As many of you know, the FIFA World Cup came to an end with France being crowned world champions. The FIFA World Cup is the most popular sporting event in the world and takes place every four years. This time it was held in Russia with 900 million television viewers watching the final.
Any team that makes it to the final and goes onto win obviously has supremely talented individuals. However, individual talent alone will not win the tournament. In fact, it’s rare for the best players in the world to play on the winning team. This year the top two players in the world, Ronaldo and Lionel Messi, were playing for teams eliminated early in the tournament.
Teams that win the tournament all share qualities that distinguish them from the rest. One of the most powerful lessons that can be learned from the World Cup is the positive relationship team cohesion has with team performance. This has been proven time and again with highly cohesive teams overcoming the seemingly more talented teams.
More than 40 years ago, Canadian sports psychologist Albert Carron wrote that team cohesion is “a dynamic process which is reflected in the tendency for a group to stick together and remain united in the pursuit of its goals and objectives.”
The key to this cohesion is having shared goals that everyone is committed to achieving. This requires that individual team members don’t allow their personal goals to undermine the agreed team goals. Usually, when a team under-performs it’s often because individual team members have put their individual needs ahead of the team’s. This is often the result of a lack of communication about the shared goals and not any intentional individual effort to undermine these goals. Understanding team goals alone is not enough though. The players also need to know their specific roles in the team. This second part is crucial to achieving team cohesion. One without the other will again lead to under-performance therefore every team member needs to know the team goals and their role in achieving them. The manager of the French national soccer team knew this and by clearly communicating the team goals and defining every player’s individual role he was able to help the French team win the tournament.
Organizations like Bethany Care Society and Bethany Care Foundation also have shared goals some of these are long term in nature and others short term. Studying the cohesion displayed by successful sports teams reminds us of our need to continually be working on creating and maintaining cohesive teams. This is something I personally consider on a daily basis. I ask myself the question “what’s the team goal and what’s my role?” If I am unclear, I will ask to ensure that I am in sync with my teams. Asking this simple question helps me to focus on doing the right things. I hope it helps you.
I encourage any ideas, suggestions and any questions that you may have. Please feel free to send them to me at spencer.harmer@bethanyseniors.com.
Take care,
– Spencer
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