Building effective teamwork requires considerable effort. Team members must interact, work toward shared goals, adapt to environmental demands, and balance individual needs with those of other team members. Almost any position in the sport and exercise field requires understanding the processes and dynamics of groups. A group is defined as two or more people who interact with and exert mutual influence on each other.
It also possesses a sense of mutual interaction or interdependence for a common purpose. But a collection of individuals is not necessarily a group, and a group is not necessarily a team. A team is defined as any group of people who must interact with each other to accomplish shared objectives.
Becoming a team in an evolutionary process, they are changing in their attempts to respond to internal and external factors continuously. Furthermore, there are several characteristics that distinguish groups from teams. There are three main theories that explain how teams are formed, linear, cyclical, and pendular. The linear theory explains that groups move progressively in four different stages.
So groups move progressively through these stages and critical issues arise in each stage. When the issues are successfully dealt with or handled, the group can move on. And the linear theory includes forming, storming, norming, and performing. Forming means team members who are becoming familiar with each other. Members also make comparisons.
assessing another's strengths and weaknesses. Individuals determine if they belong to the group and what their role is at that point. Storming is characterized by resistance to the leader, resistance to control by the group, and interpersonal conflict of present.
This happens as individuals establish their roles and status within the group. Open and objective communication from leaders is really needed in this stage. In the norming phase, hostility is replaced by solidarity and cooperation.
Athletes work together to reach common goals and there's a sense of unity with players looking forward to task effectiveness instead of individual well-being. The last stage for groups forming is when individuals start to look for team success and this is the performing stage. In addition, teams focus on problem solving using group processes now instead and relationships to work on tasks and test new ideas.
At this point, roles within the group are a lot more defined. Every group has its own structure and it depends on the interactions among its members. These are characteristics that groups have to have functioning in order to be successful as a team.
The first one is related to roles and setting behaviors required or expected of a person in a given position. In physical activity settings, a role is defined as a set of behaviors required or expected of the person occupying a certain position in a group. How roles are enforced is dictated.
and determined by the nature and structure of the organization, specifically associated expectations as well. Individuals are trained or recruited. Roles evolve from interactions among members.
For example, in contact sports, there should be someone who ensures that no teammates are bullied, roughed up, or physically intimidated. A mediator is one who is also a diplomatic player who can either evolve or be chosen to mediate disputes among teammates. or even between a coach and a player.
Role clarity mediates the relationship between role ambiguity and an athlete's satisfaction. It is important for the success of the overall team. Effective goals help with role clarity, and it's also important that everyone on the team accepts his or her role. This depends on four conditions being met.
Role conflict exists when the individual does not have enough ability, motivation, time, or understanding of the role. The most typical is one who is wearing too many hats. Norms are levels of performance, patterns of behavior, or beliefs.
They can be formally established or informally developed. An example of how to implement positive norms is by having the leader adopt them. There is a specific way to modify existing norms in sport settings. Effective team climates develop if players perceive interrelationships among group members as being positive and beneficial to the team.
Social support is extremely important because of its impact on behavior and feelings. It provides appraisal, information, reassurance, and companionship. Proximity relates to the bond when two or more people are near each other.
Distinctiveness is that feeling that a client or an athlete could have of unity or oneness. Fairness is important because an important component of a team's climate is trust. Therefore, athletes need to feel that they're being treated with fairness, objectively, and honestly.
This will increase their commitment, motivation, and satisfaction. Fairness and how it is applied can bring a team together or tear it apart. In a similar way, social support is important in commitments, attitudes, aspirations, and other goals in life. So it's coaches who are responsible for making individual players belong or feel part of a team.
Most coaches and sports psychologists alike agree that a group of the best individuals usually does not make the best team. A good team is more than just its parts, so how well a team works together is a key factor in the equation. It may not surprise you that researchers have found that individual skills are only moderately good predictors of a group performance, reporting a positive relationship between a team's effectiveness and individual performance success for all sports. Furthermore, in sports in which more cooperation and interaction are necessary, the importance of individual ability decreases and the importance of group processes increases.
Social loafing in sport or exercise environments is increased under eight specific circumstances. It is important, in order to avoid loafing, to point out each individual's contribution to the team's success. Everyone should take responsibility for their own efforts to avoid assumptions. Identifiability is the most acceptable explanation for social loafing. When team members believe that their individual performance is identifiable, social loafing may be eliminated.
In some situations, social loafing can be acceptable, but only when the player does this to manage his or her motivation level and actions to match the task demands. Coaches should be aware of this and make changes during practice to take advantage of an individual's energy and not to promote loafing. Three main theories attempt to explain group development.
Linear theory, cyclical theory, and pendular theory. The most contemporary views are the pendular theory, which argue that groups go through ups and downs throughout a season because of shifts in interpersonal relationships. A leader's knowledge of these approaches can help the leader to structure an environment to support individuals in the group through each stage. Coaches need to encourage members of the group to get to know each other. because the better team members know each other, the easier it will be for them to accept any individual differences that they have.
Individuals should take time to get to know their teammates, especially the new members in the group.