I am a volleyball coach for a club team on the central coast of California. The season is about to start and I am always looking for ways to improve my coaching. As I read the chapters on teams and organizations I realized that are solutions to some problems I have had with teams in the past. One such problem is cohesion. Cohesion is defined as the tendency for a group to stick together (Schneider, Gruman, & Coutts, 2012, pg 116). There have been two types of cohesion identified, task and social cohesion (Schneider, Gruman, & Coutts, 2012, pg 117). Task cohesion is the ability for a group to want to reach a goal and social cohesion is friendships (Schneider, Gruman & Coutts, 2012, pg 116).
It has been my experience that not all high-school aged girls get along. When those girls end up on the same sports teams, bad things can happen, such as very low social cohesion. One thing I see a lot of when this happens is relational aggression. Relational aggression includes social exclusion, friendship withdrawal threats (e.g., “I won’t be your friend unless…”), giving the silent treatment and spreading malicious secrets, lies or gossip (Ostrov, 2013). As one can imagine, this can be particularly harmful to the team’s social cohesion. I was also not very knowledgeable about how to fix these problems until recently.
From the reading, I know understand that the antecedents of cohesion must be present in order create unity. These include role clarity, role acceptance, and role performance. Role clarity is the extent ones role is clearly defined (Schneider, Gruman, & Coutts, 2012, pg 119). Role acceptance is the degree to which the person agrees to comply with their role (Schneider, Gruman, & Coutts, 2012, pg 119). While role performance is how well the person actually fulfills their role (Schneider, Gruman, & Coutts, 2012, pg 119). These increase task unity and social cohesion (Schneider, Gruman, & Coutts, 2012, pg 119) and were something I have not always done. With this in mind, I tried to make my team better.
So now, at the beginning of each week I sit down with each of the girls and have a conversation. I ask them questions about their role to make sure they understand what it is they are supposed to do (role clarity). We then move on to role acceptance. I ask them if they accept the role I have given them. We talk about how happy the girl is with their role. If they are not happy, I give them a list of things they need to do in order to gain the role they want. For example, if a girl wants to be hitter and her current role is defensive in nature, I could tell her she needs to perfect her hitting approach before she gains the role she wants. Next, we would move on to role performance. This is a discussion about why each girl is (or is not) playing. If they are not playing, I give them the statistics they need to improve on to play. Last, I ask the girls if they need to speak to me about any of the other girls. I let them know that any social problems cannot affect the team and must be dealt with through me. Any violation of this policy will result in disciplinary action.
I, as the coach, also set the social norms for the team. My job is to coach and critique, the player’s jobs are to be positive no matter what, especially to eachother. I strictly uphold these rules and reinforce them daily. These weekly talks have curtailed the major problems with social cohesion.
I was a little surprised how well they have worked, although I shouldn’t be. These things have been researched and my opinion or intuition is secondary. It makes me excited to try and incorporate more research into my coaching. I want to continue to use science to solve problems. This is being an applied social psychologist. I eagerly read sports psychology articles and social psychology texts.
References
Ostrov, J. (2013). The development of relational aggression. American Psychological Association. Retrieved from:
http://www.apa.org/science/about/psa/2013/07-08/relational-aggression.aspx
Schneider, F. W., Gruman, J. A., and Coutts, L. M. (2012). Applied Social Psychology: Understanding and Addressing Social and Practical Problems (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
Tags: cohesion, organizations, teams