Supporting a high-performance environment in a professional sports team with The Emotional Culture Deck

The Wellington Men's and Women's cricket teams have been using The Emotional Culture Deck over the past three years. The game has become a core component of how these athletes strengthen their connections with each other within the team environments.

Bruce Edgar is a legend of New Zealand Cricket and Wellington at all levels - as a player, selector, board member and coach. Although you would never catch him saying that about himself. 

As the Head Coach of the Firebirds Cricket team in Wellington in 2017, he oversaw a rebuild of the culture in the Firebirds' dressing room from 2015, which has had far-reaching impact on individual players and team performance over the past four years. 

In 2018, he and assistant coach, Glenn Pocknall (current head coach) decided to inject The Emotional Culture Deck into the way the team started to deliberately focus on stregthening the culture of Firebirds team.

This is what Bruce had to say about his experience using The Emotional Culture Deck as part of their focus on culture within the team:

“I’ve been blown away by the team culture work we've done this pre-season. No sporting team I’ve ever been involved in as a player or coach has gone through this type of work.

We have worked hard on becoming ‘one team’ and connected with the history of Cricket Wellington through past players and the values they espouse. And we’ve created a conversation about how our players feel and don’t feel and the impact this has on the culture of our team.

Using The Emotional Culture Deck has created a conversation that we would not usually be able to have as a team. What I’ve learned about my players, and what they have learned about each other, will help us better relate to each other and care for each other. I can’t wait to see that flow into the way the team play together on and off the field."

After the successful introduction of the game into pre-season training with the Men's team, we introduced the game to the Wellington Blaze women's team. Now four years on, using the game is a pre-season ritual that sets up our teams and players for success on and off the field every season.