Using neuroscience to enrich your coaching

When we look at a sports team, we can appreciate that they are social systems.

The players are all people collaborating towards a shared goal. This suggests that coaches need to be equipped to understand the social side of teams and create an environment that binds the players together and drives them towards high performance.

Young or old, male or female, fit or unfit, each of these players possesses a brain capable of amazing performance, skills and more learning and adaption than ever thought possible.

Yet, every one of those players’ brains is also wired to be socially alert, energy-conserving and risk-avoiding and will treat belonging to the team as important as oxygen and water.

So it is time to use the secrets of neuroscience to unlock your players’ brains and move beyond solely drills-based coaching.

THREE FOCUS AREAS

The neuroscientific research tells us that there are broadly three core focus areas for coaches that are needed to build a high-performing and socially connected team. We call these We, Team and Up.

We: How a coach uses a shared purpose, identity and relationships to create the foundations needed.

Team: How a coach uses the clarity of role, goals, incentives, scenario-planning and robust decision-making to create the conditions for optimum team flow.

Up: How a coach uses motivation and stretch to drive performance, plus how they role model and install a feedback culture within the team.

At the coachup academy, we have created a model to give coaches practical ways of using the knowledge of We, Team and Up to create their own high-performance environment.

The brain research is sports-agnostic, so it is ideal for all coaches no matter what shape the ball, no matter the level and no matter whether high performance means winning or just having fun.

As you will see above, the three coach roles break down into 15 practical plays to apply with the team.

In this series of articles, we’ll be sharing our insights by looking at the We, Team and Up coaching roles, separately. This week, we will look at the first of those - the We.

WE FACTORS

The three We factors are purpose; in-group identity and a shared enemy; and psychological safety.

Building the team We is fundamental and foundational. Without this, there can be no high performance, so it is recommended for coaches to start here.

Let’s break down those three factors in more detail.

PURPOSE

To create the We factors, a coach should articulate the team’s shared purpose and ideally create this with the team, together. This shared purpose is why the players get out of bed for the team.

Practically, a great place for a coach to start is to ask players to individually capture or share their own purpose for being in this team. Then find the common thread across the reasons and craft this into the team’s shared purpose, together.

It must resonate and be meaningful for the players, so do not rush this.

IN-GROUP IDENTITY AND SHARED ENEMY

Next, to create the We factors, a coach should reinforce a unique team in-group identity.

This is the most relevant shared characteristic every player has that connects them and creates a sense of ‘we’ and ‘us’. It may be just about being a member of the team - but if you can go deeper, you will unlock higher performance.

When a team shares an in-group identity, it leads to teamwork, empathy and going the extra mile for each other. Then, once you have established this identity, you should reinforce it with rituals, symbols, songs or anything which clearly marks this team as sharing something unique with each other.

A game-changing way to reinforce this in-group identity is to nominate a shared enemy, as this galvanizes the team even more.

"Ask players to share their purpose for being in the team, then find the common thread..."

The enemy should not be a person or the opposition, for obvious reasons. Rather, it should be a way of playing or behaving, or an attitude.

An example of an enemy could be ’not working hard for each other in training’ or it may be ‘not standing up for each other on the pitch’.

This is also where the ’underdog effect’ comes from: rallying together against a common enemy - in this case, those people who doubt the team’s credentials and capabilities.

PSYCHOLOGICAL SAFETY

The last foundation stone of the We is to create a strong sense of psychological safety in the team so players can be themselves, offer ideas and contribute without the fear of ridicule or reprisal.

A coach can achieve this by helping players get to know each other really well, on and off the field. It could be done by encouraging the players to share details of their strengths and weaknesses with their team-mates or by getting to know each other’s personal life stories.

Now we have explored the We factors for high-performance coaching, our next article in this series - appearing in an August issue - will take a look at the Team factors.

We hope you have enjoyed this taster of the art and neuroscience of high-performance sports coaching.

If you would like to benchmark yourself against the We-Team-Up factors and gain some practical suggestions to apply in your coaching, click here to get a 40% discount off the ’coach-selfie’ assessment, Team Activity cards (practical activities), their e-book and community membership, exclusively for RCW readers.