Designing Your Team
Being an athlete has always been a huge part of my identity. Even now, as a “retired” collegiate soccer player, I still find ways to get close to the realm of sports and rediscover the level of intensity and collective work that can’t be found in many other places. From my freshman year of college all the way until graduation, I played for the Pomona-Pitzer Soccer (PPS) team. This was by no means my first introduction to team sports. I grew up playing soccer, and in middle school took the next step by joining a club team to build my skills as an athlete. As much as I loved the game, my experience as an athlete wasn’t always the best. I enjoyed physically playing but did not always have great relationships with my team members or coaches off the field. We didn’t invest in our team culture.
Playing for PPS was one of the most memorable parts of my college experience — it introduced me to the best people and greatest mentors and gave me an intense love for the game of soccer. Between my freshman and sophomore years, PPS became increasingly successful as conference champions, and we made it as far as the Elite 8, when the top eight Division 3 teams in the U.S. face off and send four teams into the final weekend of the tournament. We had a strong junior and senior class then, full of natural leaders and off the field friendships, but by my junior year, we found ourselves struggling with leadership and team chemistry after those PPS pioneers graduated. Unfortunately, early in the season I was severely injured and unable to play, but I still remained an active part of the team. It was during that time that I began to see everything through a new set of eyes and realized my team was struggling at an interpersonal level that was bleeding into our on-field performance.
With the help of our coach, my team found ourselves at the Hive with Directors Fred Leichter and Shannon Randolph acting as our guides in a time of uncertainty. Our summer read was Designing Your Life by the Stanford d.school’s Bill Burnett and Dave Evans. Many of us were puzzled as to why we would be reading a seemingly design-focused book when we were supposed to be a soccer team going for gold. However, coming from a family of designers, I was interested in how this book and the Hive might play a role in our team’s dynamics. I entered the Hive with an open mind, and soon found myself amazed by how Fred, Shannon, and my coach uniquely approached our team chemistry and culture through a design lens and creative environment.
During our time working with the Hive, we reflected, emotions were revealed, and discussions were had about the root causes of our past difficulties as a team, and we learned more about design thinking and the human-centered design process. We called this Designing Your Team (DYT).
Each individual member of our team, our coaches, and the Hive played an immense role in getting us back on track toward a successful season and making a PPS culture that reflected our core values of sisterhood, joy, wellness, vision, and character. We created this “star chart” (below) to track our individual and team experience with these core values throughout the Fall 2019 season.
Designing Your Team played a monumental role in the successes of my senior year season. I began to enter every team space with a better understanding of who my teammates were, their specific needs, and the actions we each needed to take to see results on the field.
In the Spring of 2019, I came back to the Hive as a Post-Baccalaureate Associate to develop Designing Your Team. I started my empathy work by co-designing with coaches and team members, gauging what they needed from the program. I learned that many coaches become coaches because they are extremely well-versed in the game, the strategies, and tactics. However, team culture was something that often fell to the wayside, which is where Designing Your Team came in. This program would allow coaches to focus their energy into what they’re expert at — coaching and teaching players to love the game — and I would lend a hand and bridge the gap by bringing teams into the Hive and assessing a different side of their collective brain. I began testing the Designing Your Team sessions on athletic teams at The Claremont Colleges and received a very positive response. One player from the Pomona-Pitzer soccer team reflected on their experience: Designing Your Team was incredibly impactful and made me feel like we had ownership over our culture and goals for our season. It allowed me to feel closer to my teammates, provided a space for us to share authentically with one another, and allowed us to approach our season with agency and collaboration. I think it was a huge factor of our success and helped us to be stronger both on and off the field.
Throughout the year and a half at the Hive that I dedicated to developing Designing Your Team, four main themes emerged:
Identity focuses on each team member getting to know each other outside of the sport context, to help build a culture of empathy and connection.
Team Values enables the athletes to create and have ownership over their own norms.
Leadership, using the Power Move Deck, specifically builds on the idea that everyone has a unique leadership strength that, when activated, can transform a team.
Reflection includes journey mapping, vision boarding, and journaling, and provides a creative outlet for team members to assess different aspects of their team from an introspective standpoint.
Each of these themes were tested and iterated during DYT workshops with numerous athletics teams, to support the mission of cultivating a strong team culture. You can now find all of the activities that fit into these themes on the Designing Your Team website.
In my time developing DYT at the Hive, I had the opportunity to work with the next generation of Pomona-Pitzer Soccer, as well as Pomona-Pitzer Softball, Cross Country, Women’s Basketball, Women’s Lacrosse, Swim & Dive, and consult with a few Claremont-Mudd-Scripps sports teams. Working with these groups taught me so much about the power of a strong team culture in athletic success and personal fulfillment. Investing focused time and energy in the group of people who could become your best friends, your chosen family, and your mentors is well worth the journey.
