means a negative thing when players view another player to be a hard worker, when it comes to perceived team cohesion it has limited influence (Spink, McLaren, & Ulvick, 2017). However, if a player perceives that a large amount of their teammates to be working hard, their level of perceived team task cohesion goes up (Spink, McLaren, & Ulvick, 2017). For instance, if a player works hard, and others believe that player is working hard, that does not necessarily change that individuals perspective on the team’s level of task cohesion. However, if the individual views many of his teammates to be working hard, the individual will be more likely to view the teams task cohesion to be strong. Therefore, studies have shown that coaches preaching effort are not wrong, for the harder every player on the team is working, there is an opportunity for a strong positive mental influence on individual players. This positive mental influence can potentially cause individual players on the team to work harder themselves because they believe that the rest of their teammates are “doing their job” and working towards their collective team goal.
Conclusion
The better the team, the stronger the culture and team cohesion. While many factors contribute to team success, team task cohesion is a major one. Furthermore, while many factors contribute to a team’s task cohesion, communication and effort have a strong positive impact. If a coach wants to have success, he would be wise to preach and implement ways to improve team communication and effort!
References
Filho, E., Tenenbaum, G., & Yang, Y. (2015). Cohesion, team mental models, and collective efficacy: Towards an integrated model of team dynamics in sports. Journal of Sports Sciences, 33, 641-653.
Senécal, J., Loughead, T. M., & Bloom, G. A. (2008). A Season-Long Team-Building Intervention: Examining the Effect of Team Goal Setting on Cohesion. Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology,30(2), 186-199.
Spink, K., Mclaren, D., Ulvick, J. (2017). Cues to informing perceived task cohesion in the sport setting: The case for teammate effort. International Journal of Sport and Exercise Pscychology.
Spink, K., & McLaren, C. (2019). Member communication as network structure: Relationship with task cohesion in sport. International Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology.