4. Stability and Continuity
All teams lose games, suffer setbacks and so on but the key
to good teams is that they always bounce back with even
greater determination to win.
Work on these 4 foundations of teams and I’m sure your
team will begin to improve.
Questions
1. A successful team requires task and social
cohesion. Define these 2 terms.
2. Why is stability important to team success?
3. What other factors are important for
team cohesion?
TASK:
Describe and apply the 4 foundations to a team you play for.
Does your team have an agreed goal to work towards?
Describe the task cohesion of your team? What is your ‘role’
GROUP COHESION
in the team? Describe the social cohesion within your team.
How stable is your team environment?
My school football team is full of really good
players but we never seem to play well together.
How can we improve this?
CLASS DISCUSSION:
Sir Alex Ferguson has been the manager of Manchester Utd
for over 20 years and Arsene Wenger has managed Arsenal
A team is different from a group of people because it agrees
for 12 years. Stability and continuity have clearly contributed
to work together to achieve something worthwhile. Although
to their success.
this sounds easy it represents a key coaching challenge -
turning a team of stars into a star team. The problem your What sporting examples can you think of where a lack of
school team faces is exactly what the England Football
stability and continuity have resulted in a decline in
Team faces. Good teams have organisation, energy, blend
performances?
and balance.
Building this is based on 4 foundations:
1. A Prize Worthwhile
Everybody on the team has to be committed and motivated
to achieve an agreed goal.
2. Task Cohesion
Every player must first of all understand their own job on the
pitch, and then understand how the coach expects them to
play as a team in every phase of the game. At
Middlesbrough we had a goalkeeping coach, a defending
coach and an attacking coach who would teach these units
how to play together. Then the Manager would work the 11
players as a team to ensure team task cohesion.
3. Social Cohesion
The players must be willing to accept everybody else on the
team and play together, sharing and trusting. ‘Togetherness’
was one of the key themes the England players chose to
describe our team character. You don’t have to like each
other (it helps if you do) but you do have to be willing to co-
operate with each other.
Sport IQ : September 2008 17