Pillar 4: Teamwork

The 4th Pillar of Process is teamwork.  Like all of the pillars, teamwork is very important.  With teamwork, the group of individuals which make the team form one cohesive unit.  Without teamwork, the group of parts remains a group of individual parts not coming together for a common goal.  The biggest destroyer of teamwork is hidden agendas, followed by cliques, selfish individuals, and coaches with hidden agendas.  These team wreckers can cause huge problems with your team and you need to be aware of them and nip them in the bud.  Let's talk about each of them individually and then discuss how we can build teamwork and nurture it.

1. Hidden Agendas - Hidden agendas are plots by players on the team to exclude or undermine the success of one or more of their teammates.  The reason for such actions can be jealousy, uneasiness that the other player may shine and be better than them, or simply bullying in another form.  Whatever the reason, it needs to be uprooted and nipped in the bud.  There is no room for this on a team that is supposed to be using their energy fighting for one common goal.
2. Cliques - All players on any team have their group of friends.  This is a good thing.  It is natural and healthy for people to gravitate to others that share their interests and like their personalities.  Where these friendships cause a problem is when 2 groups of friends end up competing against each other as opposed to fight for the common goal of winning.
3. Selfish Individuals - It is one thing when the team has one clear cut top player and another when there is a group of boys that can shine.  When there is a group of boys that can shine, as a coach , you need to nurture that and make sure that the Alpha male in the group does not dominate play.  Everyone needs to be involved in order to succeed.  Relying on one guy at the expense of the others will cause the others to lose confidence and this lack of confidence will manifest itself at a time when you need someone else to take a big shot.  Nurture your whole team.  Give confidence to all of your players, especially the ones who at the end of a game can hit a big shot.
4. Coaches Hidden Agendas - This usually creeps in when you have too many fathers or mothers on the bench coaching.  Regardless of how hard you try, it's different when you coach your kid.  As much as you think you are hard on him, you want him to play and you want him to get reps.  Let's face it, most of the time, the reason why fathers coach is because their kid is playing.  When you see a team with a bench full of coaches who are fathers beware of hidden agendas by the coaches.  These can be tricky because even if the coaches are alert to it and try to look out for it, the favoritism can pop up anyways.  What you need to avoid this is a good head coach who has no kids on the team, who will take advice from his assistants but will then objectively decide what advice is good and what is not.  In general, however stay away from teams coached by fathers.  There's a good chance that the teamwork pillar will be destroyed because of it.

Now that we have mentioned what wrecks teamwork, we will proceed in nurturing it and build teamwork for our team.  We do this by communicating with our team, identifying any source of problem, address possible issues, do some team building drills.  Let's talk about each one individually.

1. Communicating with the team - At the beginning of the season when you are introducing yourself make this a big point of emphasis.  Let the kids know that teamwork is important and that you are looking for players who are unselfish and do not care about their points but do care about winning.  Make sure you talk to them about cliques, selfish players, and hidden agendas.  Make sure you let them know that if selfishness or insecurities they may have as individuals hurt the team there will be consequences.
2. Identify any source of problems - This should be part of the evaluation process as well.  Look to see if there is a player excluded when the team is broken into small groups.  Look to see if players on the floor exclude someone by not passing to them.  Look to see if people are always chirping in someone else's ear like they can never do anything right.  All of these are signs that someone is trying to wreck the team concept.
3. Address the issue - Once something is noticed talk to the offending player.  Don't tell him that he is playing favorites because in general, that will just make him mad and defensive.  If he is hard on someone, you can tell him something like "give the kid a break, I know your above his level but let's not ruin his confidence." Talking to the offender like that shows him that you are watching and don't like what's going on but still lets the kid play his game.  One thing that should never be done is ignore an issue.  If cliques are the issue you may need to get the 2 cliques together and talk to them.
4. Team building - From the beginning of the year teach you r players how to pick each other up from the ground.  Let's make sure everyone on the bench is cheering, let's make sure we do a school spirit call when exiting huddles.  To take things even further, have them write nice things about each teammate and then give it to the coach who will then place all the comments on sheets of paper addressing what was said about each player.  The last thing you can do is have a non practice, practice where the kids can do anything they want during their glorified gym time.
   

In closing, teamwork is very important.  Without it you don't have one unit but a group of boys that only do what they want to do.  It is important that teamwork is nurtured from early in practice.  Make the boys realize it by talking to them about it.  As a coach work on it everyday.