No matter where you’re from or who you are, at some point in your life you have had to work with others in a group or team whether it was an athletic situation or not. By working with others you learn how to use your own strengths and skills and how to utilize others and compromise. Any group of individuals coming together is going to have a wide variety of skills between all of them. The biggest key for team chemistry is knowing each other’s strengths and weaknesses and how to make sure each person is working their way to their full potential.

On a sports team, there is so much individuality and skill that it can be easy to play as just skilled individuals. That combination can make a good team, but what makes a great team is those individuals coming together and using each other to play as one united group. Something important to know is that everyone is different and some teammates need you to be hard on them and others will take it too personally and they need you to tone it down a notch and be gentle. Learning how your teammates need to be treated in order to succeed is one of the most important aspects of team chemistry.

As most things go on, certain things only work and changes are only made if each and every player is 110% dedicated to it. If the energy is low and the team needs to step it up, it cannot just be your captain or your loudest player. It must be every single player dedicating themselves to bringing up the energy in order to help the team. Also in practice, all teammates have to be focused on the same goal, which should be getting better individually and as a whole. When players get sidetracked from what is actually important, that is when teams can begin to crumble.

As a player, make sure you learn about your teammates and that you know how to treat them and that you communicate to them how you learn best too. Also, make sure you stay positive and focused and completely invested in the well being and success of the team.