The Teachings of Teamwork

From the FIFA World Cup to the ICC Women’s T20, we can all learn something from this summer’s abundance of team sport spectaculars, as LWC’s Head of Sports Science and Academic PE, James Rayner explains… 

 

When we think about great sporting achievements, we often focus on individuals.

 

The player who scores the winning try, the driver who crosses the finish line first, the athlete who takes to the podium. But success rarely belongs to one person. Some of the most remarkable sporting stories are really about teamwork.

 

I’ve had the privilege of coaching one of the most successful rugby teams in recent memory at Lord Wandsworth College. At the Rosslyn Park National School 7s this year, we had a squad of 13 players, but also students there to support, run water, offer team talks and help with warm-ups. They were there because they wanted to be.  

 

This is an amazing team because of the players on the pitch and those who want to contribute from beyond it.

 

Great teams are everywhere: chefs and waiting staff, paramedics and call handlers, teachers and support staff. Sport gives us some particularly powerful examples.

 

The Chicago Bulls teams of the 90s are often remembered for Michael Jordan’s brilliance. But those successes were built on something deeper, a collective understanding of roles, trust in teammates and coach, Phil Jackson’s relentless focus on culture.

 

The achievements of the current South African Rugby Team are built on a sense of unity, shared responsibility and complete buy-in. Every individual in the squad understands their role, along with the belief that they all contribute.

 

Even in sports which appear to be individual, teamwork underpins everything.

 

In Formula 1, races can be won or lost based on pit stops that last little more than two seconds. Research into elite performance highlights shared mental models, where individuals understand their own role and those of all around them. In the F1 pit, every movement is rehearsed, each role understood and complete trust remains under huge pressure.

   

Sport teaches young people that success can often depend on others. Someone can cover their mistake, create their opportunity or sacrifice individual recognition for the benefit of the team.

 

Research from Google’s Project Aristotle, one of the largest studies ever carried out into team performance, found that the strongest teams were not necessarily the most talented. Instead, the most successful groups were built with psychological safety. In these environments, people felt safe enough to contribute, make mistakes and support one another.

 

We work hard to create this culture at LWC throughout boarding houses, classrooms and sports halls.

 

One of the clearest signs of a strong team is also how it responds to failure. Weaker teams blame individuals. Strong teams solve problems together.

 

I was lucky enough to play in a school rugby team that lost only three games in seven years. We were not just teammates, but friends. We spent time together and trusted one another. Looking back, the results and trophies are not what I remember most clearly, but the people.

 

What springs to mind are the bus journeys, changing rooms and team talks. At LWC, students spend huge amounts of time together in lessons, boarding houses and minibuses between fixtures. Through those shared experiences, they learn far more than tactics or techniques, but also how to support one another, communicate, deal with setbacks and celebrate successes.

 

Phil Jackson from the Chicago Bulls once said:

 

“The strength of the team is each individual member. The strength of each member is the team.”

 

Maybe this is why sport remains such an important part of school life. Beyond results, trophies and performances, it provides young people with a sense of belonging and an opportunity to be part of something bigger than themselves.