The outcome of the FIBA Basketball World Cup of 2023 came as a shock to many basketball fans. Germany ended up on top, with Canada beating out the favoured team USA, finishing third and fourth respectively. There is little doubt about the quality of USA sport programming, and their consistent ability to produce world class athletes. In fact, if you would’ve ranked the 10 best basketball players prior to the tournament, 7 or 8 would have been American (The Guardian, 2023). With such a strong roster at their disposal, the question becomes, what happened?
Overall, team USA had more talented and well-known players, which would suggest that with everything else being equal, they should have outperformed Canada. But as we all know, everything else isn’t equal in sport, and in fact, that’s the beauty of it. Simply put, Canada’s advantage was their ability to process their losses. Because of this, underdog teams can compete and even win against more resource rich opponents.
In 1972, Steiner introduced a concept which we believe still has great implications today and can be used to understand more clearly what happened at the most recent Basketball World Cup.
What is Steiner’s model for productivity in sport?
This equation doesn’t involve difficult algebra or calculus; it’s actually quite simple. And, although it’s old, it’s application is timeless. So, as a coach you can leverage its concept to lead your team to success. The equation is:
Actual productivity = Potential productivity – Process losses
To break it down, actual productivity represents the teams’ performance and what they actually produce. Potential productivity is the team’s best possible performance if all members perform to their full potential, while process losses (that is, faulty group processes) represents the breakdowns and problematic situations that occur within a team (Kent, 2006). Basically, this is a model to show how the performance of a team can be hindered because they are unable to control their faults as a group, and team sports, such as basketball, require high levels of cooperation and coordination, and are more affected by faulty group processes (Kent, 2006).
Why does it matter?
Using the American basketball team as an example, despite having the highest potential productivity of all teams, they still could not succeed because they could not control or manage their faults as a group. One of the faults on this USA roster had to do with having the best of the best on their team. Many of their players were from the NBA and were used to being the superstar on their respective teams. In this tournament, they were being asked to fill other roles and perform different tasks. Based on their performance, some players clearly adjusted to these demands better than others (Quinn, 2023). One could argue that if they were to have closely considered Steiner’s model, they could have addressed this fault and excelled as most would have expected.
The Canadian national team on the other hand, who were not known for their show-stopping skills and had lower potential productivity, were able to outperform USA because of their ability to minimize their process losses. Their astonishing work in this portion of the equation helped them have greater actual productivity and brought home the country’s first World Cup medal.
What makes this model so versatile and successful, is the fact that coaches can use it as a guide for their teams, just as the Canadian team did, and achieve great things as a group.
A coach’s guide for managing process losses
In understanding the premise of the model, it can be put into action. Here are some ways to improve upon faulty group processes to increase actual productivity:
- Communication: This can be broken down into 2 key components with the goal to share information and create a team where everyone is on the same page. To foster effective communication, the areas of focus should be on transactive memory and shared mental models, which means that no individual on every team knows everything, and that they share beliefs and goals (Yan et al., 2020). This can be done through team review sessions, where the goals and what is wanted of the team are clearly laid out and feedback from the games is given, getting to know the players and discovering what communication style is most effective, and making yourself available to players by establishing a safe line of contact.
- Role clarification: Using team USA for example, there was a clear issue when it came to the clarity of roles, which caused ambiguity amongst the team. To avoid this, 4 things must be communicated to each member of the team: (1) the scope of their responsibilities, (2) the behaviours necessary, (3) how performance will be evaluated, and (4) consequences of not meeting expectations (Beauchamp et al., 2002).
- Conflict: It’s important to remember that not all conflict is bad. It is key to ensure that the teammates get along, while promoting successful resolution of issues affecting team dynamics. To do this, encourage positive conflict, which promotes constructive exchanges when dealing with problems in a group, and avoid negative conflict including confrontational approaches to team issues (Sullivan & Feltz, 2003). For optimal conflict resolution, encourage active listening between team members where they work together to come to a solution while acting as a calming, neutral agent.
So what does this all mean?
If team USA and their coaches had focused on the process portion of this model, their actual productivity would have been more successful, and the other teams would have had trouble beating the superstar-laden lineup. Additionally, if team USA had processed their losses and faults through working on their communication, role clarification, and conflict, they would have had a better chance at the world title.
What this equation shows is teams without as much skill and resources shouldn’t always be considered underdogs. They can win against teams they previously would have lost to because of the control they have over their faults. As a coach, there’s power in this equation, which could set your team up for success.