Cohesion-Performance Relationship in Team Sports: Lessons for Entrepreneurial Management Teams

When we think of examples of high-performance teams, perhaps many of us think of our favourite professional sports team (as a Canadian man, I was ‘born with skates on’ so I think of our national sport – ice hockey). The cohesion-performance relationship in sport has been the subject of extensive research in sport psychology. There are similarities between elite sports teams and entrepreneurial management teams that impact their cohesion - such as having defined roles/positions/functions, the existence of common (overarching) goals, the need for some degree of interdependence, and the need for mutual respect and of course cooperation/collaboration. But, aside from some fundamental differences in the nature of their respective ‘games’, there are also differences – primarily in their functional heterogeneity and, in my judgment, the clarity & precision of common goals, the nature & extent of interdependence & collaboration. This article explores these issues from the perspective of what entrepreneurial management teams can learn from exemplars that is relevant to apply to their more ambiguous circumstances.