Facilitating Group Cohesion

Although athletics is not a team sport and makes demands of a highly individual nature on its participants, it IS a complex social unit made up of hundreds of “teams” and groups, both permanent and ad hoc. Most athletes receive years of dedicated, expert input from coaches and other individuals, either directly or indirectly. If one also takes officials, administrators, coaching networks and other helpers into account it becomes obvious that each individual success is also a collective success. In their turn, many athletes want to “put something back”, desire to see the sport they love thrive and their club succeed even after they have retired from competition. A thirteen year old going to the track for the first time is about to be inducted into a highly complex but loosely structured community. She will come into contact with an enormous amount of scientific, technical, organisational and social knowledge, skill, gossip, folklore and common values, the vast majority of which is transmitted within groups, by word of mouth, person to person. If she is still in the sport when she’s 60, she’ll still be learning, but will have been part of many subsequent generations’ process of socialisation into the community. Athletics may not be a team sport, but group cohesion and interaction could be seen to be its throbbing heart.

Research suggests that the bonds within female groups are likely to be more apparent and that the dynamics of the training group is likely to be of more significance in performance terms. For young girls especially, group bonds and tensions can assume very high importance. Coaches usually cannot help being drawn into the day to day minutiae as youngsters find gaps in the session in which to share personal worries, tittle tattle or painful experiences with friendships. Although a coach may see this as a distraction from the important business of training and competition, many will rightly judge this to be a sign that the coach/athlete relationship is working well. For youngsters, especially those with low self-esteem, these social issues can appear so important as to be a catalyst for staying or leaving the sport. That low self-esteem, by the way, can show itself in various types of behaviour ranging from extreme shyness and lack of confidence to aggressive, argumentative bravado and bullying.

Loose groups evolve, through a well-documented process of growth, into functioning teams, although do not always in a predictable, step-by-step sequence. Figure 28 Team Development Wheel, charts the group forming process in very adult, workplace terms. (Stage 1 Testing = forming; stage 2 infighting =storming; stage 3 getting organised = norming; stage 4 mature closeness = performing). Stages 3 and 4, getting organised and mature closeness, have to been seen in terms of the youngsters’ social agenda - friendships and relationships, leisure activities, education issues, clothes, etc, as well as backing and supporting each other’s athletic needs and performance.

Figure 29 Levels of Group Interaction, provides another interesting diagnostic tool.

Active mutual support as a constant state may be an unrealistic goal, but when the coach becomes aware that this is happening s/he can reinforce it by showing pleasure and praising their positiveness, co-operation, focus etc. It would also be interesting to keep a note of the circumstances that give rise to different levels of group interaction. Is active mutual support more likely to occur during certain types of training sessions or activity? How does imminent competition affect the group, especially individuals in the same event? Does a state of “warfare” revolve around one or two individuals who may need some individual attention? Is there any kind of bullying going on in the group? How can peaceful coexistence be coaxed into active mutual support?

The questions and combinations of circumstances are endless and coaches are unlikely to want to devote a lot of time to this kind of analysis at the expense of planning direct coaching issues. However, if group issues do intrude into coaching they need to be taken seriously.

It is crucial, of course, not to wade in to a fairly trivial incident, stir up feeling and thereby prolong a problem that might have just blown over. Levels of Conflict provides some yardsticks by which to judge the seriousness of problems. It is useful to bear in mind that conflicts usually arise when one or more individual believes that a proposed course of action includes:

When conflict is at the misunderstandings level, some quiet one to one work may be all that is required. With immature youngsters, however, emotion may be too strong to allow reason to prevail. Tension and crisis levels may necessitate someone moving away from the group, if only temporarily, and with as much face saving as possible.

Figure 30 - Three Reactions to Conflict
1. Avoidance: Denying it exists, working round the person with whom you are in conflict, deciding not to raise it
2. Diffusion: "Pouring oil on troubled waters", saying you'll come back to it, only dealing with minor points rather than major issues.
3. Facing It: Openly admitting it exists, explicitly raising an issue.

Figure 30, Three Reactions to Conflict implies that 3, Facing It is the best course of action. With youngsters, however, 1 – deciding not to raise it and 2 -pouring oil on troubled waters, may be legitimate. Fig…Dealing With Conflict mirrors the “above and below the line behaviour” referred to under assertive and responsive styles above. (page…) and could be usefully employed by a mediator as both a diagnostic tool (are you exaggerating just a bit, do you think?) and as a formula (the above the line styles, starting with being open about objectives.)

Lastly, of course, there is no point in paying a lot of attention to coaching group inter-action if the club itself (or other levels of organisation) is so riven with conflict that everyone is affected by it.

Whether or not this kind of culture provokes more female drop-out (among coaches, administrators and decision makers as well as athletes) than would otherwise occur would make an interesting study. The point is that, where associations, clubs and coaches work together well together everyone benefits.

The process of change - Seen collectively, these inter-personal skills may seem overwhelming – too much to absorb in a reasonable amount of time. But self awareness is a state of mind – the ongoing ability to accept, observe and question oneself. Personal development does not work in a linear and methodical way. Often things that have personal significance will stick in the back of the mind and surface when needed. A practical way forward is to pick a part of the material which seems comfortable, active listening for example and start by:-

• Simply noticing when the issue comes up in day to day life, either done well or a chance missed(TV drama is a good place to start, progressing gradually to real-life – other people and yourself)
• Give yourself a pat on the back for the things you already do well but had not noticed before
• Seek appropriate feedback from someone whose opinion and motives you trust
• Gradually, one by one, tryout the different skills, noticing any resulting differences in response
• Then notice how this areas overlap into others
• Re-read the chapter or other relevant material, from time to time for fresh ideas