Intentional Group Development
During my undergraduate studies at the University of Florida, I experienced what it was like to be part of a sports team. As a child and throughout my adolescence, my grandparents preferred that my sisters and I engage in no-contact sports. They were a little protective, to say the least. We played piano and were in the dance corps. You can only imagine how exhilarating it was when I took the field for the first time and made contact with another player, bringing her straight to the ground. I was hooked! Well actually, I was a hooker. True story. Rugby was fascinating to me. It was thrilling to be in a scrum, arms locked, and then hearing, "Balls out!"
I remember a distinct tournament where we had traveled to North Carolina to compete for a national title. It was a tensely competitive environment. The opposing team was fierce. My smaller frame paled in comparison to the tiniest person in their group, but we still had a strong team. When it came time for me to take the ball down the field, I went as fast as my feet would carry me and I was gone! Then I felt the tackle and to the ground I went. I watched as the opposing teammate fell to the ground with me, other teammates coming to recover the ball and then I saw as my opposition pulled her knee all the way to her chest, foot fully flexed, cleats pointed at my chest and she delivered one of the hardest blows straight to my breasts. I, for the first time in my life, had a D-cup that day. A few seconds went by before I was able to regain composure and I had no clue my teammates witnessed what happened. Until I saw them go after her as bloodhounds hunting a fugitive. She did not stand a chance.
That day taught me about how quickly a group can come together. Our coaches had been trying to get us to unite together for months. They tried using drills and motivational speeches. They attempted to put us through exercises for team building. We needed something real to be intentional. We needed something to send us through that iteration of change needed to bond. As Akrivou, Boyatzis and McLeod (2006) suggest, we had been progressively moving toward an intentional change goal of unity, but on that memorable day we had a spontaneous event that helped us to evolve into a tightly knit group of women who could not be beat. Those bickering fights we had off the field were far from our view. We now had a shared vision to protect each other and the ball.
Though we never made it to the Olympics, we had a similar level of doggedness as Mia Hamm and the 2004 Women's USA Olympic Soccer team. The group was trying to make significant gender equality gains with Mia Hamm expressing how intense the fight was during the time of her team's Olympic victories. In an HBO documentary, the viewer is brought from a place where in the 1980's women's soccer was not even on the radar of U.S. interests to a place where it was one of the most widely televised events. In an interview about the documentary, Hamm shares, "I think we're still kind of fighting to sell the sport and gain a foothold in the American sports fabric with soccer...We do it every day." (Associated Press, 2005) The team had a shared vision of fighting for equality and they knew that if they acted intentionally as a group each and every day they could achieve that goal. It was a consistent effort. It did not happen overnight.
While the USA Women's Soccer team united together over the course of many years to overcome societal inequalities and demonstrate their dominance, the 2004 Men's Basketball Dream Team was experiencing one of the greatest failures in USA basketball history. In an interview analyzing the reason for the team of talented individuals experiencing such great loss, NBC Announcer, Mike Breen shares, "The game is still played at its best when five players are working together, and the United States just didn't have enough of those moments, where Argentina was like five guys on a string." (Leopold & Teitelbaum, 2016)
While the Women's soccer team intentionally grew together to achieve their shared vision over time, the men's basketball team struggled to even take the court together during games. The coach had a vision which was not shared by the inexperienced young men who would later grow into amazing leaders. That time period of the early 2000's will go down in USA sports history demonstrating the importance of a team coming together, understanding the shared vision and intentionally taking steps to unite in achieving that goal.
Akrivou, K., Boyatzis, R. E., & McLeod, P. L. (2006). The evolving group: Towards a prescriptive theory of intentional group development. The Journal of Management Development, 25(7), 689-706. doi:http://dx.doi.org.ezproxy.libproxy.db.erau.edu/10.1108/02621710610678490
Associated Press. (2005). Fab Five Step Off the Field and Onto the TV. New York Times. Retrieved September 13, 2016 from http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/11/sports/soccer/fab-five-step-off-the-field-and-onto-the-tv-screen.html
Leopold, B., & Teitelbaum, B. (2016). Red, White and Bronze: The Death and Rebirth of USA Basketball. NBC Olympics. NBC. Retrieved September 13, 2016 from http://www.nbcolympics.com/news/red-white-and-bronze-2004-death-and-rebirth-usa-basketball
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