How Strong Relationships Create a Winning Team

Like in any other area, relationships are crucial when striving for success pretty much every aspect of our lives, be it sports, at work, or in our private lives.Each individual within the team is responsible for steering towards the ultimate goal and without a strong bond between these individuals, this goal will be forever out of reach.

Here are my five tips that will help to create that bond and ensure everyone is pointing in the right direction.

1. Respect is always the base

Like with your life partner or your business partner, everything has to come from a place of respect. This respect, of course, should be mutual. A disrespectful player who constantly challenges their coaches can cause great damage to any team. Similarly, a coach who abuses his power can have a long-lasting effect on team morale. Furthermore, this lack of respect could even make it to the media, where things are bound to be taken out of context and magnified, causing bad publicity for the team. If there’s no respect, it’ll be very difficult to follow the next steps.

2. Communication keeps things healthy

It sounds like basic advice for a romantic relationship doesn’t it? However, what I’ve learned in any work relationship I’ve had is that the work suffers when the communication is not adequate.

Serious mistakes can take place on the field if communication is not clear. If the goal is not set out clearly, then things might get lost in the process.
Also, the players have to feel respected to be able to can speak up when they need to. Be it to ask for clarification about a strategy, let the doctors know there’s an injury that needs tending to or informing of an emergency to the coach. Communication, just like respect, goes both ways.
Healthy communication is also important for the financial side. There are a lot of persons in every team who are not satisfied with the salary. But instead of negotiating the salary, they prefer to solve the problem themselves. For example, a team member can take personal loans personal loans or borrow some money from co-workers.

Financial politics should be clear and open to every team member. To avoid potential problems you need to get rid of the stress that can be caused by the need to discuss the financial side of the work. This is possible only in a healthy environment with strong corporate/team communication culture.

3. Feedback provides motivation

Feedback should be more than telling a player what they’re doing wrong. While this is an intrinsic part of training and improvement, positive feedback is also needed. Any player has winning as the ultimate motivation ultimate motivation, but sometimes the trophy can feel like it’s far away. I have found that celebrating small successes in training can help me get more motivated for the next smaller goal I have set out for myself.

Letting the players know what they’re doing right will allow them to focus on what they truly need to work on. It makes no sense to keep working on a play that has already been perfected instead of working on another one that still needs a lot of work.

4. Always keep things moving

Being an athlete might not be a nine to five job but it can get monotonous and tedious if the training, talks, and instructions are always the same. While repetition can help in perfecting technique, changing things up will also refine and sharpen a team’s all-round performance.

5. The importance of hierarchy

There is a hierarchy and we all know it. However, that doesn’t mean that one person is better than the other. The hierarchy allows for an order to exist. Developing a healthy culture in the team will help you have more loyal players, who might spend their entire career with you from the very start of your business start of your business if you treat them right.

Defining this hierarchy is incredibly important when building your team. An important thing to do is identify the leaders. Every team needs a captain, even more than one depending on the sport. However, while some might be natural-born leaders, others might need to learn the tools that will allow them to be successful at it.

On the players’ part, it’s important to know how far you can go. There are certain things the coach might indicate that you’re not entirely in agreement with. However, it can be part of a bigger picture that he has in his mind. While communication plays a role here once again, ask what the strategy is about instead of simply challenging the hierarchy.

On the other hand, you don’t want your team members to feel unimportant and there is a need to make feel every member equal and an important part of the team. Team building can be a clue. Also, there is no need for a huge budget. One of the best practices is to go out of the comfort zone as a team. For example, camping or playing airsoft in the woods are good and interesting ideas. Such unusual entertainment makes more for building a team rather than visiting Paris visiting Paris.
If you look at the teams who win week in, week out, they all have something in common. You’ll notice that those who underperform lack the intrinsic connection that the winner has. Share with me your thoughts on the matter in the comments below.