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, and this involves recruiting sub team leaders who can take others under their wing. The same can be said for reshaping a team or if the owner-driver moves up to a bigger boat.
To the end of starting from a blank A4 sheet of paper, you have to set goals for yourself as a leader- what your own expectations and satisfactions would be for year one and year two. Also as a team member, what will you do better in season 2014 and what do you expect from the boat?
Goals, Targets and Team Alignments are of course something realistic being also concrete in terms of planning, and for most of the short term goals, they must be attainable within the given time frame. Keeping longer term ambitions to yourself as either owner or crew is a good idea at this point because they can reflect frustrations, or that you will eventually drift away from current company. Loyalty is worth its weight in gold on a boat, so expectations have to be managed and communication of what the goals for the season ahead are is a great end of season or winter set up.
As in all good management there is team air-time and one to one, private appraisal. I write as most often being a crew member all be that an season coach too, so it is important to get what you want as an individual from the leadership. The art there, which I am no good at in my career, is communicating wishes without showing frustration on both parts and also securing some action from such meetings on both sides. For the leader, it is worth asking about expectations for the seasons ahead, committment, opportunity to participate etc early on, and then aligning your personal goal setting with that of the team.
Perhaps the team mostly want to step up to the nationals, or start taking more risks on the start to get up the places. Conversely, perhaps you want to travel 500 miles for the nationals while the team are not really that interested or motivated.
Goals in a boat need not be results listings, but if you are all competent and willing to learn then coming up in average position in a local fleet or at travellers is a good overall goal for the season. As in business, a team's overall financial performance , the bottom line of results, is influenced by many other factors- some like exchange rate are completely out of the teams sphere of influence.
Finances are important throughout a boat, from boat prep and sails to travellers and regionals, nationals, worlds. This all costs, and are your crew on board with this or do you have the budget?
A word of caution on reaching for the cheque book, and encouragement for those on a fixed investment: I remember borrowing a club snipe when I moved to a new city, and it was a shit heap, but worked by in large and had a nice pentex jib with good visability. On a practice night there was a brand new snipe out with an experienced snipe sailor. He couldnt keep up boat speed with me in the light airs as we sailed up the narrow inlet to the clubhouse and made a point of shaking my hand , me being 18 stone and with a new beginner as crew. Also in an HC fleet, we had a boat with a roller genoa which was not perfectly tuned, but we cut the corner on a passage race, dropping kite while all others sailed at 30' off the shortest course.
So goal setting need not be frustrated by budget- you can get better at reading the wind and course, and better at light airs handling for example without spending a penny.
List of Typical Goals for a Season
Better starts:
Better Light Airs Handling
More boat speed from rig tuning
Better drops and leeward roundings
Tack Peel Sail Changes
Overall goal- a 25% improvement in results
Note I place the overall at the bottom, because only if you do somethings better will results improve. Also I will explain, that setting a very specific goal on starts may be difficult while finding performance targets in training which are constituents of the goal, can be a better metric functioning to inform on a more qualitative goal. The overall goal can be seen as a strategic goal in business terms, but I avoid using "strategy" here because in sailing in relates more to competitive conditions in a race or series.
All these goals above are attainable, ultimately measurable and furthermore, can be broken down into targets for the boat but more importantly for everyone on board.
Practical Implementation of Goals and Setting Targets
Nearly all of the goals above in this for-example-list, would actually involve some form of coaching or education and they can be broken down into sub elements to which targets can be set in training at least. The first step, we need to get some external training to step up here guys and girls, you have to admit to that need and swallow a bit of pride,
It can be that the team is just needing shaken down a bit, and practice sessions could be the medicine. Then you also need help, because you need to stimulate class practice sessions! Often sail makers are the best source for both of the above, but many clubs have coaches or even just a willing free of charge consultant.
After training and coaching, you can see that the team pick up the skills and then you can set a target to them, or in your own mind: they should be able to drop and round as a team within 6 boat lengths or 45 seconds. The individuals should know where they have to be at the start and end of the maneuverer as much as what they do in the maneuverer.
It can be fun and cool actually to give targets in terms of seconds to do something and break it down further into the halyard hoist, the pole drop, the take down. Then the team see they are achieving things, and you know they can do things quicker. Testing this out further by repetition to the point of some fatigue or upon surprise command, can also then give a measure of how the preparation for goal achievement on the race course is going, and you may tune your goal and team knowledge to meet either an improved expectation or to dampen the ambition, and thus inform yourself as helm what time is needed to carry out the operation.
Targets in training or set pieces can be set as metrics, which then inform the helm of improvements and what step can be achieved towards the goal in every race. Targets can be best measured in training and can therefore be set higher than expected goal level, but they also inform the crew of the expectation and they can for example count the seconds of a drop or hoist or simply over the coach roof in a tack.
Shaping the Team Around the Goals
Hopefully your team now and any new recruits are then align-able with your personal goals, or your chosen boat as crew for the season is also taking you where you want and you expect to perform to that standard.
However I have placed shaping and recruiting after goal setting very purposefully, because it may be that a critical team member cannot move with the objectives. As said this could be for practical reasons - no time for events, or because they are basically not capable of stepping up. They may lack the strength, coordination or whatever, but watch out that they may lack the willingness to learn and improve.
New recruits then are taken in to replace crew who are weak, but don't forget to ask established crew about covering the weakness. Maybe the weaker crew could be downsized and another step up? Are they popular socially? can they do lesser events like charity and passage races or white sails races?
Consistency is by in large the key regular crew. However you should nurture in any season, a pool of other highly competent sailors to drop in, or join from other boats at hand to fill places. Down sizing can be a good way to cover several bases when in particular people's free time and their budget is the factor. Training sessions to keep crew up to scratch are much easier to organise in a three to four man boat than a bigger boat, so there is an advantage in considering that too.
New rock stars on boats can be dangerous and short lived. It is often better to have a team leader, say pit or bow, who is good at teaching people competence and then asking a coach to help pepp an improver up than to hire in a rock star if you are not all stellar in the boat. Bow is the only position where a rock star can work, because you need high competence for starts, peels and spinnaker work and they are removed enough from the majority of the crew so as to not interfere with team development longer back in the boat.
Given that targets are not met in a session, or waver out into failure mode on the race course, then the leadership can either approach manoevres with more caution and communicate more clearly through the operation.
Information Management
Given a team who are tuned up to be at least safe and competent at manoevres, the next area for team work is communications. MIS.
All boats need to collect information and in quite a few cruiser racers, the helm is in a poor position to gather that information, being low in the boat and actually quite far from the instruments. Also they can have issues in getting the right messages up to the rail, or posing the right questions- does this weight of wind continue ahead ?
I like to divide information gathering and calling up;: main trimmer does instruments and lacking those, does relative boat speed; the mid rail man calls wind as it is a simple shout, or indeed LULL which I forget to call. If you have a tactician on the rail, then they must be the furthest back because they need to discuss more complex issues with main and helm. The bow man on even a 28 foot boat is reduced to hand signals much of the time! Another person on the rail, mid rail, can have wind / tide / course strategy in mind- usually a light person who can go down to check charts and GPS against tide and weather forecast.
There and now you have an information structure delegated out, with each person focused and the current need for info is communicated along the rail to the right person. This manages information overload nicely and keeps people focused on one section, talking when they know they can concluded something or pose an important enough question.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment