High-performance sport management teams: operationalizing cognitive diversity and shared mental models with subject matter experts

The fusion of knowledge from multi-disciplinary Subject Matter Experts(SMEs) is essential in High Performance Management Teams (HPMTs) insport. HPMTs strive for performance optimization and complex problemsolutions. In pursuit of this ambition, HPMTs face the challenge ofsuccessfully integrating discipline knowledge from multiple SMEs (e.g., sportscientists, nutritionists, medical staff and coaches) into one congruentperformance vision. This paper introduces a novel framework for integratingdiverse cognitive skillsets within HPMTs. It explains how Shared MentalModels (SMM) serve as a mechanism to combine knowledge from cognitivelydiverse SMEs working in HPMTs, ultimately enhancing team performance.The following work is expected to help both professionals and researchersunderstand the challenges of cognitive diversity in HPMTs and encourageconversations in the community about how specialists from different fieldswork together in HPMTs in elite sports.