How To Create Better Understanding Between Team Mates

To create better understanding between team mates it is a good idea to welcome other ways of enhancing and accommodating the various patterns group dynamics can go through within one team. This blog post will outline how Team-Mate-To-Team-Mate-Mentoring can help you and your team. This may already have been adopted into the facility, club or classes you attend but could still be useful to learn more about it.

You always hear about teams speaking about having team spirit or using some kind of term to describe the togetherness within the team. Anybody who plays a team sport will know that without co-operation it is highly unlikely you will succeed. As a group of people who aim to achieve the same thing whether it is winning competitions/medals/prizes, having fun and/or developing as an athlete, you need to act as support systems for each other at some point. A study by Herrera (2004) showed that sports mentoring improved peer to peer relations and social skills; two components that are arguably useful in a team sport setting.  Sports Mentoring is quite common, where by a coach or an employed psychologists mentors players. Similarly, a strategy that perhaps has not been looked at much (as far as this blog is aware of) is Team-Mate-To-Team-Mate-Mentoring.

Team-Mate-To-Team-Mate-Mentoring is like per-to-peer-mentoring however it is set up for team mates. to mentor one another. It can be organised by a coach, teacher, club, activity leader, team captain or the team mates themselves. One way of structuring the scheme is for somebody responsible and respected by the group to lead it. The first task is to designate each individual with a team member they are responsible for mentoring. Team mates work in pairs.  It it is to the person in charge's discretion whether the same individuals mentor each other. Nevertheless, this blog would suggest that individuals mentor a different person to they are being mentored by. At the same time it is also important to match individuals that get along.

The first step to introducing it is to suggest it to the team as a whole to get an idea of hat their views are about the possibility of mentoring each other. The response may be negative or even non-existence at first. Inevitably there will be people who will be against anything like this due to dislike of certain team mates or genuinely believing it is not needed. Be prepared for criticism and try to address any concerns. If this is the case it is particularly important to perhaps invite professionals who are trained in mentoring. There are a number of charities who can offer assistance free of charge if money is an obstacle. This is may make it more likely that people become open to the idea when someone from the outside comes in and talks about the advantages of mentoring.

Depending on the group dynamics of the team the mentoring scheme can be casual   or a strategy implemented in the long term. It is advisable to organise it in the long term as Johnson (1998) study showed the positive outcomes of mentoring occurred over a long period of time. The basic aim of Team-Mate-To-Team-Mate-Mentoring is to heighten the camaraderie and relationship between team mates. It is also a method to build trust and encourage people to get to know each other a bit more in a social context.  This is especially beneficial for teams or training classes where individuals just turn up to train and disappear. It is additionally opportunity for individuals to disclose views in confidentiality. You must stress the condition of confidentiality if you decide a mentoring scheme is for your team . Of course there is not much wrong with that but there more team mates who play together can relate to each other this allows the possibility for it to be replicated on the game itself in terms of team work and support. It can also do wonders for the atmosphere during training sessions if it is applied successfully. 

The most important point to take from this blog is that it all has to be judged in the context of the nature of interaction and relationships among your team. Team-Mate-To-Team-Mate-Mentoring may not be for you and your team mates. But it is something worth exploring.

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