Programme design

8.3.3.1 Trust.

One of the intriguing things that came out of the evaluation data was a theme that seemed really important to the participants, but that I, as the researcher, unconsciously avoided. In fact I coded the theme and then completely ignored it in the rest of my analysis. It was only in revisiting the data that I stopped to think about how quickly I had rejected this theme as insignificant. The conversation around this topic began during the focus group when one of the players, reflecting on their completed performance profile, asked me what the most important dimension of mental toughness is. After identifying the significance of self-belief in mental toughness, the participants’ energy took on a new level as the discussion moved towards the importance of trust within the team.

Like, it’s difficult to… Say you’re hitting high catches and the guy drops every single catch, and now you must back him in the match to catch that catch, but when it goes up, you know he’s going to drop it. That’s what I’m saying - I’m not saying he’s crap, it’s just that trust, or that… (Team Focus Group 2, lines 183 – 186)

This concept seems to be important in any team setting. In cricket, players have fairly discreet responsibilities. When they are performing they have to trust each other to execute effectively in their own areas. The batsmen have to trust the bowlers to do their job, and vice versa, while the bowlers also have to trust their team mates to catch and field well, to take advantage of their good work. They need to have confidence in the players around them. This kind of confidence, this trust, allows the individual to focus on their own responsibilities and to execute the task at hand. This would precipitate a Tough Thinking very similar to element of mental toughness Bull et al. (2005) described as maintaining self-focus. One can imagine how a batsman may play differently in a team he does not trust or how bowlers might shift the way in which they bowl when they believe they cannot rely on the others to take wickets. In those instances self-focus is lost.

The players’ energy and passion indicated the importance they placed on this topic. They spoke about the difficulties not only of having confidence in themselves, but of having confidence in each other. Listening to the recording again I realised how thrown I was when I was asked about this element of their team’s psychology,

Participant: How do you try and build them [the other player] up, or how do you get more confidence in that person.

Researcher: Okay… um, I don’t want to answer all these questions… not... I just want to see what other guys have got to say, okay? (Team Focus Group 2, lines 154 – 157)

My discomfort indicated how, despite months of planning, research and assessment, I had failed to acknowledge the importance of the group dynamic of the team, in the team’s mental toughness.

On reflection I realised that I had overlooked this theme in the analysis because it did not fit in with the information I was looking for, which was themes that spoke to the implementation of the programme and the areas we had covered. I had unconsciously assumed that I (the expert) would be able to identify what had been left out, or overlooked and was taken by surprise when it was the participants who highlighted an absence that I had not expected. On reflection, it became evident that the participants were highlighting an immensely important element of an

intervention designed to develop mental toughness within a team, which had been almost entirely neglected in the programme design and implementation.

The approach that had been taken in designing the mental toughness programme had relied heavily on theory that attempted to define and explain mental toughness within the individual (Bull et al., 2005; Connaughton et al., 2007). In this research the unit of analysis was the group of participants, but in many ways the available research and theory were applicable only to individuals. Despite an approach that required a focus on the team, the programme that I had designed was in many ways, biased towards the individual. Many of the concepts were conceptualised with the individual at the centre, with additions to address the group element, such as team goal setting, responsibility groups, communication exercises and theory, the use of a mentor system, and some preparation suggestions. Instead it seems that interventions with teams as their focus need to be guided by theory and practice that is centred on the uniquely relational elements of the group, which reflects in a conceptualisation of self-belief within a team as trust, understands the importance of organisational structures and systems, and the value of communication.

The organisational elements of the team take on greater significance, as the conceptualisation of who or what the target of the intervention is, shifts. Moving outward from the individual, the importance of the coaching, management and administrative staff, and the organisation as a whole become important. The coach indicated this during the focus group as he spoke about the role the selectors play in the team dynamic and on the concept of trust,

Can I just comment from a selection point of view in terms of trust? If you look at our season - and you guys need to sit down and look at your season as individuals - do you think there’s trust in your ability from a selection point of view? Look at your seasons. I think so. Because the selectors are backing you guys. And I think that should actually spill over into you as an individual as well. (Team Focus Group 2, lines 194 – 198)

An example of how this kind of trust can play out emerged from the interview with the coach. He described a story about the team captain and his reaction to the team’s performance in the first half of the season,

Just to share something with you; at one stage he had a meeting and he actually tended his resignation when we weren’t doing well. Then we spoke to him and we assured him of our support. Because he felt that he was letting them team down, “it’s been so many games and we haven’t won a game”, and he feels it is pressure on him as well. (Coach Interview 2, lines 142 – 145)

Following this meeting the team began to perform significantly better, beginning a winning streak that was characterised by the performances of its captain, who scored a career high score of 116 and averaged 53 over 10 innings (career average of 24) as the team’s wicketkeeper and number eight batsmen. As the coach concluded, “It just goes to show when you show faith in certain players and you support them it can make a difference” (Interview Coach 2, line 146).

8.3.3.2 Environmental elements.

It was perhaps significant that the interventions which focused on the environment of the team, and thereby worked on the relational aspects of the group, appeared to have a positive reception. A number of strategies had been implemented to address the systems both explicit and implicit within the group. These included the responsibility groups, the mentor system and player-coach communication.

Feedback on the responsibility groups was particularly positive, as the coach indicated in his interview,

It definitely had a positive impact on the team. There’s a big difference when the whole team is involved in deciding whether to bowl first, than when me or the captain tell them what we’re going to do. There’s a lot more buy-in, and I think it’s a big positive motivator. (Coach Interview 2, lines 239 – 242)

One of the players echoed this sentiment, saying he felt it was, “very good as it gives us a dialogue towards performance and winning” (Questionnaire, page 4).

One of the most important role players in the team environment is the coach (Bull et al., 2005; Connaughton et al., 2007; Gucciardi, Gordon, Dimmock & Mallet, 2009). It had been a priority in the intervention to work closely with him, and to provide him with skills that would assist in allowing him to address the psychological areas of the team’s performance. The feedback from the coach in this domain suggested the value in incorporating this focus into the intervention, “It definitely had a positive impact on me, especially as a new perspective on what’s happening, and giving me new tools with which to work” (Coach Interview 2, Lines 221 – 222). He went on to describe how he was incorporating these approaches into his work with the academy sides he coaches. This development suggests the value and long-term impact of working closely with coaches in any efforts at mental toughness development. The most sustainable changes will be those that are guided by a coach with an appreciation of the mental elements of performance and the skills to address them.

The long-term commitment to this approach, and his view on the kind of commitment required for real changes was evident in his first comment of the interview,

You see if we look at it from the start of the season we had a new concept, in terms of our support staff, and we realized some people expected quick results. But it’s actually a process. Even up until today people will say we put this into place we put that into place, we got in a fitness trainer, we got in a mental coach; but they don’t understand – it’s not going to yield immediate results. (Coach Interview, lines 4 – 8)