Leadership and Team Dynamics Part I - The Disfunctional Boat

In a two part blogg I will go further into team dynamics and how to create or re-structure a team for improved boat performance, and there will be some parallels and indeed overlap to leadership and team building in companies of all sizes. Part I - The Disfunctional Team You can divide what a poorly functioning team and boat are in different ways and I can talk only from my experience and observations or second hand relation of what other good and bad teams do: as crew it is the simmering bitching at the bar when the helmsman is out of ear shot which is a barometer of disfunctionality. Even at the top of the relative competition area, there can be highly disfunctional teams and there are well aired failings, re-strucutres and out an out divorces of the top three positions on a "team" boat in the echelons of pro sailing. However dear reader, at our amateur level quite a few of those glam' pusses with IRC optimised boats with embroidered, stand-out-in-the-crowds jackets are actually seething pits of discontent and bad politics. IRC beer tent rock stars, and the real pro rockstars are not really a reflection on OD amateur boats because they are in a different league and IRC/ PHRF for than matter, cheque book racers are often no good in OD because they have only boat speed and clear air to rely on, and dont actually have the crack team work to compete in OD. I can think of several boats like this who went back to OD and failed ( Cork 1720, IOD, Sigma 33 and 38) , and also a boat which sacked its crew and went trophy hunting on the sly in one of the UK's biggest OD fleets, winning class at Cork week c 2000 when the hot competition were away at the nationals that year. At the middle end there are boats who sail very well until a key crew member leaves or they maybe move up a notch to the nationals and things-fall-apart. That is symptomatic of course of a well functioning team which cannot cope with the stress of new demands : neophobics. At the mid bottom end of the fleet there are a few dog boats who are just never going to go anywhere and then there are boats on the learning curve and boats which SHOULD get back on the learning curve. This is actually somewhere you can thrive as a coach, given that the owner and team are not too neophobic. I have found a niche with a top half fleet racer who is on a good learning curve in what ever aspect of boat speed, handling or team build they are in. However the "dog" boat illustrates the problems with team building and leadership best for my purposes and their mistakes are so amplified that we can see our own in that light. So the dog boat they see their poor performance at each regatta as a mystery and their occaisional ventures into top half results as a triumph, not down to serendipity. I know, I spent five years with the core of my sailing being on an OD dog boat. When the owner was off and we had a decent coach on board, the boat flew and was in the top ten results or just outside the podium on local races. The boat was a beautifully "presented" example of the OD, but in fact it sailed only well usually in heavy airs- thus both mental preparation, team movement and also boat rig were biased: the helm was a bit heavy on the stick and we probably sailed with no where near enough sag in the forestay and too hard cap shrouds. The helm also had a huge weakness- he was terrified of denting his boat on starts and had some attitude of coming in at speed but safely and usually LATE by 10 - 15 seconds. Once we were late on a delivery in windy weather, and we just had to cross the start line and get going in 5 gusting 6. All be this at least a minute late. We of course came out at full speed and ploughed up towards the fleet, clearing our wind and fighting back in for a mid fleet result! This showed two things- one the boat was set up and being sailed for heavier weather than average conditions. Secondly that if the helm could get off the start line in the fleet, the boat was capable of podium positions! Now then we know we had some bad management; typical "triumph and mysteries" - we nearly always had a debrief over a cuppa or a beer. The owner was a senior production manager who moved up to director of a large company! However he was a little over confident and had little humility much of the time. Also he set no goals for the season, he pointed little to what we did wrong as a team, he asked for little feed bakc, and took little criticism on board pardon the pun. At work he was highly competent in his field, while as a helm he would not admit to his over confidence based on both a slight lack of confidence, nerves and an unwillingness to learn new tricks, being a proud and a little pompous. So this all filters down to a dysfunctional team: as I improved my skils and knowledge and sailed on the side with better boats, I noticed that there was no natural flow of information - there was information overload for example when I had to step up to main trimming for a nationals, the former trimmer just bombarded me. Information was not being used and that was the issue- the crew were not fully respected. Often in fact the helm chose to do that power thing and do the opposite: Stay on? No tack now. He had a need for control over the humility for being part of a team and learning. Perhaps he took out some of his frustrations at having to be diplomatic or not getting his own way at work by this on the boat. I focus on the helm here because they are most often the leader on boats and leaders have to shape a team and manage that team. The team itself on said OD were generally pretty competent, but actually they would always be a bit too slow in fresh conditions and a bit too clumsy in light to really be a consistent podium boat. With campaigns for the nationals in the UK and Ireland, a few of the more laid back social sailors fell from the ranks and I became the key genoa trimmer, and back up bow man. Then newer crew were brought in too and eventually management consultants. I stayed a year too long with the boat it has to be said, and the strains of my ambitions were doubely hit by consultants putting me on the rail. On a boat in an established OD fleet, there is usually a natural evolution down two routes of team: one that the whole team could actually helm the boat or do any other job to a high level. You have bow, then strategy man, the n tactician / wind caller on the rail and boat speed man on the main. The guy at the back is a dataprocessor and meta tactician, and HSE responsible at the end of the day. The other type of team that evolves has super competent crew, who are specialist on their job by design or training, while tactics and strategy rest with the skipper and maybe main trimmer. The helm is then very dependent on two things- the very competence of each spot on the boat, so the helm can just do a manoevre and he knows the crew will follow him most often well, and secondly in fact that the said crew are not frustrated with their lot in life! In working life I am currently on the second type of team! A very arrogant management who expect good coreography in the heavy administration the team do, while little initiative or decision making at all. Not a place for me, but good for other personalities. In boats, from my chats in the bar on how things are organised and who calls-the-shots, I can say that in OD on the Clyde the split of those two successful formulas is about 50- 50, where as the "democratic" rail style is probably in a small minority of the top IRC and CYCA boats. Now either can be successful and that is a fact: I can promote the democratic all I like, but in fact of course having four to ten managers on a boat just flung together can be a recipie for disaster. The democratic boat tends to evolve or be a group of acquantances at the top end of local sailing, who choose to gang up and therefore know trust each other from the outset. Slinging together a team de nouvo, is much more reliant on getting the key positions sorted and on a boat of 5 or more crew, recruiting sub team leaders who can take others under their wing. To this end, you have to set goals for yourself as a leader- what your own expectations and satisfactions would be for year one and year two. Now we have actually moved on away from the negative aspects of leadership and team deconstruction over to the next blog.