NuRtuRing Team CultuRe

This is the time of year when ski teams around the country begin regular practices with both new and returning athletes. We all know that xc skiing is a uniquely individual team sport which is why this transitional period is so important for building a team culture that will cultivate a successful team throughout the winter. I believe that it's the athletes who truly create the team culture within a group, but it's the coaches responsibility to create the environment where a positive team culture can flourish. 

This week Nordic Team Solutions met with sports psychologist Pam Lemons at the Western coaches conference in Bend Oregon who offered great insight on how to nurture team culture. 

Pam uses a fun play on words to identify the different phases athletes will go through when coming back together in a team environment: Forming, Norming, and Performing and how coaches can behave during these phases to help provide a positive arena for athletes to bond. 

Forming: 

When a team initially comes together the first priority is to create clear objectives and goals. Why is it important to do this first thing? Setting clear objectives and goals will create a specific expectation and help the team define their culture. 

Coaches often make the mistake of setting goals FOR their team rather than letting the athletes create their own team goals. Although this is done with good intent, athletes are less likely to ‘buy in’ to a goal that they did not come up with on their own. Coaches can provide constructive input such as ‘I think this team has the potential to be best in the state this year’ but the actual wording, tone, and definition of the goal itself should be left up to the athletes. Having the athletes physically write the goal down and have it posted in a visible place will solidify the goal as part of the team culture. 

One thing coaches can be more vocal about during the first team practices of a season is setting expectations. If being on time for training is a priority, be vocal about it and commend the athletes that meet that expectation instead of reprimanding the ones that don’t. The same goes for all kinds of positive behavior such as performing a training task well, being role models, or helping out with team duties. 

This approach of giving praise where praise is do has been proven to work better to reinforce team expectations instead of giving the athletes a hard time for not meeting the standard you have as a coach. No need to be shelling out constant high fives for every little thing, this will obviously lose its relevance, but praising professional behavior will go a long way toward creating a successful team culture. 

Norming: 

This is the phase in which members of the team (athletes and staff) find their roles within the group. We can all picture the typical group roles that individuals fall into – the team leader, team nurturer, team clown or comedian, team ‘tough guy’, team ‘nice guy’ etc. This is normal and to be expected when working in a team environment like ski training. Some important things coaches should keep in mind is that these roles can shift and change. It’s also fine if you have more than one athlete sharing the same role but try to identify any conflict early on, such as athletes who are overly competitive within their roles. 

A good rule to remember when roles are established on a ski team is to check in with the team goal and make sure each team member’s role is helping bring the group closer to that goal. Long term success can only really be achieved if each team members role is helping the team get closer to their shared vision. Remind the athletes, ‘You don’t need to be the best ON your team but strive to be the best FOR your team’ and praise the ones who exhibit that standard. 

Performing: 

Now that team goals and roles are established the way coaches and athletes evaluate daily performance is crucial. We call this purposeful practice. Establishing standards for purposeful practices will have a huge impact on team culture. 

Giving productive feedback to skiers is a key element of purposeful practice. A great piece of advice that Pam offered was to eliminate the word ‘But’ from a coaches vocabulary while giving feedback.  An example, instead of saying - ‘Your classic striding looked great today BUT you could really improve your double pole’ a coach might say  - ‘Your classic striding looked great today AND we can really improve your double pole’ . Small changes like this have been proven to keep youth athletes more engaged and goal oriented. 

Overloading young athletes with too much information is easy to do. Instead of coming up with long lists of technical changes or daily focuses I recommend regularly communicating one thing an athlete is doing well and one thing they can work on. After each practice re-visit the daily goals and come up with an ‘OFI’ – Opportunity For Improvement. Saying to a kid ‘Hey, nice work, this is your OFI for tomorrow’ is an easy way to constantly be reinforcing purposeful practice.