The irony at Manchester United: A club not-so 'united' after-all

Figure 1: Manchester United during a 5-0 loss to Liverpool

Sporting news is dominated by headlines detailing the current failures of Manchester United and the unsuccessful managers who have attempted to restore the nostalgic success at the club. What the narrative surrounding Manchester United lacks is informed suggestions as to how the club can finally re-build. With the current state of the news repeating slanderous message after slanderous message, this blog aims to transform the headlines by providing an insight into how to establish a winning team culture; a concept which fascinates many disciplines outside of sport i.e., Armed Forces and Business.

When it comes to building a successful football team, the immediate components of influence which spring to mind revolve around physical attributes - sets, reps, rehab, recovery. If success was that simple, wouldn’t everyone be successful? So, what differentiates successful teams from the rest?

The term ‘culture’ has been widely applied in psychological literature, encompassing many dimensions of social behaviour. However, when it is specifically applied to a sporting setting, culture describes “a team, along with many intangibles that accompany involvement in sport, such as team identity.” Empowerment of team culture is responsible for everything which is not accounted for by talent and athleticism. As important as talent and athleticism are in football, believe it or not, a team can win without them. The differentiator between those teams who are successful and those who are not, is the ability of the coaches and players to develop a team culture which has been structured to foster winning. This development of a team culture is easier said than done, with only a handful of managers and coaches across different sporting disciplines getting it right. Names that immediately come to mind are the likes of Clive Woodward, Toto Wolff and of course, Sir Alex Ferguson. Nevertheless, psychological literature is a promising resource offering evidence-based techniques which are qualified for use in the sporting arena.

“What keeps me going is goals.” – Muhammad Ali

Create a Unity of Purpose

Despite the fact culture is frequently weaved into the coaching lexicon, more often than not, culture is misunderstood and therefore not optimised as a concept which is undoubtedly integral to success. Resolving this confusion surrounding culture is the first step in building a team who has success laced within their DNA. This begins with the coach disseminating a vision of what ‘could be’ if everyone combines their skills and attributes. The conversation surrounding goals, expectations, and roles, although initiated by the coach, should be developed collaboratively. Research indicates that successful teams only develop a stable sense of direction by working together and shaping a meaningful purpose. The immediate inclusion of players into the construction of culture allows the players to not only buy into something they collectively created but kick-start a positive, inclusive culture where opinions are respected.

Science says to set goals…

Just as you would rely on statistics and performance analysis to help inform match tactics, in psychology it is just as important to rely on data to inform decisions. For instance, creating a unity of purpose is supported by a vital conceptual framework, group goal setting.

Figure 2: The crowd at Old Trafford

Goals are immediate and powerful regulators of human action and when goals are collectively set, they become powerful predictors of high performance in teams. Goal setting theory proposes that goal demands increase performance through focusing attention and fostering resilience. This recommendation is not only supported by theory, but current research has established a positive relationship between goal demands and team performance. The support from theory and empirical research allows us to confidently apply this into the sporting environment.

What does this look like in practice?

Converting the claims and contributions of literature to real-world practice has traditionally been a challenging exercise. What you must bear in mind is that goal setting is a delicate process and arbitrary goal setting can sometimes lead to decreased self-efficacy and lower intrinsic motivation. Considering this, goal setting in applied sport settings is complex thus, we should treat team goal setting as a dynamic process which involves the coaches providing feedback on goal progress. In addition to your initial team meetings which establish your culture and collective vision, you should equally purposefully monitor the impact of these goals on performance, as providing athletes with appropriate feedback can help guide effort and mobilise resources.That said, it is important that this feedback is tailored to the athletes and context. For instance, you must expertly judge which athletes respond well to consistent and frequent feedback, while adjusting the frequency of your feedback to those athletes who find consistent feedback causes them anxiety. In essence, the key to mastering effective goal setting to foster a successful team culture means treating goals as dynamic, flexible directives which can be updated and moulded accordingly.

“Culture eats strategy for breakfast” – Peter Drucker

Embrace Cognitive and Ethnic Diversity

Globalisation has resulted in a homogenised culture within football whereby players from a diverse array of ethnic backgrounds play in one team. The cultural diversity in sport has attracted attention from the media and also recently attracted a scholarly effort towards examining the positive and negative consequences of such diversity.

Figure 3: The Cultural Iceberg

Drawing on efforts from business psychology, we can apply 'The Cultural Iceberg Model' to high performance in sport. As we are assimilating players individual culture and transforming that knowledge into a high performance team culture, it is paramount to understand its construction. The cultural iceberg model suggests that approximately 10% of culture is visible i.e., flags and festivals. The remaining 90% consists of the characteristics which are not visible; the elements of culture which are engrained. These elements (to name a few) include approaches to problem solving, norms, learning styles and thought processes. This model allows us to gain an insight into the engrained processes which are vital to not only establish our own sense of team culture, but to become proficient in understanding players individual culture; ultimately fostering cultural intelligence. Cultural intelligence develops a sense of metacognition which allows players to understand their teammates and learn from the engrained 90% the iceberg model suggests. It is this business literature which highlights how success is constrained when coaches and players are inflexible and ignorant in their own ways. At its core, high performance functioning involves the blending of individual idiosyncrasies to evolve team culture.

Learn from other disciplines

In addition to business literature, research regarding Multinational Armed Forces has detailed how cultural diversity can help foster operational unity. What football can take away from this research is that diversity in organisations can result in higher creativity and better quality decisions.

Figure 4: Paul Pogba takes a knee

Similarly, diversity within teams allows these groups to better embrace change and cope more effectively within changing environments. The management of diversity within teams is vital for high performance and the construction of team culture. Practically, this involves giving players a voice in order to develop cultural metacognition. We are a victim of our own perception and by sharing knowledge, we engage in the process of mutual learning. It is imperative when building a team equipped for success, that you capitalise on the cognitive and ethnic diversity within your players. Give players a voice to speak up and share their opinions. This flow of information enriches the sporting environment as players with various ethnic backgrounds provide the basis for collective resilience. Sport is a fantastic cauldron of ethnic diversity hosting people who come from very different walks of life. The very best coaches not only recognise this but embody this heterogeneity to extract high performance from their players. It is astounding what can be innovated, solved, and achieved when players are allowed to not only represent who they are but use this to develop a collective team identity.

Takeaway Messages

Whether you're Ralf Rangnick tasked with rebuilding Manchester United FC, a coach of a different sport entirely, an athlete or from a non-sporting discipline, it is vitally important to establish your team culture to achieve high performance. This can be done in four recommended, evidence-based ways:

1. Create a unity of purpose - timetable sessions into the training programme which have the strict objective to collaboratively generate a sense of direction. Using prompts like "What does a successful season look like to you?", "What does this team mean to you?", "What is your idea of a successful team culture?". Kick-start open, synergic discussions regarding intentions, dreams, understandings and visions.

2. Intelligently set goals - Initiate group goal setting. This process should be completed concerning the end goal of the season but also with more immediately gratifying goals regarding individual training sessions or a particular run of games. It is important to monitor and mould goals to match specific contexts throughout the season, while appropriately offering feedback to players. Setting goals should be common in the lexicon; a technique players are continually encouraged to engage with.

3. Embrace cognitive and ethnic diversity - Provide players with a voice to offer their cultural and cognitive diversity. On-pitch techniques like delegating leadership roles and encouraging players to vocalise opinions during training complement off-pitch techniques alike team-building retreats and advocating that players spend time together away from football. Equipping players with the unique knowledge and experience that each team-mate possesses drives cohesion and resilience - key tenets of successful team cultures.

4. Learn from other disciplines - Open your contact book. The relationship between business, sport and the military is predominantly symbiotic. Attending conferences and scheduling meetings with management figures in other disciplines encourages mutual learning. Viewing high performance cultures from different perspectives allows your own team culture to continually advance. Similarly, the internet is populated with articles and podcasts detailing how other people in positions of management have fostered successful team environments and cultures. One exceptional example is 'The High Performance Podcast' with Toto Wolff who insightfully describes the way in which he has led the Mercedes F1 Team to eight constructors titles. Keeping an open-mind in the pursuit of high performance is obligatory.

"The downfall of any leader in a sport's team is when he gets carried away with his own ego" - Toto Wolff

The aim of this article was to change the negative narrative surrounding failing teams and instead offer evidenced suggestions as to how coaches and players can contribute towards success. Team culture is complex to cultivate, but if it were easy, everyone would do it.

Please feel free to continue the conversation in the comments or equally, please do not hesitate to email me at : P.E.Jordan-18@student.lboro.ac.uk

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