Team sports are a beautiful concept. A selective group of individuals, each with unique skill sets and roles, all working together in harmony to achieve a common objective. The beauty of team sport is in HOW each team works as a unit; a combination of trust, execution, independence and reliance in order to achieve greatness together.
What Makes a Team Elite?
Every season, there are speeches, team bonding activities and buzz words galore. We’ve all heard them. “There’s no I in team”, “TEAM, Together Everyone Achieves More” or “We are stronger together than we are separately”. All these are true and fantastic statements that can sometimes be quite motivating.
But the reality is that a handful of sentimental statements are usually superficial; to truly impact a culture, there has to be a deeper connection between the vision and the players themselves. Elite teams understand and respect the truth of what it means to be a part of something bigger than themselves.
From my experience, great teams are built with people of character; you can have the best individual players and still be a terrible team. Individuals who understand the vision, their role and their expectations both as a player and as a teammate. They might not always be the most skilled, but more often than not, they have the desire to learn. This open-mindedness makes them coachable.
The Balance of Selfishness and Selflessness
So what is it that makes these individuals different? What is it that tends to allow them to put forth their best effort while still contributing to their fellow players? How do they find the balance of ME and WE? I’ll summarize it like this:
They are selfish enough to seek what they are capable of, yet, selfless enough to empower others to do the same.
The best players and teammates I’ve had the privilege of coaching are extremely selfish when it comes to personal development. It’s not what they do, but rather how they approach what they are doing. Every effort towards training, practice or games is one in which they look to push themselves further; they always look towards the ceiling as a means to raise it. They never are complacent being on the floor.
But yet, these same players are selfless. They understand the responsibility they have as a teammate; when one succeeds, we all succeed. When one fails, we all fail. We share the burdens of both together. Knowing this truth, the best teams empower each other. They know that by holding themselves accountable to the standard of expectation, so too do they have the responsibility to help hold their teammates accountable as well.
Building Culture Through Daily Actions
We like to say that the small hinge swings the big door; how we do one thing parallels to another in our efforts toward greatness. The smallest impacts compound to a greater meaning. Our best teams:
- Set up the equipment together
- Partner on drills so as to compete with one another
- Finish every rep, yard or second of time to completion
- Spot each other
- Encourage each other
- Are objectively honest with each other
- Help load their teammates bars
- Clean up together
- Debrief together
Might seem like small, mundane stuff, but it’s the habitual efforts that bring a team closer together. Shared perseverance through suffering reinforces the connection between a team; being able to endure (and thrive through) tougher practices, training sessions and tight games as an individual is only made more meaningful when done with your fellow players.
Creating a culture of excellence and togetherness can seem like a complicated process, to which I agree it is. Human beings are complex creatures; to unite a group of individuals with excitingly different personalities is not without its hardships. However, it’s a process. Understand that a culture is built over time through small daily actions done by selfishly selfless individuals who share a common vision. Excellent teams aren’t built on a handful of buzzwords, but rather the actions of the collective.
So simple, it’s hard.
Matrixx
