What is Synergy in Sport Teams?
Synergy is the sum of the team being more than the total sum of its individual parts and the unique situation where the best individual performance on the team, does not outperform the team’s performance.
Put another way, synergy is the ability of a group to outperform even its best individual member.
Team synergy is a critical element for high-performance Teams. Synergy can occur in any team context, whether it is in the corporate world of business or in sports teams. Synergy occurs often in music when you are listening to your favorite band. In this instance, the sum of all the individual group members creates an amazing effect where they combine to deliver a wonderful sound. The instruments work together in harmony to produce a unique product which can be impossible to create by anyone else. As you know, any band can play Beatles’ songs, but there will only ever be one Beatles band.
To give a Rowing analogy for synergy, I vividly recall analyzing the biomechanical profile of a rowing four I was part of. The biomechanist suggested we should not be rowing as fast as we were, purely based on the numbers he had at his disposal. In theory we should not have been winning but we often were. Unfortunately, we were unable to create the highest level of synergy every time and creating synergy in the Olympic Final is especially hard. However, the best crews often either get close or actually do it. We won a bronze Medal in the crew I am referring to, and 0.29% too slow to win the Gold Medal. Synergy can be the difference of less than one percentage point. Often in rowing or other sports, team members fail to work together (for various reasons). The results is ‘Working as Individuals’ and this is the equation for this:
1 + 1 + 1 + 1 = less than 4
But in a synergistic team, the sum of the team is more than the total sum of its individual parts. It is a team where the best person or individual on the team (of which there will always be one) will never outperform the team. In the equation, the result will be greater than four. The more beyond 4, the more synergy is created and Gold Medals become a reality. In a Synergistic Team:
1 + 1 + 1 + 1 = greater than 4
In elite sport where 0.1% can make all the difference to your result, if your synergy adds up to 6 maybe you win a gold medal, if it adds up to 5.8 maybe you don’t make the finals. It is rare to get to this level of high-performance, but when it does happen, some pretty incredible results can be achieved.
In sports teams such as football, synergy can become tricky when one player is outperforming the team’s result. In a situation where one of your athletes has achieved great individual statistics but at the end of the game your team has lost, your team has not achieved synergy. Your team is allowing the athlete to operate at a more individual level without the additional support of the team, and this is undermining the potential for synergy. Or it could be because this athlete has overstepped their role thereby creating for themselves more opportunities to statistically rate higher than others. Sure it is great performance on the part of the individual, but it is not synergy and it is certainly not team work.
So how do you ensure you utilize your individual players without compromising your team’s synergy?
The solution is not to not utilize the amazing talent one individual possesses, but instead to educate the rest of the team on how to play with this player and provide the type of support structures to make them even better. It always comes back to educating all on the technical and non-technical role and tactically playing to the plan. For a talented attacking player this could be in support of their team members who enable the creation of space. This boosts the performance that the individual could create on their own. In this example, the team members know their role in helping another player be even more influential against their competition. Synergy is more likely to happen if everyone understands their role in creating it.
So what behavior does a team with synergy display? Teams which possess synergy have outstanding interpersonal skills. They understand who they are (self-awareness) and they understand their team members. In addition, they actively look for the points where they disagree, had differing skill levels or other points of difference. They see difference as a positive. Diversity is valued. Then based on these differences, they encourage ‘conflicts’ among the participants in the early Stages of the Team’s Development (Forming stage).
When these ‘conflicts,’ are addressed at the earliest stage of team development when stakes are low and emotions are stable, a quality discussion where genuine understanding of each team member’s skills, abilities, views, opinions and attitudes can be fleshed out in a productive manner.
On the other hand, ineffective teams display different behaviors which indicate that they are unlikely to develop synergy. These ineffective teams will feel a need to establish a common view quickly. They will brush past deciding on the goals to be achieved, the roles to be allocated and if any differences arise they will be quickly overlooked or the most influential player (captain or most experienced) makes decisions in isolation to others. They will try to hurry through the Forming stage of Team Development. When it comes to making decisions, the team may resort to simple methods such as averaging or flipping coins. The team will focus on completing the task in the quickest way possible rather than spending time finding a more complex solution that everyone would agree on which is called, “Consensus”.
This kind of behavior where conflict is not handled correctly leads to ineffective teams. When issues are not resolved in the forming or storming stages of team development, they will fester and come up again later down the track. Often these tiny issues will become large and potentially ‘season ending’ if they crop up during highly stressful moments such as in competition.
To summarize, here are 10 characteristics present when a high-performance team also has synergy:
- Purpose: Members proudly share a sense of why the team exists and are invested in accomplishing its mission and goals.
- Priorities: Members know what needs to be done next, by whom, and by when to achieve team goals.
- Roles: Members know their roles in getting tasks done and when to allow a more skillful member to do a certain task.
- Decisions: Authority and decision-making lines are clearly understood.
- Conflict: Conflict is dealt with openly and is considered important to decision-making and personal growth.
- Personal traits: Team members feel their unique personalities are appreciated and well utilized.
- Culture: Group standards of behavior for working together are set and seen as appropriate for everyone in the team.
- Effectiveness: Team members find team meetings and other team opportunities efficient and productive and look forward to this time together.
- Success: Team members know clearly when the team has met with success and share in this equally and proudly.
- Training: Opportunities for feedback and updating skills are provided and taken advantage of by team members.
Where to From Here…
We hope you have found this article valuable. Synergy is a concept which is easy to discuss and much more difficult to create. However when a team does achieve synergy, they are remembered as a champion team, not a team of champions.
At Athlete Assessments, we’re here to provide you with excellence in service and here to help you be your best. If there is anything we can assist you with, please Contact Us.
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