Managing Competitive Groups
Managing Competitive Groups
By Andy Newell
I think it's difficult for a skier to acheive their potential without teammates. Pushing each other, working together, competing together, while simoltaniously competitng as individuals is what makes xc skiing so fun and unique. As our race season heats up around championship races, now when athletes feel more pressure which can lead to a heightened level of stress in any ski team setting. As coaches I think it's important we try to cultivate an environment where competitive teammates genuinely support one another on and off the ski trails.
Competition can bring out the best in teammates but if it’s not nurtured the right way it cancause friction and deteriorate the cohesiveness of an entire ski team. Being able to identify a friendly rivalry between teammates versus an overly-competitive distraction is important for all members of a ski team, athletes and coaches alike. In addition, there are a number of ways coaches and team leaders can help maintain a positive and cohesive competitive atmosphere within the team even as the race season heats up.
Teammates can feel the urge to negatively compare their ski results to one another. It's kind of the nature of our sport since teammates are often competing with one another to make selections such as junior national team, NCAA roster, or even Olympic starts. This leads to what sports psychologists call the Scarce Recourse Phenomenon. This is the idea that if my teammate succeeds instead of me, I am somehow less successful or it was a bad day of racing for me. The notion that success is finite and it can only be occupied by the people at the top of the results sheet.
This type of thinking can evoke a lot of jealousy within a team and before long skiers fall into a trap of viewing success in a very polarizing way. I was beaten by this person today, therefore my race was unsuccessful. Their race was good, my race was bad. Skiers will always be competing against one another on the race course but to maintain a cohesive group we don’t want an environment where teammates are competing for ‘success’ because the team atmosphere has warped their perception of what it means to succeed.
Coaches and team leaders can help unsure the team maintains a productive definition of what it means to succeed by continuing to focus on team building throughout the race season. What does your team value? Does your team value character as much or more than an impressive skiing performance? Here are some recommendations:
Emphasis Respect – Teammates who respect one another will have a much more productive relationship even if they are direct competitors. During the race season stress and nerves can get the best of us, so the same comment or action from a teammate that was no big deal in the summer can now cause serious drama in the winter.
The best way to avoid this is through making sure our actions and words maintain a respectful tone. Chances are you have some vocal leaders on your team (you know the ones who are always instigating or jiving other teammates). Making sure that coaches and team leaders are especially aware of their words and actions around race time.
Team First – Obviously easier said than done, especially during the race season. Something that I found has worked really well for the US Ski Team over the years in making non-ski related activates a priority during the season. Especially during high stress race weeks. Get the team out for a board game, dance class, trip to the bowling ally, work on a project completely non-skiing related. This is a great way to ease the nerves and emphasis strong character traits outside of racing fast.
Share the Victory – As a coach or team leader we can do our best to distill in the team a notion of shared victories. Athletes need to truly buy into the fact that when you surround yourself with strong individuals you too will become stronger, so a strong race for one person on the team inevitably helps everyone. This relates to the idea that we should never make success seem like a finite resource on the team, something that one person can monopolize.
Celebrate the Process – Victories are worth recognizing but so are the small individual victories athletes have on race day and on a daily basis. Coaches who regularly check in with their athletes on what their weekly technique, nutrition, recovery, and individual race goals are and giving positive feedback on those goals will help reinforce the notion that results don’t mean everything.