4 Investigating team resilience

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Whether from your own experience as an athlete, or from watching a sports team that you follow, the highs and lows of team sport cannot be ignored. For athletes and coaches to be able to face these challenges and positively adapt is not an easy task. West, Patera and Carsten (2009, p. 254) argue that team resilience could be of importance for teams to ‘repair and rebound’ from experiencing these stressful situations.

In Activity 5 you will examine team resilience in more depth, in addition to hearing again from Dr Mustafa Sarkar on the differences between individual and team resilience.

Activity 5 Investigating team resilience

Timing: Allow approximately 45 minutes

There are two parts to this activity.

First, read the reading at the link below, which is part of an article called ‘Recent developments in team resilience research in elite sport’ (Morgan, Fletcher and Sarkar, 2017):

Reading: Recent developments in team resilience research in elite sport [Tip: hold Ctrl and click a link to open it in a new tab. (Hide tip)]

Identify the key features of team resilience that are discussed.

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Discussion

Having read the reading, you might have noted down that there is ‘some consensus about the protective nature of team resilience from the potentially harmful effects of stressors’ (Morgan, Fletcher and Sarkar, 2017, p. 159). Furthermore, the authors highlight that team resilience is a dynamic process and is a shared or collective phenomenon, comprising both psychological and social elements (psychosocial).

You might have summarised the findings from the two research articles discussed; one that collected primary data through the use of focus groups and one that analysed written narratives of athletes from autobiographies.

Then listen to the following audio recording, ‘Developing resilience in sport’, in which resilience researcher Dr Mustafa Sarkar explains what team resilience comprises.

Download this audio clip.Audio player: Developing resilience in sport

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Transcript: Developing resilience in sport

DR MUSTAFA SARKAR

I think one of the key messages occur the difference really between individual and team resilience – two things really. I think firstly the key with team resilience that’s not really majorly applicable to individual resilience is the importance of relationships. 

Relationships are crucial for team resilience, whether that’s kind of things like leadership and communication but also things around kind of forming a really good social identity within the team. So I think relationships are really, really important.

And then secondly, one of the key messages, really, that we’ve kind of come across is that just because you’ve got a set of resilient individuals, that doesn’t necessarily guarantee a resilient team.

And kind of the example I often give with that – I know, kind of, at the time of this podcast, I think the World Cup draw has been made with England. Often the example I give with that example of individual resilience doesn’t necessarily guarantee team resilience is the England kind of football team – a bunch of individuals who are great individually, some of whom have kind of participated, you know, competed at, you know, highest levels in champions league and other kind of competitions but, again, collectively when they’re getting together as a team, they find it very, very difficult to perform as a team under that kind of pressurised situation.

So I think that’s the other– as well as the importance of relationships. Just because you have got a set of individuals who are resilient, that doesn’t necessarily guarantee team resilience. And the reason for that is because we’ve found in some of the research that we’ve done is that there are a distinct set of qualities that are important for team resilience that are different from the qualities required for individual resilience. Things like group structure, things like the importance of kind of collective confidence or collective efficacy and, as I mentioned, the importance kind of deep emotional bonds and a strong sense of social identity.

End transcript: Developing resilience in sport

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Developing resilience in sport

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Finally, make a note of how team resilience differs from individual resilience.

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Discussion

From the audio recording, you might have noted that, unlike individual resilience, team resilience involves relationships and requires a difference set of qualities including group structure, importance of collective confidence, deep emotional bonds and social identity.

So far, you have seen differences between individual and team resilience. In the audio, Dr Sarkar acknowledged that while there were some nuances in team resilience across sports, there were some key similarities. In the next section, you will look at how resilience applies to the extremes of sporting performance.