Mateship the key to team building
Issue: Volume 27 Number 1
How often have we seen it across the sporting spectrum: the team that goes into a game packed with stars, being beaten by opposition containing players that no one has ever heard of? As has been proved time and time again, from Manchester to Melbourne, the champion team may not necessarily comprise champion players, and it is here that the work of the coach and support staff becomes all important.
So how do coaches go about instilling the drive and commitment among a group of individuals to mould them into an outfit that is often more than the sum of its parts? The team-building exercise is complex, often requiring sophisticated people-management skills, and usually done under quite severe time restraints.
Andrew Padmore sees the problem from two quite different perspectives. As coach of the Jersey Flegg U20 Canterbury Bankstown team he has charge of young semi-professionals who are just a couple of steps away from playing in the toughest rugby league competition in the world, but he also coaches NSW Combined High Schools, two years junior in age, where participants are neither paid, nor necessarily committed to a career in the sport.
‘When I took over the schools team I made a few changes,’ he said. ‘In the past when we went away to tournaments the players were billeted out in people’s homes, which often meant they were together only for training sessions and games.
‘Now I make sure we are a team 24 hours a day, because in our sport the social element is just as important as what happens on the field. The kids enjoy each other’s company and they build bonds just by being together and enjoying themselves.’
As the combined schools name suggests, players come together from all over the state. Padmore says some will probably know each other as opponents, but the initial team meetings are usually quiet affairs. ‘I get them together for three or four days before we travel, and we do things like making them stand up in front of the others and give a spiel about themselves.
‘You virtually have to force them to socialise for the first couple of days, but after that it is amazing how quickly they get to know each other, and by the bus trip they will be different people.’
Down in Victoria, netball coach Jane Searle also has dual roles: she takes charge of the Melbourne Kestrels in the national league, while overseeing the netball program and generally developing the sport at the Victorian Institute of Sport. She is in no doubt that player cohesiveness, on and off the court, is the secret to a successful combination.
‘It is important that each individual identifies with the team. Ideally they should see it as their second family,’ she said. ‘My approach is to set a high standard of work ethic, then challenge them to reach that standard, both as individuals and as a group. When you have a commitment to hard work, you tend to be more ready to make sacrifices for the good of the team as a whole.’
The entire Kestrels outfit — players, coaches and support staff — recently went on a three-day beach camp with the major aim of building team cohesiveness. Searle took with her a 1000-piece jigsaw puzzle.
‘The hard work we put the players through earned them each a certain number of pieces of the jigsaw, then they could also nominate team-mates that they felt deserved extra pieces,’ she said. ‘The more pieces that went into circulation, the greater the chance of the jigsaw being completed.
‘In the end, they were a couple of pieces short and I pointed out that no one had nominated the support staff, so we had a talk about that and how each component of the team is important.’
Teams change, and with the Kestrels and the Victorian Institute of Sport squads, there is the challenge of fitting newcomers into already established groups. ‘Honesty and transparency is important, so that everyone knows where they are going,’ she said. ‘Other players can see the strengths of the newcomers, so that makes it all the more easier.
‘Humour is a great icebreaker and in this case it’s always wise to quickly identify the different personalities within the group, sorting out the practical jokers, the quieter types, the natural leaders and so on.’
Padmore says all this is easier to accomplish the further you travel up the elite ladder. ‘With my Jersey Flegg side, I have them for ten months of the year, so there is far more time for the social program,’ he said.
‘We went to the beach for a weekend and had the team psychologist speak about not letting your team-mates down and goal setting, then a former player told them why he had played and what he got out of it. Club culture is important to get across as most 20-year-olds haven’t grasped it.
‘All that was mixed up with some fairly tough physical work out on the beach. League is a contact sport and there are times when you get hurt, so that makes team building and bonding all the more important because you’ve got to help your mates through these rough patches.’
Triathlon is at first sight a sport where team building seems less important if not irrelevant, but Australian Institute of Sport Head Coach Jackie Gallagher said a lack of team cohesiveness probably cost Australia gold at the Sydney Olympics.
‘The individual approach counted against us,’ she said. ‘We had some pretty bitter appeals against selection and in both teams we ended up with strong personalities who were individuals not inclined to work together.’
Australia, once the world leader in the sport, had failed to see how it was changing. Since 1995 ‘drafting’ has been legal in the bike component, which opened the door for Tour de France style teamwork, and the tactics have also spread to the swimming and running legs.
Gallagher said team tactics were now practised openly in Europe. ‘They will build a team around a star, making sure he gets off the bike in the best position to optimise the run,’ she said. ‘So we have introduced the team concept into the Australian Institute of Sport, with the simple aim of getting more Australians on more winners’ podiums.
‘You can’t change the culture overnight, but since we started off in 2001, we have made great progress with our U23 teams.
‘There are the obvious things like wearing the same uniform and staying in the same accommodation when we go to races, but we also try to foster the attitude that if we stick together and support each other, we will all improve and it will be a positive benefit to everyone.
‘I have always held the view that it’s much harder to reach elite level on your own, and that you need people around you can feed off in a positive way.’
The results are beginning to mount. Since the program was changed there have been world championship successes at open, U23 and junior levels.
‘We can see it progressing,’ she said. ‘The first year they tried to work as a team, but it did not really come off. Since then the dynamics have improved and so have the results.
‘With the Athens Olympics this year, the main aim is to stop the problem of appeals, and work for a culture of inclusiveness. We are having several camps in the lead-up where we try to get people to work together to create a team, while still catering for the fact they are individuals with their own coaches, combing three disciplines that require very different programs.
‘I think we will stand a better chance at Athens, but Beijing in 2008 is where we expect the team-building exercise to really pay off.’
