Togetherness
Book Reviews aim to provide succinct, thoughtful summaries of books I have read. They contain quotes from the book, thoughts from others, and also some thoughts of my own. Typically they will be structured in the following order: author, introduction, message and purpose, remarkable chapter, and conclusion. This review will cover Togetherness, an interactive book that guides individuals on a team to develop their skills, reach their potential, and ultimately come ‘together’.
Author
Dr. Matt Slater
Introduction
Although this book remains applicable for any members of a team, it's abundantly clear that head coaches going into their first season with a new team would benefit from this book the most. For more than a decade, Dr. Matt Slater has consulted with a range of elite sports teams, businesses, and health providers to develop togetherness. In this book, he breaks down precisely how to develop a cohesive group of individuals that form teams, how to understand the science that underpins togetherness, and how it can drive high performance and well-being simultaneously.
Message and Purpose
Dr. Slater explains that there is a three-step process to unlock togetherness on any team. After revealing the science behind his own conducted research and findings, he takes you on a journey into that three-step process:
The Science of Togetherness
Introducing the 3Rs: Reflect, Represent, Realise
Reflect
Represent
Realise
Together
Togetherness is a manual for head coaches everywhere. It even comes with worksheets and experiments for you to conduct with your own team. The message and purpose of this book is to reflect on your team's past, dictate which values should be represented, realise these values in your day-to-day training, and ultimately come together.
Remarkable Chapter
The 3Rs provide a crystal clear process to unlock togetherness. Of the 3Rs, perhaps my favorite was the final phase of the process: Realise. The Realise phase explains how to live out the shared values and behaviours created in the Reflect and Represent phases. A great takeaway from this chapter is that it's important to organize activities and events that align with what you collectively believe:
"Realising involves facilitating opportunities for the team to live out our shared values and behaviours, and to achieve our vision. Our ambitions become a reality as our collective identity and goals are embedded in what we do. We become our values, week-by-week, day-to-day, hour-to-hour, moment-to-moment."
While the Reflect and Represent phases are vital to creating the foundation for your vision, the Realise phase is the pinnacle because you are now putting your belief into action. This final phase brings together everything that has already been established and provides an opportunity to take concrete steps to achieving togetherness.
Conclusion
Togetherness is a book I'm going to refer back to for a long time; any coach who is taking over a new program needs to make reading this book a priority. The philosophy of this book centers on the notion that a room of "me" will never show togetherness, and that a room of "we" will show it in abundance. Togetherness shows you exactly how to develop a psychologically connected team that is unified in its purpose, which is also the exact underlying ambition for any coach.