via Coach Dawn Writes:
If you’re like me, you’re always on the lookout for ways to understand team development. Jeff Janssen does a good job explaining the stages in his Championship Team Building book and I enjoyed the S-Curve Trend of Team Development from a team building blog called, Create Learning. I believe that winning and losing hinge on team development, which makes it a critical piece to any coach’s season planning. Team development is as much art as it is science and I’m sure we’re all looking for fresh ideas to tackle an on-going issue.
The four stages that teams go through:
Infancy. This is when our teams are developing an orientation toward one another, feeling each other out. During infancy, trust is established and each person is trying to figure out where they fit in relation to the team. For coaches, the focus isn’t necessarily on performance, but making sure everyone has a role and understands how to execute it.
Growth. This stage is a time of high productivity. Goals are clear and everyone on the team is committed to achieving those goals. For coaches, the focus is on increasing team chemistry and synergy. Synergy is when a group of two or more folks get together to achieve a goal that they wouldn’t be able to accomplish solo.
