What Is You Analysis and Assessment of the Situation Facing the Crew Coach?

1. What is you analysis and assessment of the situation facing the crew coach?

Army’s Varsity rowing team, despite having the assumed eight strongest rowers, has been consistently beaten by the JV team.  Despite repeated attempts to find cohesiveness among the Varsity members, the crew slowed down as they practiced more together.  The crew became dejected and demoralized to the point that their slogans resonate that of eight individuals rather than one team.  The Varsity team had dissolved in to a pseudoteam. The group failed to achieve team cohesion due to the antagonistic conflicts and a lack of trust revolving around each team member’s belief that the other team members were not contributing “real work” to the team.  This is evidenced by the arguments at the end of the case when Coach P gathers the team around the picnic bench.  Each member claims they are “carrying the boat alone” to which every other member makes the same assertion.  The team has not developed a sense of mutual accountability regarding their goals and approach to improve their times and speed.  The case study made a reasonable assumption that eight team members rowing 200 times each over 2,000 meters would not be perfect and 1600 perfect strokes, which is what the team would perform in that race, was nearly impossible.  There simply would be errors made by each team member.  The trust between the team members has not evolved to the point where they trust each other enough to know that the next stroke would be correct and the skid would return to full speed.  The crew had almost hit bottom. One email to the coach highlighted one member went so far as to “Jim” out by name stating that his patience to ”deck him at the end of the season” was over. This email as well as others established a pattern among the crew.

1. What are your recommendations for the coach at the end of the case?

As stated in the case, Coach P has several options to choose from.  First he could do a whole sale change of the two teams by reassigning the JV team as the Varsity team and vice-versa.  This solution is not in his or his two teams’ best interests as he has objective data that his best eight rowers are already on the Varsity team.  

The second option Coach P could also try is substituting individual members of the JV team in to the Varsity team to find more cohesive unit.  Again, this is not recommended due to the short time frame before the Nationals start and the implied reluctance of the JV team to adjourn from their established and successful team. Individual JV team members went as far as to express “dread” at the thought of switching teams.

The third and most viable option is to have Coach P intervene to improve the boats performance. There exists a myriad of way to intervene but Coach P should focus on rectifying the issues that are presently preventing the team from cohesion.  The team has the skill level to compete at the Varsity level and if the team can establish mutual accountability, the team stands to improve exponentially.  Coach P needs to focus on a radical idea that can bring the team together in four days or less.  It is obvious the activity can in no way revolve around rowing as individual opinions about other team members rowing ability cannot be altered in four days by only rowing.  The activity that Coach P chooses should be competitive in nature but end without identifiable losers and be able to highlight the skill set that individual members can bring to the team.