Sports Performance

Performance Management for Professionals and Amateurs

Team Sports

Team Dysfunction: Here's the deal.

Teams always have issues and it is critical to deal with them on a regular basis before "quite dysfunction" insidiously fester into overt dysfunction. Every manager, coach, and player knows this can happen - but like the doctor's diagnosis, nobody wants to talk about it, as though the underlying issues will miraculously go away or no one will notice. Instead everyone notices. Players disappear, coaches disappear, managers disappear.

One of our favorite quotes is "Doing the same thing over and over and over again and expecting different results, is a form of insanity".

(George Bernard Shaw)

This is an exercise to improve team performance. To do this, we demand the right for absolute and irrefutable confidentiality. Our mission is about understanding underlying issues and resolving them; not a soap opera tell all. So, when a player criticizes another player, or the coach, we extract the fundamental meaning relevant to team performance and deal with it.

These sort of team performance issues can not be properly handled internally. The old adage about attorneys never serving as their own lawyers fully applies to team dynamics.

Team Function: Esprit de Corps

Our Team Work is for 'teams' or specific squads (e.g., offense), not individual players. Yes, we do work with individual players or small groups of players, but not under our team mission.

In a complicated sport's environment, every member needs to fully engage the team, not just on game day but every day. Every team has a great tradition and that tradition is an initial point of entry for engagement. It is to the organization's benefit not to overlook the value of "tradition" in establishing an "esprit de corps" attitude. Every member will have a level of determination to live up to the tradition of the organization. This needs to be fostered.

What is your organization's supply line? This is an obviously complex question because defining "supply" encompasses intangibles, e.g., team spirit, dedication, in the zone, sweet spot, etc. These intangibles are important to developing cohesive squad function. The idea of a supply line also refers to the "line". Intangibles within a squad are dynamic meaning they have a known history, they have issued from some origin. No one shows up at the locker room and says "let's get excited, let's win this game" with any conviction or acceptance unless there has been some dynamic history of authenticity.

So, what is your team's supply line?

The quality of leadership is absolutely necessary to attain and sustain high performance. Quality of leadership. Do not assume your team members fully comprehend the quality of their leadership. Manager/coach leadership qualities must be reinforced over and over again. Your team has to believe in its leadership, both the technical and mental leadership.

Any Questions?

We suggest booking an introductory seminar to determine fit.

Team sports are complex, entangled beasts. Our approach is to compartmentalize the organization or squad into definable units, determine the performance issues of each unit, and then re-synthesize the units as a collaborative, communicative team. Successful teams function synchronously as a team. t.

Dysfunction vs. Function