Craig Pickering

Sports Science Quarterly – Q2 2025

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Every quarter we take a deep dive into the latest research in sports science. In this edition we look at the latest research on team building, balancing stress and recovery, changing the perception of competition, and major championship preparation.

As always, the full Sports Science Quarterly is available exclusively to HMMR Plus Members. You can browse the past topics on our archive page. The first topic below is free to everyone, but sign up now to read about all the latest research. To get an idea of what Sports Science Quarterly is all about, the April 2016 edition is available in its entirety for free.

This Quarter’s Topics

How to build a team

Quick Summary – Team building in sports enhances cohesion, role clarity, communication, leadership, and overall team performance. A 2009 meta-analysis found team building activities, particularly goal setting, significantly improved team dynamics, from which a 2012 study provides a practical framework, outlining key inputs (team environment, structure), processes (interaction, cooperation), and interventions (goal setting, leadership development, and role clarity exercises) to enhance team success.

For those coaches involved in team sports, the concept of team building is one that is commonly raised. The goal of team building activities is to enhance the functioning of the group, so that they can better work together to deliver a performance outcome. Team building activities aren’t unique to sport—they are used across many different domains, including business, industry, and the military. Within sports, team building activities are often focused on developing team cohesion, providing role understanding, ensuring communication can be clear and concise, allowing effective management and leadership, enhancing the satisfaction of team members, and driving team performance.

Due to the espoused benefits of team building activities, they are often widely utilised—indeed, if you watch any documentary that involves a sports team, there will undoubtedly be some element of team building that takes place. The evidence for team building activity effectiveness is generally positive; in a meta-analysis from 2009, the researchers found that, based on the evidence from 17 studies, team building had a significant (i.e., p<0.05) small to moderate positive effect on both task and social cohesion, performance, role clarity, acceptance, and satisfaction, along with athlete satisfaction and self-confidence. The same meta-analysis found that team goal setting interventions were the most effective type of team building activity, and the longer the duration of the team building program, the greater its effectiveness.

The findings of this meta-analysis are where our first study this quarter kick off. Titled Team Building in Sport: Linking Theory and Research to Practical Application, and published in the Journal of Sports Psychology in Action in 2012, the authors, as suggested in the paper’s title, aimed to link the theory of the research into team building into practical applications—something doubtless of interest to coaches from a variety of sports. In doing this, the authors initially develop a conceptual model for team building in sport, which they have adapted from previous research in the field. Here, there are two key inputs:

  • Team Environment, which is comprised of
    • Team Distinctiveness – e.g., wearing team kit when travelling
    • Team Togetherness – e.g., travelling together
  • Team Structure, which is comprised of
    • Role Clarity – i.e., are individual team members clear on what their specific roles are
    • Role Acceptance – i.e., are individual team members accepting on what their specific roles are
    • Conformity to Team Norms – i.e., do team member conform to the typical norms of the group?
    • Leadership – i.e., is there effective leadership of team members

Based on these initial two inputs, there are a group of team processes that act as throughputs—i.e., the determine how well the team functions. These processes include how team members interact with one another, how they communicate, how they cooperate, levels of sacrifice that take place, and overall team goals. These processes, which are affected by the key inputs, then combine to create the outputs; team cohesion, team performance, team member satisfaction, adherence to rules and norms, and overall team efficacy.

Alongside this conceptual framework for team building, there is an established four phase approach to team building, which involves:

  • The Introductory Stage – the purpose of this stage is to introduce the team building program to the coaches and/or athletes, and provide a background on the effectiveness of and benefits coming from team building interventions. This stage is important; research highlights that participants in a team building program exhibit greater motivation and adherence when they understand the rationale and benefits of the program.
  • The Conceptual Stage – this stage introduces the conceptual framework outlined earlier, allowing team members to understand the overall process, what goes into it, and what potentially comes out.
  • The Practical Stage – in this third stage, the team members are involved in developing strategies for the team building program, based on the areas determined to be most important. When team members are active in the process, commitment levels are likely to be higher, enhancing the outcomes of the team building program. These initial three stages are relatively brief, and can likely be achieved within a single session if/when practical.
  • The Intervention Stage – in this stage, the specific program is developed and then delivered.

Building on this theoretical model, authors Paradis and Martin then provide some practical applications of the conceptual framework, assisting us to understand how to potentially deliver some of our own team building interventions. From an inputs perspective, the authors highlight the need to be clear on the desired outcome of the team building, which in turn allows different areas to be targeted as relevant. From a group structure perspective, ensuring everyone in the team understands, and accepts, their roles and responsibilities is important to increase team member satisfaction and performance. Interventions to enhance role clarity include the coach-athlete interview, where both athlete(s) and coach(es) write down their beliefs regarding the athletes role in the team, after which a discussion can highlight any mismatches in understanding, and provide clarity as to what is required. A further intervention is anonymous teammate feedback, in which each teammate writes “in order to be successful, person X must do…” for each person in the team. These points are then discussed by the team, and any incongruence in beliefs can be discussed and resolved. This process also allows for identification for individuals who are not satisfied with their role, or don’t accept their responsibilities—identifying this early is important, as individuals with these beliefs can damage overall team functioning. Coaches delivering team building in this area should sell the team’s overall vision, provide feedback as to each person’s role and responsibility, and highlight the importance of each person’s respective role. A final potential intervention is the hot seat; here, team members take it in turn to say what the athlete in the hot seat brings to the team, raising the level of recognition and appreciation for all individuals within the team, and highlighting their specific contribution to the team.

The establishment of team norms also assists in improving group structure. Team norms are unwritten rules or guidelines, the development and acceptance of which contributes to team success by a) allowing athletes to come together to ensure the maintenance of the group, and b) providing a standard by which team members can guide themselves. Team norms can be developed through team discussion and identification of key norms and behaviours, and having leaders set the overall standard. Having team members come up with the norms, as opposed to having them dictated to them, provides an increased sense of ownership to the team. The dominant norms that form within a sports team are usually done so around four key contexts; competition, practice, social situations, and the off-season. Within these context, the most frequently cited norms include showing respect to teammates, providing support, maintaining communication contact with teammates, attendance, and having positive interactions. Research suggests that teams with stronger norms associated with social interactions report greater levels of social cohesion, and perceive their performance to be better. As such, norms can have a direct influence on performance enhancement.

A final aspect related to group structure is that of fostering and developing effective leadership practices, which can have positive implications for building an effective team. This can be leadership at both levels—coaching and athlete—with athlete leaders typically being either team captains, or more experienced players. Two key ways that leadership can be developed is through self-monitoring and behavioural feedback. Coaches and athletes utilising self monitoring should record the different leader behaviours they identify within training or games. Behavioural feedback refers to the utilisation of team members to provide feedback on the behaviours exhibited by the team leaders (coaches and players). Developing leadership effectiveness within teams is important, as athlete leader behaviours (which include social support, positive feedback, and democratic behaviours) predict higher perceptions of task and social cohesion, and in term higher levels of team member satisfaction.

From an environment perspective, targeting team distinctiveness can enhance feelings of belonging from athletes. Distinctiveness can be targeted through having unique team kit or accessories, or a team motto. Another way coaches can assist in team building is through ensuring proximity; if teams travel together and stay together, then they are likely to develop a sense of groupness that can further enhance team functioning.

Moving to the various throughputs within the conceptual model, research has highlighted that the most effective team building intervention is team goal setting. The benefits of team goal setting include increased perceptions of team cohesion, enhanced communication and feedback, better focus in athletes, better team work, and increased affect. Two of the most common protocols from the research literature on team goal setting are:

  • Widmeyer & Ducharme (1997) – a six-step process, comprised of a) establish long-term goals first, b) establish clear paths to long term goals, c) involve all team members in establishing long term goals, d) monitor progress towards team goals, e) reward team progress towards team goals, and f) foster collective efficacy for team goal attainment.
  • Eys et al. (2006) – have athletes collectively come up with a list of performance indices or standards they would like to achieve, and then have the athletes choose the top 3-5 most important indices. Once these have been decided, the athletes set performance targets related to meeting these indices, and these targets are continually reinforced across the year/season.

Alongside the conceptual framework presented in this paper, the authors identify other team building models that may be relevant. One of these is Personal Disclosure and Mutual Sharing. Research suggests that many of the problems that arise in teams do so due to team members lack of understanding of each others needs, motives, and feelings—it is hard to understand these if we’re not aware of them. Under this model, team members share information about themselves with team mates within a group setting – for example, why they play the given sport, or what got them started. Research on this technique highlights that athletes often come out of these meetings feeling closer than ever, with increased collective efficacy, and having a sense of invincibility. Another model comes from Cox (2006), which outlines the following process:

  • Acquaint each player with the responsibilities of other players
  • Take time to learn something personal about each person on the team
  • Developing pride throughout the team
  • Developing a feeling of ownership among the players
  • Setting team goals and taking pride in their accomplishments
  • Ensuring each person understands their role, and believes in its importance
  • Not demanding or expecting complete social tranquillity
  • Avoiding the creation of cliques
  • Developing team drills that encourage member cooperation
  • Highlighting positives after a loss

Finally, with team building, it can be difficult to know which specific aspects to target. Beich (2001) defined what is required for a team to be successful, namely:

  • Clear goals
  • Defined roles
  • Open and clear communication
  • Effective decision making
  • Balanced participation
  • Valued diversity
  • Managed conflict
  • Positive atmosphere
  • Cooperative relationships
  • Participative leadership

As a coach, you can start at the top of that list, and then work your way down until you find an area in which the team needs to be enhanced.

Summing up, I think this research is really important, as it takes something quite broad and general (and often esoteric) into something that can be actioned by coaches at all levels. For those of us who work in teams, taking step to enhance the team cohesion and performance is crucial—and this article provides the basis by which we can do so.

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