Team Cohesion

Sport’s are an aspect of life that affect societies across the globe. Athletics affect everyone's life, whether that be playing the sport, watching games, or hearing about a sporting event. There is a big difference between playing an individual sport and players relying on their own athletic abilities versus a team sport when members of the team rely on their teammates to complete each individual's specific responsibility to reach the team's goal. Team sports bring people together in countless ways, and they teach many life skills for the athletes that participate in them. Some of these skills include communication, teamwork, discipline, work ethic, dedication, leadership, and numerous more that will help them in their personal and work

Team cohesion is a very important area explored in sport psychology. Though it has as many uses as there are types of groups and teams, it has an exceptionally large impact on the success of sports teams and their ability to reach their goals (Building a Cohesive Team). The ability to become and remain a unified functioning team, especially when faced with conflict or strong opponents, can mean the difference between winning and losing. Developing a team includes many aspects, including trust and familiarity amongst the players, as well as a strong leader, with whom a strong trust and level of comfort is equally important.

Team Cohesion in the sport setting is the most important factor for group effectiveness, being influenced largely by leadership people. Homogenous attitudes and goals, personal sacrifice, and training and instructing coaching tactics are positively linked to team cohesion, and therefore performance. Cohesion is a dynamic and multidimensial process, and these methods could change depending on initial levels. By examining two scenarios of teams having significantly different levels of cohesion, it can be determined how these tactics are used in contrasting contexts. It was concluded the same tactics were used regardless of initial team cohesiveness, and performance was improved in both cases. A single coach administered these methods, but a case study revealed that multiple team leaders can change the different factors enhancing cohesion and still gets the same performance enhancements. Thus, cohesion does not have to rely on a single leader but multiple figures can have a combined effect.

Corey, G., Corey, M., & Haynes, R. (2014). Groups in action: Evolution and challenges (2nd

Often, cohesion is viewed from an affective perspective; as interpersonal attraction among members or to the group. However, cohesion can also be envisioned as "attraction to a collectivity" as opposed to an attraction to the individuals who make up that grouping. (Ratzburg, n.d.) It is important that every single member never work against each other but strive to work with each other toward their shared goal(s). Any negative force that threatens the team's success redirects itself into something positive as long as team members share the same purpose. Cohesiveness is a process whereby a sense of we-ness emerges to transcend individual differences and motives (Kinicki & Kreitner, 2004, p. 15). Some of the teenagers in the families did not approve of how their parents were acting on decision making. Since these people were actually neighbors in real life, these teenagers were friends with the other teens in the game. This caused problems because some of the parents were being immature and this caused the teens to rebel against their own family. In certain challenges the teens would not try as hard as they should because they disapproved of what their parents were planning. Finally, one of the mothers talked to them and explained that it was only a game and more than anything they needed to work together as a family first. The teen realized that this was more important and strived to help his team out.

Group and team work is described as two or more interacting individuals who share collective norms and goals and have a common identity. The size of the group is key, a large group the leader may not catch all. However, a small group becomes more bonded, allowing interaction and shared awareness.

A group is a set of people or things that are considered and classified together who frequently interact and mutually influence each other. Whereas each individual of a group differs greatly from one another, each member shares a common goal or expectations. Universities, for example, are groups of students who are seeking a higher education in a specific area of study. Government parties are groups of people who share certain political beliefs and seek to attain and maintain government power. Wall Street firms are comprised of highly motivated bankers who graduated from the most prestigious universities. Despite the individual differences of every member, the common goal remolds their individualism by inputting its own expectations and goals

Participating in organized basketball and football for ten years presented me the opportunity to achieve common goals working side-by-side with a variety of different personalities. Playing sports drove home the importance of harnessing different personalities and skill sets as key components to teamwork. Fundamental to teamwork is the ability to encourage others, to pick up new information, to learn from mistakes, to hold oneself accountable and to overcome defeat. Over time I have found that the lessons learned through team sports are broadly applicable tools for success. For instance, this past summer my

In the workplace, teams play a very important role in goal achievement. With the help and support of a team leader, the organization can become very successful as long as the team is effective and cooperative. There are many different leadership styles/theories that make each leader unique and effective in their own way. It is not just the leader though that has to be effective. The team as a whole needs to come together and being efficient. Team building strategies are very helpful and effective to bring everyone together. Although working in a team is very effective in most cases, conflicts can still arise. In order to bring everyone back together again conflict resolutions need to be put into place such as the problem solving technique.

In my opinion the first key to cohesion is a common goal for the team to be focused on, if the team is focused on accomplishing the same goal and they can see it in front them cohesion will begin to happen. The other key weather a small or large team is making sure every person knows they

When doing so the other group members were active listener, by using their whole body verbally and nonverbal. Like facing the speaker and giving eye contact and try to avoided interruption. The group also acknowledges the thoughts of the speaker by giving constructive feed back. Due to the effectiveness of the group communication, we were able to build trust, respect and understand the issues and make decision for effective change. We illustrate this by coming together as a group one again to accomplish the goal we initially wanted to accomplish. Since the first organization that we had chosen was incorrect, so we had to make the necessary changes to accomplish our goals. The other effective feature is the purpose of the group. Kozier et al (2010) stated that the effective group purpose is when “goal, task, and outcomes are clarified. Understanding and modified so that members of the group can commit themselves to purposes through cooperation” (p.401). For instance, each individual was assign a task and knew what was to be accomplished. As group we all decided to meet at suitable day and time which was beneficial to all team members, because we could commit to the group and focus on what needed to be achieved.

The dynamics of a team relies heavily on the interaction of team members during times of conflict not just during times of agreement. Often groups seek to achieve a cohesive relationship in an effort to unite the team towards its goals. Group members can make the mistake of subverting conflict in an attempt to maintain this team unity. Conflict serves a valuable role in effective group interactions that must be understood by participants of a team. An examination into the characteristics of conflict and cohesion and the relationship between the two dynamics can provide perspective to

Social cohesion between the coach-athlete and peer relationships in the sporting context are crucial when all invested parties of the team must unify to provide the desired responses during competitions. Understanding coaches and athlete’s skills, preferences, abilities, moods, and habits are all critical pieces to achieving the desired responses. Building team cohesion represents a mutually shared social understanding where the end goal is to learn about each other to enhance the overall collective performance. Athletes that share similar competitive game strategies with their coach, make real-time decisions in competition, and can benefit from the social conformity and control can benefit from such investment towards the cohesive athletic relationship. If not, the team dynamic may complicate the group cohesiveness unintentionally and possibly assume the presumption that cohesion is superior over effective athletic talents, skills, and proper coaching.

The science of team building is an art. The uncontrollable variables are people. Just putting a group of talented individuals together for the sole purpose of goal achievement can be met with disastrous results. It can leave individuals left feeling unfulfilled and lead to costly mistakes in the long run. While team building can be considered an art, there are some methods and approaches that can assist with successful builds. While no approach is full proof, taking time to acclimate oneself with human

Humans have been forming groups since the beginning of humanity. We are constantly categorized as a group at the basic level as a species, as an ethnicity, and as a society. It is speculated that our success and evolution as a species is based on our ability to work with each other in collaboration on many levels to ensure our survival. Groups have enabled us to get things done efficiently, whether by combined physical effort, mental effort of generating ideas, or support of others. At its most effective, a group is considered a team. Teams are formed when